What 80's cartoons were considered "good" back when they first aired?

T

twisted81

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My relationship with 80's cartoons is really complex. On one hand, many of them are nostalgic favorites of mine, on the other (more objective) hand, i think pretty much all of them are of horrible quality (kept for Might Mouse, of course). I think many other animation fans of my generation feels the same way.

I have come to realize that although children during the 80's of course considered many of the "30 minute toy commercials" to be better than God and candy combined, most adult animation fans of the time considered them pure trash. But i wonder, what (if any) cartoons during that era were popular among older audiences even back when they originally aired? Like, if Toon Zone Forum had existed back then, which ones of the "new" cartoons would most people have expressed positive views on? Speaking of which, were there even such a thing as a notable animation fandom back then?
 
Yeah - there were organisations dedicated to animation back then (ASIFA was founded in 1957), various animation festivals (Annecy goes back at least as far as 1960), people writing books on animation (Giannalberto Bendazzi, Jeff Lenburg). But I don't know if there was much of a fandom around animated TV series (Lenberg is a notable exception); when people like Derek Hill and Richard Evans - who worked for Channel 4 in the UK - tried to improve the lot of animation on TV they repackaged short films instead of developing TV series.
 
I am going to say Ducktales. I wasn't around much in the '80's, but Ducktales was clearly made with a higher budget then most other cartoons of the time and it wasn't just a commercial for merchandise.
 
I always liked, among others, Hanna-Barbera's version of The Little Rascals. I once asked Earl Kress about it, and he told me that he and the animators didn't like the character designs because of their complexity. I don't know what he thought of the stories.
 
The Real Ghostbusters was a big hit, and its first three seasons I would personally hold up as some of the greatest Saturday morning cartoon material ever.
 
I'm sure "Dungeons and Dragons" was considered good, though I was too little to watch it (or, if I did, don't remember doing so). They have a dedicated fanbase even today.
 
Jem & The Holograms. Unlike her fellow Hasbro brothers G.I. Joe and Transformers, the show still holds up remarkably well for the most part, mostly due to the nostalgia of the extreme 80's design of the show.
 
I think some people here are missing the point of this thread. We're talking about cartoons from the 80s that had adult viewers at the time, not 80s cartoons that were popular with kids at the time, nor 80s cartoons that have adult fans now because of nostalgia value.

I mean, does anyone here have any personal anecdotes about adults watching TMNT, Real Ghostbusters or Jem during the 80s?
 
Well there was "The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers". Which had a fairly large adult audience despite being run in syndication. Complex plots and characters didn't hurt either. And having seen some recently, well, the episodes still hold up pretty well.
 
It depends what you're asking. Are you asking what cartoons were "good" during the 80's, or what cartoons were "popular" during the 80's? Some of the cartoons that were popular during the 80's really were not that good of cartoons. The original He-man and the original TMNT were both very popular. But neither one was really that good of a cartoon. Both of their 2000's counterparts are definitely higher quality cartoons.

What cartoons of the 80's did I consider good? I considered the original G.I.Joe, the original Transformers, Thundercats, Muppet Babies, and The Mysterious Cities Of Gold. That's all that I can remember.
 
He's asking which cartoons were popular with adults. In other words...you know how nowadays you have grown up complaining about cartoons meant for children? Yet there's some that, for whatever reason, they actually approve of. So...which cartoons in the `80s were liked by grown ups?
 
Then this thread needs a better title. If you skip rattis' post (which it seems people here are doing) you get the wrong idea what what type of discussion is expected here.
 
Yeah, that's what i want to know. Not what cartoons were popular among children, and not what what cartoons of that era that have adult fans today due to nostalgic value, but what cartoons were popular among adults at the time. From what i have come to understand, virtually no cartoons of the era were mainstream hits among adults (nor were they intended to be). But if animation had a fandom back then like it does now, i can only imagine that some of the then-present cartoons must have been more popular than others.

Of course the most appropriate people to shed some light upon this question would be those few members on this board that actually were adult's back in those days, but i would also like to hear from anyone that has any information on it from other sources.

I dont know why i find this so interesting, but i guess its partly because its so hard for me to see the 80's cartoons from a neutral, adult POW myself. I just wonder if i had even been able to watch stuff like He-man and Turtles at all if it wasn't for my childhood nostalgia (even cartoons from the 80's that i never saw as a child has kinda the same effect, since just the typical 80's style of music and animation screams "Oh, childhood! Oh happy times!" to me). And also i think its because in these days, there are so many so called childrens cartoons out there with such high quality of writing that adults like myself can find just as much enjoyment out of them of as any 8 year old, while during the 80's the great majority of cartoons truelly were written on such a low level that its kinda hard to imagine how anyone over 12 could get much stimulation from them. And that makes it hard for me imagine what the animation fandom was like back then. I mean, did animation fans back then solely talk about old golden age shorts and completaly ignored present-day cartoons, or what?
 
If you mean the syndicated Murukami/Wolf/Svenson TMNT series from 1987, then it hasn't aged all that well. The slang, music and mode of storytelling ("Save the day from the villains who want to take over the world for no other reason except that they're evil!") on the syndicated TMNT was very much 80s influenced. The syndicated TMNT was a product of it's time. It had to be updated for 21st century when it was revived by 4Kids.
 
Well, since I misunderstood, I guess I retract my last comment. Honestly, I don't remember ever seeing an adult watching a cartoon (it was always just me), so I can't say with confidence what was popular with adults back then.
 
Did Thundarr the Barbarian have any adult (or at least teen) following? It was somewhat more mature than most cartoons of the era (of course, Jack Kirby DID create it so that had something to do with it). As for 80s cartoons, the reason i enjoy them still is the same reason i like Golden/Silver Age comics, its simplistic entertainment doesnt try too hard, and didnt need to, and i dont judge them aside shows like justice league, i compare it to the standards of the era.
 
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