Your thoughts on 1980's morals and messages

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dgdangel1

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The 1980's was a time in which cartoons were obligated to have a moral message or have some educational value, and inflict Reagon values on kids.

Looking back on these cartoons, what are your thoughts on these messages and morals they were preaching, looking back on it where they good messages for kids or not? Many cartoons had educational segments at the end of each episode in which the characters break the fourth wall and try to teach kids a message.

Of course, some cartoons choose to achieve their educational quotas by just teaching kids everyday saftey tips, like don't play with matches, don't talk to strangers, etc., I think we all can agree there is nothing controversal about that.

This thread not really about that, it is about when cartoons tried to push morals and beliefs on children, like the Get A Long Gang, that is one of most mentioned shows in terms of compalining about 80's morals, in telling kids to always go with the crowd and not have individual thought.

What do you guys think about the morals of the Care Bears? Most of the time their messages are okay, but there is one time when I thought the message they were sending could mess up kids. There is one episode (I think it was the DIC series) in which the Care Bears told a kid don't cry because it makes other people feel bad. What kind of message is that? They basicly telling kids to bottle up all negative feelings and feel guilty for being sad.

Think about it, according to the Care Bears, you are not allowed to cry about anything, even if your mom died for example.
 
I'm not a huge fan of morals built into the episodes themselves, and then make up the entire ending "See Billy, look what we told you about lying, if you didn't lie, the galaxy would never have been close to being destroyed, etc, etc."

I do like those short PSA's in some shows, like G.I. Joe and He-Man (although He-Man often did the no-no of having moral sermons in their episodes AND a PSA after it to hammer it in if you didn't get it the first time)
 
Mighty Max was the best series to bring a close to the 'message of the day' shows, because it usually followed up after a really dark episode.

"Hey, remember that homicidal maniac that went on a rampage in today's episode? Well that took place in Argentina, home of the...etc etc."
 
Oddly enough, The Get Along Gang, from the episodes I saw (including the sweet Nelvana pilot) wasn't as overt as most cases I've seen, despite being the alleged poster child for that kind of moral. Normally, it ended up as "don't bet more than you're willing to lose", "don't make up stories about yourself to impress your girlfriend", and "if you attach your clubhouse to a train while everyone's asleep, you might end up in a series of events that wins you and your friends a free trip to the beach"...I wish I was making that last one up.

As for Care Bears...deer god, which episode was that? Hell, wasn't the whole point of Grumpy Bear (judging by the first theme song from the original special) that he was supposed to be for when people felt too sad to be cheered up and just had to let it out?

I mean, I remember that they were usually against acting drastically to your negetive emotions, like running away because your parents are moving, or being a complete jerk to everyone because your mother doesn't have time to work, or making a deal with a shapeshifting demon to gain super powers because you suck at asports. But I don't remember them ever saying you had to be all smiles and rainbows 24/7.
 
Nothing wrong with morals. In fact thats part of what set 80's & 90's animation apart from modern toons.

I think its fine to teach kids not to lie, Steal, Bully/Hurt Others. Be Enviormentally friendly & stand up for what they belive in. But i agree alot of shows did it in Silly ways or overdid it. But again Nothing wrong with letting Your Toon have a moral backbone...As long as its not in your face.

....Subtly is a lost yet appriciated art.
 
I don't know remember which episode, but I am pretty sure it is the DIC series.

They didn't outright say you have to be smiles 24 / 7, but one of the Care Bears tried to cheer up a child and said don't be sad because it makes others feel bad and when you feel sad smile.
 
Of course, there were moral messages even going back to the days of theatrical cartoons. See "Wholly Smoke","Sunday Go to Meeting Time" (though it may be hard to find as its one of the censored 11), and the Little Audrey cartoons (at least all the ones IVE seen involve moral messages).
 
I felt some morals were ok if they weren't pounded into you but I remember one Sailor Moon Says that got me so mad she was like try not to believe in Charms, Potions and Destiny now I know were americans and we all think one day kids have to say enough is enough of Princesses and Magic but in Japan that stuff is a big part of their culture and just for someone to say ok don't believe in anyone's cultures but your own is pretty messed up, I thought that was pretty rude.
 
I thought they were a waste of time, myself. That's the sort of thing you're supposed to learn from your parents, not an entertainment program.
 
Didn't you make a thread exactly like this before? And didn't another user come in and mention that one of the Care Bears theme songs explicitly stated: "It's O.K. to laugh and cry", or something like that?
 
I don't remember, if I did it was a long ago.

The last time I mentioned the Care Bears and their moral was in responce of a thread started by someone else about the Get A Long Gang.
 
I haven't seen many 80s cartoons, however my... opinion as such... as regards morals is that taking the continuity of the animated dimension as a line a-b along a straight x axis, morals tend to create a vector y distortion in the continuum, and thus distort and warp the normalcy of the realm. Thus in my... opinion... morals destroy the normalcy level of a dimension, i.e it's closeness to that straight x factor. These y distortions seem quite common in not only animated but other tv shows and media operations, even so called unbiased sources of data such as television news broadcasts, which indeed have a bias! Surprising as this may seem, it is true as i have observed it.

Thus imo morals are ALWAYS a bad thing. I am not saying cartoons should rape, torture and eat each other. I am saying that a moral should not distort normalcy. A cartoon universes beasts may operate by the methods and manners of a moral normalcy, but it is when the normalcy is countermoral and they operate in a moral fashion that this distortive effect arises, creating an imperfection.
 
It's been said that morals have never been effective anyway since the audience is too bombarded and annoyed to listen to them, but the worst moral would have to be "the group is always right".

As I've posted in another thread, what if the group wants to smoke a cigarette or ripoff a store? Do you join in for the sake of following the group?:confused: Heads up message right there.:shrug:
 
God those were pretty bad times to grow up in!


Filmation was the king of that in the 80's!


He's right on all counts!


Butterscotch and Soda made me felt too cautious about putting candy down my mouth! :p


He-Man once said he was a fantasy character in one of his morality segments! :D


Reason why it's ridiculous for the FCC to mandate 3 hours of E/I stuff on the commercial networks when it's all that way.

Moderator Note: Do not double-post. Neither should you triple-post. Quintuple-posting is RIGHT OUT.
 
To be fair, that moral was probably thought up by some intern at DIC on their lunch break, so best not to get too worked up about it. All the morals in the DIC Sailor Moon were tacked on just because they felt they had to. They never really cared about it though.
 
I know alot of people say it's the parents jobs, but often, the parents aren't teaching them, and while you could say that's their problem, you'd have to remember that if kids get into bad situations, it's a tragedy.

For example, for whatever reason in a household that has a gun, a father or mother never gave their child the Gun Talk. The kid finds the gun in their bedroom, thinks it's a toy, takes it outside, and shoots someone.
 
Eh, I'm too young to really remember or care about most of the morality episodes of the 80s...But I do know that toady's shows can be just as heavy handed and bad. I'm looking at you, Kim Possible....

I will make an exception for Animaniacs, though. The Wheel of Morality was a brilliant little gag.... And the South Park morals. Those morals are off-kilter just often enough for me to enjoy them.

"You see, guys, I've--"
"Oh stop it, Cartman! You didn't learn anything! Not a ******* thing!"
 
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