Re: childhood cartoon-kid shows
I don't know what is with this thread, but suddenly I start remembering quite a lot of the cartoons I used to watch.
Do anyone remember Widget the World Watcher?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFwoG2P-s6U
I used to see this, though the intro was in english the episodes themselves were in danish. Back then I thought they said in the intro that Widget came from some sort of Nebula which made sense because I had heard about that in relation to stars before, and that he was a "soldier" sent out to protect living beings on earth. Now I can hear the intro is not exactly like that, he's actually more interested in saving nature, yet what I like/liked about this sort of cartoon is that you have some villains who are much bigger than the innocent they are hunting, and also much bigger than the hero, Widget. So they act towards Widget as they towards those they hunt, and then when Widget shapeshift into a 3 ton Rhino or a 30 ton Blue Whale, it really made my adrenaline pump.
About old cartoons vs. new cartoons, have anyone tried to compare the old X-men with the X-men as teenagers? Personally I think the X-men as teenagers serie is much better, but I know people of my age who disagree, it's just that the story of X-men as teenager makes so much more sense, probably because they know exactly where they are headed, that being towards X-men as grown ups.
Jel,
No, I think Hege is right in general. If we look back at the old Tom and Jerry episodes, they are extremely violent. The Simpsons' Itchy and Scratchy parody of Tom and Jerry is not too far off from what Tom and Jerry was actually like. Tom would get his tail chopped off, his eardrums blasted out, teeth shattered, steamed alive, wacked over the head with hammers, and so on.
Personally I never liked Tom and Jerry, because the violence had no consequences it quickly became dull for me. It was the same over and over, no evolution, the same story, nothing ever changed, and I guess that has never been my taste when talking about cartoons.
So I don't think it should be called violence as it had none of the consequences violence usually have, beside it did also suffer from one of the aspect most cartoons and series suffer from, whatever have happened in previous episodes are only mentioned when it's relevant, yet the actors / animes never seem to be affected by these earlier events, never giving them a thought until it's relevant for the plot. So eventhough Tom get hit by a lot of Pianos, he never learns, and acts like he never have been hit by anything pretty much.
He-man (much later) was toned down, but we still saw He-man fighting, wrestling, even lobbing villains. Turtles, we saw them smashing robots, dodging deathtraps, etc
I liked He-man, though it was never shown on TV in my country (not that I know of at least), a classmate had some videos with He-man that we used to watch, I don't remember much from it, but I do not feel it was much different from much of the cartoon I saw later, where they're figthing pretty much just as much, for example the X-men teenager show.
I remember the turtles smashing robots, but dodging traps I don't, anyway all that, and much more I believe, is in the new serie, though I really dislike the more ninja-type episodes that is about inner growth (which is an important theme none the less, but boring) then there are some episodes with a lot of action.
I remember seeing this stuff on CTV here in Canada. You know what they show on CTV now? Some cartoons with no violent act whatsoever. It's all part of the bubblewraping of todays children to ensure they become major pussies in real life.
I'm not familiar with CTV, if they decide to not show certain shows because of the influence they think it has, but have no data supporting their idea, well then it's bad censorship I agree, but if there actually exist valid statistical data that shows certain shows have had a degree of influence in a negative behavior of the people who watched the shows, well then it may be fair after all. Though if it's like cartoon network that used to have much better shows, then I agree, it sucks that so much quality have been lost, but I don't think it's the cartoons that should be blamed, more the persons who choose what cartoons that should be showed.
There's a cartoon I think is sort of good, not sure what it's called, but it goes "Release the dragon!!!" and dragons are harnessed and used for racing in a sci fi type setting. Anyway, it seems that 'fighting' has been swapped with 'racing'. Well, tbh, I only saw one or two episodes, but the villain seems to try to cheat in a race instead of trying to kill the heros like in the old days' cartoons.
I think I occasionaly have sapped by that cartoon and even watched it a bit, I really don't like it, mostly for the reason you mention yourself, as fighting is now about racing and the so called evil guys are really not evil, they are more like lousy guys who cheats. I mean what is next, a cartoon of kids playing diablo 2, where the evil guy is a person who uses duped items (not duping himself) and pk's "innocent" kids? Where these kids then by only using self found legit items goes against him and pk him back? That would be some boring show! :crazyeyes:
Well anyway, you may be right that in general either the tv shows nowadays prefer more "pussy"-cartoons or that more "pussy"-cartoon are created, so there are longer between the really cool ones, I however have only compared old shows to newer shows of those that are a succes today, such as Turtles, and not as much with Spiderman, or Batman, but I have done that as well since I happened to see them.
Now something weird, I remember really liking Disney's Gummi Bears when I was younger, however now it seems so slow and soft.
