thisbluespirit | I think I might have to talk about 80s cartoons (Reply)

Just because. I grew up in the 80s and there were a lot of them and I seem to have watched most of the things.  Plus, I'm pretending that Doctor Who is my favourite show. Which it is. Except, just maybe, for one cartoon that got in there while I was still sticking my head under a cushion and screaming "Turn it off!" when Doctor Who came on the telly.

It's time for a confession. Oh dear...

Anyway, from Battle of the Planets (it was on the top 100 Children's TV shows, finally proving to my friends that this wasn't something I dreamt years ago) to whatever the latest of these would be, I watched my way through a scary number of 80s and probably 90s action cartoons. So why is there one of them I still watch even now?

Okay - quick list: Battle of the Planets, Captain Caveman, Scooby-Doo, He-Man, She-Ra, Thundercats, Ulysses 31, Cities of Gold, The adventures of Doctor Dolittle, Defenders of the Earth, Pole Position, something on ITV that was kind of like a Teletubbies cartoon with a thing that went Evil-OK (my Dad liked that one), Visionaries, Texas Pete, Spiderman and His Amazing Friends, and Dungeons and Dragons. I think I must have missed some?

Quick reviews of the ones I remember the most:

Defenders of the Earth - we liked this, but the animation changed about 3 episodes in and nothing was ever the same again.  Mandrake was quite a fun character, though. Everyone else was a bit boring.

Ulysses 31 - I missed the end of this twice, but my memories of it are of something unusual and a bit eerie. If I chanced on this on the TV I wouldn't skip over, although I'm not sure what it would be like.

Thundercats - I liked this, but Liono had to start taking over everything a la He Man and it all went downhill. But definitely a step above the others and Mummra might just win scariest villain (vs Venger) simply because they came up with the cunning plan of having him never do anything, so when he so much as stood up, it was the sign that something Awful might happen. Given the cartoon predicament that the heroes have to beat the villain every week, it's quite a good way round it - they only ever beat up his useless henchmen. But oh those heroes with a sword. (And Snarf is oddly like Neelix out of Star Trek Voyager.)

Cities of Gold - This was our life for about a year. I had to write to my friend in hospital and tell her everything that happened. We adored it. I don't think I'd like to take the risk of actually watching it again. Not sure I'd have the patience, either, but it was fun while it lasted.

He-Man and She-Ra. Well, I did watch them a lot. But at some point, I got fed up. So, why did He-Man have to do everything? Plus, I can only assume that Teela and the rest used to get together in the back rooms of Castle Grayskull and snigger about how he thought nobody knew his secret identity, when he didn't even wear glasses or a mask. At least She-Ra had a different hair-do. And then, after beating Skeletor every week and then letting him go (because it would be Wrong to kill him) - evidently, nobody'd heard of prisons - he'd then lecture us for a few minutes. I think that was what put me off in the end. (I'm not being mean. I had a He Man and Skeletor action figures.) Plus, my sister and I watched the Christmas special in which Skeletor got the Christmas Spirit and after that, it just seemed mean of He Man to beat up poor, defenceless Skeletor, who, given a bit of encouragement would soon have changed his ways. Probably the worst thing was, just because I wanted a Skeletor figure (he had a dragon that squirted water), my misguided parents thought that I'd also like a He Man lunch box. My friend and I patiently worked at scraping the pictures off over many lunchtimes that year.

And then there was Dungeons and Dragons. I'm sure it's not so much head and shoulders above the rest as I imagine, but it worked for me and everything I've written is a little bit inspired by it, simply because it had magic, danger, a bit of depth to the characterisation, so some emotion, mysterious backstory, and it was fun.  I liked that mix.

This post has got way too long.

I'll have to post my praises of Dungeons and Dragons in a sequel post. Well, I wasn't still claiming to be sane or anything, so that's all right.