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90s cartoons - the other "golden age"

edited 2011-10-04 23:44:57 in Media
no longer cuddly, but still Edmond
First of all, I apologize for not making this shorter. Now let's talk about another era of animation I don't really get the love for: the 1990s. But first I gotta set something straight: my childhood (1983-1989) was actually pretty busy. During the day I was always doing things, so whenever I got to watch TV it was either a recording or else a cheap tape my mom bought at KayBee Toy Store, and always at night. And of course my nights usually got monopolized by the NES. It wasn't really until about 1991 or so that I made watching cartoons a regular habit--they're a good way to wind up for a day of school in the morning, and wind down when you get home. I went my whole childhood without ever seeing a single episode of Transformers or G.I. Joe, except when the former was repackaged as "Generation 2." The point is, I actually discovered the 1990s cartoons first, more or less. I didn't start my love affair with the Eighties until about 1998 or so when I discovered those old video tapes again and started frequenting flea markets. Getting to the point though, it kind of weirds me out that I see people talking about how great the 1990s was for American animation, and treating that decade as if its that much of an improvement over the eighties. Maybe its because I discovered them in reverse order, but honestly there doesn't seem to be much difference between the 1980s and the 1990s, and what differences I do notice are usually not in the 1990s favor, and what advantages I see other people touting are usually either revisionist history or outright ignorance. Most commonly I see people claiming that the 1990s was the first decade where cartoons could show physical violence, use words like "kill" or "die" or related terms, had actual continuity or plotlines, or was the first decade where cartoons were made specifically for adults--all of which is bullshit, as I can provide pre-1990 examples of all of these things. Honestly it doesn't matter, because the huge problem was that the action-adventure shows were somehow not as imaginative or as fun as the 1980s offerings. Worse, they had to share airtime with "funny" cartoons like Eek the Cat, Animaniacs, The Wacky World of Tex Avery, Super Dave, Ren and Stimpy and other crap that tried really hard to be hilarious and often were just dumb instead. That stuff so overloaded the airwaves that it's the reason I became a gamer instead of an animation buff. Not to say the 1990s didn't have anything good, but all the cartoons I really liked and which still hold up as an adult--Highlander, Peter Pan and the Pirates, Battletech, and Mighty Max--seem to have all been forgotten. Most of the stuff that gets remembered tends to be comic book or video game licenses, and... most of those are not as good as you remember. No, not even SatAM. That opens a whole new line of thought, but honestly this is going on far too long as it is. Once again I apologize for not finding a way to make this shorter, though I'm sure someone will post an either inane or hilarious "ITT" summary in about five minutes. Thanks for reading.
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Comments

  • $80+ per session
    Dexters Lab, Powerpuff Girls, Ed Edd n Eddy, Batman TAS, Rugrats...
  • $80+ per session
    Also Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, and Freakazoid were all great.
  • I like Animaniacs and Ren and Stimpy, for being a well-written and (mostly) fun show and being weird and creepy, respectively.
  • No rainbow star
    You insulted Animaniacs

    You are a HEATHEN!
  • Megas XLR, Ed Edd and Eddy, Justice League Unlimited.

    Basically, all the 90s cartoons were just 'better' then the 80s.

    Also, anime came over during the 90s too.
  • edited 2011-10-05 01:23:10
    Give us fire! Give us ruin! Give us our glory!
    ^No, anime was around in the 80's. It just didn't become semi-mainstream until DBZ and Pokemon showed up.

    Also Megas and JL came out in the 2000s.
  • no longer cuddly, but still Edmond
    Also, anime came over during the 90s too.


    Anime was coming over well before the 1990s. Anyway, I was specifically talking about the quality of American animation in the OP, anime really has little bearing on that.

    I'd like to respond to everyone else but all I can do presented with "well I like X and Y and Z" is either agree or disagree, and there's only three named so far that I would agree on.
  • edited 2011-10-05 03:07:07
    I grew up with 90's cartoons, so to me they're the best. I'm still remembering Duck Tales, Darkwing Duck and BTAS fondly.
  • no longer cuddly, but still Edmond
    Batman was actually my favorite cartoon as a kid. Today, I still kinda-like it, but a combination of the "better when it was just a memory" effect, and the internet hype machine making it sound better than it really was, have kind of soured me on it.

    I actually have a soft spot for Tiny Toons, too.

    Nowadays, my favorite American cartoon is He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, which I'm thinking of making an IJAM topic about. But that one's gonna need at least a few hours of prep, if it happens at all.
  • edited 2011-10-05 07:37:47
    Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the last Day.
    All I can say is that I've never enjoyed a single 80s cartoon that I've watched, and that I've enjoyed quite a few 90s cartoons.

    And I'm having a hard time finding arguments in that post that aren't just "but 90s cartoons just aren't as good/funny/engaging".
  • edited 2011-10-05 07:42:16
    MORONS! I'VE GOT MORONS ON MY PAYROLL!
    Just a note, whenever golden ages are mentioned, it's not because of the low points, because crap will always exist. If 2011 ever becomes remembered as a great year for cinema (though I don't think it will) you can bet it won't be because of Transformers 3.

    A more important reason the 90s were considered an animation Renaissance was because in 1991 Nickolodeon started doing domestic Nicktoons instead of importing stuff like Danger Mouse and odd Russian Cartoons and Cartoon Network was launched in1992 taking the medium out of saturday morning cartoons being their main venue and increasing variety.

    ^I'll admit I've enjoyed some eighties cartoons, but they've all been surpassed. The G.I. Joe cartoon isn't as good as the Larry Hama comic, Transformers original isn't as good as Beast Wars, and TMNT got a much better and much more faithful reboot in the 2000s.
  • no longer cuddly, but still Edmond
    And I'm having a hard time finding arguments in that post that aren't just "but 90s cartoons just aren't as good/funny/engaging".


    That goes both ways, as so far the only pro-90s argument I've heard is "well I like this show and this show and this show" and "I didn't like the eighties."

    I did raise one objective fact though--most of the so called "advancements" the nineties are often said to have brought to the table actually had happened long before. Granted that doesn't say anything about the quality of the cartoons at all, but its something to work with.

    Or we could drop this whole thing and all go Do the Mario.

    ^I'll admit I've enjoyed some eighties cartoons, but they've all been surpassed. The G.I. Joe cartoon isn't as good as the Larry Hama comic, Transformers original isn't as good as Beast Wars, and TMNT got a much better and much more faithful reboot in the 2000s.


    Of those three I disagree most with the TMNT assessment.

    Now, I liked the comics and I liked the 1987 cartoon. But I couldn't get into the 2003 cartoon. Yeah it was truer to the comic (though, it still made huge changes--it wasn't exactly a panel-for-panel adaptation). But it also had an awful BGM soundtrack, a gravelly-voiced always-angry Raphael, and a Michelangelo who was a total retard who goes out of his way to be annoying (as opposed to being merely carefree-without-being-blatantly-stupid in the 1987 series or having not much of a personality at all in the comics).

    Personally, my dream adaptation of TMNT would be one that has the storylines of the comics, but with the BGM, art style (particularly circa the first season when it actually had a budget), character designs and voice actors of the 1987 cartoon, as well as some of the 80s toons' mythology integrated in. Cuz I mean Shredder is okay in the comics, especially later when he tests positive for worms, but it was James Avery's voice, MSW's redesign of his outfit, his "old married couple" relationship with Krang, and that he now drives the Technodrome and has interdimensional portals that really made him stand out as a villain. One thing the cartoon could have done better is played up his ninja background more, but well hopefully when I find a genie and get to rewrite reality...
  • $80+ per session
    Just because the 80's had "advancements" doesn't make it any better.
  • I'm not really a believer in Golden Ages. There are good and bad cartoons from both periods, and any other you'd care to name. For me, the great development of the 90s was having cartoon series like The Simpsons or South Park which did everything a standard sitcom would do and had semi-serious points to make too.


    The weakest aspect of the 80s was all the toy tie-in cartoons, but that, of course, includes some like Transformers that have huge fandoms and even some that I like (the aforementioned TMNT). So it's impossible to generalise.

  • edited 2011-10-05 19:17:20
    Dexter's Lab
    Start of the cancer that would one day devour the Cartoon Network.

    Powerpuff Girls
    Same thing.

    Ed, Edd, n Eddy
    Which EE&E were you watching?

    Batman
    Mediocre show that gave birth to the awful DCAU.

    Rugrats
    Awful.

    Animaniacs
    Damned awful.

    Tiny Toons
    ...What is wrong with you?

    Freakazoid
    Meh.

    Edit: Frankly, Alan Moore is a hack, and if you seriously give his opinion that much weight, well, I don't know what to tell you.
  • No rainbow star
    ^ Funny how it is greyed out like a negative rated comment on Reddit's app...

    Also: HEATHEN!
  • You can change. You can.
    mediocre show that gave birth to the awful DCAU

    Alan Moore, the most unpleasable bitch in the whole universe, likes the DCAU. This means that either he's been replaced just now, or that you really really need better standards and definition on what the word "quality" means. 

    I'm not touching the rest because, let's face it, it'd be a lenghtier post. 
  • $80+ per session
    Now, I'm not usually quick to call troll...
  • no longer cuddly, but still Edmond
    Just because the 80's had "advancements" doesn't make it any better.


    I'm not even sure what I said that you're responding to.

    The weakest aspect of the 80s was all the toy tie-in cartoons, but that, of course, includes some like Transformers that have huge fandoms and even some that I like (the aforementioned TMNT). So it's impossible to generalise.


    Thank you! ^__^

    I never understood why eighties critics focus on toy cartoons, especially now when My Little Pony is one of the most popular and highly-acclaimed shows on TV, and when (as I mentioned in the OP) all the most remembered shows of the "superior" 1990s are also licenses.

    If I'm honest, that makes me a little cynical of certain animation fans. It comes off like they just like whatever is popular. Batman TAS is a fine show but its not any better than Mighty Max. But Batman has geek cred and Mighty Max doesn't, so its "cool" to like Batman but not Mighty Max. That kind of shallow, superficial double-standard is why I don't care much for animation fandoms.
  • "highly-acclaimed"

    [citation needed]

  • He who laments and can't let go of the past is forever doomed to solitude.
    I really liked Mighty Max, I watched it growing up as a kid. I do have to say that I love the TMNT 2k3 series over the original because it took itself seriously. And saying that Michaelangelo acted like a retard there is true, if you consider that his antics are now based in a world with more sensible aesthetics. Go and act like a turte from the 1897 cartoon on the street, in personality I mean, and you'll get funny and angry looks.
  • edited 2011-10-05 19:27:47
    no longer cuddly, but still Edmond
    nevermind.
  • Kamen Rider MADOKA
    I think it's a combination of factors: A lot of the places on the internet (especially places like /co/) are dominated by people in their late teens and early twenties, who would be watching said 90s cartoons. Then there's what Malkavian said about the end of the Saturday morning cartoon age and the start of Cartoon Network and homegrown Nicktoons.

    And then there's the drastic reduction in animated toy commercials that were the norm of the 80s.
  • no longer cuddly, but still Edmond
    And saying that Michaelangelo acted like a retard there is true, if you consider that his antics are now based in a world with more sensible aesthetics. Go and act like a turte from the 1897 cartoon on the street, in personality I mean, and you'll get funny and angry looks.


    Thing is, none of the 1987 turtles did anything that exaggerated (unless they got severely flanderized in the later seasons). IIRC the worst thing Michelangelo ever did was eat their entire cache of pizzas (which caused Splinter to have to hypnotherapy him). From what I saw, the 200X series blatantly exaggerated all their personalities, so Raphael went from being just a snarker to being angry all the time, and Michelangelo went from liking to have fun to jumping in front of surveillance equipment and doing attention-whore dances, and blatantly interrupting actually important activities for his shenanigans.

    Don't get me wrong--I actually enjoyed the episodes I've seen of the 200X series. Just I didn't like it as much as the 87 cartoon or the comics. It's certainly about a million times better than the 2002 relaunch of He-Man.

    And then there's the drastic reduction in animated toy commercials that were the norm of the 80s.


    But brace yourself, because the animated toy commercials are coming back! Mwahahahaha!
  • He who laments and can't let go of the past is forever doomed to solitude.
    1987...not...1897
  • Kamen Rider MADOKA
    But brace yourself, because the animated toy commercials are coming back!

    Like My Little Pony?
  • You can change. You can.
    I think that was his point, yeah.
  • $80+ per session
    Except MLP isn't an animated toy commercial because the toys are NOTHING like the characters and they don't make enough

    >:<
  • edited 2011-10-05 20:15:22
    MORONS! I'VE GOT MORONS ON MY PAYROLL!
    I wouldn't call Hasbro pushing its old toy line 'coming back' except in the most literal sense.

    Unless you mean 'there are toys of this cartoon' in which case even fucking Adventure Time is a toy commercial.
  • Give them pleasure - the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.
    "Dexter's Lab
    Start of the cancer that would one day devour the Cartoon Network.

    Powerpuff Girls
    Same thing."

    D:<

    I, Princess Apricot, future leader of [DATA EXPUNGED], do so hereby decree that
    vonBerlichingen is society's first living crime against humanity, and shall be forcibly ejected from Earth's atmosphere by the Holy Princess Gaurd.

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