A golden age of TV animation?

[lhb412]

I've seen a lot of bemoaning the current state of TV cartoons across the internet, largely from superhero fans disappointed with the Marvel shows and even more disappointing with CN cancelling shows based on DC comics. Those criticisms are valid, but I have to say that when you take a look at TV animation as a whole right now I get a very different picture. In fact, this is the best time for American television cartoons since... well, I can't remember them ever being this interesting across the board.

Cartoon Network may be a graveyard of action cartoons, but they're also the purveyors of Adventure Time (imo, one of the best animated TV series in the history of American television), Regular Show, and Steven Universe.

CN's adult swim has brought back Toonami, bringing anime back to US television in a big way after several years of drought.

Disney has the brilliant Gravity Falls and the new McCracken show, Wander Over Yonder. They also have Phineas and Ferb, which doesn't shine quite as brightly as it used to (it was the best animated show on TV, bar none, for many years) but is still respectable.

Buried amongst their successful (and, to me, not really interesting) MacFarland shows on Fox is the best prime-time network cartoon since the early Simpsons: Bobs Burgers, which has quietly become a long running show (and I think adult swim's reruns will help the show reach more and more viewers).

Archer has continued to 'out-adult swim' adult swim (except when a new Venture Bros. season is out) on the FX network.

CN may cancel their promising action cartoons, and Disney's Marvel offerings may be on the weak side, but Nick brings up the action end with Korra and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

There are a lot of great cartoons on the air, and there are a lot of not-so-great ones. There's just a lot of animation on, period. Maybe the most there has ever been.

[Legion]

With the exception of American Dad, I can't stand any current television cartoons. I distance myself from all of that crap. I detest the modern design aesthetic every single show has now and I don't understand the appeal of nonsense like Adventure Time, Gumball, Regular Show or Gravity Falls. Stopped watching South Park and Simpsons years ago, while Family Guy has also gotten pretty terrible. For me, the golden age of TV animation will always be the '90s.

[Shin_Edda_Robo!!!!!]

It's quite simple.

You're feeling old (._. )

I'm actually content with most of the shows on this list, save for Wander Over Yonder.

Some of the stuff I thought I liked I don't like any more though going back 10 years or more.

Some things remain favorites. I would say a lot of 90s shows have that staying power.

[lhb412]

[O.Supreme]

[lhb412]

[jellydonut25]

I really don't watch any.

I mean, South Park is still fairly strong, but I just watch it on SouthParkStudios whenever I have an extraordinarily slow day at work.

I don't watch any of the Fox stuff regularly. The Simpsons is ATROCIOUS (and as a one-time absolute Simpsons DIE-HARD who did actually really like The Movie, that's not easy for me to say), Family Guy is decent but has ceased to be must-watch, American Dad is the same as Family Guy (in terms of my criticism of said show...good but not must-see-TV), never watched any Bob's Burgers.

Comedy Central has to date yet to put out a decent animated show beyond South Park. Their run of Futurama was pretty blah, and everything original they've tried to roll out (Ugly Americans and Brickleberry are the only ones that spring to mind) has been bad.

I haven't watched anything on Adult Swim in YEARS. ATHF stopped holding my interest much, Venture Bros.'s seasons are far too infrequently paced for me to pay much attention (I always just end up marathoning it every few years), and the amount of pure hot garbage they air is just insufferable.

As for stuff like Adventure Time, My Little Brony, Regular Show, Phineas and Ferb or basically anything else that's geared towards kids but for some reason leagues of adults like...I don't get the appeal. AT. ALL.

The only cartoon I pay attention to is Archer. It is one of the two or three funniest shows on TV period. New season starts tonight!

[lhb412]

[jellydonut25]

I've seen a couple episodes of Adventure Time...I couldn't have told you that there was anything resembling real relationships to those characters. It just seemed like a bunch of random-ass crap for the low-attention-span generation.

The animation is certainly a massive step-up from stuff like the new Turtles thing or any of the other myriad of awful-CGI-animated garbage, I'll give it that much.

[lhb412]

[MekaGojira3k]

Ice King starts out as a video game villain and ultimately ends up as a proxy for someone dealing with degenerative memory loss. It's why he's my favorite character.

[Shin_Edda_Robo!!!!!]

>ITT
>Old Folk Pining For The Old Days.

Today's Adventure Time pretty much cemented that Princess Bubblegum is slowly going down the road of villainy. Lawful Evil type villainy, and sugar coated for metaphorical and literal reasons. Pretty sharp if you ask me.

[lhb412]

I was a big Ninja Turtles fan as a kid, and I am straight up jealous of the kids of today because their Ninja Turtles cartoon is so much better.

[MekaGojira3k]

[O.Supreme]

[lhb412]

^I'm sure the future adults will remember their cartoons and complain that the cartoons their kids are watching aren't as good. It's the circle of freakin' life.


... naturally, those kids in the '30s, '40s, and '50s technically had the best cartoons with the golden age of theatrical animation, but, you know, there was some other pretty stressful stuff going on at that time, so I suppose that was seen as a momentary relief more than a cornucopia of riches.

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

[Henry88]

You know all the times I've watched Spiderman the animated series when I was a kid I never once bought a toy from that series.

[lhb412]

^I had Happy Meal toys! I think getting that plastic Spider-Man was the first time I knew about the character.

To be honest, the only toys I really made a point to get were Ninja Turtles (when I was younger), Godzilla stuff once Trendmasters started doing them, and lots of plastic dinosaurs. There was the odd outlier, plus the toys I inherited from my big brother (He-Man, GI Joe, and professional wrestling stuff).

[MekaGojira3k]

[Russzilla]

Plain and simple, the best time for animation period was in the 60s, 70s, early 80s (for Saturday morning cartoons and some cool syndicated cartoons, mainly animes and classic 60s shows) and mid 80s to probably early 2000s (for the syndicated cartoons that started to take over) I've been watching cartoons for 40 years now and this has to be the most down time for animated TV programming I have ever seen. For the first time ever, I am not watching any regularly animated TV series on any network. And that's sad my friends.

[lhb412]

^The best cartoons of the '70s were the reruns of stuff from the '60s (and earlier)!

[Russzilla]

[lhb412]

I think the best Saturday morning stuff in the '70s (that wasn't a rerun of older material) was live action stuff. Sid and Marty Kroft productions and the like.