Cartoons that were spring boarded from other sources
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Marvel/DC
StLouisAssassin — 18 years ago(May 04, 2007 10:02 PM)
This marked the beginning of a new trend that would be the demise of American animation. Although Star Trek the Animated series was good, it inspired Hanna-Barbara and other Cartoon producers to start producing new saturday morning cartoons based on popular TV shows.And over the course of the 1980's this would prove to be the death of american animatated series.
in a way this proves that in the 1980's cartoons were not about substance and creativity, but were instead used as tools to sell merchandise(toys) to youngsters (or were used to promote another TV show or movie) and there were even entire cartoons based on video games. It seemed that every 1980's cartoon that was introduced to our kids was trying to sell or promote something else.
gone were orginal charactors like Popeye, Yogi Bear, and the Flintstones. All orginalatity was goung to be replaced with other stuff.
I remember in the mid 1970s seeing animated version of Star Trek and thinking that it was cool. But I didn'realize was that the Star Trek cartoon was the beginning of a new trend. The trend was to take a popular TV show and reinvent it as a Saturday morning cartoon.
"The Dukes" was a saturday morning Cartoon that was based on the Dukes of Hazzard Tv show, and it wasn't all that bad. but it wasn't all that good either. It wasn't the only prime time driven cartoon out there in the mid 80's ..there was also Mr. T, The Fonz, The Real Ghostbusters, Rambo:The Animated Series, Hulk Hogan's WWF wrestlers(yes they too had their own 1980's cartoon), and lets not forget that George Lucas gave us "Driods & Ewoks" .all of these cartoons were based on other T.V. shows (Or Movies).and none of them proved to have any real staying power and were gone as quickly as they appeared. .
then there were the 1980's toy commercials cartoons, these were cartoons that only had one purpose and that was to sell more toys and the toy makers used the cartoon to promote their products. examples G.I. Joe:Real American Hero, He-Man & The Masters of the Universe, Dungons and Dragons, Transformers the series, Captain Power, Teenage Mutant Nija Turltes And then in the mid 80's came the video game based cartoons such as Pac-Man, Q-bert and others. I can still remember that they had a prime time Pac-Man Christmas special. .
Just a side note..I actually did like the G.I Joe & Star Trek Cartoons. The Dukes of Hazzard Cartoon wasn't bad either, but some of those other cartoons were dreadful
but it seemed that ever 1980's cartoon that came on our tube was about something else other than just being a fun and entertaining.It was almost like animated producers had forgotten the purpose of cartoons.
I believe that is why the classic Disney(Mickey Mouse) and Warner Brother(Bugs Bunny) cartoons are so good and never go out of style. Those classic Cartoons are not trying to make us buy the latest fad, there not trying to get us to watch another TV show, there not trying to get us to play a video gamenothose classics are just fun and entertaining. And that why they never go out of style. -
grendelkhan — 18 years ago(May 08, 2007 01:36 PM)
Well, cartoons were adapted from other media, and used to sell products since they began. Fred Flinstone sold cigarettes!. Jonny Quest sold tennis shoes. There were toy related shows before the 80's (Hot Wheels), but the 80's made things worse, mostly due to the Reagan administration's weakening of FCC regulations.
TV cartoons were rarely original. Yogi Bear is essentially Ed Norton from the Honeymooners, and the Flinstones are entirely from the Honeymooners. Popeye appeared first as a newspaper comic strip, in "Thimble Theater", then was adapted into theatrical cartoons, and ,later, tv shows. Filmation had cartoons drawn from comic books (Superman, Batman, Archie, Sabrina), books (Hardy Boys), movies (Fantastic Voyage), tv (Gilligan's Island/Planet) and other media crossovers (Lone Ranger, Zorro). HB adapted the Fantastic Four, Space Ghost was inspired by Batman, etc.
I do agree that the 80's started a horrible trend of cartoons as 25 minute commercials, but this seemed to be reversed by the 90's (Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Freekazoid, Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls). -
Kevjess74 — 18 years ago(May 09, 2007 06:12 AM)
Yeah, cartoons have historically been rather unoriginal and/or tied in with other products. The original poster seemed to be ignorant of the fact that even the 1st "Super Friends" (1973) is far from the 1st animation to have been adapted from DC Comics. On the subject of 1980s TV cartoons, there may have been a few that spawned toys (and sometimes various other merchandise) instead of the other way around. For example, maybe all the Smurf retail stuff came after the cartoon garnered a big audience. I'd like to note that some of the '80s toy lines that got TV cartoons also got comicbooks. "G.I. Joe" & "Transformers" (Marvel Comics adaptations of Hasbro toy lines) were two of the most successful comicbook series in the '80s.
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grendelkhan — 16 years ago(June 18, 2009 07:58 PM)
Actually, Smurfs merchandise predates the cartoon. The original comics were Belgian and very popular in Europe (Les Stroumpfs). The dolls were often imported into the US and sold in tourist shops, like Stuckeys. This inspired the cartoon series, which inspired more merchandise.
As for GI Joe and Transformers success as comic books, you do have to factor in that the 70's started the decline of comic readership. With the loss of newstand distribution and plunging readership, the Big Two were in major trouble. The Direct Distribution system (non-returnable comics sold to comic shops) the companies could market to niche audiences, but circulation was pitiful compared to the Silver Age or the massive days of the Golden Age. Each subsequent decade featured fewer comics sold than the previous. Many 80's series wouldn't have survived in the 70's, 90's series in the 80's, etc Heck, Kirby's Fourth World would have been a blockbuster in the 90's. With that said, they did draw outside of the standard comic audience, as did Archie. -
Oddark123 — 12 years ago(November 01, 2013 09:10 PM)
Most people should outgrow "originality" and "rip-off" arguments are they get older. But given how some of a certain generation aren't really seeking out things older than them, they are only getting barebones (and sometimes bad) info off the internet.
No matter what you go looking at in entertainment, you can always find parallels to it in things that came before it. This is just how it works. There's hardly anything that really deserves the term "completely original"
We could type miles worth of words on the subject. The bottom line though is that regardless of how similar some items are, or that they are used to sell merchandise, they are either going to like them or not.
Honestly it really seems a lot of the revisionist internet culture loves to make big deals about things that the general public has always been like "who cares?"
Gamefaqs has a far worse population than IMDB -
ItsEddieHaskellBeyotch — 11 years ago(July 13, 2014 01:33 PM)
"gone were orginal charactors like Popeye, Yogi Bear, and the Flintstones. All orginalatity was goung to be replaced with other stuff."
Each of those characters had several animated series that ran from the 70s well into the 80s.
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When there's no more room in Hollywood, remakes shall walk the Earth.
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