Classics lost to the young

[kingthedevil666]

Over the past year I have witnessed on two separate occasions school-aged children that did not know what "The Jetsons" is. Once while at work I saw a mother telling her daughter what she used to watch when she was young. Another was in a museum, with a short video montage that included scenes from the Jetsons. These children were no younger than 7. Considering Jetsons is one of my favourite classic cartoons and a fairly well known one, at that, I felt very disheartened by this. All arguments about quality aside, the availability of classic animation is detestable.

What popular classic cartoons have you seen lost to today's youth?

[shoosh_b]

Pretty much all from that era.

But I'm not complaining. Years and years from now, people will consider the cartoons of this time "classic." It's all because of nostalgia, nothing more.

[Gillian M]

"Back in my day, we used to watch GOOD cartoons like Spongebob and Fairly Odd Parents... not any of this new fangled new-age stuff you kids watch"

Times move on.. wonder what will be considered classic in 500 years.

[Baggy]

Except some shows really have earned the status of being classic, as they have lasted beyond the decade they were introduced. Flintstones, Jetsons, Scooby Doo, Yogi Bear count in that aspect. And you can't really use the arguement that we like these shows out of nostalgia as most of us rabroadrs (from what I've gather) were born in the 80s with the shows on my list being from the 70s. Sure I grew up in the era of Transformers and Ninja Turtles, but I easily enjoyed the 60s cartoons as well.

And I would agree that Spongebob Squarepants and Fairly Oddparents would qualify as classic material. Whether the later generation get to view them is another question, considering nowadays an ended show is instantly dumped from from basic network. Disney Channel is probably the big exception to this.

And once again, Galentone you pulled the lazy generalization of nostalgia out. The thread was not bashing current cartoons, but pointing out how previous ones are no longer as common as they were a decade ago. In the 80s, you had the 60s and 70s cartoon sharing the block with the current stuff. And the 90s you had some 60s-80s cartoon with the modern toons of the 90s, whereas today, a show that's half a decade old is considered a no-no for the network.

Next time read someone's thread fully before assuming.

[rocklee619]

I agree, Spongebob will be a classic.

[xMsz.Vanessa.Mariia]

That's not exactly a big achievement, considering Hanna-Barbara was pretty much the only real company producing animation back then. Nothing against the shows personally, but their success was pretty much given to them considering how much of a lull there was over television animation in the 70s due to censors and watch-groups running the fun for everyone, plus Hanna-Barbara having a monopoly over cartoons. When you're the only major player in the game, you pretty much have it in the bag. The 80s gave way to more animation companies popping up and making series (a lot primarily based off toys or to sell toys, like G.I Joe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) but it pretty much was a big change for the animation industry. By the time the 90s came around, we have cartoons coming out of multiple companies and even networks dedicated to showing them all the time. Hanna-Barbara was being pushed aside quite easily, even though they still produced shows, they weren't the only thing in television anymore. So, you have to ask yourself, would those cartoons really earn the right to be "classic cartoons" with all the animated shows and competition they have these days? Compared to the little, if any, they had back then? So I must disagree that they "earned" it, they're classic because they were just about the only things out back then.

It's like Saturday mornings. Back then, they were popular because that's where kids watched cartoons, but now that animation has become so big that we have multiple channels airing it all day, they've become obsolete. By the end of the 90s, there were a ton of cartoons being made that there just wasn't enough room to air all the 50's - 80's stuff. As time goes on, it'll just get bigger more than likely. The more and more shows they make, the less the old ones will air because there simply isn't enough room in today's market. Just compare how many series were made in the 60s and 70s compared to the 90s and 00s (along with different companies), the gap will be immense.

So like I said, time goes on.. and with it, changes come.

[jammccamy]

I think Antiyonder has hit upon the problem: This current crop of kids has simply never seen The Jetsons. It's actually amazing that, back in my youth, we got to see more cartoons from many different eras with only 4 channels than this generation gets to see with 400 channels. :sad:

For instance, I got the Woody Woodpecker DVD set yesterday and one of my first thoughts was "There are fewer and fewer people who know the words to the Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy songs." And what can be done about it? Kids who have never even seen Woody aren't going to pick up the DVD. They'll likely never know that the characters from that era exhibited more life in one single frame than what they're watching does in an entire half-hour show. *gets off soapbox now* Some channel, somewhere, is gonna have to actually air these cartoons to expose the next generation to them. I mean, c'mon! 400 channels and nobody can find room for Bugs Bunny?!

P.S. Don't get me wrong, there's cartoons from all periods that I like (heck, I would sell my soul for one of those Jack Spicer action figures).... but not on the level of the stuff from the mid-30's thru the mid-50's. It's called the Golden Age for a reason.

[$dollars$]

That is so ironic and true.

I've had a few jaw-dropping moments like the one Dan mentioned. When the trailers for this new Underdog movie first came out, I went to the Internet Movie Database to hear what people thought about it. Most people were disgusted, but a handful of them didn't know who Underdog was. One guy said "Wait. Isn't he that kung-fu dog?" I was done after that.

Another time, my younger cousin (who was about 9 or 10 at the time) revealed that she had never seen nor heard of Bambi. When I mentioned the character, she thought I was referring to a relative of Gumby.

On the Big Cartoon Database, people are constantly asking members to identify cartoons that I thought everybody knew. A couple of people have come on there not knowing anything about Tiny Toons or Static Shock. Come on, those weren't even that long ago.

Perhaps it's a result of our own excess and neglect, perhaps it's environmental, or maybe this generation is just plain dumb. :shrug:

[adamlambertfanatic]

That's just the way things are. There are a lot of cartoons that I LOVED that kids of this generation will never see and won't be able to appreciate.

Just ask any kid of this generation what a Gummi Bear or a Snorkle is and wait for the blank stare. Or better yet, ask them what Pole Position is and get just a NASCAR answer if any.

There are a lot of great shows that I want to share with my kids but sadly, I won't be able to unless they're released to DVD. The cycle will inevitabley repeat itself.

[??leven]

The other day I over heard my two step-cousins who are 11 and 12 and one of them was like, "well at least I knew who Popeye was". Apparently the one did not know of Popeye until just recently.