movies/tv Are 90s cartoons really better than today's cartoons

[Zoraxe 546]

So, its not a question if shows are worse than it was in the 90s, we are obviously in an upswing of good animation comparable to the 90s.

 

I'm interested if this trend of good shows is going to continue. Right now Cartoon Network is on a 'weird is good' trend that I like, with Regular Show and its Adult Swim stuff (Like Nick in the 90s). Nickelodeon has Avatar, and that series really stands out from anything ells produced in the west.

 

The west is still dominated by comedy cartoons. More things like Avatar would be nice.

Edited December 13, 2014 by Zoraxe

[ThatOneComrade 1,091]

IT'S THE NOSTALGIA I TELL YOU! I'm a 2000s kid, so I have a bias to shows like Hi Hi Puffy Yumi, Teen Titans, Courage, and KND. 90s kids will always prefer what was on during their childhoods, just like the newer generation will. Some of us just forget that we had pretty bad shows too. There is no "better generation of cartoon." There are only opinions.

[Buttonmash1973 1,024]

Inb4 everyone says MTV and other channels like Cartoon Network was better in the 1990s

[Simcity11100 772]

I remember ed edd n eddy, that show was funny and I always wanted to watch it as a kid but thought that they didn't play enough episodes through out the day lol

[Lisa 5,552]

The west is still dominated by comedy cartoons. More things like Avatar would be nice.

 

Yesssssssssssss

 

I'd love to see some narrative cartoons. Not just different stories each episode, but a cartoon which tells a huge story through it's episodes. (Like Avatar did)

[ScarfaceOne 263]

Well apart from Foster's Home, MLP G4, Old Spongebob, Powerpuff Girls, Megas XLR, The Regular Show, Adventure Time and old Fairly Oddparents which are actually good. Apparently what's been on is a lot of crap recently. I hate new spongebob certainly, but apparently I have heard people hate Cartoon Network's line up. They hate My Gym Partner's a Monkey, George of the Jungle and others. Perhaps it's because these are actually made by cheap companies with bad writing. I actually miss Edd, Ed and Eddy. I also miss Johnny Bravo, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Sonic SATAM and Megas XLR. I wish they could remake these shows. I did hear a rumour that they may be remaking Megas. I absolutely loved that show because I am a massive fan of Cars and Giant Mecha. I especially liked that Thanksgiving episode with the Sonic the Hedgehog clone Auggie the Aardvark. What's your thoughts?

[sweetolebob18 724]

I'm a Baby Boomer, I've been watching TV (including cartoons) since the 1950s.  Grew up w Tom Terrific on Captain Kangaroo or Howdy Doody or Sheri Lewis & Lamb Chop. (Now that I think about it, the last 2 weren't animated.  My bad.)

 

But, I'll tell you, every genre comes & goes in waves.  Good follows bad & then turns lame.  To my mind, cartoons had 2 golden eras.  The 1930s (actually 1928 (IIRC when Micky Mouse was invented) up until WWII (1942)).  This is when Technicolor came in & it has the old Disney characters, classic Loony Tunes stuff (all but Martin the Martian & Road Runner), the Walter Lantz stuff (Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, etc).  They invented Cartoon Physics & a lot of the classic gags. Labor costs were low, so animation quality was high.  They were also racist, sexist, & filled with gratuitous violence.  (Tom & Jerry were the basis for the Simpsons Itchy & Scratchy.  Big differences were they assumed the audience had at least 1 working brain cell & they were funny)

 

The other golden age was from the mid 1980s to the mid/late 1990s.  This is when Japanamation hit the USA & it seemed to unleash a new wave of creativity.  God KNOWS there were a LOT of turkeys (Sturgeon's Law  90% of everything is crud), but there were some gems among the trash (Trash? Let's talk the last few seasons of Scooby Doo.  It wasn't a cancellation, it was a mercy killing)

 

To my mind, the breakthroughs in CGI have the potential to unleash a new Golden Age (by lowering costs) & the Internet has the potential to circumvent the Networks stifling effect on creativity.  Of course, a lot of this will be Not A Child Safe Toy.  Eh, well, you take the bad w the good (& sometimes they get rushed & leave out the good)

[Cuddly 43]

It depends. Some cartoons was better, some cartoons was worse. So it isn't true that 90s cartoons was better and now anyone can make a cool cartoons, and with such opinions I hear very often. What is funny, words like that are speaking by people, who have never watched cartoons which are made todays.

[Jokuc 8,172]

Nah. You can't really answer yes or no. It all depends on when you were born. Each generation will like their cartoons the most because that is what they grew up with. I was born in the 90's and therefore I like those cartoons very much.

 

But I like older ones and some new ones too.

[Zoraxe 546]

Nah. You can't really answer yes or no. It all depends on when you were born. Each generation will like their cartoons the most because that is what they grew up with. I was born in the 90's and therefore I like those cartoons very much.

 

But I like older ones and some new ones too.

 

You know, I am going to disagree with that. While I am sure rose tinted glasses play a part, I'm pretty sure cartoons of the 90s were an improvement on the 80s stuff. Not that the 80s stuff wasn't entertaining, but 90s were better. And I am certain that the number of quality cartoons decreased as the 00s decade went on. And now this decade the number of good cartoons are on the rise.

[Jokuc 8,172]

You know, I am going to disagree with that. While I am sure rose tinted glasses play a part, I'm pretty sure cartoons of the 90s were an improvement on the 80s stuff. Not that the 80s stuff wasn't entertaining, but 90s were better. And I am certain that the number of quality cartoons decreased as the 00s decade went on. And now this decade the number of good cartoons are on the rise.

 

You can't simply say that "these ones were better" since what is good or bad is decided by the person you ask. Everyone thinks differently about things. Even though I agree with you that the 90's shows were better since there were more ones of a higher quality, there might be people who doesn't care about animation improvements and such. They just like their Duck Tales and Inspector Gadget so much that they automatically consider 80's shows to be the best. Besides, sure cartoons these days get better and better animation but there are a lot of things to a cartoon to look at when deciding what you like the most. The animation, story and message are all important.

 

If we're saying that "the 90's were the best for cartoons since it had 100 high-quality cartoons while the 80's only had 50" then sure, I can buy that. But if you're saying "the 90's were the best for cartoons since I personally liked these shows the most", you're only using your own opinions while making your statement, without even including input from others. "In my opinion, the 90's cartoons were an improvement..." should do the trick, though.

 

But then again, I'm just the random guy telling you that everything is relative.

 

When it all comes down to a final decision, I'd call out the 90's too. The Facebook page "90's TV shows" has 8842 likes after all, while the "80's TV shows" only has 808. Looks like the 80's kids got beat pretty hard.

 

 

 

 

[~Chaos~ 3,967]

I think that kids will think some of today's toons as we (90's kids) thought back when we ourselves were young.

 

When they are older they will have nostalgia for the shows of today, and so the cycle will continue.

[TheMisterManGuy 344]

I never take those "Modern cartoons suck" rants seriously as a lot of them are just sensless, incoherent bitching through nostalgia goggles. It makes you wonder how many new cartoons have they actually seen.

[More_Fluttershy 127]

I honestly haven't seen any shows from the 90's unless they carried through the 2000's. But even so, the talk about today's cartoons being worse than them and calling them golden is stupid. Look at what we have now! This show, obviously, but also Gravity Falls, Steven Unverse, Gumball, Wander Over Yonder, Regular Show, Adventure Time, Clarence, Dan vs., Rick and Morty, Bob's Burgers,  Futurama's reboot, heck, even Nickelodeon has had a few good shows like Korra and Robot and Monster (even if they don't want to be asscoiated with them because then they'd fool people into thinking they give a crap). Even if you don't like any of these shows, saying the 90's are golden is pretty much the worst argument you can make next to stuff like "It's a kids show" or "It's a parody of this." It's just a case of someone being nostalgia blind and being unable to accept change in the world. There are plenty of bad shows now, I'll give it that, but nothing is perfect in this world. I'm sure the 90's had something wrong, we just don't care to remember it. But since I haven't experienced the 90's, I really have no say in this argument.

[Denim&Venöm 16,911]

Shows these days are too busy sheltering kids. Batman TAS, Superman TAS, Batman Beyond, X-Men & Spider Man all dealt w/ deep issues and had great storytelling. The Animaniacs, Freakazoid, Road Rovers & Tiny Toons had moments that made adults & kids laugh. It made fun of the world around them. When I caught them on the Hub, I actually got many of the jokes & stories being told. It went over my head as a kid, but rewatching those programs, I discovered so much depth & creativity. Any of those shows can absolutely crush anything on today.    Nowadays stuff like what they dealt or made fun of with wouldn't make it past censorship and be viewed as too mature or over their heads. The era of the all ages kids show is dead. Any shows worthy of being called all ages was only done so on accident, including MLP. 

 

There's also the problem on the refocus on domestic cartoons and the exclusion of anime. Form the late 90's into the mid 00's, anime was on every day, on daytime television nonetheless, thanks to the Toonami block. That was scrapped and replaced w/ the Miguzi block, something that had shows for younger kids on it. Anime and depth and good storytelling on it, even in dubbed & recut versions. You can't argue that there's far less anime on TV than back then.

 

 I was never a fan of the Nicktoons. Rugrats, Jimmy Neutron, Fairly Oddparents, Catdog, Spongebob, never really hooked me. I only watched because I was bored. I wasn't exactly the biggest fan of Hey Arnold either, but looking back, that show had some real deep moments. The Cartoon Network group was hit & miss for me. KND, Fosters, Johnny Bravo, PPG, Cow & Chicken, were never really my thing. Teen Titans, Courage, Ed Edd n' Eddy & Megas XLR were what I really enjoyed. 

 

 

Yes, there is nostalgia there, but I can also say there's a lack of quality now. I dropped out of cartoons for a long while. Back in 07-08, stuff was no longer appealing to me. It was all being directed at a younger audience. Cartoon Network was telling me that I was no longer their target demographic. The only times I came back was for stuff on Adult Swim & Toonami. 

[Unikitty 1,212]

Each era has it's own style, and each era has its own demographic. There are good cartoons and bad cartoons, and what may seem great to one set of people, isn't going to have the same effect on another group of people. I grew up in the 90s and 2000s, so I was surrounded by their cartoons.

I loved sitting down to Samurai Jack and Grim Adventures of billy and Mandy, as well as catching old runs of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Nowadays, I don't watch much TV. But I really enjoy cartoons such as Adventure Time, Regular Show, and The Amazing World of Gumball.

 

Although there are plenty of cartoons on now, that kids in 15 years will be considering the pinnacle of animation. Shows such as Ninjago, Ben10: Ultimate Alien, Young Justice, etc - that I really could not care for.

Considering the bulk of this forum's userbase, I hardly expect many to talk about how great He-Man or The New Yogi Bear Show were back in the 80s. And yet, were we to ask people born to experience that era, they'd say just would we'd say about 90s cartoons. It's all a matter of perspective.

 

 

 

 

[side-note] Today I learned, both The Flintstones and Thunderbirds were made in the mid 60's. The more you know.

[Zoraxe 546]

You can't simply say that "these ones were better" since what is good or bad is decided by the person you ask. Everyone thinks differently about things. Even though I agree with you that the 90's shows were better since there were more ones of a higher quality, there might be people who doesn't care about animation improvements and such. They just like their Duck Tales and Inspector Gadget so much that they automatically consider 80's shows to be the best. Besides, sure cartoons these days get better and better animation but there are a lot of things to a cartoon to look at when deciding what you like the most. The animation, story and message are all important.

 

If we're saying that "the 90's were the best for cartoons since it had 100 high-quality cartoons while the 80's only had 50" then sure, I can buy that. But if you're saying "the 90's were the best for cartoons since I personally liked these shows the most", you're only using your own opinions while making your statement, without even including input from others. "In my opinion, the 90's cartoons were an improvement..." should do the trick, though.

 

But then again, I'm just the random guy telling you that everything is relative.

 

When it all comes down to a final decision, I'd call out the 90's too. The Facebook page "90's TV shows" has 8842 likes after all, while the "80's TV shows" only has 808. Looks like the 80's kids got beat pretty hard.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FCKqD1qxdA

 

 

 

You have to admit though that the animation quality, voice acting, and creative freedom of the 90s cartoons were superior to the 80s stuff in general. And that is what I was measuring.

[Venomous 18,820]

if you ask a 90's kid, of course they'll tell you that their cartoons were better.

I'm sure that if you asked a 2000's kid, they'd say that their cartoons are better.

 

Unless if you get them to watch Hey Arnold. That show is awesome.

[TheJLeeTeam 914]

Not really, it's just people remember the good shows from the 90's and only talk about the bad ones from today. Shows like Ren and Stimpy, Ed Edd n Eddy, and Catdog etc. seem to have the stereotypes that write off some current shows. So if Ren and Stimpy for instance were released in this era rather than the 90s, it would get a lot more hate than it does. In fact I actually like Regular Show more than Ed Edd n Eddy. Also most Nicktoons aren't that appealing to me anymore not even some of the classic ones, because I kind of like Disney's cartoons more.

 

Even MLP gets written off as being girly but Fairly Odd Parents doesn't even though Fairies are a girl stereotype just like ponies. But there are some great ones today if you look hard enough and there were some bad 90's shows such as Mega Babies.

 

There may even be kids from this era who think 2010's cartoons are better than 2020's cartoons later on. It mostly has to do with nostalgia and it's close minded to say a show is bad just because you didn't grow up with it.

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,154]

90's cartoons aren't better than the ones today and they tend to be only thought of as "good" because of the nostalgia factor not because of it's actual quality. Every decade has good and bad things, it'd be nice if people would stop forgetting that fact. 

 

Pretty much this. I grew up in the 90s and while I enjoyed plenty of programming from that era, most of it has not held up for me. Likewise, I've seen plenty of people before 'my time' treasure the cartoons they grew up with while not liking what came in the 90s (for the most part, anyway).

 

It's a question of what decade you grew up in; pretty much.

[sweetolebob18 724]

As a Baby Boomer, the super big differences I notice from the pre 1960s stuff & the modern stuff:

1) Gratuitous Violence.  These days, the most violent cartoons are military, police, or super hero.  But, I'd bet even the most violent cartoons today aren't as violent as Tom & Jerry or Road Runner.  You probably couldn't get the Road Runner on network TV today & I remember watching Looney Tunes in prime time in the early 60s

 

2) Groups.  Most of the early cartoon characters were loners.  Today, with rare exceptions (like Dexter's Lab) they can't cross the street without a group to hold their hand.

 

I remember reading an interview w Fritz Freleng (Warner Bros cartoons) about his top 10 Bugs Bunny cartoons.  He said something to the effect that the most obscene cartoons he'd ever seen were Road Runner cartoons because the message was "You can't have the thing you want the most.  It doesn't matter how smart you are or how hard you try.  You will always fail & if you keep trying you will only hurt yourself"  He said that was a horrible thing to teach a child

 

I also remember someone said you can tell if you are an adult by whether you root for the Road Runner or the Coyote.

[Megachangeling12 109]

Still at least there around and haven't been completely killed off by the newer shit today

[Sazama Ichida 2,356]

Hell yes they're better. That should be obvious.

I question the sanity as well as the IQ of anyone who truly thinks that shows like Adventure Time, Regular Show, Uncle Grandpa, The Amazing World of Gumball and Teen Titans Go etc. are better than the wonderful timeless classics like Dexter's Laboratory, Ed Edd N Eddy, Samurai Jack, The Powerpuff Girls and Courage The Cowardly Dog etc...

And as soon as Cartoon Network starts actually giving us good stuff to watch like The New Looney Toons Show and The New Tom and Jerry Show etc. they get rid of them because they apparently only want us to watch stuff full of random farfetched nonsense instead of anything truly good...

Why don't they do like the Hub Network did and give us new cartoons that are actually good like My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, Dan VS, And Littlest Petshop etc?

To be fair Regular Show is actually pretty decent though. And Adventure Time does get better later.

But yeah the new cartoons on Cartoon Network really blow compared to the old ones.

[Megachangeling12 109]

Yeah the only one I can really stand is regular show .

[TheMisterManGuy 344]

Hell yes they're better. That should be obvious.

 

I question the sanity as well as the IQ of anyone who truly thinks that shows like Adventure Time, Regular Show, Uncle Grandpa, The Amazing World of Gumball and Teen Titans Go etc. are better than the wonderful timeless classics like Dexter's Laboratory, Ed Edd N Eddy, Samurai Jack, The Powerpuff Girls and Courage The Cowardly Dog etc...

 

And as soon as Cartoon Network starts actually giving us good stuff to watch like The New Looney Toons Show and The New Tom and Jerry Show etc. they get rid of them because they apparently only want us to watch stuff full of random farfetched nonsense instead of anything truly good...

 

Why don't they do like the Hub Network did and give us new cartoons that are actually good like My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, Dan VS, And Littlest Petshop etc?

 

To be fair Regular Show is actually pretty decent though. And Adventure Time does get better later.

 

But yeah the new cartoons on Cartoon Network really blow compared to the old ones.

What About Steven Universe, Gumball, Over the Garden Wall, and Clarence? Those are good cartoons. And why are you ignoring Disney? You know, the guys who have been giving us Phineas and Ferb, Gravity Falls, Wander Over Yander, and pretty soon, Star Vs. The Forces of Evil? Really though, Cartoons today are just as good, in some cases better than in the 90s. Whether you think otherwise or not is meerly subjective.