Today's Cartoons...

[F-14 Ace]

Please note that the following is just my opinion.  I don't particularly care if you agree with my opinion or not.  I'm just stating my dismay at the state of today's cartoons.  Anyway, between that horrible show Chowder and this travisty, I think it is pretty safe to say that most of today's cartoons suck.  Cartoon Network used to be one of the best channels on television and they used to show some of the best cartoons of all time.  Nickelodeon and Disney Channel also had good cartoons at one time.  Those days are over now.  The first thing I want to do is list all those good cartoons I grew up with that are no longer shown where I live.  I can't get Boomerang in my viewing area so I'm stuck with trying to find the DVDs at the video store.

Cartoon Network cartoons:

Batman: The Animates Series
Flintstones
Jetsons
Tom and Jerry
Looney Tunes
Pinky and the Brain
Freakazoid
Tiny Tunes Adventures
Animaniacs
Johnny Quest (both the old series and the 90s one)
Scooby Doo
All the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons
Dexter's Lab
Courage the Cowardly Dog
Johnny Bravo
Most of the shows on Toonami
The list goes on and on.  About the only show I completely hates was Captain Planet.

Disney cartoons:

Gargoyles
Duck Tales
Tailspin
Darkwing Duck
Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers
Goof Troop
Aladdin
Hercules

Nick Toons:
Jimmy Neutron
Rocket Power
Rugrats
Doug
Wild Thornberrys
Spongebob (came out in my early teens but I still watched it)

Saturday Morning cartoons:
Spiderman
X-Men
Hulk
Ironman
Superman
Batman
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Now Cartoon Network shows garbage like:

Chowder

Misadventures of Flapjack

Camp Lazlo

Ben 10

Ben 10 Alien Force

The horrible live action Ben 10 movies that they insist on spewing out

Adventure Time with Finn & Jake (this show hasn't even come out yet and I can already tell it sucks.  Just look at the low quality animation.)

Superhero Squad.  (These guys used to be called The Avengers and they kicked ass.  This is just a lame version dummed down for kiddies.  They made the Hulk a pansy and the villains are jokes!  They've completely raped Dr. Doom and Magneto's characters!)

Out of Jimmy's Head.  (This show was pure bull****.  Aside from being annoying and just plain stupid, it had live action characters in it.  What are live action characters doing on Cartoon Network?  Well the good news is that this show got horrible ratings and was taken off the air.  Good riddance and may it rot in Tartarus for eternity.)

Johnny Test (the title is a knock off of Johnny Quest.  I guess they thought nobody would notice because most kids today probably don't even remember Johnny Quest.  On top of that, this show just sucks.)

Fried Dynamite.  (Was this low quality garbage supposed to replace Cartoon Cartoon Fridays?  That's just... not right.)

Pretty much anything else they've spewed out recently.


Disney now has crap like:

Mighty B

The Buzz on Maggie

Emperor's New School

There are some other crappy cartoons I don't know the titles of but from what I've seen, they're obviously crap.

Nickelodeon isn't as bad as the others.  They don't have any bad shows as far as I know.  They just took off all the good ones except for Spongebob and replaced those time slots with some live action garbage.

Now, why exactly do I think all these shows suck?  Because they each have horrible voice acting, their jokes are lame, the animation is bad, and the characters are irritating and not likable.  Overall just a bunch of low quality junk.

Now here are some recent cartoons that I did like.

Teen Titans
Lilo and Stitch: the Series
American Dragon: Jake Long
Recess
Avatar: The Last Airbender


Now, if I had the power to revive Cartoon Network from it's lowly state, this is what I'd do.  I'd probably cancel all the crappy shows like Chowder and discontinue showing reruns.  They're worthless.  I guess I'd leave Ben 10 on  because it does seem to have a large fan base and even though I didn't like it, I could at least tolerate it.  But the other shows... no way.

Next I'd bring back the big blocks like Looney Tunes, Toonami, and Cartoon Cartoon Fridays because those were the things that made Cartoon Network great in the first place.

[MrDrake]

You hate Chowder? Believe it or not, I enjoy that show.  But yeah, not many good cartoons on lately.

Granted, I do still enjoy SpongeBob, always good for a laugh that one, especially at their stupidity XD

I wish Scooby-Doo was still on, he was awesome, granted, I have enjoyed his new shows like What's New Scooby-Doo? ad others like that, save for Scooby and Shaggy Get a Clue, can't stand that one....voices are....off....

But some of the shows on I do like are Chowder, Ben 10, Camp Lazlo.....Ben 10: Alien Force isn't too bad for me, as I do enjoy it, but I liked Ben's alien forms from when he was 10 years old.

I do miss watching Invader Zim, wish it wasn't cancelled after only two seasons, same with American Dragon: Jake Long.  If only Lilo and Stitch: The Series was on as well, only managed to see some episodes of it, and I do like it too from the movies....loved the movies myself....Stitch is an awesome character.

[Kor]

I wonder if there is a reason why cartoons are worst today.  Perhaps the same attitude someone had the comic companies had back in the 50's and at some into the 60's.  Just put out any dribble, the kids will read/watch anything we put out.  Though it may be other reasons also.

[Mumbling]

I so agree with you. Even though the cartoons are aired in dutch here, the voice acting seems to have gone down to a serious horrible level. I never liked seeing animations with humans that looked so deformed that they did not look like humans, but you hardly can find anything else these days. There are some shows that really bug the hell out of me when brothers are watching them downstairs.

I don't watch cartoons. Even as a kid I only watched a small variety. One thing I've always sticked to was pokÈmon and the good oldies like tom & jerry or scooby doo. I've always loved the small disney shows too, but they have been replaced by crap.

[Kor]

I've seen some of the modern animation and it looks awful to me.  Not sure what the style is called in animation but in the comic book industry I heard it's called manga fusion.  Supposedly a fusion of the best of western and manga art styles.  To me it looks like artists  being lazy, far less skilled artists being hired since they are faster and cheaper.  Just my opinion though.

[pokeplayer984]

There is a reason this has happen, actually.  You guys aren't going to like it, though.

In 1994, a tiny little thing started to happen.  Parents finally took action.  They saw the shows that their kids were watching being too scary/violent/etc for kids, not at all regarding the simple FACT that they grew up with that kind of thing too.

Despite the greatness of the 90's, parents were highly offended by what their kids were watching.  They complained that it was hurting their kids, when in reality, it was hurting the parents.  Sure, some saw it all as false accusations, but they would not stop.  It even escalated to a point where kids were being forbidden to watch this golden stuff.  Thus losing an audience and losing money.

Finally, in the turn of the 21st Century, something happened that completely broke the mold and made these offended parents take complete control of kid's shows.  They completely mistaken something of another country's cultural for something offensive.  It all lead to a court order, and the parents won.  Because of this, the ones in control of all the great kids shows gave in.

Now, writers, animators and producers of kids shows live in constant fear.  Knowing that one slip will unleash these parents that are offended by the great stuff of the 90s.  Kids are the audience of the shows and parents control that audience.

It was the parents of the 90s that destroyed the great kids shows of the 90s and replaced it with crap.

I just pray that the next generation doesn't suffer like today's is.

[LBTFan13]

I agree with you 100%!

These channels completely died for me when they lost all of their really good shows.

I think my favorite cartoon on Cartoon Network, which I am glad that they are showing reruns at least but should make new episodes, is Ed Edd and Eddy. I used to watch that show all the time, but then when it was taken off I flipped.

Nickelodeon is pretty much dead to me. I hate the live crap they have, although I do enjoy Avatar.

Disney pretty much got rid of a bunch of their cartoons and replaced it with live action to compete with Nickelodeon, and like Nick, the channel is dead to me.

I loved most of the Toonami cartoons but not all of them. I think Dragon Ball Z was always the one I watched, but when they put Totally Spies on their I was thinking, what the heck are they doing?

[DarkHououmon]

I haven't watched much of Ben 10: Alien Force because I don't like it that much, but the series before that, with Ben still being that little, ego-filled kid, I thought it was one of the best shows on Cartoon Network. What upset me about it was people attacking the show only because it came out after Teen Titans was canceled. Come on; it's not Ben 10's fault Teen Titans was canceled.

I don't have that strong of a hatred for any shows today and in fact some of them I do like somewhat or can tolerate. If I were in control of Cartoon Network I'd likely still let those shows run, but bring back some shows that I enjoyed in the past and have them run regularly again.

While I agree that today's cartoons are usually not as good as the ones from the 90's, I don't agree that they should all be taken off the air and buried. That would be just as bad as the parents controlling what their children watched by ushering in these new, not-as-good cartoons, in my opinion. We would be acting just like the parents did if we did something to ban the new shows and replace them with the old shows; not so different than the parents banning the old shows and replacing them with the new shows.

And it's not always true that new shows are less violent than old shows. Take TMNT for example. The old TMNT, from the 80s, was very comical, filled with humor, and focused more on that than actual action or violence. I am not saying there was no fighting or anything, but the fighting in the 80s show was nothing compared to the fighting of the 2003 series. When compared to each other, they contrast each other greatly, with the new show actually being darker than the old show. And not just darker; more faithful as well to the comic. The old TMNT from the 80s was an adaptation of the comic by the same name; the comic itself was very dark, even darker than 2003 TMNT I think, so the 80s TMNT was "kiddified" so it would be more appropriate for children.

And another thing: when we say we think today's shows are not as good as the old shows, are we going by fact? Or are we going by our own personal preferences? Are we elevating our personal preferences over someone else's, trying to make it seem better than another? Are we giving the shows a fair chance by actually watching a few episodes to get a fair opinion, or are we letting commercials and short clips color our opinion of the shows? What I'm saying is, while I do personally agree that today's shows aren't as good, at the same time I feel it may be a bit arrogant, for me, to think like that. Who am I to try to say that old shows were often better? By better, what do I mean? Perhaps today's shows are not as bad as we like to think they are; we just expect too much of them and because they don't provide us what we want, we label them as "bad" or "not as good" shows. If I were to give a show like Chowder a chance, and not compare it to old shows, I may find what my brother found out: that the show is actually really funny and not that bad after all.

[pokeplayer984]

You know, the whole "parents taking over" thing aside, a part of me thinks that this is the "Uncanny Valley" on the way to greatness.  If so, I highly welcome what's next.

[Cancerian Tiger]

The fall of Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and the Disney Channel is most likely the reason I hardly turn the TV on anymore.  I'm still the same outdoors person I've always been, but when I was a kid I would make sure I was home in time to tune in to my favorite toons.  Now, TV's mostly a waste of time and electricity.  

*SIGH*, I still remember when movies on TV were not censored nearly to the degree they are today.  I refuse to watch any of my favorite horror films on TV 'cuz they're so censored they're crap <_<.  I saw Jurassic Park on SciFi the other year, and I can't believe just how censored it was .  

Stupid, stupid FCC and ignorant parents .  I'm blessed that my folks allowed me to watch rated R films growing up and play games like the Mortal Kombat series.  I turned out to be alright , and so would other kids if their parents would stop being so damn paranoid !

But I agree about cartoons having gone down the toilet.  I really think there is too much abuse of power on the FCC's part, and the rights under the First Amendment are violated too often.  The sad part?  These guys actually get away with it !  I'm in full support of the protection of our rights under the First Amendment, and i'll share the same message here I have for these paranoid individuals:

"If it's offensive or just flat-out terrible in your opinion, change the freakin' channel and let the rest of the population be!"

BTW, if I ever created a cartoon series, it would probably be banned and I'd get sued .  I'd most likely create a dark and potentially disturbing series.

[Kor]

Likely it's a variety of reasons.  Some are it is easier to do bad quality work then good quality, and often cheaper also.  Without looking at the fact that it is the high quality work that brings in more money over the long run with good writing and in animation good voice acting and artwork.  

Also parents and most folks would rather the government pass laws instead of them having to change the channel and screen what they allow their kids to watch/read, ect, and pay attention to what their kids are doing, watching ect.  

Also folks thinking so many things will be horrible for kids and will scar them for life ect, thinking kids are like very fine porcelain or china dolls or something.  

[Spartanguy88]

I have to agree with many aspects of your review. A good majority of the stuff they have on those channels are just horrible now.

Spongebob is okay, the older episodes are far better though. The newer ones just aren't as funny anymore.

But I'll let you know, I did like Camp Lazlo.

[Duckyfan]

I also think alot of the stuff on cartoon network is crap (sorry if your are offended for me saying that word) especially chowder and this dumb new show called adventure time. I mean what happened to the good shows like Tom & Jerry,Johnny Bravo, Ed Ed and Eddy, DragonballZ, Courage the cowardly dog show, The Flinstones. I mean why cant they show those shows vs this worthless stuff that they show now. I like nickelodeon though, ICarly is one of my Favorite shows but all of the other stuff is junk and don't get me started on Disney channel

[Mumbling]

Johnny Bravo, Ed Ed and Eddy

Personally I never liked those two.

[Daddytops2009]

Krypto the Super Dog saved CN.

[landbeforetimelover]

Sorry, but I think things have actually gotten BETTER.  Back when I was growing up, 98% of the shows were crap.  Now it's like 92%.  Not much of an improvement, but I'll take it.  I mean, Tom and Jerry....really?  I thought that show was so freaking boring when I was young.  And I'm all for the modern animation.  The animation of the older cartoons frankly sucked.  Of that HUGE list of cartoons in the starting post, I think I liked 1 of them...maybe 2.  

I'd dump all the older cartoons in the garbage in trade for a show like Avatar or Ben 10 Alien Force.  I didn't like the original Ben 10 much because it was more like a little kid show.  There are a ton of cartoons that have no substance but are at least entertaining such as Fairly Odd Parents or.....God, it's been so long since I've watched TV, I can't remember the other ones.  As for what they're showing nowadays on CN and such, I have no idea.  My knowledge of cartoons is at least two years old.

[Duckyfan]

I'd dump all the older cartoons in the garbage in trade for a show like Avatar or Ben 10 Alien Force.


    why does everybody hate the classics now

[DarkHououmon]

Dump all the older shows in the garbage? Why? Just because they are old? Personally I think that's like someone going around telling people to dump Windows XP as soon as Vista came out just because Vista is new and XP old. I know there are people who stuck with XP despite its age, and there are people who still do use it. Does being old mean it's crap? No. So I don't get why people label old shows crap simply because of their age. That's just weird in my opinion. I find it odd for people to immediately dump something just because something new came out. I get enough of the "out with the old in with the new" nonsense from my sisters, who wasted money on new phones way too often.

[landbeforetimelover]

Dump all the older shows in the garbage? Why? Just because they are old? Personally I think that's like someone going around telling people to dump Windows XP as soon as Vista came out just because Vista is new and XP old. I know there are people who stuck with XP despite its age, and there are people who still do use it. Does being old mean it's crap? No. So I don't get why people label old shows crap simply because of their age. That's just weird in my opinion. I find it odd for people to immediately dump something just because something new came out. I get enough of the "out with the old in with the new" nonsense from my sisters, who wasted money on new phones way too often.

Ummmm....I was speaking metaphorically.  I wouldn't dump 'em just because they're old.  What I meant was I'd rather throw them away than the new shows.  And age does matter in most cases, but if they're really good they're fine.  I just didn't like the older shows really....even back when they were new.

[Animeboye]

I don't see how ANY of the cartoons of today are better than shows like Courage the Cowardly Dog and Ed Edd n Eddy. Is it because Courage and The Ed's were actually funny?

Fairly Odd Parents had moments where it was good and dare I say funny, but most of the time it was not good. Timmy was just plain unlikeable and never learned from the wishes he made, the animation was butt ugly, and most of the characters were irritating and not even worth caring for. At least in Courage, you could actually care for the characters. Even Eustace was pretty likeable despite how badly he treated Courage.

I miss when Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon actually had clever and funny shows. I miss the likes of Rugrats, Invader Zim, Doug, Johnny Bravo, DBZ, Yuyu Hakusho. Give me those shows any day over iCarly(I hate this show for having that talentless hack Fred in an episode), Teen Titans, that Gym Partner Squirrel or whatever it's called.

I will say though that I did like Avatar the Last Airbender. That show was very well written and Zuko was such a great character. Why can't we get another cartoon series with that kind of depth? Also, Code: Lyoko was pretty good.