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Sam and Friends BookWhile I have no desire to really see the new episodes, I'm starting to get a morbid curiosity about it.
But that's the beef I have with the more feminine/preschooly side of 80's cartoons. The villains are always much, much better than the heroes. That's not a bad thing, and there are lots of cartoons with better villains than heroes. From Wacky Races/Dastardly and Muttley to the Time Bokan series to Pokemon (which stole the villains from the Time Bokan series...just sayin'). But when it comes to the 80's kids shows, there was always a much bigger swing to the villains than the heroes, and the heroes are supposed to be the highly pure characters we're supposed to take as role models. While I still really dislike Care Bears after I completely outgrew them (and for me to outgrow something speaks volumes), the Nelvana produced ones with Beastly and Shriek were actually...well...watchable. And all because they made the villains entertaining instead of overly dark and one dimensional.
Makes me wonder, though... if Anpanman as an animated series came out just a couple years earlier, somehow I would've seen Nickelodeon have it on their Nick Jr. line up. It's like that show is an American produced preschool 80's cartoon on...I dunno... the usual psychedelic drug reference. I still think it could have fit in perfectly if it didn't come out just before animation trends in the US changed. But then the whole replacement food head thing's a little too trippy for kids over here. But darned if their villain, Baikinman wasn't somehow exactly like Murkey, down to the scratchy high pitched voice. He predates Murkey as a book character, sure... but that was the only thing going through my mind when I rewatched an episode of Rainbow.
But that's the beef I have with the more feminine/preschooly side of 80's cartoons. The villains are always much, much better than the heroes. That's not a bad thing, and there are lots of cartoons with better villains than heroes. From Wacky Races/Dastardly and Muttley to the Time Bokan series to Pokemon (which stole the villains from the Time Bokan series...just sayin'). But when it comes to the 80's kids shows, there was always a much bigger swing to the villains than the heroes, and the heroes are supposed to be the highly pure characters we're supposed to take as role models. While I still really dislike Care Bears after I completely outgrew them (and for me to outgrow something speaks volumes), the Nelvana produced ones with Beastly and Shriek were actually...well...watchable. And all because they made the villains entertaining instead of overly dark and one dimensional.
Makes me wonder, though... if Anpanman as an animated series came out just a couple years earlier, somehow I would've seen Nickelodeon have it on their Nick Jr. line up. It's like that show is an American produced preschool 80's cartoon on...I dunno... the usual psychedelic drug reference. I still think it could have fit in perfectly if it didn't come out just before animation trends in the US changed. But then the whole replacement food head thing's a little too trippy for kids over here. But darned if their villain, Baikinman wasn't somehow exactly like Murkey, down to the scratchy high pitched voice. He predates Murkey as a book character, sure... but that was the only thing going through my mind when I rewatched an episode of Rainbow.
