Top 10 old cartoons
Every time I turn the TV and have the displeasure of ending up on Fox kids (or Jetix as its called now) its the same stuff. Poorly drawn manga-like cartoons that are apparently aimed at annoying all living things. No disconcernable facial expression, absurdly huge mouths, drops on the faces to signify a state of enbarrassment and some of the most wildly insane subjects ever. Seriously, why are we subjecting the youth of these days to a cartoon where the idea seems to be that two small people shoot marbles at each other and call it a sport? Even Beyblade had some sort of background story to justify monsters coming out of those little spinners. I've never seen so much suck in one show at the same time! It made all of Japan look stupid!
Don't get me wrong, I like manga. At times. When the subject covers overly muscled ninja's with weird powers that battle to the death over barely plausible reasons. Oh man, ninja scroll rules so much.....
Anyway, is it just me or were cartoons a decade ago really that much cooler? We had cars that could fly, actual war, space fleets doing battle and optimus prime. There was violence, coolness, bad voice acting and massive amounts of ass kickery. Bring those days back!!
To remind you of how much those days ruled, I present my personal top 10 of old cartoons. These cover all old versions, don't bother me with saying 'hey there's a new version of He-man' because it sucks. Most new cartoons suck.
The flying Dutchman's top 10 of old cartoons
10. Inspector Gadget
We all watched it. We all loved dr Claw and his deranged cat and we all loved it when the chief got blown up again by his own secret message. We all hated that smartass girl and that stupid dog and we all wanted to see gadget get the badguy although that obviously never happened. All versions after the first one sucked. Dr Claw stands firm in my top 5 of coolest villains ever if only because he had portraits of his gauntleted fist hanging around in his secret mansion, thats just too cool to be true.
9. He-Man
Skeletor ruled, thats for sure. Certainly one of the more insane villains in cartoons and he had the henchmen to suit his insanity. Evil-Lynn for one. There was a badguy who was actually called 'evil'. Brilliant. He-man himself was a lunatic swinging a big sword and shouting weird battlecries "I've got the power!!", well yeah duh. You're glowing and stuff...thats a dead give away.
8. EXO Force
This one only ended up on 8 because no one seems to remember it. It was aired for only a brief time but kicked so much ass it has to be mentioned. The premise was that Earth was taken over by a race we ourselves had created and there was only one force left that could save us, the EXO fleet! Cue the heroes who go to war against the monstrous enemy in armoured battlesuits. The lead villain pranced around for the entire show in a black battlesuit which he only got to use in the last few episodes. Space battles, armoured suits duking it out and a very good future setting. I think this show kicked to much ass, thats why it got canceled. Eternal shame.
7. GI Joe
Hmm, suppose this is a little high for this show. I bought a few DVD's of it and the show just wasn't the same anymore. The amounts of flag waving and the sheer annoyance of the intro song was almost to much to bear. (They fight for freedom blablabla all while waving US flags.) Still, there was a war going on and some of the characters were pretty cool, although I still hope Shipwreck gets killed at some point. Despite all the show's shortcomings, who can forget Cobra and their insane hissing commander who, as it turned out, was an idiot?
6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
This show is mostly cool because of its badguy. A man in a metal mask who was called 'Shredder'. Genious! Who cares that the rest of the show was about 4 man sized turtles, their ratman leader and that terribly annoying journalist who never seemed to get killed despite really deserving to. The storyline was stupid, the heroes poorly thought out but damn, shredder ruled! He managed to conquer earth once, got in league with a alien brain and had some kick ass moves. I admit, this is the only cartoon where the badguy is actually cooler in the new version, although the rest of it sucks.
5. Thundercats
Thundercats, hoooooo!!!!!! This was the battlecry, I kid you not. It had a mummy for a villain who was called Mumm-ra and a whole host of weird creatures for its heroes and badguys. Sillyness allround but the action was good, very good indeed.
4. Ren & Stimpy
Holy shit....this show was weird. The audience was horrified, disgusted and insulted at the same time and we loved it. A selection from its insanity: Stimpy collected snot he picked from his nose, Ren went mad every single episode, the Log song is stuck in people's brains for a decade now and at one point the show featured talking farts. Unforgettable, no matter how hard you try.
3. MASK
The flying car show! I shall never forget when Matt Tracker told his son always to buckle up when driving. Yeah well, I would buckle up to when I was going to wage bloody war in the car I was driving! Lasers, weird mask powers and vehicles that could turn into anything. The Mobile Armoured Strike Kommand could deal with anything Venom threw at them and didn't care that Kommand is actually written with a C........
2. Teknoman
'Earth will belong to me!' Thats what Darkon shouted at our hero in every single episode. The hero was blade, who was utterly insane in his own right but made up for it by turning into an unstoppable armoured juggernaut and killing spider crabs by the dozen. This show was so incredibly good it had to be censored for the US version.To much coolness is bad for your health, I suppose.
1.Transformers
Firmly on 1, the old transformers cartoon. I don't even know where to begin describing the coolness of transformers. Robots who came to earth, got stuck in a volcano for a million years and then continued with their war, involving our little primitive race in it as they went on their quest. Brilliance all round.
A little extra info, Megatron is most certainly in the bad guys top 10. Here was a big psycho robot with a massive gun who then turned into a small hand portable pistol. They didn't even bother to make it plausible, they just did it!
Optimus Prime was the ultimate goodguy and is still fondly remembered by fans everywhere. he just rocked in every episode with his deep fatherly voice, his inspiring leadership and that trailer that appeared out of nowhere when he transformed.
This show will never be overtaken in terms of coolness. Its just impossible. Come on, giant robots who transform and wage war? What more do we need?
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Old cartoons Rule!