When you need to rant...

[Sgt Floyd]

The Simpsons is the only show I can really think of that was able to be semi-appropriate for kids and for adults...I mean, it was and ADULT SHOW but they didn't rely on like...super raunchy sex jokes or whatever it is adult shows rely on. It was mature enough that the dirty bits would fly right over the kids heads while adults got it, but there was humor in there everyone could enjoy...if that makes sense...

But yeah...I've gotten on my soapbox about how the 90s isn't the end all be all decade and all that hypocrisy with "shows suck" and blah blah. I won't bore you with it again...

 

[fuzzygobo]

If nothing else came from the 90's, there was Duckman.
The same crew that brought you the Rugrats could channel their energies into a well-written adult cartoon, make a few socio-political jabs, give Jason Alexander an animated counterpart to his George Costanza persona, and tie it all together with Frank Zappa's music. Not a bad gig.

 

[charlietheowl]

It's the same problems with every generation, you only remember the good and not the bad, so every generation looks better in retrospect. There are good shows and bad shows in every decade, and eventually we'll get to bury the bad ones from this decade too.

 

[robodog]

Speaking as an 80's kid, there are tons of things I like about the 90s. The cartoons WERE better than 80's cartoons. The 80's had a few gems, but the 90's had many, many more. And I have no nostalgia for the toys I grew up with. I'm more nostalgiac for the late 90's when Furby and Tamagotchi were released and electronic pets became a thing. That may have been when I was happiest.

 

[Drtooth]

The Simpsons is the only show I can really think of that was able to be semi-appropriate for kids and for adults...I mean, it was and ADULT SHOW but they didn't rely on like...super raunchy sex jokes or whatever it is adult shows rely on. It was mature enough that the dirty bits would fly right over the kids heads while adults got it, but there was humor in there everyone could enjoy...if that makes sense...

The Simpsons was always considered a kid's show for some reason, and the fact that Bart Simpson merchandise directed at kids was all over the place (it is by far not a new thing, ask a 30+ year old who was there when the Simpsons happened) until the second or third season. It went under heavy scrutiny back in the early 90's. The PTA was up in arms about Bart, and this is when the show was tame. And again, I have fond memories of kid's Bart T-shirts and Bart Simpson kid's drink boxes, and TERRIBLE Acclaim video games marketed to kids. But it was never a kid's show. Mad Magazine said something brilliant about the Simpsons when it first came on. That a lot of toy marketers were watching because they missed the ALF bandwagon. Of course, ALF was far more family friendly.

And yet, it became so much of an intuition that it's embraced by everyone except life long Simpsons fans. Even religious institutions use Simpsons as a teaching guide.

But yeah...I've gotten on my soapbox about how the 90s isn't the end all be all decade and all that hypocrisy with "shows suck" and blah blah. I won't bore you with it again...

I'm going to be the cold shower of truth. 90's kids are the most SPOILED cartoon fans out there. They have no freaking clue how good they've had it. They're kids that grew up looking at Renaissance painting and whine about impressionism not being the same, while those of us who darn well appreciated our crappy illuminated manuscripts with no perspective experienced the movement first hand.

Let me put it this way. You know why Batman TAS was such a groundbreaking series? Super Friends. Super FREAKING Friends. The show where the JLA "fought" well intentioned scientists instead of super villains while the Wonder Twins' pet monkey made Jar Jar Binks look like Patton Oswalt. Seriously, when Challenge of the Superfriends came out and they fought the Legion of Doom, it was a break through. They fought their own villains. VILLAINS! And they still couldn't actually hit them. The show didn't so much get better as much as it got less worse until it was tolerable and then watchable in the last season. Now Batman cartoons all suck because they aren't Batman TAS, even though they're still a million times more violent (and therefore better) than Superfriends on a good season.

Animaniacs? Why was that a huge deal? Because it wasn't the dry, humorless, life siphoned out of it husk of a famous cartoon character who has to play second, often third, to lobotomized, committee created, cliche enforced, candy colored brat kids. Oh, and Animaniacs also wasn't a cheap Smurfs knockoff. You know that there was a time when networks didn't want anything that wasn't a total ripoff of the Smurfs? We almost got a Teen Titans cartoon (which would be as non-violent and anvilicious as Super Friends... and it still would have been better than Smurfs knockoffs), but because it wasn't little cute things living in a village... pbbllllttt!

90's Cartoon Network and Nicktoons? Well, CN didn't exist, and if it did, it would have had Scooby and the old classic shows, so no complaint there... but Nick? Noozels? Li'l Bits? If I hated Spongebob so much that I wished harm on anyone involved with the show and had bonfires of merchandise I pried from the hands of little kids, I still would watch a million years worth of the Sponge than one freaking Noozels episode.

Face it... 90's kids haven't suffered for their cartoons the way some of us older toon fans have. The ground was broken before they were born or at least too young to remember, and there has never been need to break any more ground. It's like kids who lived during a time of peace saying that life is boring to those who lived through one (actually, something we'd never experience, right?). We've seen all the WORST animation has to offer, and we know that things were terrible once, and they'll never be terrible again. NONE of the cartoons we have now would have been possible without those barriers being destroyed.

Also.... cartoons today have character development and complex adult themes. Adventure Time? They have a character that's an allegory of Alzheimer Disease who's immensely complex. Transformers Prime? The wit and sophistication of an adult action show... I take that back... with and sophistication HIGHER than an adult action show. Dan Vs? Has there ever been a more sociopathic protagonist in animation that wasn't a Looney Tunes character? To say the least of Phineas and Ferb and Gravity Falls. I don't buy this "all new stuff is garbage" hate dumb. Once we get back backwards 1970's-80's Action for Children's Television suppression, THEN we can talk about terrible.

 

[mr3urious]

Also, I'm pretty sure that back in the '90s there were people who grew up in the '40s and '50s that whined about how much new cartoons sucked and that they should rerun old Tom & Jerry or Looney Tunes shorts for all eternity, and if they had their way, we probably wouldn't have had all those wonderful creator-driven '90s cartoons they love so dearly.

What a paradox!

 

[Drtooth]

Also, I'm pretty sure there were people who grew up in the '40s and '50s back in the '90s that whined about how much new cartoons sucked and that they should rerun old Tom & Jerry or Looney Tunes shorts for all eternity, and if they had their way, we probably wouldn't have had all those wonderful creator-driven '90s cartoons they love so dearly.

I remember reading an Animation Magazine from the early 90's that had a running gag about how much Tiny Toons sucked. You try and tell a generation that grew to appreciate it that, and they'll think you're mad! They (much like the 90's generation on today's cartoons) without watching the series deemed it an abomination to the Looney Tunes. Ren and Stimpy creator John K famously started that.

You made a brilliant point. So called cartoon "lovers" of every generation refuses to let the next generation have/do their own thing. I remember message boards in the late 90's that had nothing but complaints about how they felt sorry for kids who grew up with Dexter's Lab and Ed, Edd, n' Eddy and not some piece of crap 70's Scooby-Doo knockoff. Heck, I remember when EE&E was the most maligned show out there, next to Cow and Chicken.

 

[D'Snowth]

I've said this before, but notice how anytime today's kids see ANY cartoon that was in existence before the 2000s that features a male humanoid character and a talking dog (or any two random buddy characters), they're like, "Oh, so THAT'S where ADVENTURE TIME came from!" Wallace and Gromit, Ralph the All-Purpose Animal and Mumford, Tom Terrific and Manfred, even Rocky and Bullwinkle are all supposedly the original ADVENTURE TIME duo.

 

[Sgt Floyd]

The Simpsons was always considered a kid's show for some reason, and the fact that Bart Simpson merchandise directed at kids was all over the place (it is by far not a new thing, ask a 30+ year old who was there when the Simpsons happened) until the second or third season. It went under heavy scrutiny back in the early 90's. The PTA was up in arms about Bart, and this is when the show was tame. And again, I have fond memories of kid's Bart T-shirts and Bart Simpson kid's drink boxes, and TERRIBLE Acclaim video games marketed to kids. But it was never a kid's show. Mad Magazine said something brilliant about the Simpsons when it first came on. That a lot of toy marketers were watching because they missed the ALF bandwagon. Of course, ALF was far more family friendly.

Oh, I;m not saying its a kids show, I'm saying its one of the few adult shows that's not SO adult that kids aren't able to watch it due to content. In its early days it dealt with some pretty deep stuff, but there was nothing that was south park level violent and explicit.

The thing is, it became popular with kids more than adults, which should tell you that it was able to bridge the gap between outright adult shows, and kids shows. They started marketing it towards kids because that's the audience the show found. And the writers were pretty horrified about that.

Though to be fair, Virtual Bart isn't THAT bad a game. Its better than Bart Vs the SPace Mutants and Bart Meets Radioactive Man. Heck, Bart's Nightmare isn't even as bad as the Nostalgia Critic makes it out to be Though the BEST video game that came out of the Simpsons is the Simpsons Arcade Game. Heck, it may be one of the best arcade brawlers out there. The less said about Bart and Beanstalk and Bart vs the Juggernauts the better...

 

[Drtooth]

Oh, I;m not saying its a kids show, I'm saying its one of the few adult shows that's not SO adult that kids aren't able to watch it due to content. In its early days it dealt with some pretty deep stuff, but there was nothing that was south park level violent and explicit.

Not saying you were saying that at all. Bart was such a high kid appeal character, that they always aggressively marketed Bart stuff towards kids since the beginning. And unfortunately that trickled down to parental groups. Not to mention the freaking groups that say every animation ever is for children. Even South Park had to deal with that when the Simpsons was well established. And sadly, South Park can actually be educational.

But man... I had quite a few of that stuff. Whatever I have left isn't in collector's quality condition, though.

Though to be fair, Virtual Bart isn't THAT bad a game. Its better than Bart Vs the SPace Mutants and Bart Meets Radioactive Man. Heck, Bart's Nightmare isn't even as bad as the Nostalgia Critic makes it out to be Though the BEST video game that came out of the Simpsons is the Simpsons Arcade Game. Heck, it may be one of the best arcade brawlers out there. The less said about Bart and Beanstalk and Bart vs the Juggernauts the better...

The NES games were horrid. The button for jump was the same button for acceleration? That made Bart a magnet to bottomless pits. But Virtual Bart was pretty good. I just could never get past the tomato throwing game. The egg level was too difficult. And I hated the Baby level too. But I loved that Pig stage. Bart's Nightmare is made up of games that are actually fun, and ones that are terrible. And sometimes you could be stuck forever trying to find a homework page.

And Acclaim's freaking license stopped us from ever having a home conversion of the Arcade game until the (I can't remember if it was X-Box or PS) virtual arcade stores got it.