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[Frumple]

Didn't that get a kinda' subpar video game port? *goes and checks* Aha, it did!

[MrWiggles]

Swat Kats

There are two kinds of people that read that, the kind that go "huh?" and the kind that are awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_AdxJWFUh4

[Aqizzar]

There are two kinds of people that read that, the kind that go "huh?" and the kind that are awesome.

I'm very glad to be in the later category.  It had its issues, sure, but it was damn cool to look at.

Now, Road Rovers?  You'd be forgiven.

[Neonivek]

If this is going to get into childhood shows does that mean we are going to end up in Biker Mice from Mars and Street sharks?

[Aqizzar]

If this is going to get into childhood shows does that mean we are going to end up in Biker Mice from Mars and Street sharks?

Yes, yes it does.  And you brought us there.  So hey, who else has the faintest memory of Danger Mouse?

[Frumple]

I actually remembered road rovers after seeing the intro in the related videos thing.

Anyway, Exosquad? Exosquad. I seriously need to actually go and watch through that at some point. Saw a good chunk when I was younger, but remember basically none of it. Still have a toy suit laying around somewhere in mostly one piece.

If this is going to get into childhood shows does that mean we are going to end up in Biker Mice from Mars and Street sharks?

Apparently!

[Luke_Prowler]

Oh God, Swat Kats. I wished I was old enough to appreciate that kind of workmanship when it was still on air.

I know I might catch some flak for this, but I thought the Godzilla animated series was pretty good, it was certainly the only redeemable thing that came out of the movie

[Neonivek]

Biker Mice from mars is probably the most 90s show there ever was with a TERRIBLE remake.

Street Sharks I will fight that it was sorta good. It didn't outright ignore the fact that the heros were transformed into monsters (even if in the end only the Orca seemed to care)

[GlyphGryph]

Swat Katz for the win. I still have surprisingly vivid memories of that show.

[Neonivek]

Swat Katz for the win. I still have surprisingly vivid memories of that show.

Truthfully it wasn't around when I was growing up.

[nenjin]

If this is going to get into childhood shows does that mean we are going to end up in Biker Mice from Mars and Street sharks?

Yes, yes it does.  And you brought us there.  So hey, who else has the faintest memory of Danger Mouse?

Fuckin' Danger Mouse. Man I used to spend so much time watching Nickelodeon just for shows like it. And then Nick at Nite would come on and you'd know your fun was over.

[Neonivek]

If this is going to get into childhood shows does that mean we are going to end up in Biker Mice from Mars and Street sharks?

Yes, yes it does.  And you brought us there.  So hey, who else has the faintest memory of Danger Mouse?

Fuckin' Danger Mouse. Man I used to spend so much time watching Nickelodeon just for shows like it. And then Nick at Nite would come on and you'd know your fun was over.

Didn't get that either.

[kaijyuu]

Two seasons into superman now! One to go.


It's gotten a lot better. It's still no Batman, but the villains are getting a bit more depth, more heroes than Superman are showing up (so someone less boring gets screen time), and a lot more comedy. I'm also appreciating some of Justice League more now that I know some backstory.

Spoiler: ranting about superheroes (click to show/hide)

Also I think I figured out what bugs me most of all about superhero stories: the title characters are walking deus ex machina. Superman's obviously the worst offender ever, but all of them are it to some degree. For the vast majority of superhero stories, the main character is the most boring one; they're the Big Good in the universe setting everything right, but not often causing conflict themselves. They're an outside observer, watching the conflict unfold and then walking up to solve it. Super powers tend to be fix-alls too; if all you have is a hammer and all that.

That's not 100% a bad thing; the good guys showing up in the nick of time to save the day is always fun, and while conflicts being solved by facepunching from an outside source isn't all that satisfying, the resolution isn't always the point. The point most often is asking what would drive someone to want to break things and hurt people (or in the hero's case, put on some colorful pajamas), then give them the power to do so, and then watching the fireworks. It's power fantasy on both sides. By the time the conflict resolution comes around, you've seen the main attraction and the rest is just wrapping things up.

My favorite episode of the entire DCAU would be one from Batman, titled Joker's Favor. It follows the above formula, but plays with it in that it's neither Batman nor the villain (Joker) being conditioned to snap, but a random bystander guy who keeps getting dragged along. You see helpless, faceless civilians in the background all the time in these cartoons; their job is to run away from falling objects and to distract the hero into saving them. What would it take to make one of those stop running and screaming, and instead stand up, all alone, to someone like the Joker? That's what it asks, that's what it answers, and it does it awesomely.

[RedKing]

Now this is a thread I can sink my teeth into.

I grew up watching the classics: Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett. We had a local independent TV station that would run like 3 hours of Tom and Jerry, Droopy, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies every afternoon. It was glorious. I'm extending that on to my kids with the umpteen gigs of cartoons on the HD. My daugher is already a Tex Avery fan.

While perusing Netflix, she also got into a Fat Albert binge, which is just bizarre. I mean, I saw it when it was still relatively new, and even then I could sort of tell that I wasn't the intended audience.

Other cartoons I remember from early childhood:
Journey to the Center of the Earth (Filmation) -- I distinctly remember being pissed because this got interrupted by the news because some guy named Reagan had been shot. 

Heckle & Jeckle -- Funny as a kid, kind of wince-inducing as an adult.

The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show -- I was never a huge fan of the main show, but the assorted cartoons that came with it were awesomesauce: Peabody's Improbable History, Fractured Fairy Tales, Aesop & Son and The World of Commander McBragg. Dudley Do-Right was meh. But I think the whole "playing with history" thing about Peabody & Sherman and Commander McBragg...that really appealed to me. And the bad puns. Oh dear god, the bad puns....

Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales -- actually a subsidiary toon of the Underdog show,  but I preferred this to Underdog. In many ways a precursor to Pinky and the Brain: a bright, scheming (but often nonsensical) talking animal comes up with convoluted plans (which invariably fail) with the assistance of his dim-witted sidekick.


Then during the 80's, there was Saturday mornings (and afternoon TV). Too many to list, so I'll just rattle off some favorites:
Dungeons & Dragons
Mighty Orbots
Inhumanoids
The Adventures of the Gummi Bears
The Real Ghostbusters!
Thundercats
Silverhawks (which was basically Thundercats IN SPAAAAACE!)
TigerSharks (which was both of the above...IN WATER!)
Dragon's Lair/Space Ace
G.I. Joe (kind of mandatory)
Transformers (ditto)
Voltron (ditto)
US Acres (the side-run with Garfield and Friends...actually better than Garfield for the most part)
DuckTales
Chip'n'Dale's Rescue Rangers
TaleSpin
He-Man
Muppet Babies (say what you will, it had better-than-average writing, especially the pop culture parody stuff)
Robotix (mostly existed as a animated pitch for the toysets...which I had)
Super Friends (the Wonder Twins--making the fistbump cool decades before their time)

We didn't have cable, so I only rarely caught gems like Dangermouse and Count Duckula.


Then came the 90's. Things got more ironic, hipper, edgier. I spent many, many hours in college watching:
Duckman
Animaniacs
Tiny Toons
Rocko's Modern World
The Maxx
Aeon Flux
2 Stupid Dogs
Cow and Chicken (and its spinoff, I.M. Weasel)
The Critic
Daria
Dexter's Laboratory
Gargoyles
The Tick
Pirates of Darkwater
Courage the Cowardly Dog
Histeria! (an oft-overlooked gem from the same team that did Tiny Toons and Animaniacs...had the same "fucked-up history" vibe as Peabody and Sherman or Commander McBragg)

Seriously...I remember two snippets of Histeria that absolutely sold me on this show. The first was a segment on Leonardo DaVinci, called "Renaissance Man" where he was basically the medieval version of Batman, using contraptions that he designed and built. The second was a segment on Sherman's march to the sea. On a fucking kid's cartoon. And it was done as cross between a Ken Burns documentary...and Pee-Wee's Playhouse. With your host, Pee-Wee Sherman. ("The secret word of the day is...TOTAL WAR!")   

[kaijyuu]

Ooh, Gummi Bears! Now there's a wacky idea turned incredibly, inexplicably good. I'm not sure how or why they came up with a deep, detailed medieval fantasy setting out of candy. Seriously, they had continuity, a detailed history, and good characterization. It's like the 80s version of Friendship is Magic.


And as long as we're listing off 80s cartoons, no discussion is complete without Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. Cheese in its most distilled form.