>Concluding The Rebuttal

They weren't bland to look at and weren't very creative.

A truer sentence was never spoken.

Still today's animators have a bit more freedom to experiment . . . but only if they're independent or working at a progressive, freethinking studio environment like Frederator.

Nope. Even animators working on Disney have WAY, not “a bit”, more freedom to experiment. I’ve seen some things on Kim Possible, The Proud Family, and others that were way better than 80s cartoons. Animation on Edd, Ed, & Eddy is good. Spongebob has good animation, a lot of the flat fake 50s series are surprisingly OK, they’re not as good compared to the 90s of course, and animation right now, I predict, is in a transition period away from the 90s style, evolving into something, and I’m not sure what it is, but for now, all artists in all studios have a lot more freedom to experiment and pitch ideas on NEW properties. New shows with NEW characters, something impossible in the 80s.

But as to the stagnant belief of critics that the cartoons of the 80s were bland and uncreative, well, riddle me this. Aside from Fat Albert, Schoolhouse Rock, Battle of the Planets, and Star Blazers, can you show me a good cartoon from the 1970s that wasn't a Scooby dropping (mystery-solving teens/young adults with a unique distinctive character that the show was based on), based on a pre-existing property, nor was a spinoff (implied or direct) of another property?

Well, two of those are anime, so they don’t count. THERE WERE NO GOOD CARTOONS IN THE 70s. It was the worst time for cartoons. Ever. Except maybe the period where they didn’t exist. So saying the “the 70s were worse!” is no defense of the 80s. It’s an insult, actually, to be compared to the 70s. That doesn’t mean the 80s were terrible in their own way.

The 60s started off good and got worse around. I personally, can’t watch anything made in the 60s after 1962 or so except Rocky & Bullwinkle, Rankin-Bass animation, and some of the Hanna-Barbera Action series (which I admit aren’t well made but have some good Alex Toth stylized designs and appealing painted backgrounds)

The 80s started of bad and got better (in the late 80s). The 70s were hell. Absolute stupidity. Awful.

Every cartoon was a rip-off of SD, which was a stupid series to begin with. If anyone ever tries to write an article defending the 70s I’ll tear them a new one. (I keed I keed.)

Nothing good came from the decade. Ok, who said that? You are quite right on this one; a lot of good things did come from the 80s. But nothing in terms of a series, until the Renaissance, late 80s. Nobody ever claimed no good animation RELATED things happened in the 80s. Most of the innovations you listed were later in the decade, too. They laid the groundwork for ideas that would be expanded in the 90s, like the Disney Afternoon or Cartoon Network. And none of them have to do with production of series, like a specific show. They were all GOOD things, I agree, but they had more to do with the way cartoons were shown or who owned them. Classic cartoons did get more respect than today, certainly. Kids knew who Bugs Bunny was back then.

The birth of Walt Disney Television Animation

· Adventures of the Gummi Bears (1985 - 1991)
· The Wuzzles (1985 - 1986)
· DuckTales (1987 - 1990)

The first two had good production values and were inovative, good animation, but were overly cute and lacked any teeth. Ducktales was the most important one, with high adventure and characters. From that sprung Goof Troop, Talespin, and all the other Disney Afternoon shows, plus Tiny Toons. That was the one that got it right. It was actually appealing, being based on the stories and characters of Carl Barks.

Disney was the exception, not the rule, to the crappiness of the 80s, but it didn’t really kick off until Duck Tales in the LATE 80s, which started an idea that was carried into the 90s. Everyone else followed suit with the production values and that’s’ why cartoons in 1990 were better than in 1980, but it took a few years for them to really get it down.

Even Jaime J. Weinman, a fan of Tiny Toons, admits the shows had a few 80s cartoon flaws that he feels Animaniacs fixed.

The Hanna-Barbera renaissance

This is an easy one. The 80s were a good time for classic cartoons. Much better than today. Why? They actually showed them! But these cartoons were made in the 50s and 60s, not the 80s. Next. I wish it were more like the 80s than it is now! There I said it (but only to how often classic cartoons are shown)

Ted Turner discovers animation

Another good accomplishment, however, this was again based on OLD cartoons, not cartoons made specifically in the 80s. Also, the key phrase you used here is in “By decade’s end.” Shame he colorized and cut up cartoons, and kept the old “Censored 11” rules in place, or at least allowed it to happen.

The anime revolution really began

I thought we were only covering American animation! Yes, anime in the 80s was of good or better quality than the decades before and after it, and it IS a good thing that it spread. But the two industries were so separated until the 90s that to compare them is stupid. I have no idea when the “golden age” of anime was, or when it was considered worse. Did anime even have peaks and valleys? It is again a good thing that this happened in America, that more anime became shown here in the 80s. I bet those were the few series with care, pre-Renaissance. Toonami made it really take off, however,

The rise of home viewing

This was a general entertainment revolution, and it was a GREAT thing, but not related to animation specifically. Besides, the only things on tape were OLD cartoons or crappy 80s cartoons.

The animation fan community was born

Well, actually, that was begun in the 70s, and you can tell because that’s when all those old animation interviews with the Golden Age directors were, but I’ll agree that was a good thing. It did expand in the 80s. The Internet in the 90s helped out, too.

So that concludes my point-by-point crititique of cartoons in the 80s. Maybe this can start up some dialogue in the animation community. Maybe not. Let’s see what happens next.

And for the record, my rebuttal to this rebuttal is right here