Classic WB Bugs Bunny cartoons were made on shoestring budgets and in many cases very limited frame rates and they seemed to hit it out of the park nearly every time. I long for the days of Chuck Jones and US animation production studios.
Yes, but things were really different then. Warner Bros and studios like that dealt with 7 minute cartoons theatrically released. They did not have the same weekly deadlines, and they didn't have to make about 13- 60 episodes per year. Television animation wasn't even a possibility until the early 50's. There were "Cartoons" but they were mostly just black and white drawings narrated. Still frames. Nothing more. Crusader Rabbit was the first to really have any animation at all, and it was mostly made up of those stills.
Outsourcing animation is NOTHING new. It didn't start in the 80's at all. You can thank Jay Ward, who heard about a new movement of overseas outsourced animation. Oddly enough Rocky and Bullwinkle was going to be animated in Japan, but the studio they were going to use was nothing more than chalk lines in a vacant lot. The money from the contract was going to be used to build the studio. They went with a Mexican firm instead, and it's animation was outright horrible to begin with. Mainly due to the low quality of the studio's equiptment. This was Gamma Studios, whose animation didn't even improve until Bullwinkle was a distant Memory, and they were working on Underdog (not a creation of Jay Ward).
The first Japanese outsourced cartoon series was King Kong- produced for Rakin Bass, by the way. Another creation of Toei.
When it comes right doen to it, I just don't think ANY TV cartoon can live up to great stuff from the theatrical Golden Age. Doesn't matter which country animates it. Though I do think Spumco did some great stuff in the 90's.