The Mouse is Wooing Miss Piggy

[CaptCrouton]

Okay, sorry. But the bestest cartoon of all time was "Rubik the Amazing Cube." followed by the Laverne and Shirley join the Army cartoon.

Wasn't there also a worthless cartoon about Kweeki Koala, or something like that? That might just be a nightmare tune in my head based on something else..

 

[Zack the Dog]

hmm i remember an older Koala cartoon on nick jr, but then there was also another one on fox (i think)it was called bliky Bill on like in 1995.

Zack)Rowlf the, there are millions of weird cartoons, dog.

 

[frogboy4]

Someone actually remembers Rubik! I don't think it's a very high quality show, but I enjoyed it some as a little kid. It amazed me that they could design a whole program around an inanimate object and make a cartoon out of the crazy fad! I remember his Elmoish squeaky voice too.

As much as I've bugged on ALF (never really kept my interest after mid-second season), the animated program was quite mature and imaginative. It also looked very different than the other shows at the time. People go off on how Fox's Batman had such an interesting style and it did, but Alf had an artfully crafted style all its own too.

I also loved the Smurfs until they totally kiddified it with adding younger characters. I wish they'd bring it back. There used to be so much magic and imagination in animated programs and now it's either crass humor or violence. Not that there's anything wrong with these other programs, but there's little balance IMHO.

(Anyone remember Q-bert? I rememver all those vid-game shows. Not the greatest but very nostalgic.)

 

[CaptCrouton]

Yeah, Rubik brought the cynic out of me. A cartoon about a puzzle toy. That was a stretch.

The cool thing about Alf was the continuity between the show and the cartoon. I appreciated the expanse of Alf's world and how faithful the writers stayed to Alf's descriptions of home to the Tanner family. It was as if to say, "See, Alf really was telling the truth about Melmac and Rhonda." (Sheesh I can't believe the worthless trivia I recall) Alf didn't have the best credibility when it came to story telling as the series progressed so I was impressed that he was at this point.

Smurfs now jumped the shark at some point during the cartoonist strike. I don't know if the writers got tired or if they hired a different bunch. All of the sudden they kept adding new characters to rescue the sinking ship. Remember they added Grandpa smurf as well. Perhaps the show relied too much on magic spells. Whatever the problem was, Papa could find a magical solution if they found the right ingredients. That's what the show eventually boiled down to. The PeeWee character got annoying in a Scrappy Doo kind of way.

Incidentally, Clockwork became my favorite smurf when it was all said and done. Though I was fond of Handy Smurf, who I found more powerful than Papa because he used his brain to come up with solutions. My childhood was riddled with philosophy. I don't know why.

 

[frogboy4]

Interesting perspective - I agree. And I always liked Smurfette with black hair better.

 

[Luke]

Kudos to you Frogboy on the ALF reference. Yes, the cartoon set in it's own little world was in some ways the less popular Simpsons of its day.

 

[Thog]

Originally posted by frogboy4
(Anyone remember Q-bert? I rememver all those vid-game shows. Not the greatest but very nostalgic.)

I remember the Q-bert cartoon. That was on back when Saturday morning cartoon shows were good.

Back when on a Friday night in the fall they had a show on that would show you all of the cartoons that were going to be on. I remember the one on NBC where they did ALF Loves a Mystery. It had a few NBC stars from 227, The Hogan Family, and Rags To Riches. The were promoting Fraggle Rock (cartoon), Foofer, Smurfs, ALF (cartoon) and others.

No Saturday mornings are horrible. On CBS you get the same crap thats on Nick Jr. and all ABC shows is Disney stuff.

I miss the 80's


Dan

 

[Bean Bunny]

Smurfs

Do anybody remeber the last season of the Smurfs, when they go to other dimisions trying to find their way home.?

 

[frogboy4]

Saturday mornings

I agree that the magic is gone on Saturday mornings, but I always hated waking up so early anyway. These days Saturday morning-type media can be seen all week long! I wish they would at least play something on Saturday. I just saw a movie that had a reference to watching cartoons on Saturday and I was like - the writer didn't do his research because there are no more toons really.

 

[towels]

I love reading through old comics and seeing the ads for the Saturday morning cartoons...
There was a two page spread in the NBC Cafeteria (including an animated peacock) with Alvin and the Chipmunks, Punky Brewster, Smurfs, Kidd Video (I think)...
I miss the Cartoon Network of four years ago too. They had some of these classics on before they got so Scooberific.