3 ms·

I babysit a lot of my friend's kids (lacking kids of my own, I'm available for this) so I get to watch A LOT of children's TV. Perhaps its just an "in my day...

I babysit a lot of my friend's kids (lacking kids of my own, I'm available for this) so I get to watch A LOT of children's TV. Perhaps its just an "in my day..." sort of bias but I do feel like the 90s were of higher quality than content of today. Most hit shows of the '00s till today are invariantly tied up in trying to peddle toys of some kind. Certainly older shows were used for merchandizing but it seems like today the toy comes first and the show is developed around it. Plot development is optional and stories need not build off one another or refer back to past episodes. Out of those the early seasons of Pokemon and Digimon weren't bad and there are certainly a few neat shows on Disney & Nickelodeon (The Fairly Odd Parents and Sponge Bob come to mind). Aside from that it seems like a lot of shows lack the complex story telling of shows like Batman: TAS, Superman: TAS, Spiderman, Beastwars, Reboot, XMen, and the others mentioned in the article. While not really a kids show (seriously - watch this as an adult and its 10 times funnier), Freakazoid outdoes most content peddled to adult audiences. Another thing I've observed that seems to be detrimental to animated shows is the rise of cheap soap opera style live animation in place of cartoons. Probably the biggest example is Miley Cyrus' early career (Hannah Montana, etc). These shows let companies monetize in more ways since you can create concert movies and albums and the fanbase will follow the actor/actress to multiple shows. Benda Song[1] has spent nearly a decade jumping between various TV shows on the Disney channel (and playing a pretty good 'crazy girlfriend' in the Social Network IMO). I'm sure there are many other examples (all the faces seem to look the same between Disney's shows) but she stands out to me since she's seemingly the only cast member my age in shows filled with 12-16 year olds. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Song http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Song

ben1040 14y ago
>Most hit shows of the '00s till today are invariantly tied up in trying to peddle toys of some kind. This isn't anything new or particular to children's shows from the '00s; this has been going for the entire lifetime (or longer) of many HN posters. Wikipedia has a compendium of TV shows for kids that are tied into toy lines, over the last 30+ years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Toy-linked_animated_and_live-action_television_series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Toy-linked_animated_an... edit: On doing a little more reading, I didn't realize that this was actually banned up until 1984 when the Reagan FCC rescinded regulations on children's television. Those regulations had previously banned "program-length commercials," a category under which shows like this would have fallen.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  The 80s were particularly notorious for toy-based animation. Transformers is the most famous example. Characters would be killed off and replaced to boost toy sales. Still, there's a difference between a show where you make the toys and then get the nastiest animation done to create a 22-minute advertisement; vs making a halfway decent show and flogging some merch on the side. In other media, one might compare the original Star Wars trilogy with episodes I-III.
  - mgkimsal 14y ago
    I'm reminded of the "Mattel and Mars Bar Quick Energy Chocobot Hour" http://simpsonswiki.net/wiki/Mattel_and_Mars_Bar_Quick_Energy_Chocobot_Hour http://simpsonswiki.net/wiki/Mattel_and_Mars_Bar_Quick_Energ...
  - regularfry 14y ago
    In one sense, I'm glad they had the freedom to kill characters. Hearing that Optimus Prime had been killed was one of the more emotional moments of my childhood, even if they only did it to replace one truck with a bigger truck.
    - talmand 14y ago
      I don't recall characters being killed off in the Transformers cartoon show. A good chunk of the classic characters were killed off in the first ten minutes of the theatrical movie though. After watching several characters get killed in the span of thirty seconds, keep in mind we had never really seen this before, they then top it off with killing one of the most beloved characters in the series. I was a kid at the time. I was shocked. I cried. About a fictional cartoon robot. I didn't feel that way again until that jerk Whedon killed Wash. The result was that since the reaction to all this was rather severe, kids were devastated, that they actually changed the storyline in the GI Joe animated movie they were producing at the time. Duke was supposed to be killed in that movie but changed it so that he actually survived instead. Of course, they show that he survived by just adding in a background voice at the end of the movie saying that Duke was going to be okay! If you watch the scene where he is injured, with the idea he wasn't supposed to survive, you can tell by the way the scene was animated that he clearly dies right then and there. On a side note, most of the time none of the GI Joes would be killed in the comic book, just faceless Cobra soldiers. But I remember one comic where a few of the Cobra soldiers commit mass murder by shooting up several of the Joes that were being held prisoner in a pit. As usual, older characters to be replaced by newer ones to freshen up the toy line I suppose.
bconway 14y ago
It's been that way for 30+ years now: Transformers, He-Man, G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc.

ben1040 14y ago

>Most hit shows of the '00s till today are invariantly tied up in trying to peddle toys of some kind. This isn't anything new or particular to children's shows from the '00s; this has been going for the entire lifetime (or longer) of many HN posters. Wikipedia has a compendium of TV shows for kids that are tied into toy lines, over the last 30+ years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Toy-linked_animated_and_live-action_television_series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Toy-linked_animated_an... edit: On doing a little more reading, I didn't realize that this was actually banned up until 1984 when the Reagan FCC rescinded regulations on children's television. Those regulations had previously banned "program-length commercials," a category under which shows like this would have fallen.

jacques_chester 14y ago
The 80s were particularly notorious for toy-based animation. Transformers is the most famous example. Characters would be killed off and replaced to boost toy sales. Still, there's a difference between a show where you make the toys and then get the nastiest animation done to create a 22-minute advertisement; vs making a halfway decent show and flogging some merch on the side. In other media, one might compare the original Star Wars trilogy with episodes I-III.
- mgkimsal 14y ago
  I'm reminded of the "Mattel and Mars Bar Quick Energy Chocobot Hour" http://simpsonswiki.net/wiki/Mattel_and_Mars_Bar_Quick_Energy_Chocobot_Hour http://simpsonswiki.net/wiki/Mattel_and_Mars_Bar_Quick_Energ...
- regularfry 14y ago
  In one sense, I'm glad they had the freedom to kill characters. Hearing that Optimus Prime had been killed was one of the more emotional moments of my childhood, even if they only did it to replace one truck with a bigger truck.
  - talmand 14y ago
    I don't recall characters being killed off in the Transformers cartoon show. A good chunk of the classic characters were killed off in the first ten minutes of the theatrical movie though. After watching several characters get killed in the span of thirty seconds, keep in mind we had never really seen this before, they then top it off with killing one of the most beloved characters in the series. I was a kid at the time. I was shocked. I cried. About a fictional cartoon robot. I didn't feel that way again until that jerk Whedon killed Wash. The result was that since the reaction to all this was rather severe, kids were devastated, that they actually changed the storyline in the GI Joe animated movie they were producing at the time. Duke was supposed to be killed in that movie but changed it so that he actually survived instead. Of course, they show that he survived by just adding in a background voice at the end of the movie saying that Duke was going to be okay! If you watch the scene where he is injured, with the idea he wasn't supposed to survive, you can tell by the way the scene was animated that he clearly dies right then and there. On a side note, most of the time none of the GI Joes would be killed in the comic book, just faceless Cobra soldiers. But I remember one comic where a few of the Cobra soldiers commit mass murder by shooting up several of the Joes that were being held prisoner in a pit. As usual, older characters to be replaced by newer ones to freshen up the toy line I suppose.

bconway 14y ago

It's been that way for 30+ years now: Transformers, He-Man, G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc.