Mid 80s to late 90s: the Golden Age of Animated Series?

[Ideologue]

OK, I can see your point with the others, but you wouldn't enjoy Batman?  I watched a few the other month and found it to be a rather mature program, or at least nothing that actively pandered to children.  Maybe it's just because I'm too into superheroes in general to age out of the system.  On the other hand, I kind of hate Batman, but TAS made him palatable, so maybe not.

[jimmy olsen]

OK, I can see your point with the others, but you wouldn't enjoy Batman?  I watched a few the other month and found it to be a rather mature program, or at least nothing that actively pandered to children.  Maybe it's just because I'm too into superheroes in general to age out of the system.  On the other hand, I kind of hate Batman, but TAS made him palatable, so maybe not.

TAS is awesome and deals with mature themes.

The episode Mad Love sure as hell didn't pull any punches.

[Eddie Teach]

I kind of hate Batman

So it must really rankle you that Christopher Nolan made 3 Batman movies that were all better than The Prestige. 

[Ideologue]

As for Transformers: The Movie, I've watched that once or twice a year since I was four.  It will never be unenjoyable.  In fact, I think I enjoy it far more as an adult, appreciating the vocal performances of the truly all-star cast more, and being struck by the creative balls it's got to take to kill off your main character for real in the first five minutes of your property's feature film.

On the other hand, as an adult, Unicron's variable size is really annoying, and I doubt that bothered me as a kid.

[Ideologue]

I kind of hate Batman

So it must really rankle you that Christopher Nolan made 3 Batman movies that were all better than The Prestige. 

And in Rand McNalley, they wear hats on their feet, and hamburgers eat people.

[Ideologue]

OK, I can see your point with the others, but you wouldn't enjoy Batman?  I watched a few the other month and found it to be a rather mature program, or at least nothing that actively pandered to children.  Maybe it's just because I'm too into superheroes in general to age out of the system.  On the other hand, I kind of hate Batman, but TAS made him palatable, so maybe not.

TAS is awesome and deals with mature themes.

The episode Mad Love sure as hell didn't pull any punches.

No episode with Harley Quinn pulled any punches.  Punches to my ears.

[Syt]

I thought Harley was funny and a pretty good addition to the series. I think it's the only originally TAS character that got its own comic series?

I'm normally a Marvel person, but Batman is the one DC hero I find actually interesting (granted, it's mostly because he has some of the best comic book villains out there). I never got into Superman much, and even less into Wonder Woman (I blame the lame old TV series for that)- I did read a couple of Green Lantern comics in the 80s and liked him, but not well enough to actually follow him much.

[Ideologue]

Well, there aren't that many original TAS characters.  Was Renee Montoya?  I don't think she was.

Mr. Freeze practically was--the famous backstory is entirely the invention of TAS iirc--but the concept is much older.

[Viking]

but you have the stuff that meet Walt Disney's dream standard of being so good that people will use their kids as excuses to watch.

I can see that for Pixar/Dreamworks stuff, but tv series? Which ones do you have in mind?

To be honest at home in private nobody can see you watch spongebob.

Some years ago Slargos bought a full boxed DVD set of The Transformers when he was working in my home town for some months and I borrowed the thing and watched it and it was epilepsy inducing crap. I didn't remember megatron constantly cackling like skeletor or optimus prime, y'know, not thinking shit out first; but that is what they do. The old stuff is really really bad, it's only your memory as a 6 year old that makes it any good.

However, having left the childrens animated tv 'verse for a while when jumping around youtube I found "Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heros" (first season acutally pretty good, second season dumbed down a bit). I thought it was well done and strangely true to my memories of the avengers both on tv and in comic books from when I was a kid. Once the shows ran out I looked for more am found "Avengers: United they stand" thinking I had missed two decades of reliving my childhood and bang there he was, a cackling skeletor like ultron.

I had learned that there was good stuff out there, but that a lot of crap remained. Then I found "Batman: The Animated Series" got the whole thing watched from cover to cover and saw a clear process of improving animation and more and more serious and well done writing.

I think when they make the movie based on the kiddies tv show: sometimes: they reboot the animated show trying to appeal both to the adults who watched it in the 1980s and to new kids. Avengers:EMH and Batman:TAS both tried and succeeded in doing that. Thus my Disney quote.

I think we are living in a golden age because we have people (like you and me) who demand quality and we live in a world where you can make a product which fits a niche and not have to entertain everybody on saturday morning kiddie prime time.

[Josquius]

Agreed that due to my age I can't really judge todays cartoons fairly though definitely true that the cartoons of my childhood were generally better than the repeats from the 70s.
Except for Mr Benn. That was the peak of animation.

[jimmy olsen]

OK, I can see your point with the others, but you wouldn't enjoy Batman?  I watched a few the other month and found it to be a rather mature program, or at least nothing that actively pandered to children.  Maybe it's just because I'm too into superheroes in general to age out of the system.  On the other hand, I kind of hate Batman, but TAS made him palatable, so maybe not.

TAS is awesome and deals with mature themes.

The episode Mad Love sure as hell didn't pull any punches.

No episode with Harley Quinn pulled any punches.  Punches to my ears.

Well neither does the Joker when he backhands her through a three story window.

Excellent origin story.

[CountDeMoney]

Transformers, X-Men, Batman, Animaniacs, Gargoyles, early Simpsons, the Tick and countless others . . .

I ask you: were those 15 years the pinnacle of cartoon making in the U.S.?

That's what's fucked up with your generation and its tiny little minds.  Can't think past the memory of your own shit-soiled diapers.

The pinnacle of US animation was 1948 to 1963.  You douche.

[Brazen]

The pinnacle of US animation was 1948 to 1963.  You douche.

I'd date it back to earlier 1940s - Fred Quimby era Tom and Jerry.

[Eddie Teach]

That's what's fucked up with your generation and its tiny little minds.

I believe you and Syt would both be categorized as Generation X.

[CountDeMoney]

That's what's fucked up with your generation and its tiny little minds.

I believe you and Syt would both be categorized as Generation X.

Then he's tremendously retarded.