When you need to rant...

[Drtooth]

The 70's had its share of subpar animation, to be sure. For every "Fat Albert" there was a half-dozen "Partridge Family 2200 A.D."'s Although Filmation did release the much-overlooked "Young Sentinels"- hopefully that will see daylight again someday.
Scooby was best in its original incarnation (besides boasting a contender for "Best Saturday Theme Song Ever") before the copycats moved in. But if you were around circa 1976, pre-cable, and you only had three (count'em. THREE!) channels to choose from, you couldn't be too picky. At least there was always the old Pink Panther or Looney Tunes shorts to fall back on. (Even Rocky and Bullwinkle too).
PBS was a godsend back then, especially in the summertime, when they would have a block from 7 am to 9 pm of Sesame, EC, Mr Rogers, Zoom, etc. Almost a prototype of what Noggin or Sprout could've been if we lived in a perfect world.

The 70's was a great era for live action kid's shows, sitcoms and movies... but when it came to cartoon shows, it's like they skipped over something. Fads and harsh children's TV regulations (again, thank those "The road to Hades is paved with good intentions" dinks at ACT) totally obliterated all creativity. 80's cartoons had to suffer the same regulations (but found away around most of them, yet they had a different set of problems) but they were at least enjoyable. The 80's gave us Transformers, G.I. Joe, Ducktales... while I can't say every cartoon from the 70's sucked, they were even less creative than the crappy Smurf Knockoffs enforced by the networks in the early part of the decade.

Don't get me wrong. I actually do like some 70's cartoons. Hong Kong Phooey was the best thing HB gave us that decade, Fat Albert was brilliant (but moreso when it moved to syndication and they had hard hitting topics), and Super Friends was... well, unintentionally freaking hilarious. Challenge of the Super Friends was actually kinda fun. And there's just something about Groovy Ghoolies I just adore. But Frog help me, Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan... watch it and you're mind gets freaking erased. That show was, and I am not kidding, written by Jamie Farr. Yep. I always say, if Klinger wanted that section 8 so bad, he should have said he wrote for Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan. Of course, I'm only talking about American cartoons. Anime was in the age of awesomeness in the 70's... Yatterman, Lupin III...

Still, I hate when people mistake matter of taste for "this show is dumb." There's such universal bad all over the place. I get that there are some people who hate on Adventure Time and Regular Show because they don't have Rob Paulsen-esque snarky asides to the camera or make obvious pop culture gags that were funny until the Friedberg and Seltzer KILLED pop culture humor. But we're not making anything as lowly as "Butch Cassidy and the Sunshine Kids" which has NOTHING to do with the movie (which could have been cool, but NOOOOO), and those ...ugh... anvilicious and freaking horrible animated ripoffs of All in the Family. There were 2 , completely stolen All in the Family rip off cartoons (the Barkleys and Wait Till Your Father Gets Home).

 

[fuzzygobo]

Yes, to compensate for not having too many outstanding cartoon series, we did have some memorable live action shows. Ghost Busters (1975) was a keeper. Patchwork Family, a dose of Krofft, Filmation jumping on the Star Wars bandwagon (Space Academy, Jason of Star Command). Even the Shazam/Isis hour has a campy spot in my heart.

One real gem from Canada was "The Hilarious House of Frightenstein". Vincent Price was vaguely menacing as the narrator, but there were gags aplenty. Billy Van starred as virtually every character, including the Wolfman (a cool parody of Wolfman Jack, spinning discs from the 1971 hit parade, along with some pretty awesome psychedelic graphics), Grizelda the Ghastly Gourmet (nice poke at Julia Child), the Librarian (who tried in vain to scare kids with nursery rhymes, but ended up getting laughed at), and the titular Count Frightenstein (more like Dracula), who was assisted by his bungling minion Igor. And a nice bit of puppetry from a wise-cracking purple sea monster named Gronk.

This was originally released in '71, syndicated stateside in '75, then disappeared for 30 years until bits started surfacing on youtube. I got to watch this every day for a year. I can only say how sorry for those of you who missed it.

 

[D'Snowth]

On the subject of Canadian cartoons, while at a family reunion yesterday, the little kids were watching GROJBAND on Cartoon Network... that may actually be the first decent cartoon seen on cable TV since the death of CN as we knew it back in 2004.

 

[Drtooth]

Yes, to compensate for not having too many outstanding cartoon series, we did have some memorable live action shows. Ghost Busters (1975) was a keeper. Patchwork Family, a dose of Krofft, Filmation jumping on the Star Wars bandwagon (Space Academy, Jason of Star Command). Even the Shazam/Isis hour has a campy spot in my heart.

I really wish someone would license rescue live action Ghost Busters. I saw 2 episodes, including the one that came with the Filmation Ghostbusters animated volume 2 I got cheap. That show was absolutely hilarious. Unfortunate for the famous movie (they were both named after an obscure old film called "Spook Busters"), but just one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. They may have tainted cartoons in that decade, but the live action kid's shows were pretty fun. And I'm not even a big Krofft fan.

But I got to admit, as much as I love the Smurfs, I really hate how every cartoon had to be a Smurf knockoff at that point. The only good Smurfish cartoon was The Gummi Bears (which quite improved on the Smurfs, actually). I recently rewatched the Snorks, and was pretty disappointed that I didn't like it as much as I used to. I already complained about Bisketts. I would have liked it if I was a kid, but I discovered it as an adult and hated the crap out of it. Mainly because I thought it was a Robin Hood parody. But the worst thing is, we were robbed of a Teen Titans cartoon in-between the obscure Filmation series (with an epilepsy-tastic opening) and the more well known 2003 series. While, yes... it would have been subject to the same heavy handed rules and regulations about Super Hero cartoons...DUDE! Cyborg! There wouldn't have been a Robin (the Bat-embargo being Super Friends, which was still in production), but we would have seen Wonder Girl and all the others they couldn't put in the 2003 series for those Bat-embargo reasons.

 

[D'Snowth]

You know what I hate the most about the new Photobucket? You can't even link just directly to the image itself anymore, you're ALWAYS automatically redirected to the image page in the library (now actually known as a "bucket", go figure) the image is in.

It seems like to me if Photobucket is wanting to put a curb on "people trying to peak at other people's personal pics", that this is almost kind of like a BACKWARDS way of doing so.

 

[AquaGGR]

I really don't like how all these websites/software/computers are trying to make their products "easier" and more iPhone-esque. Like how Windows 8 has all those colorful blocks that link to to-do lists, apps, videochat, and other random stuff that I wouldn't use. I don't even know if anyone uses those (do they? I seriously don't know).

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm avoiding 8 at all costs... it was made mainly with tablets in mind, so it's only natural that there's a number of problems with it on computers, it's pretty much like Vista all over again (remember how bad Vista was?)

I'm using 7 right now, and I love it. I used to think XP was the bomb when I had it, but I didn't realize just what it was I was missing out on until I got my new computer last year, with 7, and saw just how awesome 7 is.

 

[AquaGGR]

I never really saw the difference between Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

I think Windows 7 is probably the best Windows OS, but I really like the look of Windows XP for some reason. I mean LOOK AT THAT GRASS WALLPAPER.

Sadly, all the great looking laptops on Amazon have Windows 8. I'm staying away from Dell, because the PC I currently use is horrible (of course, it's a Dell).

 

[mr3urious]

I think Windows 7 is probably the best Windows OS, but I really like the look of Windows XP for some reason. I mean LOOK AT THAT GRASS WALLPAPER.

I'm most nostalgic toward XP. I actually have that same wallpaper on my laptop that runs Windows 7, and I downloaded all the XP alert sounds to my laptop, too!

 

[D'Snowth]

I never did use any of the default wallpapers the machines had to offer, I always used my own... but yes, XP was a really great operating system at the time.

And I agree, Dell is not my prefered brand; I'm an HP guy.