[Fudgepuppy]

Tried to rewatch Spider-Man a couple of years ago, just wasn't possible.

[maxxpower]

I can still watch Captain Tsubasa as a grown-ass adult and I still enjoy it, same with Ranma.

[TAJ]

The only show that I'm embarrassed to have liked is Thundercats. I couldn't make it through an episode now if I had money riding on it.

[Timbuktu]

[GillianSeed79]

Thundarr The Barbarian. Come to think of it any Hanna-Barbara cartoon series from the 80s where the animation budget was about eight bucks an episode.

[CorvoSol]

OP nailed it. I've realized that action cartoons tend to age horribly (Batman: TAS being the lone exception as far as American offerings go), but the comedies I loved as a kid I still love now (Looney Tunes, Rocko's Modern Life, Doug, Dexter's Lab, etc)

Batman Beyond has held up pretty damn well, I think. And the dated bits only make it funnier. Like the part where Max and Terry are doing history homework, and he's asking her who Clinton was, and she's like, "Wasn't he the bad one?" and he's all, "No, the one AFTER Clinton was the bad one." Or when they mention the near-Apocalipse of '09 or something.

By now I was expecting it to be terrible, but a viewing of the Shout! DVD set confirmed...M.A.SK. is awful. But here's the three-minute full theme song complete with second verse. Old cartoons that are not crap upon watching as an adult include: Beast Wars Exo-Squad Batman: TAS Justice League Superman (Really just all the Dini/Timm DC stuff) Tiny Toons Animaniacs The Tick The Real Ghostbusters Certain parts of Robotech

I was worried it might have turned out sucky.

I absolutely loved Scooby Doo. That show was pretty dumb in hindsight, but I guess it's ok.

Mysteries Inc was/is pretty good.

Most stinky one of all: Thanks for making Link a gigantic tool DiC(s). TMNT episodes are mostly grating, but they are also sometimes peppered with genuinely funny forth-wall humor. At about season 7 they really started churning out some memorable episodes.

Was the Zelda one that bad? I loved it as a kid. Certainly better than CDi Link.

[Anth0ny]

Man, just rewatching Spider-Man is depressing. Less frames of animation than a GIF Horribad 3D No emotion or substance to any of the stories Lip synching? What's that? Worst VA ever Lame crossovers and "epic" events with no logic or consequence Lemme just bang on the brass keys on this synthesizer BOOM soundtrack

Yup. Spiderman is pretty hard to watch.

I'm still okay with X-Men, though.

[DukeTogo1300]

Was the Zelda one that bad? I loved it as a kid. Certainly better than CDi Link.

Yes it was.

[zoukka]

They were shows for kids. I doubt their creators considered how they'd hold up to twenty-something message board users' scrutiny.

They don't have to think like that. You can do intelligent kids shows too, nowadays people have just forgotten such things even existed.

[Seven Force]

Spider man TAS's voice acting is so bad, it somehow loops around back to awesome for me.

[legend166]

Transformers.

Watching this as an adult was an eye opening experience. Everything about the show other than the concept itself was painful.

At least I can still enjoy the original animated film on a nostalgic level. I can't do the same with the cartoon.

[UberTag]

Anyone that says Darkwing Duck needs to be punched.

All of the Disney Afternoon classic shows were great and NOT shit.

Well, okay... I take that back. Some of them were shit. Late seasons of DuckTales, Gummi Bears and Gargoyles (think the SatAM run) were all crap. Bonkers! was never good.

But everything else was gold.

Transformers. Watching this as an adult was an eye opening experience. Everything about the show other than the concept itself was painful. At least I can still enjoy the original animated film on a nostalgic level. I can't do the same with the cartoon.

Sadly I agree with this one. And I grew up as a passionate Transformers fan. Collected countless of 'em. Even saw the movie in theaters the weekend it premiered and shed a tear when Optimus Prime died.
The movie is still fine, though. The show is garbage. The Michael Bay flicks are garbage.

And nothing tops Beast Wars as far as animated Transformers goes. It's really good.

[Fari]

[Fritz]

That's one of the view that is holding up well imo.


Anything Filmation is really bad:

• He-Man
• She-Ra
• Ghostbusters

Still love them for nostalgia reasons and for the 80s-ness.

[Triton55]

Fairly Odd Parents is probably still funny in some ways, but I don't think I could stand the really annoying voices and lame early 2000s pop culture references anymore.

[Satch]

have any of you guys watched street sharks lately

it used to be so good and now it is just wretched


mummies alive! is still good though

[TacticalFox88]

The worst part of the Spiderman cartoon was the godawful soundtrack. Ugh.

[DiscoShark]

Cubix.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PJsIqdqMQA
Yup.

Can't say I've rewatched Kablam to tell whether or not its held up today ... I remember it fondly though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGEHR4c3GJE

[Eusis]

They were shows for kids. I doubt their creators considered how they'd hold up to twenty-something message board users' scrutiny.

I think that's more the kind of point to use when people are slamming some new kids cartoon, here it's interesting to look back and see just how bad some of this stuff we loved/liked really was, and what defied the trend and actually remained good. Fond as I am of 80s animation next to none of the cartoons from then really held up, I have to go to anime for as a substitute for the nostalgia fix. 90s cartoons seemed to fare better though, it almost seems like for every Spiderman there's a Batman, even if the reality's more like 10% aged well.

I found it as an adult, and I regret having found it. It felt so epic as a kid.

Yeah, some of that stuff that's poignant as a kid really isn't as an adult... though after an episode of the classic Astroboy on Adult Swim awhile back I wouldn't mind watching more sometime just for how ridiculous it got, IE booze gas.

[RiderKairuu]

I... liked Garfield & Friends when I was around 7 years old. *ashamed*

I'm guilty of this too. I know that feel.

For me it was the Sonic cartoons. All of them.

[Affeinvasion]

Spider man TAS's voice acting is so bad, it somehow loops around back to awesome for me.

This is me 100%. I love spider-man more now than I did when I was a kid. I think the only one I can think of that I loved the shit out of that I couldn't tolerate today is Thundercats.

[SirChained]

Barely made it through the first episode. Like meeting an old friend and realizing they're dying of cancer

That's terrible. GTFO

[Lissar]

Noooo not Sonic SatAM!


Anyway, Jem. The whole premise makes my brain melt. But you know, pink and sparkles.

[Randdalf]

Yu-Gi-Oh! I don't like to admit that it's shit though, but... :/

This. But let's face it, it was immensely enjoyable and had an amazing theme song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp0W3LyUX0k

[EchosMyron1]

I was worried it might have turned out sucky.

Animaniacs is aight, but watching it sometimes it just feels like an imitation of the genuine article. Tiny-Toons as well, they always just make me rather watch old classic Warner Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.

I watched a lot of Hey Arnold when I was younger, tried to get some episodes going on netflix the other day, can't watch it. It's just so dull. Angry Beavers is still great though, watching that show recently really highlights how heavily it seems to have inspired Regular Show.

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

I can't wait till the 'Cartoons that hold up well' thread, a lot of the British animation I grew up with still has a real charm to it, stuff like Paddington Bear.

[Gustav]

Probably all of them except the Peanuts.

[Forceatowulf]

Digimon. I fucking loved that show as a kid. LOVED. IT. I tried a re-watch a few years ago and.. man, I just couldn't go on any more after12 episodes. I just couldn't do it...

I did a re-watch of DBZ and Pokemon a few years ago too.. they were surprisingly still pretty ok to me. heh

[Lord British]

Just some scattered thoughts. This is a bit of a hot button for me, so I apologise in advance if I seem rude or unfocused. This isn't aimed at anyone in this thread in particular.

I've no truck with this "kids are dumb" line of thinking. Kids are incredibly discerning, harsh critics.

So something you liked as a kid seems juvenile through the lens of adulthood. Well, how 'bout that shit. Your tastes are going to change. It's an intrinsic part of, well, growing up. There's no need to dismiss an aspect of your development, to retroactively apologise for being a kid, liking things for kids. It's absurd.

I've moved on, to a point. I have difficulty enjoying Western children's shows anymore, not so much due to their writing or overall quality. It's more of a tonal thing. I watch more anime these days than Western shows (can of worms, I know, and probably seems hypocritical but to go into more detail would derail the thread), but I have still recently enjoyed a small handful of Western shows that are ostensibly for children. Regular Show is frequently gut-bustingly funny and wonderfully dynamic. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends held a lot of appeal for about a season or so.

Oddly enough, Animaniacs is a show I loved as a kid but find singularly irritating now. It just seems so try-hard and grating to me. It's obviously good stuff - so, so many people being fond of a thing is usually a good sign of this - but I'm just not in tune with it any more.

[Anteater]

Dragon ball Z, kind of, I read and liked the manga but I've always thought 80% of the show sucks thanks to the fillers, I watch it because I wanted to see the cool scenes in motion.

Captain Tsubasa too, they spend like an entire episode just running across the endless soccer field.

[Despera]

Just a week or so ago I got in an argument with a friend of mine over this.

I casually told him that I sometimes laugh at stuff I used to like as a kid, thank goodness our tastes mature as we grow older.

He told me that was a stupid thing to say. That there is no such thing as taste becoming more "mature" and whatever we thought was good back then is still good regardless of what we think of it today.

He was so convinced of his logic. I decided to drop the argument.

[SpacePirate Ridley]

I thought this thread was going to be about really terrible cartoons that you could like a little as a kid, not people shitting in 80's and begin of the 90's cartoon history.

You know what is bad? 90% of cartoons in our days, that is fucking bad. They treat kids as fucking idiots and thats the worst thing to do. Even if the majority of the 80's cartoons are really campy they are a thousand times better that when animation take a quality hit during the last years of the 90's (the 2000`s era being the worst) and going in a downwards spiral with some great things here and there (that are usually the ones that took the good things that made great 80's cartoons to make a modern cartoon and that dont treat kids like idiots)

[Shard]

I would argue that Spiderman: The Animated Series is better then it had any right to be, in spite of all of its flaws. Sonic: Sat AM is likewise above and beyond what would be expected from a cartoon about Sonic.

[truly101]

I think 90's Spider-Man is pretty good for a cartoon. Its pretty dialed into the Marvel mythology. Now Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends? ugghh. My daughter loves that show, but she's 4

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

Dragon ball Z, kind of, I read and liked the manga but I've always thought 80% of the show sucks thanks to the fillers, I watch it because I wanted to see the cool scenes in motion. Captain Tsubasa too, they spend like an entire episode just running across the endless soccer field.

The older I get the more I like the DB manga over everything else (even though I came to it last), the cute comedy mixed with a musical arts adventure around the lands is far more interesting then the ever escalating series of battles DBZ became.

[Einchy]

Also Digimon in all its incarnations. Jesus fuck are those shows hard to watch. Like looking back on your childhood and realizing you were frequently molested. So awful

Hahaha, NO

[Rentahamster]

Animaniacs is still gold.

[Ivan A Nguyen]

I tried to watch TMNT again and found the fight scenes to be lacking, and that was the only thing the show had going for it.


Spiderman is still good. The stories were great, the action was good, and the arcs were massive. If you don't like this show any more than you've forgotten the face of your father.

[truly101]

I love rewatching these old cartoons I loved as a kid on netflix. Never noticed how plagiarizingly similar the first season of Robotech-Macross Series was to the first season of Star Blazers (Space Cruiser Yamato). Its the same fucking story, only some of the minor details are different.


Also now when I see this




I now see this

[DMeisterJ]

I always had pretty good taste as a kid.

Doug, Recess, Pepper Ann, Rocko's Modern Life, Beast Wars, and Tom & Jerry were my flavors of choice, and they were all, and are still amazing, and if you think they aren't, I don't care.

[Sadsic]

I think I both grew up in a pretty good age for animation and had pretty good taste, so I think most of the cartoons I watched as a kid are still good:

Tiny Toons
Animaniacs
Freakazoid
The Tick
Johnny Bravo
Dexter's Lab
Powerpuff Girls
Ed, Edd, n Eddy
Cow & Chicken
Hey Arnold
Rugrats
Ren & Stimpy
Angry Beavers

However, I would throw all the anime I watched as a kid under a bus. Boo shounen

[Messofanego]

Captain Planet


Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs
Great intro song



I haven't seen it in so many years, but I doubt it holds up. I used to love it, got really sad with that one episode about the red Japanese guy and the car accident, where he had to recover mentally and stuff. Does it hold up?

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

I tried to watch TMNT again and found the fight scenes to be lacking, and that was the only thing the show had going for it.

Wrong on every level... every level.

[Alrus]

Hahaha, NO

The second season of Digimon Adventure was dreadful...

[Sir_Crocodile]

MASK is really bad, only the theme tune is any good. Some of the early Transformers(pre rodimus) can be pretty tough going too.

Most of the cartoons I really loved as a kid - Thundercats, Visionaries, Prince Valiant, dungeons & dragons - still stack up very well today.

[ElectricBlue187]

They were shows for kids. I doubt their creators considered how they'd hold up to twenty-something message board users' scrutiny.

This is not a good argument for anything. There were lots of shows that DO hold up today.

[Avixph]

Wrong on every level... every level.

No he/she is right that show is crap, the 2003 version is better.

[Ivan A Nguyen]

Wrong on every level... every level.

The 2003 series brought it back and had amazing fighting. Not on the level of Spectacular Spiderman but still it was really good. The 90's cartoon? They were dancing around lasers shot by storm troopers with their helmets on backwards.

[sixteen-bit]

Gundam Wing doesn't really hold up well. Amazing soundtrack though.

[truly101]

This is not a good argument for anything. There were lots of shows that DO hold up today.

Eh, maybe. It depends if you still get the context in which they were written. You find out real quick as a parent which old cartoons hold up at least in terms of entertainment and others that make you feel like your brain is melting.