What was 'THE' show of your generation?

R

Raveena S

New member
I've noticed that there are members here of various ages. So...I thought we'd discuss those shows we grew up with that defined the generation.

I think my generation had a unique experience when it comes to pop culture and entertainment. During the early years of my childhood the most popular show (atleast with males) was Ninja Turtles. Every kid could relate to Mickey, but wanted to be Leo. We just connected with the cartoon. Then, during the middle part of my childhood there was Power Rangers. I remember being in 1st and 2nd grade and everyone (even girls) were obsessed with the show. It probably was as a result of it being live-action. You could actually picture yourself as Tommy or Jason or whatever. Then, during those later years, just as pre-teen era was kicking in, came along Pokemon. Everyone had the cards, video games, etc.

And while all this was going on there was the Batman movies. People tend to forgot how BIG the first three movies were. There was the Goosebump books. R.L. Stine was 'da man' back in those days and everyone had the merchandise and what-not. Then, video game-wise you had Sonic in his prime and Mortal Kombat.

But...if I had to pick ONE thing, which of course is the topic of the thread, I guess I'd go with Ninja Turtles. Power Rangers was a close second, but that just started falling apart in season two and the movies weren't all that great. The turtles were more successful as a franchise. Although...looking back at it...Batman was a lot bigger than many people in my generation tend to remember. The movies were huge. The animated series was very successful. And there was the comic books as well.

Well, anyway, what stories do you guys have to share?
 
Ninja Turtles when I was a wee lad. Power Rangers in grade school. Pokemon in Jr. High. Spongebob in High School.

Since I grew up in the late 80s and early 90s it's a bit hard to say which show was the show. But the show to me was Ninja Turtles.
 
Let me see if I understand correctly:

1984-86: The years of Transformers
1987-1993: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
1993-1996: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers
1998-2001: Pokemon

Those shows were fads, correct?
 
There wasn't just one show of my generation there was many

GI-JOE
Transformers
ThunderCats
He-Man
M.A.S.K
The Real Ghost busters

Thats just some of them, I could list more, but those are some of the main ones.
 
That pretty much sums it up. How old are you? 20? 21? You're part of my generation.



I liked Powerpuff Girls. There was enough guys working behind the scenes to include stuff on the show that would amuse the male audience.



Yea...Transformers, G.I. Joe, etc were slightly before my time as well. I'd say that was the generation right before mine.



I don't know, man. Transformers wasn't the ONLY big show back then. You still had He-Man, G.I. Joe, Thundercats, Voltron, etc. We need an older person to confirm for us which was THE show.
 
I'm not gonna argue with you because you probably know what you're talking about, but I doubt all of those were THE show. Obviously there's going to be various highly popular shows. I remember when I was kid you had Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Batman, DuckTales, Doug, Rugrats, etc but as popular AND great as those shows were there was ONE show that really was huge.
 
I'd like to say the BTAS line-up of toons...but I'm pretty old.

So I'd have to say I grew up on Scooby, Speed Racer, Kimba, Superfriends and Schoolhouse Rock.
 
I'd say aside from Pokemon, what got my generation perfectly was Rugrats. Back at it's peak, every kid at my school watched it every chance they could. In fact, I think SpongeBob still hasn't reached it's amount of success yet.
 
Depends on how old I was.

First, it was Batman: The Animated Series and for some reason it terrified me (I have some weird memories about the penguin chopping up the robot clone from "His Silicon Soul's"'s chest up... which never happened...). Of course now I watch it all the time.

Then it was Gargoyles, Beast Wars, Reboot and I think Spider-man: The Animated Series.

Then it was Pokemon/Dragonball Z/Digimon.

Then... everyone I knew stopped watching cartoons.

That was all the rage.

Unfortunately.

...stupid anime.
 
While SpongeBob hasn't made as many movies as Rugrats has, I think that SpongeBob has caught Rugrats in terms of popularity, but it still hasn't reached the level Pokemon as of yet.
 
Of my particular generation. It was Transformers/G.I. Joe hands down. I remember running from the school bus into my house to catch the last 15 minutes of that show every day.

Robotech and Voltron were also pretty big, but they came on at 6:30 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. respectively and it was tough for either to catch on in my area.
 
Wow great timeline, I was born in 86 so I pretty much rode all those fads (after transformers) my favorite franchise was always TMNT though. ALso I guess 1997-1998 was Dragon Ball Z since that is when it aired in my country and it was huge. I know it didn't reach the US until later. However I think its the simpsons the show of my generation since I watched that show through out the 90s and was always a big fan.


And it also depends how you define fads, the "fad" died in that they were no longer everywhere but all those franchises are still going strong to this day.
 
I was born in 1985, but I remember catching the tail end of GI Joe during the late 80's. Then Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers came along and I followed the shows like every other kid. But there were some others I was big into as a kid:

-Batman TAS
-Animaniacs
-Pinky and the Brain
-Tiny Toons
-Beast Wars
-Exo Squad

Those are just the ones off the top of my head that I can remember being big into when I was a kid.
 
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