When you need to rant...

[AquaGGR]

SpongeBob has been digitally colored since Season 2, though.

 

[Sgt Floyd]

Really? Huuhhh...

Either way the animation does appear to have changed post the movie. I think that's when things started to look...odd.

 

[D'Snowth]

The thing of it is, tradition, digital, whichever, animation evolves (and in some cases devolves) over time, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. No matter what, animated characters are never going to look 100% exactly the same over the years.

Only exception to the rule I can think of is Courage: the characters look EXACTLY the same from episode one to episode fifty-two, and that show was digitally animated.

 

[AquaGGR]

The show more than likely got different animators in addition to different writers post-movie (I'm really not sure, though).

One thing I've noticed is that the episodes post-movie are much more extravagant in plots, and introduce too many characters that we only see for one episode. There's the episodes like Atlantis Squarepantis, Truth or Square, The Big One, and others that look like they're huge adventures but are really just underwhelming attempts at making a "big" episode.

 

[Drtooth]

I don't like those '90s kids who believe that their era of animation was the best, and complain about shows like Amazing World of Gumball and Regular Show just because it's not from the '90s. They have their nostalgia goggles on a little too tight. I bet if Dexter's Laboratory was released in 2013, nobody would like it because it's not from their childhood. You see this a lot in YouTube comments.

Technically speaking, SpongeBob is a '90s cartoon. It debuted in 1999. Though the show has suffered through lots of Seasonal Rot that nobody really pays attention to it.

Dude... I remember going to some message board back in 2000, and there were all these people whining about Dexter's Lab not being some 1970's trash. Even recently, I saw someone post on a YT upload of a Maxie's World episode (which I only needed for YTP purposes) how cartoons are all terrible now because they're not as good as Maxie's World. Few things are as terrible as Maxie's World. For that to get any defense while taking everything else down was one of the stupidest nostalgia filters I've ever heard.

I've never stopped watching cartoons, and I've been watching everything I can find from every decade possible. I can safely say those who think all modern animation is crappy kid's stuff are full of it. In fact, I am under heavy suspicion that every single kid's cartoon is written for adults. I mean, no way is Transformers Prime not a hidden adult show that just appeals to kids. And Regular Show.... I'm surprised it even has a children's following, as the main characters are 20 somethings at a dead end job. Dan Vs... I don't even know why that even qualifies as a kid's program. I don't even get that it's on the Hub, when it's adult swim material... only better.

I can also safely say... the 70's sucked for cartoons. That's ACT's fault, sure. I'll say that when I saw Funky Phantom, I was pleasantly surprised... but all those Scooby-Doo and Archie knockoffs were horrendous.

 

[cjd874]

Here's my two cents:
A lot of shows on Cartoon Network aren't even animated. Like The Incredible Crew, with those pre-teens doing crazy stunts and practical jokes. And the ones that are animated aren't necessarily for young kids, like Robot Chicken. They even have American Dad on CN late at night. That irks me to some extent.
I used to watch CN when they showed Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Dexter's Lab on a daily basis. Now the network's been reduced to an extremely commercialized jumble...but hey, I guess that's what pre-teen programming has come to, for the most part.

 

[mr3urious]

Here's my two cents:
A lot of shows on Cartoon Network aren't even animated. Like The Incredible Crew, with those pre-teens doing crazy stunts and practical jokes. And the ones that are animated aren't necessarily for young kids, like Robot Chicken. They even have American Dad on CN late at night. That irks me to some extent.
I used to watch CN when they showed Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Dexter's Lab on a daily basis. Now the network's been reduced to an extremely commercialized jumble...but hey, I guess that's what pre-teen programming has come to, for the most part.

CN has actually gotten into the swing of things recently with all these new critically-acclaimed animated shows, not that they don't waste their money by trolling us from time to time with a new show that no one likes, live-action or otherwise. Incredible Crew may be cancelled along with the others, but that won't last long.

One thing I've noticed is that the episodes post-movie are much more extravagant in plots, and introduce too many characters that we only see for one episode. There's the episodes like Atlantis Squarepantis, Truth or Square, The Big One, and others that look like they're huge adventures but are really just underwhelming attempts at making a "big" episode.

Ah yes, the ever-popular ratings trap, which was cute in the pre-movie era but has gotten really irritating in later years, especially with the misleading advertising. The promos for "Atlantis Squarepantis", for example, left out the fact that the episode is a musical, and not even a good one!

 

[AquaGGR]

Dude... I remember going to some message board back in 2000, and there were all these people whining about Dexter's Lab not being some 1970's trash. Even recently, I saw someone post on a YT upload of a Maxie's World episode (which I only needed for YTP purposes) how cartoons are all terrible now because they're not as good as Maxie's World. Few things are as terrible as Maxie's World. For that to get any defense while taking everything else down was one of the stupidest nostalgia filters I've ever heard.

I've never stopped watching cartoons, and I've been watching everything I can find from every decade possible. I can safely say those who think all modern animation is crappy kid's stuff are full of it. In fact, I am under heavy suspicion that every single kid's cartoon is written for adults. I mean, no way is Transformers Prime not a hidden adult show that just appeals to kids. And Regular Show.... I'm surprised it even has a children's following, as the main characters are 20 somethings at a dead end job. Dan Vs... I don't even know why that even qualifies as a kid's program. I don't even get that it's on the Hub, when it's adult swim material... only better.

The whining seems to be most prominent from '90s kids. This type of complaining also goes on in videogame forums.

Modern animation is not just kid's stuff (like some people think). There's the entirety of Adult Swim, and Regular Show sneaks so much in that it can't be considered a "kiddy show".

I wonder if those organizations that complain about cartoons not being suitable for kids are under the assumption that all cartoons are for children.

 

[fuzzygobo]

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.

But if you ever got dissatisfied/bored/disenchanted with your viewing selections, you could (drum roll, please) turn off the tv, get your face out of the screen, and get a breath of fresh air. This option still exists today, and is worth exercising once in a while. Don't knock it til you try it.

 

[mostlikemokey]

I like 90's cartoons, and I hate the fact that a lot of kids shows these days are really dumb, but the fact that I don't really address cartoons from other eras has more to do with the fact that I haven't seen them than me hating shows not from the nineties. I'm actually a big fan of some shows from the fifties and sixties, they just happen to be live action. So even though I was born in nineties, I don't think I'm whining about cartoons and other media from times before.
*edit* in fact, I think that the Star Trek animated series was pretty well done, considering how well it managed to tell the stories even though it had to use stock animation a lot and the episodes had to be shorter.