Animated
What was your favourite childhood TV cartoon?
-tony
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Oh, that's a hard one! I watched so many! I wasn't particularly discriminating as a kid and would watch pretty much *anything*. I suppose that one of the more influential cartoons that I watched was the original Black & White version of Astroboy. It may have been a bit of a novelty compared to most American cartoons of the era, but it (and other anime like Speed Racer, Marine Boy, Kimba the White Lion, etc) certainly made it somewhat easier for me to grasp some of the cultural tropes that some Westerners can have trouble understanding about Japanese animation.
I never got to see the original b&w Astroboy but I really enjoyed the cartoon they showed on TV here. I remember wanting to buy the series on DVD and being told not to because the voice dubbing was not as I remembered it. Somehow, the Canadian license to air the show had different voice actors and the DVD sets were from the U.S. license.
Either Superfriends or Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends. The height of my obsession with super-heroes...
Oh, man! I wish I could have watched those.
Oh Kimba... I forgot about you :) And Speed Racer = FANTASTIC
He's off and flying as he guns his car around the track!
He's jammin down the pedal like he's never comin back!
Adventure's waiting up aheeeeeead!
Go Speed Racer! Go Speed Racer! Go Speed Racer GoooOOooo!
He's off and flying as he guns his car around the track!
He's jammin down the pedal like he's never comin back!
Adventure's waiting up aheeeeeead!
Go Speed Racer! Go Speed Racer! Go Speed Racer GoooOOooo!
Like Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends, I missed out on watching Kimba. If I had cable TV back then, there'd be a whole lot of cartoons on my list.
Heh. I was lucky enough to have lived in Cleveland, Ohio, which at the time (late-1960s/early-1970s) had *two* independent TV stations that played the above listed shows. (And more! I forgot to mention 8th Man and Prince Planet.) I was into Anime before Anime was cool...
I don\'t understand... When was Anime ever not cool? ;)
Believe it or not, the current love for Anime is a relatively recent thing. In the 1960s, '70s, and some of the '80s, Anime was considered (when it was considered at all) to be *inferior* to American animation, or at least an exotic novelty. (Except, of course, by a small-but-rabidly-loyal fandom.)
Two shows seem to have changed this: Battle of the Planets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Planets) and Voltron. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltron) They were very popular during their runs and seem to have paved the way for when Cartoon Network introduced the original Toonami animation/anime bloc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toonami) in the late 1990s, which pretty much brought it into the mainstream. (I should probably also credit Craig McCracken's The Powerpuff Girls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerpuff_Girls) and Genndy Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_Jack) since those two cartoons, while recognizably "Western" in appearance, were heavily influenced by Anime and use a lot of anime tropes.)
P.S. Sorry for the odd formatting, but Wordpress is being very naughty right now.
Two shows seem to have changed this: Battle of the Planets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Planets) and Voltron. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltron) They were very popular during their runs and seem to have paved the way for when Cartoon Network introduced the original Toonami animation/anime bloc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toonami) in the late 1990s, which pretty much brought it into the mainstream. (I should probably also credit Craig McCracken's The Powerpuff Girls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerpuff_Girls) and Genndy Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_Jack) since those two cartoons, while recognizably "Western" in appearance, were heavily influenced by Anime and use a lot of anime tropes.)
P.S. Sorry for the odd formatting, but Wordpress is being very naughty right now.
I didn't know that my early exposure to Anime was Anime at all. I have a vague recollection of watching Thunderbirds 2086 whenever I was lucky enough to see it - I had a poor sense of time so there were Saturday afternoons where I neglected to catch it at all.
My impression of the Anime craze hitting big in Canada happened when YTV started airing Sailor Moon. Once that took off, episodes of DragonBall and DragonBall Z were brought aboard and followed by Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Cardcaptors Sakura, and Digimon.
I loved watching Dexter's Laboratory and the direction of Samurai Jack.
My impression of the Anime craze hitting big in Canada happened when YTV started airing Sailor Moon. Once that took off, episodes of DragonBall and DragonBall Z were brought aboard and followed by Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Cardcaptors Sakura, and Digimon.
I loved watching Dexter's Laboratory and the direction of Samurai Jack.
Yeah, all of those shows (Sailor Moon, Dragonball, DragonballZ, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Cardcaptor Sakura, Digimon, and especially Pokémon ) were also influential (and sometimes controversial) as well; I think primarily by attracting female and younger audiences.
There were a lot of shows I watched (Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles, Duck Tales, Garfield & Friends, Inspector Gadget, Spiderman, Super Mario Bros Super Show, Hercules), but I think I have the fondest memories of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My brother and I would rush to watch it on television every chance we got. And TMNT II was the first movie I saw in the theatre (I was 8 at the time, but I still remember it).
Have you caught the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? I think it's really well-made. Great insight on the individual characters while still following the story arc.
I watched a lot of Astro Boy...
Definitely! He and Atlas would fight so much.
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