Saturday morning cartoons started out as a clever marketing ploy, no doubt, but they're now apart of everyday life. Who can forget ploping down in front of the TV at 7 in the morning to catch your favorite cartoons when you were a kid?
Unfortunately, it seems that the golden age of TV cartoons is winding down. I mean, most of the awesome and creative cartoons on cable! However, for those of us who don't have it, many of the cartoons are down right garbage. Today, the national networks seem to be just spewing out re-runs, or creating new shows with low animation quality. I have no quarrel with the adaptation of many anime styles, such as the wide-eyed emotions, they help enhance certain scenes, however, it seems that the networks are driving down the budget and the studios are forced to create extremely low quality shows. The general feel is that shows today sell by the amount of fighting/explosions they have, or are based on a high-demand toy product line. Case in point, Rescue Heroes: GRT, based on a Tonka product line featuring the characters doing all sorts of rescues around the world. Lots of explosions and a really wooden, and reusable plot.
This is not to say that there are not good cartoons out there, Lloyd in Space is a good show, and so is Recess. Still, whatever happen to the shows not 10 years ago? Ducktales, Darkwing Duck, Life with Louie, Freakazoid, Earthworm Jim, Tiny Toon Adventures, and Animaniacs, shows only found on cable now, could this be some horrible conspiracy?
Truly Bad Cartoons
- Teamo Supremo -- An obvious rip off of the Powerpuff Girls, but much lower quality writing (Network: ABC).
- Pokemon (Any series) -- Kids' WB! is milking the Pokemon series for all its worth.
- Power Rangers (Any series) -- The show everyone loves to hate it's been on for nearly 7 years in at least 5 different incarnations. (ABC)
National Networks No Longer Airing Toons
- Fox Kids -- Weekday line-up has been disbanded...the end is near (Probably due to the purchase of Saban Entertanment by Disney in 2000).
- CBS -- Just Nick Jr.
- NBC -- Nearly a decade without toons.