HamburgerBoy
Lifer
After performing my hourly browsing of the pony thread I trotted on over to the show's Wikipedia page and happened upon the following line:
While that quote doesn't explicitly state that My Little Pony, Spongebob, and Powerpuff Girls (never heard of Yo Gabba Gabba! so I can't comment) carry the torch for older viewers, that nostalgia and an adult target are intended features implied some similarities in cartoons of previous generations. Ordinarily a mere sentence from Wikipedia would not convince me, even with its two citations, but I have personally noticed that at least Spongebob has a definite crossover appeal. The shows follow relatively sensible/consistent plots, the humor relies only in the slightest on violence and bathroom humor, subversive content with double-meaning to reach both younger and older audiences, and overall they're just entertainment win. Now, there are of course Rocko's Modern Life, Dexter's Lab, and other cartoons of the early 90's which had influence on the later ones, but that's a mere ~twenty years.
My challenge is for the fans of tr00, older animated entertainment to show where the cartoons of the 90's and 00's has taken from the previous decades. As far as I'm aware, the 80's is characterized by non-stop action (GI Joe, TMNT, Thundercats, etc), the 50's and earlier with slapstick and political references (Looney Tunes, Daffy Duck, Popeye, etc), and the 60's and 70's with... sitcoms or action/adventure (Flintstones and Jetsons for the former, Scooby Doo and Jonny Quest for the later)? As far as I'm presently aware, cartoons were mostly worthless until the last couple decades, so I want someone to prove me wrong.
While that quote doesn't explicitly state that My Little Pony, Spongebob, and Powerpuff Girls (never heard of Yo Gabba Gabba! so I can't comment) carry the torch for older viewers, that nostalgia and an adult target are intended features implied some similarities in cartoons of previous generations. Ordinarily a mere sentence from Wikipedia would not convince me, even with its two citations, but I have personally noticed that at least Spongebob has a definite crossover appeal. The shows follow relatively sensible/consistent plots, the humor relies only in the slightest on violence and bathroom humor, subversive content with double-meaning to reach both younger and older audiences, and overall they're just entertainment win. Now, there are of course Rocko's Modern Life, Dexter's Lab, and other cartoons of the early 90's which had influence on the later ones, but that's a mere ~twenty years.
My challenge is for the fans of tr00, older animated entertainment to show where the cartoons of the 90's and 00's has taken from the previous decades. As far as I'm aware, the 80's is characterized by non-stop action (GI Joe, TMNT, Thundercats, etc), the 50's and earlier with slapstick and political references (Looney Tunes, Daffy Duck, Popeye, etc), and the 60's and 70's with... sitcoms or action/adventure (Flintstones and Jetsons for the former, Scooby Doo and Jonny Quest for the later)? As far as I'm presently aware, cartoons were mostly worthless until the last couple decades, so I want someone to prove me wrong.
