Cartoons Today vs Cartoons Back Then

I feel that today's cartoons are way more attentive of what they show - and this applies to all children's media nowadays. You see in older cartoons, some racial/sexual/political hidden messages appear, which in newer ones would never be seen. They also seem to reference pop culture much less (which is ironic since pop culture has grown a lot more in the past 15 years especially with the growing use of the internet).

I watch Spongebob Squarepants literally everyday when I'm eating since my 5-year-old brother always demands to watch it. It's not a bad show - I loved it as a kid and still do now. The channel airs both the older and new episodes. Maybe it's just me, but I also noticed that the jokes in the older episodes are much more subtle and the ones in the newer episodes are predictable/overused/cheesier. It may be my nostalgia acting up, though.

The thing about the cartoons I see today is that they seem to appeal to a shorter attention span or something. They're just super in your face and it's sorta hard to follow how fast it moves man, least for me. Cartoons back in the day had a huge demographic; they had an obvious appeal to kids but also had subtle adult humor that I don't see in today's cartoons. Case in point.

They are trying. A lot of the cartoons these days are done by people who grew up on the same stuff we did, there are also a lot less stigmas that you couldn't get away with just 10 years ago. Watching cartoons with my kid now, I do find that they're trying to do the innuendo and sneaky adult jokes they snuck in with 90's cartoons that go over kid's heads. The early 2000's hit a big snag with campy crap and being overly cautious, but I think kids cartoons are becoming fun again. They throw adults a bone now and again.

Cartoons hit their stride in the late 90s/early 2000s, in my opinion. The thing about cartoons back then was that they catered to both adults and children. Stuff like the dry humour in Taz, Freakazoid and Pinky and the Brain - to name but three - went straight over my head, but I could still watch them and get a laugh out of them as a kid...and now that I'm older, I appreciate the humour in them. You even get that kind of thing out of older cartoons like Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry. It has no real target audience, which is awesome.

These days the two things seem to be mutually exclusive in most quarters: you either have a cartoon that is clearly only going to appeal to kids, or one that is stuffed to the brim with dated innuendo and "subtle" jokes that would prompt ugly canned laughter in a live action sitcom. You get exceptions to the rule, yes, but not many.

Then you've got the remakes. Gods. It wouldn't be so bad if this crap was original - I actually really enjoyed Ben 10: Alien Force, even if the original series and the one that followed it were both horrific to me - but they remake so many older cartoons and utterly butcher them. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Thundercats. Biker Mice From Mars. The only good one I've seen was the 2002 He-Man remake, and they cut that short by a season. I get that they're bringing it to a younger generation, but things like that are inevitably going to be aimed at the older generation who can remember the original as well - especially when they're direct sequels to the original series, as Biker Mice was - and the least they could do would be to do them properly.

Even superhero cartoons have started to drop noticeably in quality. Batman: The Brave and the Bold was like something straight out of the 90s - it was a great action show packed with a ridiculous number of references and snarky humour clearly aimed at older viewers - but the Marvel cartoons these days are a far cry from their previous 90s cartoon universe. About the only thing that has improved is the quality of the animation.

Sure, I'm not the primary target audience for cartoons anymore, which might be why I don't enjoy the newer ones as much. But when I see so many recycled ideas, it's hard not to get sick of it, and when I re-watch what I used to watch and see so many things aimed at adults that I missed as a kid, it annoys me that modern cartoons can't do the same sometimes. As I said, there are exceptions to the rule. But good luck finding the damn things.

I can't see how cartoons could get any worse than they are today. Wait, I take that back. They could totally get worse. But I'll not be watching them when/if that happens. Cartoons today definitely aren't as good as they were back in the mid/late 90's and early/mid 00's. But there's parents now who will freak out and start a petition to have something taken down for any odd reason, so cartoons are having a harder and harder time making content that appeals to more than just preteen/early teen kids. I'd like to see a show like Billy and Mandy or Courage the Cowardly dog constantly air all of it's episodes today and see how long it could actually last before parents started losing their shit.

Cartoons will never be what they used to be.

You know, most of you guys have been saying how cartoons are as good as they are in the mid/late 90's and early/mid 00's, but have you ever considered what your parents and grandparents think of those cartoons? Perhaps the same reason why newer cartoons aren't appealing to you compared to the cartoons you grew up with. Most 80's cartoons suffered from plot holes and negative continuity, making their modern reboots (TMNT, He-Man, and Thundercats) look better in comparison for taking the plot and logic more seriously. This is why the term "90's kid" exists as a way to poke fun of people like them. I will say though, political correctness ruins everything it touches, and cartoons are no exception.

If there's one thing I can guarantee, it's that "back then" - whenever "back then" is, OP doesn't specify - there were people thinking the same about whatever cartoons were airing at the time. There's always this unspoken rule amongst some people, especially on the Internet, that whatever's happening in present-day entertainment will never compare to whatever was happening ten years go. This especially applies to children's entertainment, which we watch at an age where we don't really determine if it's good or not, and is a lot easier to idealize as time goes on. There have been a lot of great cartoons that have aired in the last few years that could stand up to most of what was coming out in the '90s/early-'00s (many of which have either aged horribly or were never that good in the first place). Let go of the nostalgia and give them a fair chance. I'd recommend starting with Disney's Gravity Falls. One of the greatest cartoon shows I've ever seen.

I feel like cartoons of what people call "the 90s" (aka like 1985-2004) were generally pretty great, yeah, but there was a lot of crap on that people forget about I'm sure. We're kind of comparing the highlight reel of that era to the entirety of what we've been looking at since then. And I wonder honestly how many people who praise that era of cartoons have actually gone back and watched them recently? In a critical way, to see how they hold up. I've been doing that recently.

Code Lyoko's kinda slow but still good. Sailor Moon takes for flippin ever to get going. Hey Arnold and Teen Titians are fantastic. The Proud Family, Kim Possible, and Jake Long were wonderful. The Jimmy Neutron movie was great, but the animated series was hit or miss. Billy and Mandy, Doug, Pepper Ann, Recess, Dexter's Lab, PPG, and Ed, Edd n Eddy are fine but lack a decent amount of plot to keep people invested. A lot of them were like that; made for being self-contained episodes that eventually just got repetitive.

Seriously, I loved that era of cartoons. I will absolutely go watch Boomerang for eight hours and enjoy it (wait, is that still around?). And there's no doubt there was a bit of a cartoon crash around 2006-ish. Like about when regular network TV stopped really having Saturday Morning Cartoon programming. There were a few gems in the in-between times, like the first two Total Drama series, Avatar, Danny Phantom, you know. But I think great cartoons are making a comeback now! Legend of Korra, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe! Over The Garden Wall! LoliRock is looking promising, as is Star VS The Forces of Evil.

Thing is, they're story shows! The ones I'm becoming invested in. And when I look back into my Cartoon Golden Era lists, there's a very similar amount of story shows that I enjoyed! So maybe it's not that there're less great cartoons now. Maybe it's that we enjoy a more select group of them.

Speaking of Hey Arnold!:
http://youtu.be/bdMiJ60KKHY

To be honest, I don't think cartoons became worst than before. You may say I don't know about good cartoons because I'm a 13 year old, but I do watch old cartoons too.

For sure, there are some cartoons that have gotten worst by time, but there are other cartoons which have either gotten better or are just as good.

Take pokemon for an example, I think that it became better. Sure, there are some people who don't like the new episodes, but there are other people who do like them. Maybe it's the older people who are so used to old cartoons they just don't like new cartoons.

I'm a bit on the fence about this. I do prefer the 90's cartoons more, but I also like Adventure Time too... and I really wouldn't mind watching Steven Universe either. I also like other stuff from this era such as Doc McStuffins and Sofia the First (lol don't judge me. I just think they are cute. ;w;). So, it's really hard to say for me. I do think a lot of shows were better back in the day but... I don't know.

In all honesty, I don't really watch cartoons or anything much these days. :x Also, I think most 'cartoons' are being considered more computer-animated ones. The era of actual cartoons is starting to slowly die out now. Most networks that show them are starting to either show live action shows or computer-animated ones. I think Cartoon Network and Discovery Family are really the only two I can think of that still show actual cartoons. Nick does since it has Fairly Odd Parents and Spongebob, and I also forgot about Boomerang too. However, Boomerang has a more of a nostalgic kick than showing too many new things, even with their new reboot.

I don't find any of my cartoons offensive, even back then. Most likely because I'm usually the last to catch on to anything considered offensive in the first place. I do get weirded out by Arnold's grandfather's shape though. I'll put the reason why under a spoiler so that people don't get offended by this just in case...



I actually kind of find that one funny, rather than offensive though. XD