Tv shows that haven't aged well
 

I thought this might be an interesting thread. I think the following shows don't hold up:

Saved by the Bell
Captain Planet
Spiderman TAS
X-Men TAS
Sonic SatAM
The X Files

Those shows are fine and still work with a fresh audience. Most people who say they "don't age well" only say that because they themselves outgrew them

X-files totally holds up still and I have the X-men animated series on dvd and it's still better than the movies Fox has been crapping out.

I agree with you on Captain Planet, but all the rest are great!

I agree with these. Also Batman: The Animated Series. Super stiff voice acting, slow action scenes, and the rain is super crappy looking.

Never got into Saved by the Bell, but the other shows are fine IMO. Captain Planet is an okay watch.

Street Sharks, Extreme Dinosaurs, GI Joe and the first few seasons of Seinfeld. Oh and the Iron Man cartoon from the nineties. The middle seasons of Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles (1987) are pretty bad in terms of quality, but are still enjoyable.
He-Man is hilarious because of the re-used footage in like every episode.

I think the majority of cartoons from the 1980s haven't aged well.

i disagree. alot of those are still better than some of the sh*t on the air these days

Coming from a He-Man fan, I agree.
Although the show, and Filmation in general, is great, there was MAJOR cost cutting involved.
On example is Prince Adam's transformation sequence in every episode. It was not out of nowhere, and made sense, but it was still filler.
Actually, some of the storylines are quite adult.
In one episode, He-Man basically KILLS a bystander, but was actually one of Skeletor's henchmen in disguise. This makes He-Man LITERARY depressed.
One other thing is the PSA's at the end.
They MOSTLY gad good messages, but ones like Ram Man's make you scratch your head.
He he! Get it? Head! Ram Man.........I walked straight into that one. :lol:

Agreed, except for the original TMNT cartoon. The fact the original show wasn't a serious action show but more of an adventure comedy with satire is why its not dated as badly.

Also I think the animation of the original show still holds up fairly well (barring the worst animated episodes), especially since the show is nearly 30 years old.

I thought I was the only one who doesn't like BTAS. Brave and the Bold is fun though.

I gotta agree with Zarius. Captain Planet was definitely a product of its time and could only have gotten over in that specific era, but the rest are alright.

Some of the same people who criticize some of those shows for flimsy reasons, will willingly overlook the literal mountain of flaws in something like the Nick TMNT show, for example, just because its "fresh" (Seriously, New York City only has, like, 5 people living there).

There's a ton of stuff from back then that doesn't hold up, and a ton of stuff right now that won't hold up in ten years, but that particular list is weak.

As for me, as a kid I loved the Filmation stock footage. I found the familiarity comforting and loved acting out the Adam/He-Man transformation, for example, or the stuff in Ghostbusters. It's not like I didn't notice those things were the same every time, I knew it was on purpose (even though I was too young to get why) and thought it was great. It's kind of weird to me when people in their 20s/30s look back on stuff that was entirely aimed at 5-8 year olds with an overly-critical eye. It's like doing a critical dissertation of the gender politics of Sesame Street. You serious?

I would like to see actual reasons why instead of just nitpicking...

Personally, I think the 80s Transformers series has aged much better than the 80s TMNT series, but that's just me.

How about Jem and the Holograms. So so dated... lol

It's OUTRAGEOUS!
I walked right into that one.....

Truly, truly, truly outrageous. :-P

Lol!
:lol:

Well G1 Transformers tends to have somewhat better pacing and variety than FW TMNT, but that does not mean that it has aged all that well either.

Everyone looks at different things from the past with a variety of nostalgia goggles so sometimes its hard to be objective, I try my best but even I know I have a bias but most people don't realize this and think they're being objective when they're not.

SbtB reeks of the late 80s/early 90s but if that's what you want then you get what you are watching, no worse than similar shows today that aren't specifically good either but the're a product of its time and can probably only be enjoyed by those growing up at htat time.

Captain Planet I'll save for later.

Spider-Man and X-Men TAS I rewatched a few years ago and thought they held up extremely well, they can be nitpicked to death but they did a great job in telling stories and are better than say the current Marvel cartoons Disney is making though they were indeed surpassed by the other Marvel cartoons before the Disney buyout. Counting Disney XD re-ran them in the mid-00's just shows how relevant they still were.

Sonic SatAM is defintely a show for kids and is a 90s show not show how well it would do today, it's not bad for kids but it's hard to watch as an adult because its for kids, at least that was my thought when I watched it a few years ago.

X-Files totally holds up extremely well and is amazing to this day, especially if you don't think of it as it taking place in modern times which it isn't since they always specify dates even if at the time it was taking place in modern times. The final seasons of th X-Files are a shadow of their former selves but those didn't age badly, they were always bad.


I disagree, there's definitely things that just don't work anymore and things that don't age well, I can't think of a good example off the top of my head. Of course I agree that many people online dismiss things as "it didn't age well" and isn't always the case but I re-watch things from my childhood all the time and sometimes I get what I expect a show for kids that just doesn't appeal to me, sometimes I get shows that impress me as an adult by how good it still is and sometimes I wonder how I ever liked it.

This is generalizing a lot but I tend to agree, even as a kid I could recognize shows made from the 80s and hated them they were just too formulaic, there's plenty of exceptions of course, I actually think Thundercats holds fairly well since it was so rich in mythology but it was still held back by the expectations of what a cartoon was at that time which was only a toy commercial, TMNT is another good example that it aged much better since it was comedy/action and didn't take itself too seriously.

Do you watch cartoons these days? Are you the 8 and under target audience? It's hard to be objective when you're an adult. Just because you don't get a show doesn't mean its automatically sh-t it just doesn't appeal to you.

While I agree that CP was a product of its time; even when it came out it was super preachy, and didn't get over because it was a product of its time, it got over because it taught good morals. CP gets shat on all the time now but it had a great message. You'll say I'm going all tree hugger on everyone but look at the world today, we need a new CP style show of course modernized but still super preachy so maybe the next generation can do the job my generation is trying to do with the current eco movement and I can't help but feel it was because of the 90s kids who got bombarded by the eco movement, the 00's kids didn't get this and I feel there'll be a gap of adults who just don't care about the environment now because of it and will be as close minded as older adults are today about the real problem at hand.

You look at them fondly now because you liked them as a kid and can overlook their faults but come on, did you never get frustrated that Skeletor was never defeated? That things got back to the status quo got back to how things were supposed to at the end? That's fine in a comedy show like The Flintstones but it's frustrating in an action show. Most writers in the 80s didn't care they just saw them as toy commercials, that mentality started changing in the 90s which even though they still had a formula they were more open to changing things up unlike 80s shows, and once we got the the 00s story arcs are no longer exceptions or out of the ordinari but found in most shows and required to be compelling, maybe because many of those writers are those kids who grew up with cartoons and wanted more out of their characters and are now doing what they wanted to see when they were kids. Kids are not stupid and can enjoy story arcs those were always my favorite shows as a kid and held them in higher regard over shows that had none.

Well the internet nerd herd is mostly comprised of 80s kids who loved Transformers, hence why there's so many Transformers fansites/podcasts etc. But I've tried getting into transformers many times, my first exposure was as a 7 year old watching the "new" G2 in the early 90s which was just the 80s show and even then it bored me compared to other shows airing at the time like TMNT and Power Rangers. Even now I just can't get into it, I enjoyed Beast Wars when it came out. I think Transformers may have been one of the 80s shows that tried to be a little different from other 80s shows by changing the status quo a little like killing Optimus and other stuff that had never been done before but it is still very formulaic and don't think it even changed things enough as Thundercats another 80s show did.

Now that I shat all over the 80s, the 90s definitely has its formulaic crap like these two shows that tried to copy the TMNT formula without any of its soul so they're boring and forgettable and only when they were airing did they have any relevancy. The 90s also has plenty of crap but like I mentioned that's when attitudes towards cartoons were slowly changing. Today cartoons are overall much much better than anything made before it, of course there's also plenty of crap now but the quality of writing has increased, I would agree 90s had more iconic shows as did the 80s but that's also because the internet didn't exist or wasn't as big at the time and now kids have other things to take their attention away instead of one "big" thing.

I’ve never believed in the adage that TV shows, video games, etc can “age”. I can understand someone’s opinions of a show changing as they get older, but that a modern viewer won’t like anything mentioned in this thread?

When I was a kid I was nuts about strawberries, I could eat a whole container all by myself. But now they just aren’t as sweet as I remember them to be and I’m just indifferent to them now. Does that mean strawberries “don’t hold up” and a modern consumer isn’t going to enjoy them?

But that’s just my opinion.
Oh yeah, the best cartoons are the ones that have a catchphrase for kids to shout out while playing with their toys. “Cowabunga!”, “Scooby-Dooby-Doo!”, “In the name of the moon, I’ll punish you!”, “NARF!”, etc. I was once over at a friend's house as a kid and Inspector Gadget came on so we rushed to the TV. "Did we miss the part where Gadget blows up the chief?" I asked. "I know!" My friend said "That's the best part!"
I can’t honestly say I did. When I watched Swat Kats as a kid all I cared about was how Razor and T-Bone were going to stop Dark Kat that episode. I don’t understand why some people think every action show needs to have an epic multi season storyline. Sometimes people don’t want complex villains and morally ambiguous heroes. Sometimes people just want to sit back, relax, cheer for the heroes and boo at the villains without worrying if everything will be ok in the end.

But again, that's just my opinion.

actually ues i have. and that's why i made my opinion. i'd much rather have my kids, if i had any, watch some of the stuff i grew up watching then the lame crap on the air these days. it's called opinion bro. we all have em. we agree to disagree, other wise wtfs the point

I never saw the 80s Transformers series when I was growing up. I watched it as an adult on the channel Kix a few years ago and thought it was an okay show to watch, but there wasn't anything noteworthy about it. The last three episodes were the best, in my opinion. I think the 80s tmnt series was better, though that may be because I grew up with it.

Of course not every show needs multi season storylines or constant changing of the status quo, heck I think Superhero cartoons are becoming too storydriven when the whole "episode of the day" or "filler" worked more than fine for Batman TAS, but that doesn't work for every show, I do like having the villains defeated and some sense of closure, I always despised shows that never ended. I definitely disagree with the other part though, people do need characters that are more complex, and that's what makes a cartoon more watchable. Let's take Gargoyle's, if you are a very young kid you see Xanatos as the evil villain, but the older you get (and I'm talking 8-10) you see he is more complex and because of that more interesting while a villain like Skeletor the older you get the less appealing he is since he is just evil for the sake of evil. so even if as a young kid you don't understand the full grasp of say Xanatos you still know he's the villain, you don't need to sugar coat kids. Even if you just want a "good guys always win" There's always shows like Power Rangers, which have a storyline and they finish and the characters maybe aren't fully developed and can be enjoyed like you say, but even then those shows now have a bigger narrative that you can find if you look for it.


Well you'll be severely disappointed when you see your kids are not in the least interested in most shows you grew up with, they'll want their own shows to grow up with which you can say its your opinion to disagree but that's because you are no longer the target audience of the shows. I enjoy many shows I grew up with but I wouldn't share or expect my kids to like most of them just as I don't expect to like the shows my kid likes. there'll be exceptions of course, I'm sure my kid would enjoy Batman TAS and I'd enjoy some of the shows targeted to him like some new DC cartoon. I don't watch most cartoons aimed at kids these days with some exceptions that appeal to me like the new TMNT Nick show but even then I can appreciate that the writing of current shows is usually better, sure there's crap but the 90s and 80s had plenty of that as well and we watched it.

As adults it's hard to keep our nostalgia in check but if you don't then you'll quickly become into one of those fogeys who says "back in the day...", my sister is only 5 years older than me and she often mentions erroneously how things in the past were better just because they're different now. That's why you need fresh blood in politics, movies, etc. Times change and that doesn't mean things are necessarily worse, they're just different. Sure sometimes it can be true but others it isn't so it's very important to try to be objective. You can't be biased and just say "Well in my opinion" to justify your argument if you want to actually argue a point. The whole opinions can't be wrong is not entirely correct. You do need to state or point out there is some biased in your opinion whether its "by the way I was born in the 90s" or whatever.

very true, and i appreciate you pointing this out to me as well. thanks. though i mostly avoided the crap of the 80s and 90s :D

that's to say that i'm not totally against everything that's out now. i absolutely love the new Nick TMNT as well.

any who, i might add that seeing as i don't plan to ever reproduce it's a moot point any ways lol :lol:

oh god if i find myself saying "back in my day.." again i might just off msyelf :lol:

btw, i'm scared of change :D

so explain current crap like Breadwinners, Squidbillies, and other truly abysmal cartoons that kids today watch AND LOVE. Just a small sampling of today's cartoons dredges up more $h*t than a Roto-rooter.... And Nick is one of the worst offenders in that department.

Hey I just got into jem recently!

I ended up watching like 10 episodes without stopping XD (I'm at like ep 40 now)

You might like the movie due later this year

X men and Spider man TAS hold up very well they are two of the finest cartoons out there. Batman TAS is one of the greatest cartoons ever created. Best Batman show ever.

Never. Because 1: I liked the show and didn't want it to end, so I didn't WANT Skeletor to be defeated "once and for all", and 2: I was 4.

Don't forget, shows even having arcs or "endings" is still a relatively modern idea. Most shows weren't even developed with any kind of "exit strategy" back then, they just ran until people got sick of them. Especially kids' cartoons. So watching a show like He-Man, you can't really fault it for not having sweeping multi-episode storylines, serious character development, or a "real" ending, because that's totally not how shows were even done back then.

That's like judging old paintings and knocking points off because of their lack of Photoshop layers or digital inking. Different era, different standards.

B:TAS fight scenes are lackluster but I think that more has to do with the Fox censors at the time than anything else. Fight scenes were brief and usually consisted of Batman throwing a guy over his shoulder or something.

Which is bizarre because this is the same show that had bad guys firing realistic handguns, some people nearly getting killed, or episodes about drugs and psychological abuse.

But no, can't have Batman punch someone in the face! Thankfully this declined as the series progressed.

Yeah cartoons then were only seen as a way to sell toys and they'd order a batch of 65 episodes to air on syndication in one shot. Your analogy isn't a good one though, you can understand the limitations of the technology but not the bad writing since good writing is not something that was invented recently. The fact that there were good cartoons in the 80s shows it could be done.

They just didn't give credit to kids and wanted them to buy the toys and make something safe and easy as possible without taking risks. Things only changed recently for two reasons, the people growing up watching those cartoons wanted to do more than what they got as kids and also because anime started becoming more and more common and they had all of that so to keep up with it they needed to improve their writing as well.

I already explained that, all decades have crap shows people just tend to remember the good stuff and not the bad, this isn't just with cartoon, it always happens with music. So yeah as much crap as there is today there was more before and the quality in general is higher now, of course there's room for improvement.

How is it "bad writing" when working within the formula was part of the writers' job back then? If anything, they deserve credit for even making 130 episodes that were all pretty good, despite knowing full well that they weren't "allowed" to move anything forward or bring things to a conclusion. Telling a "complete" story for that many individual episodes within the kinds of limitations they had to work with back then actually shows how creative a lot of the writers really were.

And He-Man is an awful example of "cartoons as toy commercials" since the show used the same 5 characters, but the toy line had hundreds. Practically nothing from the toy line ever even made it into the show. Other shows like G.I. Joe were far more guilty of that particular offense. And yet, even they were still really entertaining and well-written shows, despite the blatant commercialism.

And if you think cartoons nowadays aren't just toy commercials, you're naive. All that's changed, is that nowadays, stories can run for more than one episode. Fundamentally, nothing has changed. Cartoons are for selling toys to kids. Why do people try and read so much into it, to the point where products from completely different eras with completely different standards have to "compete" with each other? I don't get it.

Interesting topic. I think it just comes down to what you personally like and what you consider justifiable.

Nostalgia/"back in my day" is kind of a different subject. People who complain about current shows and movies are being close minded a lot of the times. They don't realize their era had similar trends and cliches.

That's why I hate when people complain about modern day movies and accuse Hollywood of somehow becoming corrupted by using trends and mainstream actors. Go back to any era and you'll see that's how it's always been for the most part.

I'm a huge Sonic fan and used to watch SatAm and now have series on DVD. It's not as thrilling as when I was a kid but it's a solid cartoon that I think kids today would find entertaining.

The Nostalgia Critic seems to hate everything, but he had quite good things to say about the Satam show. Basically, it's one of the few good examples of how to adapt a video game into a kid's cartoon.

There's nothing wrong with being an animated toy commercial if the toys are as wicked as Masters of the Universe. The art and design of that show sill holds up as far as I'm concerned and my hat is off to the people who made it because animating a bunch of anatomically correct muscle-men looks a lot harder than the rubber-hose characters that are in vogue now. Granted, they didn't always pull it off.

https://38.media.tumblr.com/569d8608...hwq1o3_400.gif
Ben Hurst did that show justice. Even though Season 3 was canned, the first two seasons still have some decent merits to stand on IMO.

Rotoscoping should be mandatory by federal law.

If I could vote in your country, I'd make that an election issue. Imagine, Obama smoothly walks out on stage in perfect side profile, stops, and faces forward, addressing the American people, moving only his mouth. Then, smoothly strides forward and punches the screen.