A while back my cousin found out that AAAAH! Real Monsters, a cartoon show from our shared childhood was streaming on netflix and turned it on with the intention of sharing it with her two little girls. Watching it now, she found it full of dirty and violent humor not to mention a lot attention payed to animation of butts. When we talked about it other things like Ren & Stimpy came up, how Ren and Stimpy were a dysfunctional gay couple sparingly based on 1950's stereotypes, and the lingering shots of hairy boil covered and generally unhealthy butts.
Just now, I watched an episode of Eerie, Indiana. Another show from my childhood, and in episode two a fat kid gets eaten by a pack of dogs, evidenced by a huskie delivering the fat kids retainer to the main character at the end of the episode as a threat to all mankind.
Are there any things from your childhood that looking back are highly inappropriate for children?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Inappropriate? Pretty much any cartoon that wasn't Power Puff Girls on CN I avoided even as a kid because I found them not very funny. I don't really get why hairy nether regions, farts, mucus, and every kind of skin condition suddenly came into vogue in the 90s.
That pretty much covers Ed, Edd, and Eddy / I are Weasel / Cow and Chicken / and a host of other shows I can't remember the names for.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
This is sort of the reverse of the thread's topic, but relevant because it is the reverse.
Years ago, Rivka mentioned the Australian 90s children's tv series Spellbinder. She said she had watched it again and laughed at the appalling special effects. I'm not sure if she commented on the quality of the show itself, but the gist of what she said was that it wasn't as great as she remembered.
I'm not sure what made me go and watch it (perhaps she linked to it?), but I must respectfully disagree ENTIRELY.
Spellbinder is great and I highly recommend it if you're looking for gripping children's entertainment that values education, interest in the world and is science fiction. I watched it with my little sister when she was about 8-10 and she was absolutely smitten. It's all about science and alternate universes-- 24 short episodes perfect for geeks and their children (or sisters ).
And no childish, fart or other boring humour in sight. Very well written. Get over the special effects and focus on the world and characters and story it creates.
I really enjoyed the program Invader Zim when I was younger; though, it wasn't around when I was a little kid. I still love it now, but I got it on DVD and realized just how odd it was that it was aired on Nickelodeon. It's an incredibly grotesque and adult stylized cartoon with content and animation which isn't even remotely child friendly. Which reminded me of Ren and Stimpy also. Which I still enjoy but also recognize as being inappropriate for kids.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I LOVED Spellbinder as a kid. It was on right before Ocean Girl (which I didn't care for as much).
I honestly can't even remember what I watched and when as a kid. I know when I was really young I watched David the Gnome, Little Bits, Fragglerock, Under the Umbrella Tree, Sharon Louis and Bram's Elephant Show, stuff like that, all of which I bet I could show to my future kids some day without too much trouble if they're still around and even at a young age don't find it horribly lame.
But I hated stuff like Ren and Stimpy and even Rugrats. It all struck me as horribly stupid, and I was never really into that sort of humor. I think I watched Doug a little bit, and some of the Adult Swim block of anime on Cartoon Network. Then stuff like Batman TAS and X-Men. By and large I tend to have a soft spot in my heart for stuff I liked as a kid.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Teshi: Years ago, Rivka mentioned the Australian 90s children's tv series Spellbinder. She said she had watched it again and laughed at the appalling special effects. I'm not sure if she commented on the quality of the show itself, but the gist of what she said was that it wasn't as great as she remembered.
Are you sure that was me? The link doesn't ring any bells for me at all.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I have no soft spot for what I had as a kid. The toons we watched as kids were all pretty much garbage. We have to accept that. Total and absolute garbage. And it all pretty much only gets worse the further back you go. I loved the X-Men cartoon series. It was amazingly dumb, yet so many of us have this image in our minds of how cool it was. Then it disintegrates upon a single viewing. Inspector Gadget? Sit down and watch it sometime. Dumb. Keep going back. They get dumber. G.I. Joe? Transformers? He-Man? It was like television specifically designed to induce rigor mortis of the mind. It was all like this. Live action was rarely any different, with a small renaissance movement on Nickelodeon that was barely passable quickly being swallowed back up and taking quite a long time for the latent revolution of quality and themes in shows like Pete & Pete to bubble back to the surface and become active again.
Were I to be transported back in time to be a parent, I'd say "You don't get to watch television, because television these days is trying actively to make you dumb. They think it's TV. But it's not. TV is fine. These shows are not. I don't know how I survived it. I probably didn't. I'm probably dumb. Don't grieve for me. Society hath striven and ventured forth and made sure that our brokenness would die with us, like polio victims of yore. I brought a laptop with avi libraries of Phineas and Ferb and some other things on it.
quote:I don't really get why hairy nether regions, farts, mucus, and every kind of skin condition suddenly came into vogue in the 90s.
It was because Ren and Stimpy existed and was awesome you haters* and some people took the unfortunately correct lesson from it that even if you didn't have the compellingly demented weirdness of kricfalusi driving your show, you could still just ape the disgusting high-detail stills and huhuh butt humor and we would still watch your dumb boys cartoon show for dumb boys because we were usually dumb boys.
*rank hypocrisy ahoy
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by Teshi: Years ago, Rivka mentioned the Australian 90s children's tv series Spellbinder. She said she had watched it again and laughed at the appalling special effects. I'm not sure if she commented on the quality of the show itself, but the gist of what she said was that it wasn't as great as she remembered.
Are you sure that was me? The link doesn't ring any bells for me at all.
I watched awhile more, and I can say with certainty that it either was not me, or it was not this show.
Posted by Ace of Spades (Member # 2256) on :
Eenteresting. So you guys are going to think I am nuts, but the original comments were made on Sakeriver, not here, and if you search there you will find the thread I remember and the comments made by Lyrhawn and Derek (who has a five-letter name with an r and a k... that is my excuse)
And they panned it.
*slinks away in misremembered shame*
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
*pat pat*
I was wondering for a minute there if I was losing my mind or you were. Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I have no soft spot for what I had as a kid. The toons we watched as kids were all pretty much garbage. We have to accept that. Total and absolute garbage. And it all pretty much only gets worse the further back you go. I loved the X-Men cartoon series. It was amazingly dumb, yet so many of us have this image in our minds of how cool it was. Then it disintegrates upon a single viewing. Inspector Gadget? Sit down and watch it sometime. Dumb. Keep going back. They get dumber. G.I. Joe? Transformers? He-Man? It was like television specifically designed to induce rigor mortis of the mind. It was all like this. Live action was rarely any different, with a small renaissance movement on Nickelodeon that was barely passable quickly being swallowed back up and taking quite a long time for the latent revolution of quality and themes in shows like Pete & Pete to bubble back to the surface and become active again.
Were I to be transported back in time to be a parent, I'd say "You don't get to watch television, because television these days is trying actively to make you dumb. They think it's TV. But it's not. TV is fine. These shows are not. I don't know how I survived it. I probably didn't. I'm probably dumb. Don't grieve for me. Society hath striven and ventured forth and made sure that our brokenness would die with us, like polio victims of yore. I brought a laptop with avi libraries of Phineas and Ferb and some other things on it.
quote:I don't really get why hairy nether regions, farts, mucus, and every kind of skin condition suddenly came into vogue in the 90s.
It was because Ren and Stimpy existed and was awesome you haters* and some people took the unfortunately correct lesson from it that even if you didn't have the compellingly demented weirdness of kricfalusi driving your show, you could still just ape the disgusting high-detail stills and huhuh butt humor and we would still watch your dumb boys cartoon show for dumb boys because we were usually dumb boys.
*rank hypocrisy ahoy
Sam it sounds like you were a kid in the 90s. If so, was Gargoyles just not on your radar? Because it's definitely a cartoon from that era which absolutely stands the test of time and no reasonable person could characterize as garbage. I watched it as an adult and loved it.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
We had good shows in the 1960s.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Samp: I checked out an episode of GI Joe because I was sure it would be just as awesome as I remember it. After seeing Snake Eyes' dog helping Snake Eyes to operate a railroad handcar, and then The Joes dressing in drag, pretending to be a girl glam band, complete with their animal friends dancing, and Snake Eyes break dancing, and this actually working on the guards. I laughed hysterically, shed a tear for my childhood, and never watched again.
[ January 24, 2012, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: BlackBlade ]
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
ARE YOU KIDDING ME! That sounds way better than what I would expect GI Joe to be.
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
I was a 90s kid and while I remember Ren and Stimpy, Ahhh Real Monsters, and Rocko's Modern World I recognized that the humor was crass and chose not to watch them. Instead I watched Animaniacs, Batman, Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, and older shows. (Flintstones, Loony Toons, Jetsons, etc.)
I have no shame for having watched those as a child and still find them awesome. The only crass show I got into was Invader Zim, but I was already a fan of Johnen Vasquez because of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.
Posted by Taalcon (Member # 839) on :
A few years ago, I watched G.I. JOE for the first time since I was a kid. A scene came up where a guy said something like, "We need to come up with a solution to this problem!" and the other guy said, "I've got a solution. It's called a GUN."
And I thought, no way we'd be seeing that on Kiddie TV today without massive complaints. Heh.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Vadon: Yeah, if I remember right the Batman of the 90s was actually the one that was pretty good. Although I'm not 100% certain that's the one I'm thinking of.
Every generation has a few gems, you just may not be aware of them in their own time.
Posted by Bella Bee (Member # 7027) on :
I grew up in the 90s, but I was watching Thunderbirds, Stingray, The Magic Roundabout and The Addams Family which was repeated on BBC 2 on (I think) Friday evenings along with The Man From Uncle. Which were and still are, completely awesome shows. So I knew very well just how much 90s TV for kids sucked.
I did have a pretty huge obsession for the Ninja Turtles when I was tiny, though. To the point where even now I still secretly harbor the ambition to be a ninja (but I don't want to be a turtle anymore). That really was a very strange show.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
I was never really allowed to sit in front of the TV as a kid, so my viewing experience is rather skewed. I vaguely remember a few of the shows mentioned in this thread, but certainly not enough to name characters, plotlines, or even a general aesthetic.
My childhood shows were Saturday mornings, when I could sit down for about 90 minutes and watch "Reading Rainbow" and TNG in sequence (one of the local affiliates showed reruns of that week's episodes on Saturday mornings). It was so cool to see the same guy read books and then be on a spaceship. But then the cartoons came on and I lost interest in the TV. I'm not quite sure why.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I grew up on Thunderbirds too, Bella. I agree that it is still actually hugely compelling.
Posted by LargeTuna (Member # 10512) on :
I feel like as a kid I had pretty good taste. I couldn't stand all of those shows constantly filled with gross out humor and butt jokes. However, I'm sure there were things that looking back now, maybe weren't exactly quality.
I loved Gargoyles, Rugrats, Even Stevens, Keenan and Kel, Neds Declassified School Survival Guide.
Thankfully, when I was really really young, I was pretty sheltered against TV shows in general.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Man, you guys all make me feel very, very old. Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
What were some of your favorite shows as a kid, Tom?
Posted by Ace of Spades (Member # 2256) on :
Feel better?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Anybody else watch Ghostwriter? I really liked that as a kid in the early 90s. I can't remember if it was on the CBC, and thus only available to Canadians and the border states, or if it was on PBS or some other public access channel. But I remember it being awesome.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
Ghostwriter gave me extremely overestimated ideas about technology and the internet.
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Man, you guys all make me feel very, very old.
Morning/Daytime shows that I watched a lot of between birth and the end of grade school: Sesame Street Electric Company Loony Toons shorts Superfriends Scooby Doo The animated Godzilla series Man from Atlantis The Amazing Spiderman (live action) The Hulk (live action) Battlestar Galactica Doctor Who Benny Hill Monty Python's Flying Circus
Late Night Shows in the Same Time Period (all from the late night UHF TV show All Night Live): Twilight Zone Alfred Hitchcock Presents Get Smart Lost in Space
I also watched as many Japanese monster movies as I was able to.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Anybody else watch Ghostwriter? I really liked that as a kid in the early 90s. I can't remember if it was on the CBC, and thus only available to Canadians and the border states, or if it was on PBS or some other public access channel. But I remember it being awesome.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)