>Opinions | What's A Classic?

Originally Posted by Jeff Harris

Is Friends a classic series? How about Arrested Development? Or even Thundercats?

People like to throw the word "classic" around to describe everything that they have enjoyed years ago and recently. Nearly everything that's been around has been dubbed a classic. Every year, somebody makes a list of so-called classics that purposely cause discussion and arguments. When somebody labels something as a classic, it's only an opinion of a particular individual. Whether it's an pop culture historian making that label or a pop culture geek (the difference is that most historians tend to not be so vulgar, snobby, or hate-filled about things they just don't like), the word "classic" has a lot of strength behind it.

I'm from a generation that grew up watching cartoons on Saturday mornings in the 80s as a kid, so there's some love from me whenever I think back on that era of television. Meanwhile, there are people that feel that the era that brought us The Real Ghostbusters, G.I. Joe, Transformers, Galaxy High, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Out of This World, You Can't Do That On Television, and the USA Cartoon Express was the worst period of all of television history. Heaven knows I tried to defend the decade, but my defense has fallen on deaf ears.

I read a guy whose first name looks like his last name show his snobbery about a column he read recently. In the article, an NBA player talked about how he liked classics like Thundercats and Duck Tales, which called the similiarly-named reacter to respond "Old-school? Probably. Classics? Doubt it."

Well, who's he to judge what classifies as a classic? He used the word "old-school" to describe those shows, but he used it in a way that's insulting. The term "old school" was originally "old school cool," which means something from an era gone by that remains worth enjoying and respecting today. In short, "old school" is an urban euphemism for "classic." I'll use it in a sentence:

Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, and Tom and Jerry represents animated old-school to many of today's animators.

Which leads me to ask this question. Is everything old a classic? No. Much hoopla has been made about Oswald the Rabbit, since he was traded from NBC Universal to ABC Disney, um, Disney for Al Michaels. There's going to be a merchandising boom involving the character in 2007 ranging from t-shirts and stationary to the DVD release of his black and white, silent era shorts. Is the character a classic? No.

Every cartoon from the 40s and 50s is not a classic. Every major animation director has made a stinker or four (don't get me started on Feed the Kitty, which everybody swears is a true classic; granted it's a good cartoon, but it's not a must see, and I've seen many shorts funnier, yet not getting that kind of praise). Everything that comes from Japan is not the best. Evangelion is considered a classic by some. Cowboy Bebop is almost universally praised, but there are some who feel that both are not the classics people claim it to be.

People swear that Everybody Loves Raymond, Seinfeld, and Friends are the best sitcoms ever made and considered modern classics. I bet I could find single episodes of shows like I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Living Single that are better than entire seasons of those other three shows (and yes, there's a reason I put those shows in comparison with each other).

People say that The Office is a modern classic, but some have a hard time convincing themselves that the American version could actually be funnier than the British original.

Okay, maybe I've jumped into a tangent I can't escape from. I know that people are going to disagree with me, and that's okay. Regardless, people have different definitions of what qualifies as a classic. What they really want to say is that "I've liked this show/short/series forever, and I feel it ranks up there with the best of the best, a true classic."

Classic is a strong word.

It's a personal opinion.

Heck, somebody might consider this column as a classic, and there'll be somebody else that feels otherwise.