Do you think cartoons are better now, or when we were kids?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Cartoons nowadays are all seizure inducing barforamamas, IMO. My kids prefer to watch Thundarr, Scooby-Doo, Tom & Jerry or Thundercats. Fairly Oddparents, Spongebob and other cartoons don’t hold a candle or my kid’s attention.
I watched a lot of Tom & Jerry, and Mighty Mouse, and Magilla Gorilla, but I liked Looney Tunes the best. Spongebob can be pretty funny, but the rest of the modern day cartoons I just don’t find that smart or compelling.
You and I are about the same age. The cartoons (for kids) that they showed in the 70’s were WAY better than the ones they show now. Everything from Hannah Barbara or Warner Brothers was good. Plus he Smurfs, The Wonderfriends, Scooby-Doo, Captain Caveman. So many more. And they did those educational bits between cartoons and commercials too (Schoolhouse Rock, etc) because they had to under FCC rules.
Some of the stuff on Nickelodeon nowadays (like Spongebob) is pretty good. But I remember alot more of the good stuff (that was also more educational) every day after school and on weekend mornings on local broadcast stations back then.
Of course now the really good cartoons are intended for adults and even they seem dumbed down. (Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, etc.)
Just about anything is better than Farmer Brown! {g} My grandchildren like Veggie Tales, Sponge Bob and others. Where I’ve really seen an improvement over the years is not so much in cartoons, but in comic strips. There are some very good strips that are politically progressive like Doonesbury, Candorville & Non Sequitur. Others are just plain fun to read.
Definitely comic strips are better now than before. People still get all crybaby about some of the strips, but is we listened to them, our papers would be fullof For Better or Worse, Sally Forth and Baby Blues type strips. I like those strips, but Candorville, La Cucaracha, The Boondocks are what a I really love.
I don’t usually read Zippy the Pinhead, but today’s is excellent.
I suppose we mean serial cartoons, not animation in general like Shrek. I’d also exclude adult fare shows like South Park and and The Simpsons
I think the best of today ranks with the best of yesteryear, and I think there is more quality stuff today. My qualifications? I was glued to television as a kid in the 1960s, and today I’m highly selective of what my children watch (thanks to Tivo!).
Examples of yesteryear’s good stuff: Bullwinkle was an excellent cartoon that probably has no peer today. Universal Studios put out good stuff in the form of Woody Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny, et al. One memory of watching Woody Woodpecker stays in my mind: My mother stopped by the TV to watch for a moment and commented how the cartoon did a good job of subtly introducing sophisticated music. (It was a hilarious chase scene where Woody was forced to play a piano.) Not to forget Road Runner and the Coyote, of course!
I suppose those cartoon sets were intended to span young and adult audiences both. There isn’t so much of that today and Spongebob may be the only show in that genre. Backyardigans does a good job spanning age groups though–great creativity, musical scores, and scripts. I could watch some of those shows repeatedly—and I know children who know every script and score by heart!
For younger crowds, there are far better shows recommendations today than yesteryear, especially for showing cooperative role-modeling: Dora, Bob Builder, Peep, Wonder Pets, and similar fare. This is the kind of stuff that an adult can endure without fidgeting too much–can’t say that for some of the shows I used to watch as a kid!
Have to close with an honorable mention of the claymation, Shaun the Sheep. Created by the same folks who created Wallace and Grommit. Shaun is a weekly 5-minute short. Quality of the plots can be a bit variable but on the whole the show is very good and appeals to broad age spans too.
Haven’t seen this cartoon in decades!
Woody Woodpecker – Convict Concerto Can’t wait to show it to my kids and see if they like it.
I forgot about Bullwinkle and all the Jay Ward shows! Post-1960, that was probably the best-written animated stuff out there.
The Rocky & Bullwinkle hour was one of the best, with Boris & Natasha, Mr. Peabody & Sherman and all the rest.
“And now here’s something we hope you’ll really like…”
Also Yogi Bear & Boo Boo, The Flintstones, The Jetsons… Cartoons used to be so good.
Um, Bugs Bunny was Warner Brothers, not Universal Studios.
I think every generation tends to like what they grew up with best. I liked pretty much everything (most of what was out there was the Hanna-Barbera TV stuff, anyway). But my favorite was always the Looney Tunes stuff. I didn’t know it then, but those things were of such a high quality because they were originally theatrical shorts for Warner Bros.’ feature films from the 30s up to around 1960. They had a lot of money to work with and they used it. The people making them were the absolute best at what they did, and the key factor is that they weren’t “kids” fare — they were created to entertain adults but still be visually and comedically accessible to children. They still hold up beautifully, too IMO. Ren and Stimpy comes in a close second, though — wicked, subversive, hilarious stuff.
Heh – you kidding?
Fritz is cool! (But it ain’t fer the kiddies…)
Every day I get twenty hits on my blog for a thing I did on Flakey Foont and Mr. Natural a year ago. Anyone remember Art Crumb’s “Captain Pissgums and his Pervert Pirates”?
I like “Futurama” these days.
Its seems new to me, but maybe those memory cells got trashed in the 60’s. Thanks – I’ll check it out sometime.
Nothing out today is better than ‘The Far Side’, and ‘Calvin and Hobbes’.
‘The Far Side’ was the BEST.
nalbar
otherwise I agree with you 100%.
Nothing from when I was kid is as good as Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Just like I love Robot Chicken, but wouldn’t let my kids watch it.
Seems I have a lot to learn about this parenting business.
I’ve been inspired by a diary by BooMan in February on a future cabinet. A little while ago I’ve started polling the cabinet over at DKos. I’ve already done the first four (State, Treasury, Defense, AG). Today’s poll is on the next Sec. of the Interior. Here are the candidates:
Neil Abercrombie
Les AuCoin
Maria Cantwell
Peter DeFazio
Raul Grijalva
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin
Robert Kennedy, Jr.
Bob Miller
Carl Pope
Ken Salazar
Ed Schafer
Rodger Schlickeisen
Olympia Snowe
Jon Tester
Ron Wyden
You can vote here.
Who needs cartoons? We’ve got Hillary.
WOW.Lookie here. We knew big brother has big eyes. But for those in doubt.
This is real CCCP/East Germany 1950s-90 stuff:
The DoD (Department of Defense) document dump about the Times military analysts story has been monitoring blogs. Talking Points Memo is described as a super-liberal blog, “edited by Bush-bashing uber-liberal Josh Marshall..”
WTF?
where do we send these guys to after January 2009? We need a very special place. Very special, with padded rooms. In fact we need special equipment to clean out Washington – all departments are politicized.
Guantanamo.
Very Orwellian. If Josh Marshall is an “uber-liberal”, I’m not sure what that would make me… You’re right. They’ve made all levels of every department subservient to their politics. Almost too much to comprehend, really. But Obama knows the Constitution better than most, and that’s what you strip it all down too — bare metal.
Me, I can’t wait for Speed Racer. I watched that show so much I even DREAMED that animation in my sleep. Way cool. The only animation dream I’ve ever had, that I can remember!
And Marine Boy. And Kimba. These were the cartoons of my childhood. I remember being Marine Girl on the playground, taking on all comers with my aqua boots and oxygen gum and my friendly weapon dolphin. 😉
I always liked Speed Racer, too. I think it was the faster pacing of the whole thing vs. American animation — the Japanese tended to do that. Contemporary anime is light years more sophisticated — very cool stuff. The Speed Racer movie looks cool, but some of the reviews aren’t stellar, I’ve heard. But I’ll still see it, I think.
My granddaughter is very much into anime and manga. We try to steer her toward the “girlier” stuff, but she watches things like Inyuyasha. Go figure.
Me, I like some of it, some of it just escapes me. I like Miyazaki’s stuff, by and large.
Inuyasha does appeal to lots of girls and women fans (moreso the manga than the anime I think, though). There’s the whole element of girl-next-door drawn, despite herself, to the (ultimately) noble anti-hero to it. It’s also heavy though, on lots of good sword-and-sorcery action stuff for guys. That’s the kinda cool thing about anime: apart from the superhero genre, there’s pretty much anything out there for anybody, a lot of it surprisingly good.
Miyazaki is seen to be the master, though — at least Disney thinks so!
Anyone old enough to remember “Diver Dan”? It wasn’t really a cartoon. It was a guy in a diving suit who, if I recall correctly, talked to cardboard fish.
That one was before my time, but it’s up on Wikipedia, and it looks pretty wild! on DVD too, apparently.
Yes! And the barracuda was the villain… the fish were all puppets (Marionettes). (Man, I’m dating myself…) I remember Fireball XL5 and Stingray too, also marionettes….
Not really better. Different, yeah, I’ll give you that.
When I was a kid, watching TV by candlelight because electricity hadn’t been invented yet, Bugs Bunny ruled the roost, followed by Bullwinkle and George of the Jungle. (I have to admit back then I didn’t get all the jokes.) Then all of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons — Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Atom Ant, Magilla Gorilla and the lot. And a bunch of cartoons few remember these days — Underdog, King Leonardo of Bongo Congo, Milton The Monster (with Penny Penguin and Fearless Fly), SuperPresident (one of the world’s worst premises, IMHO), Tooter the Turtle and Clyde Crashcup. Oh, and I forgot to mention Mighty Mouse, Tom and Jerry and the Walter Lantz cartoons (Woody Woodpecker et al).
We shall not speak of atrocities like The Archies.
Then when my kids were about that age there was a different sort of cartoon out there. Things like G.I. Joe, Thundercats, Tigersharks, and of course Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My grandson occasionally rediscovers the series of TMNT videos we got for the kids back then (at one time you could get one for a buck if you ordered a meal at Burger King).
Moving forward, there are some real turkeys out there, and the less said about most of them the better. But more recent shows that I’ve enjoyed: Animaniacs, Pinky And The Brain, Jimmy Neutron, Fairly Odd Parents, Kim Possible, Backyardigans. I get these inflicted on me every so often courtesy of the entertainment junta in my house (ages 11, 6 and 3) They all have what I consider the hallmark of any creative endeavor, well-made characters and interesting writing, even if the premise stretches credulity. For instance, once you buy into the premise of an A-Team consisting of an incredibly athletic teenaged girl, her borderline doofus boyfriend, a ten-year-old behind-the-scenes supergenius, a naked mole rat and a pair of twin brothers who have to be reminded not to mess with the reactor in the basement, you can enjoy the incredibly goofy villains, absurd plot complications that mine the antinomy between saving the world and getting to cheerleading practice on time, and you get great dialog like this:
I’ll also watch things like Dora the Explorer and Little Einsteins with the three-year-old, but they’re not my favorites by a long shot. (We also watch Nihau, Kailan! but it’s hard to get her to do the tones right when I help her with the Chinese words. It can’t be that hard, three-year-old Chinese kids do it.)
Oh, and a special shout-out to Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s the one cartoon the family looks for when new episodes arrive on the TiVo. Kinda like Johnny Quest, but a hundred times cooler.
Anyway my point is that there are some good cartoons being made these days, but for me it comes down to the characterization and writing as much as anything. I can put up with crappy animation (for a while, anyway) if the writing is good enough.
I forgot about the old H-B Jonny Quest! I tought that was the coolest thing I’d ever seen when I first saw it.
Avatar does look especially good, too.
Man, I’m a total geek, but you gotta be what you are, I guess!
Yes, Avatar the Last Airbender deserves special mention, and it does remind me of Jonny Quest — the mix of humor, kid protagonists, animals and adventure. Avatar is a continuing story with a well-developed mega-plot and strong Asian themes. Also top-notch animation, great character development, and well-written scripts.
Jonny Quest had stand-alone episodes, but had a strong science-fiction adventure theme to it. (I was addicted to Jonny Quest as a kid, I much preferred adventure stories to comedy cartoons.) I just got the first season on DVD, there’s some fun behind the scenes stuff on it, about how they came up with the idea for the show and wrote it, etc. I liked the superhero cartoons that came out later, the Marvel characters like Spiderman and the Fantastic Four, etc. — the TV shows actually got me to read comic books, instead of the other way ’round…
I’m also partial to some of the Japanese anime, especially the work of Miyazaki.
I wasn’t that fond of the more traditional comedy cartoons (Bugs Bunny and the WB crowd, etc.) — the slapstick got old, and the storylines never appealed. I did like Mighty Mouse (Cartoons and opera!) and Popeye, though.
And I’m old enough to remember Clutch Cargo and Space Angel…. I’ve found some of those on DVD too. Boy, animation and adventure cartoons have come a LOOOOOONG way….