The Energon Pub

Which era had the best cartoons?

This might get a little one-sided, I think the ratio of 80's to 90's-born users is a little uneven... Oh well..

the 90's had SPAWN, Gargoyles, Spiderman TAS, Batman TAS and BeastWars. The 80's seemed too commercial: Made chealply to sell toys. Just look how G1 TF was. Characters got in and out without any explaination just to show more of them. There was next to no character developement at all...

Evank_Horizon wrote:the 90's had SPAWN, Gargoyles, Spiderman TAS, Batman TAS and BeastWars. The 80's seemed too commercial: Made chealply to sell toys. Just look how G1 TF was. Characters got in and out without any explaination just to show more of them. There was next to no character developement at all...

I'm an 80's born TF fan and the fact you named 4 of my favorite 7 childhood toons (that i don't consider anime) kinda leads me to the 90s.

If thew 80's x-men pilot didn't have 'breathing problems' and kept with the art level, it could have turned the tide by addressing the character development, but then the 90's X-men wouldn't have been as big.

90's.

2 words: Beast Wars.

the 80's had great cartoon franchises, Transformers (of course), GI Joe, He-Man, Robotech etal but ultimately I picked the 90's as this decade's production trumped over the 80's in quality. The 90's had Beast Wars, TMNT, Pokemon, X-Men and IMHO the best cartoon series ever, Batman, the Animated Series.
So its the 90's.

It seems the 80's lovers won't say a word. The silent majority.

That was a tough one, I basecly lived the 80's cartoons, god bless German kids TV of the 90's, but I always favored the darker more sophisticated stuff from the 90's, I mean we had Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Beast wars, The Tick, Superman and this other 3D animation show with insects killing each other, it was kinda darker than Beast Machines!

Its kinda like comparing which toys were funner to play with. The ball in a cup of 50+ yrs ago or the toys of today. 80's cartoons were great and in my opinion set the standard for todays cartoons. Although they were movies look at Akira and even TF's the movie. The 90's cartoons though built on the 80's as does todays cartoons build on the prvevious generations. The 90's were superior in animation and character developement.

Dead Metal wrote:and this other 3D animation show with insects killing each other, it was kinda darker than Beast Machines!

OMG I've been looking for that show for ages! Wasn't it called something stupid like 'Insectoids' or something? I think it was French..

EDIT

Holy cow I found it XD After all these years.

Insektors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insektors

Ahh, memories

Meverix wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:and this other 3D animation show with insects killing each other, it was kinda darker than Beast Machines!

OMG I've been looking for that show for ages! Wasn't it called something stupid like 'Insectoids' or something? I think it was French..

EDIT

Holy cow I found it XD After all these years.

Insektors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insektors

Ahh, memories

Yes that's it!
That was freaking awesome!
I still love watching it, everytime it's rerun, I still haven't seen the final eppy, of to veoh!

I really can't answer this because all of the shows in the 80's were great given that I was a kid and all of the 90's shows were great given that I was a teen.

80's shows (as has been mentioned to death on this board) were made to sell toys and that's why I enjoyed those shows as a kid at the time. I can still think back of all of those days playing with G1 TFs, Turtles, He-man, Silverhawks, Thundercats, Centurions and so on and so on.

90's shows were great because they took the nostalgia of 80's shows and developed characters and plots to a much higher level, which is what was needed for me at the time as a teenager.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. They need to get all of the shows from the 80s, 90s, and a few from 2000s (such as MOTU) and bring them back instead of the drivel that little kids are watching nowadays.

I think what made the 90's cartoon so great isn't really the 80's cartoon before them but the 70's and 80's animes. Unfortunately america isn't ready for all the greatness of japan. We only get the worst toy selling animes. Today, great animes like Zeta Gundam or Neon Genesis Evangelion are still too dark for the american public. Some glimps of that darkness can be seen here and there but overall american cartoons are very bland in comparison.

Someone mentionned TF movie. This movie was directed by a japanese.


In most cases when I take an objective look at 80's cartoons vs recent version of the same franchise, the new versions are just better in so many ways. The real kids out there aren't affected by our nostalgia. The new cartoons have more fluid animation and better story telling and writing. Especially for pre-teen shows.

80's of course!!!!! I love the 70's animations too.

I'm torn...

I love the 80s cartoons I grew up with. Yet my all time favourite animated show is from 90s.

But then in my mind, Blade beats everything. So I'll just have to betray Transformers and go with the 90s.

I said 80s cos it had lots of first versions of later cartoons.

It had He Man and Thundercats,and obviously Transformers.

And a lot of great anime comes from the 80s.One of my favourites Vampire Princess Miyu is 80s.

You wouldnt have got the 90s cartoons and later without the 80s version.

But i love 90s cartoons equally.TMNT,BW,Spiderman,Batman.The whole lot.

What i noticed while watching G1 series Transformers was the actions and implications were harsher.Whe they say kill someone they look like they really mean it.The 90s saw censoship and stuff.Remember TMNT being changed to Teenage Mutant Heroe Turtles?Same show but diferent name. Silly.

80s cartoons were harsher than 90s ones.They show things like killing like they really mean it.

Meverix wrote:This might get a little one-sided, I think the ratio of 80's to 90's-born users is a little uneven... Oh well..

You think so?

I gotta go with the 80's cartoons. They got me hooked on animation in the first place. I think one of the things I love about those shows is the blatant product placement. When I was a kid I'd look at the Sears Wish Book at Christmas time and drool over the latest TF's, GI Joe's, Robotech (Still have my hover-tank), Ninja Turtles, He-Man, Inhumanoids, Visionaries, Robotix, Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines, and even Go-bots. I used to always brag that I could remember every cartoon I ever saw in the 80's, like Galtar and his magic lance. None of my friends could even remember it. While I do appreciate the deeper character development of the 90's, I can't think of a single show from the 90's that I miss like my 80's shows.

What is good about 80s cartoons is the air of fun they have.They arnt the best animation but they dont have the overdone deepness some of the 90s ones have.

estrelliaes wrote:What is good about 80s cartoons is the air of fun they have.They arnt the best animation but they dont have the overdone deepness some of the 90s ones have.

So depth is a bad thing now? I wouldn't call a shallow, simplistic story a good thing, but to each his own, I guess.

Some 90s cartoons went a bit too far into the heavy stuff.

You know like fight,fight,bad guy runs away. Then instead of yay, we rock, lets celebrate, they ruin a perfectly fine level of seriousness by going one level too far and say/do something really epically depressing like, 'by fighting them, are we being bad?' or some guy who made a mistake and caused something but saved the day gets royally dissed instead of a small punishment and a congratulations.

That was in a very small minority of cartoons though.

In Xmen they spent whole episodes punishing Iceman for being himself and for whole epsiodes in a row it was diss Iceman, hurt Iceman, be nasty to Iceman, etc.The guy couldnt catch a break.

The real winners are the viewers.