The Transformers movie is out, so what better way to get some google traffic than, rather unfairly, I think, putting the Transformers cartoon at the top of your nostalgic list of Worst Cartoons Evah?
When you think about it, cartoons are the first pop culture a child sees. Before they’ve heard an entire Raffi CD, kids have already memorized the Disney pantheon, from Chip and Dale to Baloo the Bear. Kids are picky customers, but they get addicted fast. And sometimes the shows they love are less than perfect — badly written, poorly animated and ultimately brain-rotting — and years later, after a kid has grown up and become a successful video-game tester, he will discover that a favorite cartoon really wasn’t up to par.
Au contraire, my friend. It’s just when you’re 8, par is a much lower bar than when you’re 38, as is the natural order of things. Robert Isenberg’s nearly apologetic attempt at justifying such a transparently lame excuse for an article goes on for three paragraphs, and really he just should have saved himself the effort. Everyone likes the occasional narcissistic dip into their tragically boring childhood memories; and for those of us born after 1975, those memories were largely provided by the good people at Mattel, General Mills, and Viacom. There’s no point in getting depressed over our squandered childhoods now. Let’s just embrace the toolishness; we have little other choice.
Top of the list: Transformers.
But have you seen “Transformers” recently? Or even in the past 10 years? Grown-up fans can find the series disappointing: nothing but slow car chases, bland explosions and the ear-piercing voice of Starscream.
Those bastards! They haven’t kept up with you at all? Who are they making this crap for? Your kids? Eff that. Anyway, it’s unfair to trash the Transformers cartoon in a pathetic bid for relevancy when the real comparison is between this year’s tragic waste of animation freakin’ awesome example of why it’s wrong to prejudge something based on trailer and internet hearsay and 1986′s Transformers: The Movie. Not that my roommate has a copy, but I just watched this movie last week and it wears its 21 years well. The story of Rodimus Prime and the Matrix is a classic background for evenings of getting drunk and falling asleep. And quite frankly, if you expect even one iota more out of a movie that was designed to entertain you when you thought slap bracelets were cool, then there is something seriously wrong with you.
Next, Silverhawks.
OK, so nobody liked “Silverhawks,” the cosmic spin-off of “Thundercats,” but somehow they made 65 episodes, and if Warner Bros. gets its wish, they will all be available on DVD.
I have no idea what that show was, and I watched a lot of damn TV. So if you’re going to honor a Thundercats spin-off for being bad, why not just go straight to Thundercats? I loved Thundercats, damn did I love that show. And thanks to the miracle that is YouTube, I can watch some Thundercats whenever I want and think, what the fuck was I thinking? Oh, jesus god, my poor mother-why did she never destroy the TV as we slept? Sure, I would have been upset at the time, but eventually I’d realize that she really had no other choice:
Then this asshole actually puts Pokemon in the same category of cartoons as Transformers and Captain Planet, when as if! Yeah, Pokemon’s bad, really, really godawfully bad. I agree with that. But shows like GI Joe and She-ra represent the innocent first days of blatantly using television shows as a vehicle to sell your obscure toys. They had quaint standards, like cramming in heavy-handed messages about teamwork or responsibility, that were supposed to justify their entry into your child’s brain. Also, the core cast of VIP team members had to be kept at a reasonable number so that parents could actually be persuaded, by skillful whining, to eventually acquire the whole set. Pokemon is from a completely different generation, one that learned the children’s television FCC rules had no teeth whatsoever, and that plot is wasted on children and the idea of completing your collection of characters should be a life-long, unrealizable journey. I was surprised by how shocked I was by Digimon Yu-Gi-Oh, a Pokemon knock-off where the whole 30 minute show consists of two characters playing the game you’re supposed to play with the cards. It was just two anime guys who had a special machine that made the characters on the cards come to life and fight, reciting in that anime way their every move and motivation (and by proxy, explaining the rules of a game more complex than chess) playing the fucking game. It was pure cynicism, rolled in sugar and fed to young boys. I was moved to tears by the elegance. Clearly, there can be no comparison.
Jem makes his list of worst cartoons ever for being…not the worst cartoon ever.
You have to give props to “Jem.” For a show designed to sell dolls, this Saturday-morning cartoon went way beyond the call of duty: Featuring dozens of characters, complicated subplots and a vast genealogy of rock-star relationships, “Jem” suffers only because it’s so dated (big hair, glittery stages and a bad-girl band called the Misfits — what could be more unwatchable to a modern viewer?).
That’s right, Jem, the only girl on the list, loses points for being ‘dated.’ As opposed to the Transformers, whose ability to shape-shift into the hottest cars of the 80′s will remain forever timeless. A more feminist criticism of Jem involves why she never gave that two-timing asshole Rio the boot for making out with both her rock-star and her orphanage-director alter egos. A quick glance at youtube shows a distinct toning-down of the bad-assity between the first and second intro versions, suggesting that eve a Jem that let Rio walk all over her was too edgy for the man. A more appropriate token chick for this list is Strawberry Shortcake, who is according to Seanbaby “half-man, half-snack beast” which seems harsh until you realize that Strawberry Shortcake is the character that started the whole children’s television/unbridled consumerism dichotomy in the first place.
And finally, no list of bad cartoons would be complete without Captain Planet’s mullet.
n the history of kids’ TV, no series has ever been more politically correct: Five child-heroes represent five major ethnicities, and they spend their days selflessly protecting the environment.
As a member of the privileged class, I was pleased to find that “white” is two of the five major ethnicities. Back then, white came in two flavors, American (tastes like freedom!) and Soviet (she was a total babe, but also a total bitch). After that, the remaining slots get filled by black (only one flavor), Asian (from Asia, so also only one flavor), and ‘other,’ not coincidentally, the lamest and least memorable of the characters. At least he had his pet monkey to love him. It’s possible that maybe Captain Planet may have not been quite as politically correct as the producers were aiming for.
“I was surprised by how shocked I was by Digimon, a Pokemon knock-off where the whole 30 minute show consists of two characters playing the game you’re supposed to play with the cards.”
I think you’re thinking of Yu-Gi-Oh!, not Digimon.
Yeah, I think you’re thinking of “Yu-Gi-Oh”, which is totally a Magic knock-off.
Digimon is a Pokemon knock-off, but it still has the monsters and stuff.
You’re probably right.
I’m a little young for the Transformers, I grew up in the time of the almighty seller, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, New Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh, the Gummi Bears, Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers and the like.
I just got the Chip n Dale on Dvd so this has inspired me to go and watch some and see if it is as good as I remember. I don’t need to watch TMNT, I know that won’t be as good and I don’t want it proved to me I would rather remember it fondly and if anything read the very adult comic book that the series was based on if I feel the ache for some nostalgia.
I gotta say, I DID recently rewatch the entire first two seasons of Transformers (all the episodes preceding the 1986 movie). The first season was pretty much as good as I remembered it – there was an actual, interesting plot that spanned across multiple episodes, and included vocabulary that (IMO) was a step up from the average kid fare.* However, it was also rife with plot holes (sometimes autobots can fly and sometimes they can’t) and a lot of animation errors (mostly due to the jet planes’ colorization).
The second season was almost the reverse. They lowered their animation error rate but lost all sense of writing. Over half of the season was godawful retreads of the same one-dimensional plot: bad guys invent some doomsday device, good guys stop them.
*And another thing! When did people decide that it was a bad thing to challenge kids by making products for them that use words they don’t already know?
Seriously, did David Hasselhoff actually provide the voice for Lionel? It sounds just like the Hoff.
Honestly, even though I always hated Thundercats, I have to admit that it was groundbreaking. Lionel of Thundera was the first openly gay male in American cartoon television. Surely that’s worth something.
No, looks like that honor belongs to a guy named Larry Kenney, who should totally make a living doing Hasselhoff impersonations, because damn.
Also, in looking up the answer to your question, I found this.
Genealogy: Where you confuse the dead and irritate the living.