So I was watching Family Guy last night on advlt Swim (Cartoon Network) and fell asleep with the TV on. I woke up this morning to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSLv4fxUm-o This got me thinking about all the other shows that come on Cartoon Network and other channels meant for young viewers. I've noticed that new programs have become increasingly outlandish and odd to say the least. Such as programs like "Chowder", "Adventure Time", "Team Oomizumi", and other shows that just seem very 'out there'.

When I was of that age back in the 90's and early 2000's we had stuff like "Rocket Power", "Hey Arnold", and "Chip and Dale". I remember when I was real little all I would watch was "Winnie the Pooh", "Rugrats.", "Tom and Jerry", and "The Flintstones".

I just find the way children's television programs have progressed to be very odd. I know if I ever have a kid they wont be watching any of this stuff. Anyone else find new-age children's programs freaky and outlandish?

I thought this was going to be a thread about how kids shows today are crap.Usually that makes me point out that its not targeted for older people and our good old nostalgia kicks in when we think of our shows.However I have to agree with you, most of the shows I remember watching where followed normal people, Hay Arnold, Doug, Ed,Edd n' Eddy.Spongebob might of been the most outlandish one.

I agree. However, there are some older cartoons that are pretty wierd too if you ask me. Remeber Ren and Stimpy?

Don't forget that we also had things like Ren & Stimpy, Rocko's Modern Life, Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, The Angry Beavers, etc. I tended to lean towards stuff like Transformers G1, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spider-Man, Batman: The Animated Series and so on, but the strange shows have always been there.

And those were some of the shows I watched most as a kid.

Shows may be crazy now, but they were pretty outlandish back then as well.

I like to think they've been a large component in me becoming a fairly crazy advlt.

Yes... of course. Everything was normal then... *hides outlandish shows he grew up with* Actually I think the king of them all is the Looney Tunes, there's a reason why they still show it. So even way back then there were outlandish shows. So your just getting old an playing the part op, next it's get off my dam lawn.

My example for an outlandish show for a child. I must have been 8-10 years old and I watched Gundam Wing. Let me as best I can by memory quote some of the dilogue.

Episode 2 Ending scene
Relena: Hero will you come to my birthday party?
*hands him an invite*
*hero takes note, then whispers into her ear*
Hero: I'll kill you
*tears note up*
*freaky music comes on*

Granted this was an anime, but I was still young and remember how weird it was. Turns out the show was amazing (then) and got me introduced into anime beyond Dragon Ball Z. You just have to remember better, but there were tons of weird shows. A lot of them western animation too.

They only aired on the channels that we didn't have.

It's a shame we don't make more of our TV these days. when I was watching kids' TV, they made 90% of it here and imported the other 10%. Now it's the other way around, and most of what they import is utter crap. There are some gems, but for my part I'm glad I spent my childhood watching 90s TV.


I could never enjoy those shows you lot are talking about, they were so outlandish they made no sense to me, and their lack of reference to real life just gave me headaches.

Anyone see Operah's last episode?

Was not expecting the http://gapersblock.com/merge/Oprahs-Bees.gif

Indeed. I loved the 90s, whereas in the 90s even I could see that most shows were pretty much, okay, obviously dumb. Some people only got that in hindsight these days.

We're not crazy. We're creative, open-minded and antiauthro... authraotory... against people commanding us around. ^_^

I don't find it freaky and outlandish at all. I find it boring and soulless.

Children's TV has been so thrown-through-the-gauntlet of political correctness and scrutiny of the government-must-parent-my-kids-for-me contemporary attitude, I don't expect my kids to be able to turn on a TV and see, for example, the same Looney Tunes I grew up with Yosemite Sam or Wile E. Coyote and their extensive arsenal of weapons used toward other toons -- things that had character. Family Guy is TV-14 but I don't see a problem at all with a very young child (particularly my own) watching this if it appeals to them and they can handle it.

As a rule, though, I'm not very fond of TV programming in general nowadays, not just pertaining to children's programming but to news especially, then virtually everything else.

I love adventure time! Same with Flapjack, two awesome shows.

This thread is making me nostalgia hard.

Same here. Grew up on PPG, Samurai Jack, Courage, Flintstones, Tom n Jerry, Looney Tunes and I look at most of the new cartoons and ask myself "How do kids WATCH this crap?" They just don't make good cartoons all to often anymore.

I don't really get it...I was watching "The Regular Show" and it looked like the creators were taking some seriously hard drugs when making it. I checked out all the other shows and it looked like the same thing. I'll stick with Batman: The Animated Series thank you

When I was really small, I used to watch the Disney channel and whatever they showed (mostly spin-offs from films, like The Little Mermaid. Don't ask.) and Power Rangers. Later on, I started watching a lot of the Western cartoons like Ed Edd & Eddy, Rocket Power, and whatever else was on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, but my true favorite shows were animes that came on "Toonami" at around 5 PM on CN. Dragonball Z, Gundam Wing, now that's what I'm talking about! Then of cours Fox Kids had Pokemon and Digimon which were also up there. . . Wow, I can't believe I remember all this stuff.

I actually think chowder, adventure time, and those ones to be the ones that are barely tolerable. most of what they show now are cliche and look worse than some power point animations that I have done. I miss the good old day of hand drawn animation, it gave them more time to do better writting.

I bloody hate this saying. It's a really huge insult to human creativity.

Theres alot of things I miss they don't do well anymore. Well planned cartoons, movies that weren't just "LOOK, EXPLOSIONS, AWESOME!" and fanservicing characters(movies where every woman that talks is half naked and can snap your neck with her thighs.), and actually told good stories with likeable characters, games that were actually playtested and bugfixed properly before going 'gold' because they didn't have the excuse of "lol we can update latorz." and were actually completed instead of the devs going in and saying "Lawlz we can get moar monies." and releasing the game in segments in the guise of DLC, where music was enjoyable and not all about drugs, six and mass murder.

/endrant

If anyone needs me, i'll be working on a time machine. I'm going back to the 1990's.

That's what I'm getting at. However not in the negative way that they're idiots or anything but more as the very abstract ideas and things they use to express themselves kinda give the feeling that they're in an alternate reality.

I mean yeah things like Angry Beavers and Rocko's Modern Life were out there but compared to some of the stuff that comes on now it's nowhere near as odd.

EDIT:



I agree entirely.

I don't know...crazy shwos ahve always been there. It's good for young people

My favourite shows were mostly from Cartoon Network like Courage, Samurai Jack, Dexter's Lab, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Tom & Jerry, Looney Tunes...I also loved DBZ (and GT, never payed much attention to DB though :shrug: ), Pokemon and Digimon. Much more I'm sure but I can't remember them right now

Same here.

I enjoy the "odd" cartoons that are on the Cartoon Network. I remember back when I was a littlun that I preferred fantasy and Sci-Fi type things like Dr. Who, Samurai Jack, X-Files, and Ren and Stimpy over things like Rugrats and Hey Arnold!. I think it was because older cartoons that the OP mentioned were more realistic in setting and story. I watch television to "Escape reality" if that makes any sense.

Cartoons follow trends as much as anything else. When one thing becomes popular, everything copies it. Sometimes "sitcom" shows like The Flintstones are popular, sometimes gross-out humor like Ren and Stimpy, sometimes villain-of-the-week action shows like TMNT. Currently, it seems that random/weird is popular. 99% of everything is crap, but whatever trend a show is following does not determine whether it's good or not. There are shining and awful examples of each; just because the situation is weird and confusing doesn't mean a quality joke can't be told in the middle of it. Nostalgic bias just tends to make people look fondly at an older type and shun a newer type, rather than properly judge them on an individual basis.

I remember when there was no Cartoon Network. We had to catch toons on the regular stations. Scooby Doo: Where are you?, Looney Toons, Robotech, The Superfriends, Thundercats, Silverhawks, Battle of the Planets. Those were what I mainly watched. Plus on Saturdays, there were the Smurfs, QBert, more Looney Toons, Dungeons and Dragons, Thundar the Barbarian. Good stuff.