Amph Boy and I thought 80s cartoons were bad.

http://megpoulinindeed.com/2014/03/28/disney-is-ruining-my-kid/

At least in the eighties our parents let the cartoons rule our time. Most of them allowed us to get some sort of lesson out of it. Now it seems screw the lessons just sell the damn advertising. Who cares if it is teaching children to be spoiled selfish brats. Of course usually that's the job of the parent to create a spoiled brat. But now Disney is doing it for them. And of course the parents don't even know it.
Now I almost want to not believe this cause I am not a parent. and wouldn't think after all the concerns our parents had with 80s cartoons Disney wouldn't teach our kids that selfishness is cool and popular. I would assume good children's programming including tween programming includes life lessons. But apparently no screw it. Disney has let parents believe they have good programing. That is not the case. Makes 80s cartoons look pretty good. And knowing is half the battle.

 

changed it bro.

 

At least the eighties had toys and cereal for us to demand. Now it seems screw all of it, just give the kids their iphones and ipads or else.

 

Hey, the '80s cartoons helped increase my imagination, and I actually *GASP*, learned things from them! To this day, I remember the G.I. Joe PSA where Roadblock tells some kids to stay away from downed power lines, mostly because of his comment about having enough juice to roast an elephant. I remember first learning about DNA from the storyline where Cobra creates Serpentor.

 

And learning about DNA taught you to not play with dna mutating ray guns.

 

Yes, 80's cartoons never reinforced ****ty behaviors or social norms.

 

You can't "change" a descending belittling quote cascade. That's not how it works.

 

Boy and I thought 80s cartoons were bad.


Which boy and what's he doing watching 80s cartoons with you? And whaddya mean 80s cartoons were bad? They gave us Snarf, for crying out loud.

Seriously though, those shows discussed on your link are not cartoons- they are 'tween sitcoms. Although poorly done and beyond campy, they are not nearly the degenerate drivel as put forth. This sounds like the ramblings of a mom with a daughter whose behavior can be attributed to so many other things (her friends, social media, the pangs of growing up, even perhaps the mom herself) rather than pointing fingers at Disney of all things. I've seen these shows- all of them- with my kids. There's nothing more harmful in these kiddie sitcoms than the Charles in Charge, Small Wonder, & Saved by the Bell that I grew up with. I've seen plenty of very positive messages from those Disney shows. Some of the characters portray flaws and weaknesses that mom saw, but if she understood the context and actually saw a show to completion (I don't believe she did, despite what she says)- she would have seen where those characters' behavior results in a comeuppance where they get the arm-around-the-shoulder treatment at the end by a supporting character and learn the error of their ways.

 

Prepare your uniform, you've got a lot of work ahead of you.

 

I grew up watching stuff like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that instilled a strong belief that the good guys always win. That's what I learned from it. I also watched stuff like Muppet Babies and Inspector Gadget. Didn't really learn a lot from those.

 

You might be surprised just what your young mind did in fact glean from those shows without even realizing it.

 

80's cartoons were excellent, alexander dumass.

 

damn right.

 

Beezel. No more threads for a week ok?

 

Too late.

 

Okay, here's the deal on cartoons from the 80's; they were on the big three networks and back then, it was mandatory to have education and information in there somewhere. The Parents Television Council was formed way back when and they were not pleased with Warner Brothers cartoons and MGM cartoons being shown on television due to the violence. The networks agreed to try and put informative messages in newer cartoons and even education. ABC was notorious for this with the creation of "School House Rock" and the "Time For Timer" shorts in the 70's and 80's. Cartoons were forced to have strong personal messages, particularly "He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe" with the moral of the story codas. Then as the 90's came around, things began to change. The big three networks began to phase out cartoons in favor of live action programming, either scripted or education. FOX and Cartoon Network became host to classic and original cartoon programming. A lot of the PTC's power was weakened as standards for cable networks is much different from ABC, NBC and CBS. "Batman: The Animated Series", "X-Men", "The Tick", "Tiny Toon Adventures", "Animaniacs" and later cartoons weren't required to include overt, moral messages. They just entertained kids and adults.

In regards to shows like in the article, that kind of humor is the kinds of things kids like. It reflects real life and trying to create an idealized fantasy world isn't going to cut it. The minute children get out into the real world, they're going to learn the hard way that this is life and it isn't pretty. The shows handle things without being preachy, which face it, no one likes being preached to.

 

The one moral that most '80s cartoons had was "the complainer is always wrong, always do what the group does", which is kinda problematic when you really think about it. Garfield and Friends really eviscerated this trope with their Buddy Bears characters, mostly because network execs didn't really care about pushing this moral by that time, and the writer of Garfield and Friends absolutely HATED this trope when writing for Saturday Morning cartoons in the '80s, and really relished taking it out behind the woodshed to put it out of its misery, as it were.

 

p sure he just offered them body massages but w/e

 

Maik, best reference yet.

Also, pretty sure Beezel is the kid in the Pork Chop Sandwiches one.

 

As a kid, I would always root for the villain in all the cartoons and kid's shows, because the leads were always so obnoxious smartasses. And the bad guy never got the chance to whoop that goofy smile off the leads' faces. He never even got close. Naturally, I grew up to become an insufferable pessimist.

 

Sadly, that's also part of the moral messages. It's really interesting to watch the Japanese exclusive "Transformers" series from the late 80's and see the Decepticons win from time to time. Cybertron was destroyed, Ultra Magnus dies, Super Ginrai gets his ass kicked, etc. The moral messages were there, but handled with different care. It's amazing how different cultures are compared to each other, in ways that you wouldn't really give a second thought about.