What cartoons from the 70s would you say is decent/enjoyable?

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Brendon McCullum

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We have animation fans who insist that current programs are the best and that older programs are only enjoyable for nostalgic reason. We also have fans who believe that the current material doesn't measure up to the classics.

Then of course there are those who believe that all decades had their gold and garbage.

Now one decade that I've seen no defense for is the 70s (I'm not saying that the decade was bad as I haven't seen every piece of animation from that decade). The cartoons at the time had some strikes against them such as the fact that they had to have plenty of moral values (The biggest offense from what I've heard is Tom & Jerry actually being best friends) and action shows not allowing for any punching or kicking.

Now going with what I've seen:

Superfriends and the incarnation of Scooby Doo from the 70s: While both of these shows have their share of criticism, it seems as though a good portion of viewers see them as harmless fun/guilty pleasure. Or in the Superfriends' case, so bad that it is good.

Star Trek The Animated Series: As far as my opinion goes, the show certainly doesn't conform to the rules that you see on 70s cartoons. Had some intense emotional moments like the episode Yesteryear. It was pretty much written as an episode of the original series rather than a typical cartoon.
 
DePatie-Freleng did some good cartoons, bulk of which were theatrically released through United Artists. Their best works were from the sixties, but they did some decent shorts in the seventies. "Ant and the Aardvark", "Tijuana Toads", and some "Blue Racer" were enjoyable, IMO. The later "Pink Panther" were dull, but there were handful of funny ones (the ones directed by Robert McKimson and Art Leonardi especially)

Their Saturday Morning output were largely a miss, although "Misterjaw" I though were okay, mostly due to the voice work of Arte Johnson and Arnold Stang.

Otherwise, I tend to stay away from 1970s cartoons.
 
I probably should have specified, but this thread is pretty much about US Animation, though I suppose if those anime in question were US Dubbed, they count.

Incidently, could you and Lavenderpaw specify your choices?
 
I'm not too sure if I've ever seen anything from the 70s other than Scooby Doo. Most of the stuff I watched as a kid was current for the time, or much older like the Flinstones or Warner Bros. stuff.
 
Personally I like Josie and The Pussycats
The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm show
Super Friends
Laff-A-Lympics
The Tom & Jerry Show
Scooby Doo
Inch High Private Eye
The Pink Panther Show (it was around mostly in the 70's)
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop
The Clue Club (I've never spoken to anyone else besides my mom who liked this show)
as for older licensed anime I can't think of any that I liked that wasn't from the 60's or the 80's:shrug: lots of unlicensed stuff though
 
70s cartoons i enjoy:
Superfriends (reminds me of the over-the-top plots of silver age comics)
Fat Albert (May have been too preachy, but the characters were able to save it)
Captain Caveman (campy fun, probably my fav of the HB "mystery" shows, though i would have preferred a straight stone age superhero spoof)
Wait till your father gets home (one of the very first "adult" tv cartoons, not counting flinstones/jetsons)
Dynomutt (i like superhero cartoons, what can i say?)
Plastic man (ditto)
Spider-Woman (double ditto)
The Super seven (you know the drill by now)
Wacky Races (mainly for the crazy designs of the cars)
Pebbles and Bamm Bamm (only saw one episode but it was better than i was expecting)
 
Good Question. Overall, I'd say the best cartoons of the 70's were either certain feature films (Raggedy Ann, Snoopy Come Home) or half-hour TV specials (like the Dr. Seuss specials or the Peanuts specials).
 
My favorite 70s output:

- The various Flintstones spinoffs: Think for whatever reason (maybe its primetime sitcom roots, or being one of H-B's signature shows) the Flintstones' spinoffs usually came off as better than the average H-B cartoon of the time (at least teen-Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm weren't solving mysteries ;-) ).

- Laff-a-Lympics: An amusing enough "Wacky Races"-lite series.

- Jabberjaw: Yeah, I thought Jabberjaw was amusing (even if ripping off Curly/Josie and the Pussycats/Rodney Dangerfield)... so sue me. :-p

- Scooby Doo and his spinoffs.

- The various "Peanuts" specials: varying quality, but still decent enough, particularly the Thanksgiving and Easter specials.

- The Pink Panther shorts mentioned above (including the Ant and the Aardvark ones).

>>Captain Caveman (campy fun, probably my fav of the HB "mystery" shows, though i would have preferred a straight stone age superhero spoof)
 
Favorite 70s toons:

1. Superfriends
2. Fat Albert
3. Tarzan
4. Star Trek
5. New Adventures of Batman
6. Help! Its the Hair Bear Bunch
7. Speed Buggy
8. Wheelie & the Chopper Bunch
9. The Great Grape Ape
 
I'd say Star Trek is probably the closest thing to have aged well from that era. I find all the Hannah Barberra and Looney Toons stuff trite and boring. Must be because I've seen all those jokes way too much I'm blas?, I won't deny the possibility.

I could stand Wacky Races from time to time, was that from the 70s?

Beside that I don't know enough about the stuff from that era to really say. I mean that is to say I probably watched a lot of it as a kid but I can't say which ones were from the 70s, the 80s and even 60s (I'm pretty sure Mahou Tsukai Sally for exemple is early 60s). Some anime were good but a lot of it also didn't age well either.

Now the old Asterix movies (except Asterix the Gaul as that story was way too basic) were awesome!
 
There's a sad note about the DePatie-Freleng studios. All of DFE's programs that were hits were comedies. They had some adventure cartoons like Super President, Return to the Planet of the Apes, The New Fantastic Four and Spider-Woman, but each of those programs lasted only a season. DePatie-Freleng wasn't known for producing adventure cartoons. Speaking of adventure cartoons, it's rather ironic that Rankin-Bass' most successful program turned out to be the ThunderCats in the 1980's. How many animation studios' most successful animated programs turned out to be adventure cartoons? We'll save that for another thread. Getting back to the 1970's, here's my list of favorite animated programs from that decade.

1. Scooby-Doo(17 years on the air for the legendary cantankerous fraidy dog. Don't forget the Scooby snacks and keep out the spooks)

2. The Superfriends(How many single animated adventure programs run for 13 years like SF has? Not too many, but it's fun to watch a superhero program in which the show's basis is primarily adventure, not the hard-action fare of the 1960's)

3. Fat Albert & the Cosby Kids(Bill Cosby is a genious when it comes to creating cartoon characters, based on people from his childhood in Philadelphia)

4. Pink Panther(Probably DePatie-Freleng's best work of all of their animated programs. Henry Mancini's theme is hard for any fan to get out of their heads)

5. Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle(Probably the best adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' legendary jungle hero. Big props to Filmation for bringing him into animation. Now, if Burroughs' family can only make an agreement with any home video company to release it on DVD)

6. Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show(I just can't get enough of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes, especially when it features carrot-eating rascally rabbit Bugs Bunny and that quick-striding ostrich Road Runner, staying at least a step ahead of Wile E. Coyote)

7. Star Trek(Filmation resumes the 5 year mission of the starship Enterprise in animation after a 4 year hiatus with the end of Paramount's live-action prime time program. Two years of original episodes, concluding with probably one of the best episodes of the 1974-75 season, "The Counter-Clock Incident". As Spock would say, "Live long and prosper")

8. Godzilla(The legendary sea dragon from the movies, summoned by Capt. Carl Majors to battle all sorts of evil and to rescue those in danger.)

9. The Flintstones, various series(Fred and Barney don't go away, and in the 1970's, they still got around, doing some crazy things, sometimes, even to the disapproval of Wilma, Betty and even Mr. Slate)

10. The Archies(Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Moose, Reggie and the gang spent a good part of the 1970's creating laughs for the audience, and sometimes, they even included a song on each one of their programs. This show was the original, which we can never forget)

I have some more programs to name, but I'm not going to take up anyone's time, so I'll turn the floor back over to other posters.
 
Actually, just about all DFE television shows, whether its comedy or action, only lasted one season.

The only exception were the reruns of their theatrical shorts under the "Pink Panther Show" banner. It went under a different name for each season (as "New Pink Panther", "The Pink Panther Laugh and a Half-Hour and a Half", "Think Pink Panther", and finally "All-New Pink Panther")

I can see why DFE did best with the comedies. After all, the studio mostly employed ex-Warner Bros. artists.
 
Hmm, well, going from what I've seen:

  1. Scooby Doo
  2. Josie and the Pussycats - Yes, it's really cheesy, but I get a guilty enjoyment out of it.
  3. Laff-A-Lympics
  4. The Raggedy Ann and Dr. Seuss TV specials
  5. The Peanuts movies like Race for Your Life and Snoopy Come Home - You can't go wrong with those.
 
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