When did Saturday morning cartoons start to suck?

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thraashman

Lifer
Apr 10, 2000
11,112
1,587
126
All the decent American cartoons started sucking in the mid/late 80'. Now the only thing worth watching on Saturday morning is on Cartoon Network and it's all anime.
I miss He-Man and G.I.Joe and M.A.S.K. nad ThunderCats and Transformers (as previously said, not this Beast Wars BS) and Voltron. The classics were so much better.
 

lowlevel

Golden Member
Apr 4, 2000
1,342
0
0
I fell for the toy commercials posing as cartoons (GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man [ie..."Oh, look! I have found the Super-Fantastic Glowing Sword of Life Fufillment! ***Go Ask Mom for it NOW!!!*** blinks at the bottom of the screen]) and looking back on them, I want those hundreds of hours back! :D

However, there is one cartoon (beyond the obvious classics in the Warner Brothers line-up w/Bugs, Daffy, Yosemite, Tweety, et al) that really stands out as being the most wonderful cartoon of my childhood...Starblazers!!!:D C'mon, sing along!!! Danger lurking everywhere, But they know they've got to dare, Evil men with evil schemes, They can't destroy all our dreams...
Or at least the theme song went something like that...gimme a break, it was 18+ years ago. (D@mn, I can't believe that!) Anyway, I used to ride my BMX bike around pretending that was one of those anime starfighter pilots flying around kicking some serious @ss!!! LOL! :D

So in closing, I will leave you with this..."Knowing is half the battle...Yo Joe!" ;)
 

ApacheXMD

Platinum Member
Oct 9, 1999
2,765
0
0
weekday mornings at 7, i always watch Roughnecks: Starship trooper chronicles
that show is badass.
all cgi animation and looks killer. :)
pretty cool plots too.. just a bit thin..

-patchy
 

HannibalX

Diamond Member
May 12, 2000
9,359
2
0
DBZ, Tenchi, Sailor Moon =P, and Gundam Wing

See, in my opinion thats why cartoons suck now. I have seen al these shows more times than I ca count, and they all blow. Thats just my opinion though. If you enjoy them, then I'm happy for you, I just don't really like them.
 

MooseKnuckle

Golden Member
Oct 24, 1999
1,392
0
0
IMO,
The Boomerang channel rules for when you want to watch the older cartoons. They play cartoons from the past, none of this new Sh*t.
 

raz

Banned
Feb 19, 2000
643
0
0
Classics: Herculoids, Johnny Quest (the new episodes suck!), Space Ghost (the new ones suck, also).

Anyone remember the old Marvel Super Heroes from the 60's? They showed comic book panels with animated backgrounds and added speech. Crude but I was amazed (remember, I was a kid then).
 

HannibalX

Diamond Member
May 12, 2000
9,359
2
0
Space Ghost! Coast to Coast! That only comes on at night though, and isn't really for kids.
 

EmperorNero

Golden Member
Jun 2, 2000
1,911
0
0


<< When did Saturday morning cartoons start to suck?[q/]

when Fox took Spiderman and X-Men off the air :( (or at least in my area).

But Batman Beyond is pretty cool.
 

prontospyder

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
6,262
0
0
Batman Beyond/Batman and Superman adventures is pretty cool.

As for old cartoons, Transformers is the best.
 

0div0

Senior member
Mar 18, 2000
262
0
0
I agree. Saturday mornings used to be the best days. What was up with that new ghostbusters show. That just sucked. I used to love the buggs and daffy cartoon show, X-men, and I later got attached to animaniacs too. That show histeria is pretty good too...is it still on? I haven't seen it. Batman Superman adventures are cool too. But I don't think they all are on on Saturday anymore :( Stupid pokemon....:|
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
106
I'm with creedog here. If you ask me, cartoons(and almost everything Saturday morning) went to heck when the FCC made all these rules.:(

Take Saved By the Bell for example. In TOS, Zach got in big situations all the time. Yet somehow, he'd weasle out of it, and make everything right just in time. The characters also had very few arguments, and it was almost never a serious show(very unrealistic, but obviously funny and entertaining never the less). Now, in the new series, every episode is Days Of Our Lives with an educational twist. Should one of the main characters get in trouble, they don't weasle out of it, they get caught, are forced to fess up, and then magically, everyone is happy at the end. On top of that, the characters are constantly fighting, doing good deeds, and everything is taken seriously(also a very unrealistic show, but in the sense that if you get caught, everything will still be alright, yet that isn't made obvious).

Or you can take Beast Wars(Transformers sequal), and Beast Machines(BW sequal). In BW, the plot was descent, and there was plenty of explosions, blasts, lasers, and other fun things. Now, if you talk about BM, that isn't the case. While it has a good plot(lame, but its well put togeher), it doesn't have the fun of BM. Fox prohibits &quot;realistic&quot; looking weapons, so our favorite characters can't use bullets, rockets, ect(heck, not a single good guy has a laser).

You can also use Doug(and his female counterpart, Pepper Anne) as an example. In Doug's original series, it was semi-realistic(had a school bully) but unrealistic in what happened(to the bully). Doug got himself into realistic situations(stuck at a truck stop trying to get to a Beats concert), but not situations that were realistic for children. Now, he instead meets people online who steal his records, and other music.(that isn't even close to being realistic, or too realistic depending on how you see it). And for Pepper Anne, don't get me started. I think John Ramero has an ex-wife who's a writer, and wrote one of the episodes(in which PA's aunt started to like to play a game, FPS I think). The characters then trash that game(and games similar to it).

Now why is this happening? Rules! The government mandated that each station show 3 hours of educational material for kids, which is about all the amount of time they dedicate to kids in the first place. So, our Saturday mornings have been trashed in order to educate us(when obviously, we don't want to be educated!). So, bye bye Saturday mornings, and say hello to 24/7 school.:|

PS Anyone remember when NBC used to show cartoons(like Zelda)?:D
 

Imaginer

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 1999
8,076
1
0


<< Any of you guys ever see freakazoid? That cartoon is THE FUNNIEST!
>>



hehehe! I wonder if an Athlon would give me tight red spandex with an F! on my chest and crazy fried hair... ;)
 

Pretender

Banned
Mar 14, 2000
7,192
0
0
They started to suck when people began to think that violence in the media was causing shootings. Violence in the media doens't cause violence...it teaches us that throwing a stick of dynamite down a hole REALLY HURTS the person down there. Sure those old bugs bunny type cartoons had bad graphics, but they had violence damnit!