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My top 10 list of the best cartoons of the 80's

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The Bill

The Bill
Administrator
Administrator

The 80's was a GREAT time to be a kid! We had all the best cartoons, if nothing else. The crap on tv nowadays just can't possibly hold a candle to the stuff from back in the day. I was feeling nostalgic, so I made this list and even included the intros for fun...

10. The Visionaries:
It didn't last long, I believe just one season (on Sundays!), but I liked the mix of knights, magic and science.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuqO9P1Ixm4

9. The Superfriends:
This was a LONG running cartoon that had several incarnations. There wasn't much better than the Justice League vs. The Legion of Doom on Saturday mornings!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCytePaomMU

8. Inhumanoids:
This was another single season Sunday morning cartoon. It was pretty intense, even a little scary at times, all things considered. It was my first exposure to zombies too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki711DX8HDI

7. Thundercats:
This was an after school cartoon. It was a mix of sword and sorcery, with a dash of science fiction thrown in. The storylines were fairly mature which was a rarity of the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qd_IsxgAf8

6. Silverhawks:
The Silverhawks was a sister series to the Thundercats, although there was never a crossover. The sheer sci-fi of it really grabbed my attention. Also, at the end of each episode, they had a science or astronomy lesson as opposed to the usual PSA about not talking to strangers or something. I found that MUCH more interesting!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzAQu23t19A

5: Voltron
Whats not to like? Robot lions piloted by pilots from earth and they could be combined to form a cool looking robot! It was a lot of fun to see a giant robot fighting monsters (remember, this was a decade before the Power Rangers ripped off the Voltron recipe). Plus, one of the pilots was killed off and replaced. That was a unique thing to happen in a cartoon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9C2YLVaSBw

4. Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends
This early 80's Saturday morning cartoon was my only television exposure to Marvel superheroes until 1991. The series was simple, but it had friggin' Spider-Man in it! Plenty of other Marvel characters would appear in the show from time to time which made it fun. Originally, the Human Torch was supposed to be the third "friend" on the show, but he was unavailable for use. The character of Firestar was created for the show in his place. She eventually went on to debut in Marvel comics later on, due to her fondly being remembered from this show.
Firestar was also the first cartoon character who was censored by a network, due to her rack being considered too large. Also, she's a red head Laughing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQwNwQIY73U

3. G.I. Joe
This show was a perrenial favorite of just about every boy who grew up in the 80's. Everyone had a favorite character from either the Joes or Cobras. For me, Cobra Commander MADE the show! My parents forked over a lot of cash getting me action figures from this cartoon as I did my best to build my armies.
By the way, this debuted at night, which was unheard of back in the early 80's! Afterwards, it setteled into its after school time slot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YXQSrOCeKQ

2. Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
This was a before school weekday cartoon. I LOVED watching this before going out the door to another horrid day of school each day. While the toyline was mismanaged and sucked, the series itself was very well done and complex. Plus, it had rockin' 80's tunes for the intro and closing credits.
Unfortunately, the show was never given an ending, so we never got to see if the Monster Minds were defeated or what. Darn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCOU1k0EKks

1. Transformers
For anyone who knows me, I'm sure they saw this coming.
My parents REALLY spent a lot of money on my crack-like Transformers habit. I've never been able to kick it. The whole mythology of the Transformers just caught my imagination from the first time I was exposed to it.
This was originally a Sunday morning cartoon, which gave me a reason to wake up on Sunday mornings and train my sister into understanding that she could watch Jem or whatever AFTER my Transformers fix. Luckily, she was alright with that.
Eventually, this was switched to a weekday after school schedule and it was the LAST cartoon of the day at 5pm. This was LONG before the days of Cartoon Network and 24 hour cartoons on tv!
Transformers is tough to beat in my book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq0ZJgb-VX4



Now, with that all out of the way, I'd like to give an honorable mention to a current show thats on: The Spectacular Spider-Man. It's set in Peter Parkers high school days (just like the early issues of the comics) and it's a very well put together show! It's got Spidey and all of his classic rogues gallery, with some newer ones tossed in, like Venom.
It's also the first ever Spider-Man show that has Gwen Stacy in it. For those not in the know, she meets an untimely demise at the hands of one of Spideys enemies. It should be interesting to see if/how they deal with that on the show...
I try to never miss an episode!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoeOBDSgWBA



Last edited by The Bill on Fri Feb 05, 2010 11:21 pm; edited 1 time in total

http://www.reliantpublishing.com

2My top 10 list of the best cartoons of the 80's Empty 80s cartoons Wed Aug 19, 2009 11:57 am

spooks

spooks
Sidekick
Sidekick

I only remember numbers 7,6,3,and 1. I had a silverhawk action figure.. the copper kid. I liked the silverhawks because they had metallic paint on them and I liked how it looked. I vaguely remember thundercats, because Bill watched it all the time. What about He-man? Didn't you like to watch that? Because, then I would watch She-ra. And what about Jem? She's truly truly truly outrageous.

Jem...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgzZ2Ta0EpA


She-ra...(although I didn't like it as much... also I forgot about her stupid horse Spirit)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgzZ2Ta0EpA

3My top 10 list of the best cartoons of the 80's Empty oops Wed Aug 19, 2009 11:59 am

spooks

spooks
Sidekick
Sidekick

sorry, this is the She-ra link... I must've been to enthralled in Jem and I "mistakenly" put her link twice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZkvEJkhr1k

4My top 10 list of the best cartoons of the 80's Empty this is another cartoon I watched... Wed Aug 19, 2009 12:05 pm

spooks

spooks
Sidekick
Sidekick

Muppet babies. And, the more I think about it, the more disturbing it is. They never showed nanny's face... and they locked all these babies unsupervised in a room all day. Nevertheless, enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ju75XsCO4o

The Bill

The Bill
Administrator
Administrator

I was never a big He-Man fan. I had a lot of the figures, but I didn't watch the cartoon too much. Skeletor is a classic 80's villain though. She-Ra was too much a female carbon copy of He-Man for my tastes...her enemy Hordak was cool though. If I remember correctly, he was Skeletors boss or something...

Jem. Yeah, I remember Jem. Didn't she use holograms? Or she was a hologram?? Her band was called the holograms??? I can't remember! I remember the Misfits were gonna get her! LOL! Jem needed more robots on her show. I always thought it was weird to have Jem on right before the Inhumanoids, a show with zombies and monsters living underground.

Muppet Babies...I don't think I've ever seen a whole episode. It wasn't "mature" enough for me. Shocked

http://www.reliantpublishing.com

The Bill

The Bill
Administrator
Administrator

You know spooks, I'm not surprised you don't remember too many of these shows, as you were probably too young when they were on. Most of them are from prior to 1985. The FCC (as usual) started getting involved in cartoons and everything got watered down to the point where cartoons just plain sucked!

First it was Firestars boobs were too big for boys to see. Her rack would have made us all into criminals or something.
Then, G.I. Joe and Cobra couldn't be shown to have shell casings being ejected from their guns during firefights, because that would somehow warp kids.
Finally, PSA's were shoehorned onto just about every show (somehow Transformers bucked the trend), to the point of stupidity.

Family Guy had it right in regards to the FCC! Laughing (which, ironically, had Cobra Commander as the head of the FCC)

http://www.reliantpublishing.com

beatlesmama

beatlesmama
Sidekick
Sidekick

Pretty sure I wasted money on She-ra and Spirit! Crying or Very sad

GoliathAssassin

GoliathAssassin
Masked Vigilante
Masked Vigilante

This is great! I'm about to start my own Top 10 cartoons of the 90's thread!

Pitty I can't use Transfrmers or Voltron... They SO would have made my Top 10 "of all time!"

http://allpoetry.com/GoliathAssassin

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