>Some of the Problems

ANIMATION

Animation in the 80s sucked out loud. It might have been a little more fluid that the 70s, but that’s not saying much. The character designs were always TERRIBLE and the poses were not strong. Working with realistically designed characters in a production system that hampered creativity and solid draftsmanship and SKILL, the characters on GI Joe, Transformers, and Centurions were often painfully off-model, and not in an intentionally creative way, either.

Serious cartoons ruled the 80s but they all had shoddy execution, as I told Jaime J. Weinman when he asked for TV shows that had a good idea behind them but shoddy execution (for my money, Transformers and The Centurions, childhood favourites, both had amazingly cool toyetic ideas but suffered the problems I'm listing here). Boys loved to play with tanks, guns, and robots, and the 80s had tons of that.

Why?

Reagan was president, and action pictures ruled the airwaves. People stopped caring about violence on TV and entertainment became more liberated, while our nations' fiscal policies ironically became more conservative. One good thing about the 80s was things became a little more un-PC and a little more violent, and things kind of teetered back and forth for a few years until we reached the era we're in today, brought on by Batman:TAS) Realistically drawn characters are HARD to animate and few have ever animated them well. Why did Batman work? Stylization. But you need to have a system that encourages creativity to have that.

Animation in "Comedy" was worse. The characters designs were always bland corporate approved cuteness. The characters barely moved. Snorks, Smurfs, and their ilk did nothing that could be called creative or good animation. Until Mighty Mouse came along. Compare any animation from an average 40s Tom & Jerry and compare ANY cartoon from the 80s and you'll see that the animation in the 80s SUCKED. Now, you might be saying, "Well, why should everything be that good? " Well let me ask you this, why SHOULDN'T it be that good? Animation in Tom & Jerry isn't as good as animation in a Bob Clampett cartoon or a Tex Avery cartoon, it's simply average (And it IS still BRILLIANT, but in the 40s everything was either as good or better than Tom & Jerry).

Why is the average for the 40s so much better than the average of the 80s? Why is progress being stopped? How come animation in the 80s isn't BETTER? I mean, isn't it insanely BACKWARDS to say it OK that things got WORSE? How many technical achievements could have been achieved in 40 years if cartoonists could have gotten the chance? Why did animation peak in the 40s? CORPORATE. INTERFERENCE. Cartoonists couldn't do what they wished, starting in 60s.

Plus the art direction in general sucked. The 80s cartoons were the kings of garish neon colours: purple, pink, lime green, neon yellow, bright red, bright blue. UGGGHHHH!!! No subtlety, no care. Sensory overload by people who weren't thinking or weren't allowed to think.

Nothing was specific. Characters moved but for no reason. They inbetweened everything to make it seem smooth but for no reason. For example, the character's head would bob whilst speaking, but think about it, does your head bob while you're speaking? No, it's stupid and unnecessary.

Ask ANY cartoonist to compare the 80s to the way it was in the 90s and you'll see that they weren't given freedom in the 80s. Hence, many cartoonists hated their jobs. Here's a quote from John K from the 80s:

"I've been trying to [recreate the old Hollywood cartoon studio system with the units] ever since I got into the business. As soon as I found out how compartmentalized the industry was, I realized, "Well, no wonder the cartoons are so bad." 'Cause it wasn't for a lack of talent. When I first came down, I was naive, I thought, "Well, they're going to welcome me with open arms, because there's nobody with any talent down there." And it turns out there's tons of people with talent; it's the system that's all screwed up. As long as there's departments, nobody talks to each other. The storyboard department doesn't talk to the layout department, which doesn't talk to the writing department. Each one of these departments has a department head, and they're all jealous of each other, and they all blame each other for all the mistakes.”

“Even the actual direction duties are split up between about eight different guys. One guy records the voices, another guy times the storyboard, another guy times the sheets, one guy is the story editor. All these jobs should be covered by the director.”

“None of these guys talk to each other. So you get a storyboard that has a pose on a character with some kind of expression, say George Jetson talking to Jane. And Jane's giving him shit about something: "Now, George…" So that's the line. Then, in the picture on the storyboard, they're just sitting there with normal expressions on. Then the layout artist will look at the storyboard and he'll basically trace the model sheets. Because he doesn't have a soundtrack, he doesn't know what the inflection is. So he'll draw her happy: (repeats line with cheerful inflection) "Now, George…" And by the time it goes through, you've got the wrong expression for the inflection of the voice. This kind of stuff happens all over the place, because nobody understands what anyone else has done."

Tell me you've never seen an 80s cartoon where the character was saying something and his face contradicted the way the line was read. You might say animation was crappy because they had less money. How can I compare a low budget 80s TV cartoon with a high-budget 40s theatrical cartoon? Lack of money is no excuse. John K created amazing animation on Ren & Stimpy with a regular cartoon budget. So did Mighty Mouse, so did Huckleberry Hound. John K. in the 80s again:

"My style is very strong poses and expressions anyway, but I just could never figure out why people wouldn't do it in limited animation. I would do it anyway, full or limited. But with limited you especially need it, because there's nothing else happening. If you're just going to have them standing there taking to each other - well, what the hell is that? That's worse than a comic book. A comic book has poses in it. I'd rather see less inbetweens and more poses. Most of the studios, what they'll do is put a ton of inbetweens in a head bob. What's the point? Get rid of those inbetweens, and save some money. Put that money into the artist who draws the poses. Let him draw some strong poses, and move them fast from pose to pose. It was all invented by Chuck Jones in The Dover Boys."

And the reason the artists didn't draw strong poses was the SYSTEM didn't support creativity. John K. again:

"Bill? Joe? You guys are multi-millionaires. Joe Barbera's always complaining that he can't get humor into cartoons anymore. Just do it. You've got your money. If you think you can do a funny cartoon, do a Goddamn funny cartoon. Why do they let the networks run their lives?"

I don't know why Joe was afraid of the networks, but from the anecdotes I've read by the 70s and 80s he had a strictly hands-off approach to the cartoons he was making, with a few exceptions. And even Joe thought cartoons weren't funny anymore! Which brings me to my next topic:

Writing

It sucked. The same 10 stories again and again. The Evil Twin Story. The one where one of the main characters lets a little power go to his head. The one where one characters becomes another's slave after saving his life. The one where one character is sick of not getting attention/respect (wears glasses or is fat) and makes a change (becomes a bully or grows muscles or something) but reverts back after realizing he only has to be himself.

The one where a character changes into a shoe or a box or a toad or something and gets changed back.

All the characterizations were flat. Villains were straight bad. Stupid characters were only stupid. They all had one trait, one quirk or one personality that was replayed over and over. There was no subtext, no subtlety, and no originality.

And the “jokes” weren't funny. Until future Simpsons writers who were influenced by Rocky & Bullwinkle started on Mighty Mouse.

Voices

Again, no subtext. Everything was over dramatic, played to the hilt, no respect for actual voice acting. They weren't even acting; they were just doing a funny high pitched voice.

The "dramatic” acting was even worse. The good guys all sounded the same, with a deep voice that was booming and manly, the bad guys all sounded the same; raspy, high pitched, cackling, over-the-top campy Bond villainy. Sure you might say, "Who cares about subtext and subtlety, they're only Saturday Morning Kid cartoons. Kids don't care about that!" I'll give you that, but if we're comparing the quality of the product we need to look at all aspects. A cartoon may be entertaining on a base level, but is it of a high quality. Again, I’m saying, you may be entertained by them, and that’s OK, but do they hold up to a critical viewpoint? I’m not in the camp that says all opinions are created equal. Does your opinion hold up to the evidence? Can it withstand argument and specific examples? If your thesis is that the 80s cartoon were good (not simply entertaining or nostalgic) do the aspects of the cartoons hold up?

Entertainment is subjective, quality is not.

Even superstars like Don Messick and Mel Blanc were being wasted on this drivel! Over the top, even line readings that didn’t mean anything!

Continue the rebuttal here