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[Cthulhu]

Angry Beavers was pretty cool, I watched it a lot when I was little.  Then I became a teenager, and they resurrected it for that Nicktoons channel which just happened to show all of the best stuff in the morning before I went to school.  The Tail-Slapping episode takes on a dark new meaning when you're old enough to get what they're referencing.


Other good old shows were Hey Arnold, Rocko's Modern life, and there was probably other stuff but my memory of early nineties Nickelodeon is vague right now.  I remember a show where this girl could turn into Mercury, but no one else does.  Eh, I didn't watch the live action stuff except Are You Afraid of the Dark(Which is coming back!  Too bad I'm too old to watch that without being laughed at)

[Armok]

Too bad I'm too old to watch that without being laughed at)

DO NOT GIVE IN TO THEM! It dosnt matter what kind of show it is, never abstain from waching a show because it's considered inapropriate for yor demograpic! If they laugh at you, give them a long speech about the nature of art, various freedoms and rights, decay of society into anti-intellectualism, and give them a link to the Animation Age Ghetto article on TV tropes.

[Rashilul]

My brain writes in agony whenever it catches a glimpse of children's shows nowadays. Especially Chowder. Eeeeeuuugh.

Seriously, why can't we go back to the days when we all watched Tom & Jerry, Pokemon, and Batman, the animated series? Especially Batman. It was gritty in a child-friendly way, full of parent-approved violence, had solid storylines, and a general theme of justice.

You just can't find cartoons like that any longer.

Like I said Boomerang. My neighbor's kid watches it instead of cartoon network or disney.

[Vester]

My brain writes in agony whenever it catches a glimpse of children's shows nowadays. Especially Chowder. Eeeeeuuugh.

Seriously, why can't we go back to the days when we all watched Tom & Jerry, Pokemon, and Batman, the animated series? Especially Batman. It was gritty in a child-friendly way, full of parent-approved violence, had solid storylines, and a general theme of justice.

You just can't find cartoons like that any longer.

Personally, I wouldn't put Pokemon anywhere near Batman in terms of how awesome it was. Batman didn't just have grit, it had great production values and a writer/producer team that actually gave a damn as to how they treated their source material.

[Cthulhu]

I loved the Batman with the Riddler's maze.  I watched that one over and over again when I was little.

[Judas Maccabeus]

I just about grew up on Batman.  And Animaniacs.*  Those are two shows that I still like to watch today, whenever I've the good luck for them to show up somewhere I have the opportunity to see them.  And still enjoy them, not for the nostalgia but simply for what they are (for that matter, I probably appreciate Animaniacs more since I understand all the references and such).  Now that is how you make a children's cartoon.

*One reason I like this avatar so much is because it reminds me more than a little bit of Chicken Boo. 

[Cthulhu]

Too bad I'm too old to watch that without being laughed at)

DO NOT GIVE IN TO THEM! It dosnt matter what kind of show it is, never abstain from waching a show because it's considered inapropriate for yor demograpic! If they laugh at you, give them a long speech about the nature of art, various freedoms and rights, decay of society into anti-intellectualism, and give them a link to the Animation Age Ghetto article on TV tropes.

That would do nothing to make me more respectable in their eyes.  In fact, that would make me less respectable in their eyes.

[JoshuaFH]

The problem isn't really that children cartoons have become worse, they havn't really become worse in premise, thou pherhaps in execution (the art styles are detestable, evry show wants their own style, and they dont realize there is a finite amount of styles good for something like a long-running animated series. This might be one of many reasons why anime tends to be better, as in having a single base style they can focus on uality instead of nonconformism at all costs, wich ironicaly makes them often have unique styles that are much MORE artistic, by deferring in much more subtle ways.), the problem is that they exist at all.
"Children entertainment" is an oxymoron concept, an artefact produced by marketing paradigmes and extremly guilable parents. In most cases, something specialized tends to be better as a general rule, hence why parents prefer to show their kinds stuff spesificaly marketed to kids, but what they dont realize is that because kinds have nothing to compare with they will be eualy entranced by just abaut anything, meaning the companies that make them are completly free to cut corners, have no pentalies for executive medeling destroying the story, etc. Childrens cartoons are not made for children, they are made for parent, advertizers, and media wachdogs.
There is no need to give children different entertainment than adults, as long as one avoid a few things, and in fact it is extremly importnant to have parents and children wach the same things and with equal enjoyment, both so that the parent can act as uality controle, and as a valuble bounding moment bothing in sharing the experience togeter, and in having something in comon to talk abaut afterwards.
Besides, there is nothing that indicates that viololence not sexuality have any "coruptive" infuence on children, as long as it isn't in exesive amounts or glorified. Storytelling is one of the most importnant milestones to establish morals, perhaps THE most important second only to parental punishment/reward, while punishment reward by parents establish what IS, stories are needed to establish what SHOULD BE, and having at least one fictional role model is very important in establishing a sound moral phsycology. It is also importnant to be presented by many widely varying ponts of view; show diferent shows from diferent cultures, show both modern ones and clasics, and dont just park in front of the TV, but instead present the chid with theater, cinema, computer games, tabeltop RPGS, books, comics, radio/podcasts, and evry other type of media you can think of, show both uncensured hyperrealism and abstract unrealistic idealism, and evrything in betwen, etc. etc. In short, present evry posible point of view on evrything, and also let judgment come AFTERWARDS, in the discusion and metadata.

Also, the animation age ghetto effect is ruining lots and lots of stuff, the enjoyments adults could have had, the childhoods of those that now get dumbed down junk, and the art that never get produced, all because of this silly prejudice.

What the hell Armok!? You usually write so well, but this post is horribly littered with misspellings and grammatical errors! It's atrocious!

[Rooster]

I grew up on pokemon, and I'm an eternal fan of the first 2 series. Too bad it's such crap right now...

Pokemon had a potential for being awesome, but they blew it into a money making business (well that's how you do stuff these days)

If I had to recommend pokemon to a child I would give that child pokemon movies (which I think are quite good). But I would never torture it with the animated series which is so bad, that I wouldn't  give a damn and rather watch something else.

Hmm people are constantly bashing CN, I wonder why? Truly the good cartoons are the old cartoons, but I'm a fan of Ben 10, it's just like superheroes series from my youth. I really liked Batman way back then. Especially the one in the future. It was just so hardcore and badass.

[Luke_Prowler]

As I said, The old cartoons are better. What really killed cartoons are over protective mothers and their lawyers.

Also, anything with Batman in it is instantly awesome.

[Willfor]

This is what I grew up on. And I'm not even American.

Actually, I have a broad, and ranging history with cartoons that ended just about the time I believe they all turned into utter crap. Not that some of them weren't utter crap before, it's just that there seems to be much more of it nowadays.

[Leafsnail]

I may be insane, but I always liked the old Tom & Jerry cartoons.  Always beautifully drawn (especially the backgrounds) and nice and simple, and generally funny to watch.

[JoshuaFH]

Plus, while I was too naive to notice it at the time, Tom & Jerry had REALLY mature content.

One episode had a sack of kittens being thrown into a river, so yeah.

I sort of resent that stuff like that isn't around anymore.

[Cthulhu]

I don't see why people pine for the old cartoons.  They were all the same.  Sure, the backgrounds were nice looking, but every episode recycled the same jokes over and over and over ad nauseam.

[JoshuaFH]

Atleast they HAD jokes though, pretty tasteful and well-thought out jokes might I add. Alot of stuff nowadays is just childish nonsense that borders on non sequiturs. The raw opposite of cleverness is what I'm getting at, and while there's some actual wittyness here and there, most of it smacks of laziness or is utterly condescending to it's audience.