Animation aimed at kids, Jap vs American

[Vancore]

I've sometimes wondered what I'd be watching nowadays if I were still a kid. Before Gargoyles came along I was mainly into less action oriented cartoons like Darkwing duck, Garfield, Tiny Toons, Ducktales, and Animaniacs. I'm not really sure what kind of anime those would relate to but if I had to guess the probably digamon, pokemon, some of the lighter anime. I probably would have been a big fan of Jackie Chan's Adventure's tho.

[Madpierrot]

Growing up I use to love cartoons like Garfield and Friends, Muppet Babies, ProStars (i hope someone else remembers the adventures of Wayne Gretkzy, Bo Jackson, and Micheal Jordan fighting crime), Top Cops, and Count Duckula. Even when I was getting older I still found cartoons like Doug, RugRats, Pinky and the Brain, and Ducktales to be very enjoyable. I think that a good cartoon is a good cartoon. Even if it's directed at younger or older audiences it's going to be a good show. All of these cartoons certainly held my attention when i was younger. Certain shows of course can't really be fully appreciated b/c they are attended for a younger audience. I hate it when you have someone over the age of 18 saying that Pokemon or Digimon is the worst anime ever. Well that's because you're not 7. There are two more adult focused cartoons in animerica that really stick out for me. Of course The Simpsons, but also Duckman (i really hope someone else has seen this). Now this was an adult cartoon, but wow was it funny. I remember laughing my ass off to this show every week. There's my little walk through memory lane when it comes to cartoons.

[OtakuMan22]

Amazing, but true... I remember EVERY show you mentioned. Count Duckula was on Nickelodeon, and I think that was a British import from all the accents it had (also recalling Danger Mouse with that one).

The problem I see was that there was a golden age of Saturday morning cartoons, and that slowly erroded to junk like CatDog. It's as though the people that knew how to make nice shows for kids that had some good stuff to it just... dissappeared!

Garfield and Friends was good! Lorenzo Music, bless his soul, was the greatest voice Garfield ever had. Sure they sang, but it was silly in a Garfield kind of way that somehow fit. It actually felt like it was part of the comic strip and not... Garfield the movie... oyyy....

So here's a good question:

Were the TV shows we watched as kids really that good, or do we only remember them fondly because they were what we watched back then? Were they about the same quality, content wise, as the shows coming out now?

Or were they really better back then? Like how we picture it?

And what makes a kids show bad? Is it the concept? The writing? What makes these shows so bad?

Some shows are unquestionably good. Gargoyles for example is without a doubt one of the greatest things to happen to animation from the USA. It had a cool factor around it, a deep story, and some fantastic writing combined with a good art style.

But even shows that weren't as deep entertained... like Ducktales...

So for a good contest... which is the better show: Ducktales or Dave the Barbarian (both are shows from Disney. Dave the Barbarian is on Disney's Toon channel, and maybe on the regular Disney channel too). And how can I forget the TV show of Aladdin. I have fond memories of that... now why is it that those shows seem much better? Is it me, or were they really better?

Food for thought!

~Otaku-Man