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- 17 de Jun, 2018
Why Are Eighties Cartoons Peak?
Because I say so, and if you ever disagree it means that you are wrong!
Okay, I do have less vacuous reasons.
Like the art, for example.
Pictured: Which show would you rather watch?
Not to mention the artistic variety. In the eighties you could tell at a glance if a cartoon was Filmation, Hanna-Barbera, Ruby-Spears, DIC, Rankin-Bass.... not like today where everything is either "try to be anime" or "try to be Steven Universe."
Or how about the soundtracks?
Once again, I only have to let the things speak for themselves.
Cuz every day you're reaching towards the light...
High adventure that's beyond compare...
In every wish and dream and happy home....
And if you can dream, just send a wish out in the dark!
But the discussion does not come down exclusively to theme songs. The BGM is just as important and Eighties cartoons were great at playing the right music at the right time to give sequences the right amount of "oomph."
One amusing thing I found while looking up clips to prove my point was this fan edit of the 2021 He-Man's transformation scene, but with the 1983 music added back in. Now, to be honest I actually thought the normal version of this scene worked fine, but it's amazing how just having better music makes it immediately better.
They were also before certain foul trends caught on. The moment I stopped liking American cartoons was when they started having lots of gross-out humor, which started in the 1990s.
And of course, we live in Current Year and what that means for "children's media."
...............
But I'm going to make some possibly controversial statements.
There's a lot they did I wish would come back.
I actually liked those PSA things that some shows would have at the end of episodes. A lot of times when I hear people bitch about these, it comes off like the bitchers have issues. What's wrong with trying to give some brain value to your entertainment? Especially for kids. Heck I know adults who still use that GI Joe "stop a nosebleed" technique.
And I find the writing was just more intelligent and imaginative than most things today. A part of that is likely because the Eighties was when creators still drew from the past, whereas now most creators are ignorant fucks who basically are re-learning the lessons of our ancestors. So for example we used to have writers who clearly had read the work of previous-era giants like Robert E. Howard and were building on it. These days, you would never get anything like that one Dungeons & Dragons episode with that treasure box that led to another dimension, or the Real Ghostbusters' weird portrayal of the Boogeyman's world.
This is something that frustrates me when I talk to younger creative types. A lot of them are uninterested in anything from before their time, like they think there's nothing to be gained from it. But you didn't see the writers of these cartoons saying "I'm too good for Tolkien." And it reflects in the writing: nowadays "creativity" means "we read a TV Tropes article and decided to comment on something we've heard always happens but without understanding why it happens."
Even the jank parts can be fun. You can talk all day about Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' litany of animation errors... please do. I love those things.
The worst you can ever say about an eighties cartoon is that one is "mid." I've never seen one I found absolutely unwatchable or unbearable the way I often do with stuff nowadays?
........
Also, I was deliberately avoiding mentioning anime in this post (because it always annoys me when I see a "best cartoons of the eighties" list and then half of it is Gundam or some other show that didn't come to my neck of the woods until Toonami, plus weebs are everywhere and will dominate any animation discussion if given a chance), but one thing that's always impressed me was how both Voltron and Robotech kept a lot of the darker aspects of their source. Like, yeah, they toned down the gore and eliminated any nudity, but... a major character in Robotech still kicks the bucket. (Heck, Robotech actually kills off characters who lived in the Japanese version).
No "they got sent to another dimension," no 4Kids antics.... we got a pretty fair and faithful showing of the stories. And in fact I've met people who consider those shows better than the source material.
What about the 90s?
This post has run long so I'll make this quick:
I've stopped seeing the 90s as a competitor to the 80s, and now see it as more of an expansion pack. You can't really enjoy one without having some respect for the other. That's about like saying you like Opposing Force but hate Half-Life. My only big issue with 1990s cartoons is that towards the end of the decade, the rot was setting in... and also the fans of this decade are kinda pretentious. But we can discuss more in follow-up posts.
Because I say so, and if you ever disagree it means that you are wrong!
Okay, I do have less vacuous reasons.
Like the art, for example.
Pictured: Which show would you rather watch?
Not to mention the artistic variety. In the eighties you could tell at a glance if a cartoon was Filmation, Hanna-Barbera, Ruby-Spears, DIC, Rankin-Bass.... not like today where everything is either "try to be anime" or "try to be Steven Universe."
Or how about the soundtracks?
Once again, I only have to let the things speak for themselves.
Cuz every day you're reaching towards the light...
High adventure that's beyond compare...
In every wish and dream and happy home....
And if you can dream, just send a wish out in the dark!
But the discussion does not come down exclusively to theme songs. The BGM is just as important and Eighties cartoons were great at playing the right music at the right time to give sequences the right amount of "oomph."
One amusing thing I found while looking up clips to prove my point was this fan edit of the 2021 He-Man's transformation scene, but with the 1983 music added back in. Now, to be honest I actually thought the normal version of this scene worked fine, but it's amazing how just having better music makes it immediately better.
They were also before certain foul trends caught on. The moment I stopped liking American cartoons was when they started having lots of gross-out humor, which started in the 1990s.
And of course, we live in Current Year and what that means for "children's media."
...............
But I'm going to make some possibly controversial statements.
There's a lot they did I wish would come back.
I actually liked those PSA things that some shows would have at the end of episodes. A lot of times when I hear people bitch about these, it comes off like the bitchers have issues. What's wrong with trying to give some brain value to your entertainment? Especially for kids. Heck I know adults who still use that GI Joe "stop a nosebleed" technique.
And I find the writing was just more intelligent and imaginative than most things today. A part of that is likely because the Eighties was when creators still drew from the past, whereas now most creators are ignorant fucks who basically are re-learning the lessons of our ancestors. So for example we used to have writers who clearly had read the work of previous-era giants like Robert E. Howard and were building on it. These days, you would never get anything like that one Dungeons & Dragons episode with that treasure box that led to another dimension, or the Real Ghostbusters' weird portrayal of the Boogeyman's world.
This is something that frustrates me when I talk to younger creative types. A lot of them are uninterested in anything from before their time, like they think there's nothing to be gained from it. But you didn't see the writers of these cartoons saying "I'm too good for Tolkien." And it reflects in the writing: nowadays "creativity" means "we read a TV Tropes article and decided to comment on something we've heard always happens but without understanding why it happens."
Even the jank parts can be fun. You can talk all day about Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' litany of animation errors... please do. I love those things.
The worst you can ever say about an eighties cartoon is that one is "mid." I've never seen one I found absolutely unwatchable or unbearable the way I often do with stuff nowadays?
........
Also, I was deliberately avoiding mentioning anime in this post (because it always annoys me when I see a "best cartoons of the eighties" list and then half of it is Gundam or some other show that didn't come to my neck of the woods until Toonami, plus weebs are everywhere and will dominate any animation discussion if given a chance), but one thing that's always impressed me was how both Voltron and Robotech kept a lot of the darker aspects of their source. Like, yeah, they toned down the gore and eliminated any nudity, but... a major character in Robotech still kicks the bucket. (Heck, Robotech actually kills off characters who lived in the Japanese version).
No "they got sent to another dimension," no 4Kids antics.... we got a pretty fair and faithful showing of the stories. And in fact I've met people who consider those shows better than the source material.
What about the 90s?
This post has run long so I'll make this quick:
I've stopped seeing the 90s as a competitor to the 80s, and now see it as more of an expansion pack. You can't really enjoy one without having some respect for the other. That's about like saying you like Opposing Force but hate Half-Life. My only big issue with 1990s cartoons is that towards the end of the decade, the rot was setting in... and also the fans of this decade are kinda pretentious. But we can discuss more in follow-up posts.
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