November 7, 2013

Five Underrated Cartoons I LOVED as a Kid


We all remember the great cartoons of our youth. From He-Man to G.I.Joe to Ducktails to Batman:The Animated Series. Today I wanted to talk about five cartoon shows which I loved growing up that haven't quite survived the test of time. But I remember them fondly. By the way, I know I am playing with adjectives again so please forgive me if these are not "underrated".





Shirt Tales

This was such a silly and cute show. So what if it made no sense at all. And so what if it was so sugary it gave me a cavity. I still loved it! Based on a series of greeting cards which animals wearing T Shirts that carried a message. The series followed the adventures of Tyg the Tiger, Pammy Panda, Digger Mole, Rick Raccoon, and Bogey Orangutan. Later they were joined by a little rabbit named Kip. They live in Oak Tree Park and tease the park ranger Mr.Dinkle (who I think may have been Ranger Smith's lame cousin). They basically helped people who got into trouble, and I loved watching it.







Popples

Yes. I admit it, ok? I watched this show. I also had two of these furry little creatures that turned into sports balls. Yes, I admit it! All kidding aside, this was a clever 80's product which was hard to resist. The cartoon series was corny as heck, but it was cute and as you can tell from my first show I am a sucker for cute. Yes I like action, we'll get to that. This show was pretty much what you'd expect, the Popple get into all sorts of wacky situations! I have two, named PJ and Putter. For some reason this show ran on Sunday's where I live so I didn't watch it as much as I could have. It was harmless fun.





Battle of the Planets

For years I had this opening sequence in my head, but couldn't remember what it went to. I thought it was Superfriends but realized that was wrong. Then I pulled up a clip on YouTube of a cartoon called Battle of the Planets that I watched as a kid. Instant nostalgia rush! This was an anime long before anime was a regular buzzword, and it was really cool! Five young people form a group called G Force and it's their job to protect Earth from attacks from, well, other planets. It was a Star Wars rip off created by Sandy Frank but it says something that I never forgot it completely. Battle of the Planets has a long history actually which I will spare you. The show was awesome! By the way this wasn't the only amine around at the time, there was also Voltron which was awesome!!!






Danger Mouse

Sigh. Whatever happened to classic Nickelodeon? Thanks to Nickelodeon I watched a lot of Canadian and or British TV growing up. You Can't Do That on Television, Pinwheel, and this awesome little cartoon. Danger Mouse was an English mouse who worked as secret agent. His has a secret underground base that's accessible by a pillar box located outside Sherlock Holmes' house in Baker Street, London and had a cool car that could also fly and float like a boat. He has a sidekick named Penfold who lile most sidekicks is always getting captured. DM, as he was known, was a secret agent so you can imagine the stories. The main villain was a toad named Baron Silas Greenback and he even has a boss named Colonel K. This show would be considered cliche today, but it the 80's it was cool! Where I lived Nicklodeon would sign off at 8pm, and I used to love listening to that closing theme just before the channel went off.







Mr.T

We all know the Saturday morning classics. Muppet Babies, Alvin and the Chipmunks, even Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. But this one doesn't get as much attention as it deserved. It was was for three years and was just awesome! I challenge you to watch the opening intro and not get pumped up! This show was really good and one of the reasons is because the premise wasn't so far fetched. Well, for a cartoon anyway. Mr.T is coach of a gymnastics team (a group of kids) who he travels the world with solving mysteries. Ok it's farfetched but at least it wasn't the super lame Pro Stars. This show has a live action Mr.T introducing each episode, and the stories were pretty good. The big thing with this was they took the time to give us characters we would like, and several episodes involved their personal lives. A lot of cartoons forget that action is all well and good but we have to care about the characters to!






Ah, the good old days of cartoons.

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