Cartoons and their influence

[Steph]

As a child, midget gem variety:
Atom Ant, Mr Magoo, Twizzle, the Woodentops, Bill and Ben, Jimxy, Deputy Dawg and Quick Draw McGraw (sp?), the Woody Woodpecker Show, which I never found funny.

Slightly later, there were Crystal Tips, MM &M, R&C, Ivor, Noggin, all the Trumpton stuff, Flintstones, Jetsons, and I remember a pile of truly crap H-B stuff. We had moved to the Far East for a while, so I got exposed to a lot of Japanese stuff such as Prince Planet.

Quite a bit later, Tom and Jerry, but ONLY the Quimby stuff; my father made a point of saying 'Good Old Fred' each time. Droopy, who is a true original. Scooby-Doo. A lot of the Disney stuff quite late, due to the stay abroad.

Then....as an adult, allegedly: Bugs and his crew (favourite line: Duh, you can't fool me, I'm a moron!) and then Ren and Stimpy (I have nicknamed a colleague Stimpy), Duckman, and the wonderful Monkey Dust.

[Exit Stage Left]

I feel sure we all remember this.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf0oxpF2mZs&list=UUoUZMPVTgEOUIumrNLU8Aog&index=46&feature=plcp

[Mr Larrington]

Droopy, who is a true original.

^^^^ This.  Droopy's breaking of the fourth wall was unheard-of in those days.

[AndyK]

Just remembered a huge favourite from childhood: Marine Boy. Probably my first experience of anime. I always wanted some oxy-gum so I could breathe underwater.

[clarion]

Droopy, who is a true original.

^^^^ This.  Droopy's breaking of the fourth wall was unheard-of in those days.

Really?  Didn't Bugs Bunny predate him?

I couldn't stand Droopy.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Just remembered a huge favourite from childhood: Marine Boy. Probably my first experience of anime. I always wanted some oxy-gum so I could breathe underwater.

Oh, I remember loving that when I was very tiny. We were still at Leuchars so I wasn't five.

[Rhys W]

What do young kids watch now?

When my nieces (8 and 4) were staying with me last year I put on a Clangers DVD, thinking they'd like it. After two minutes, the eldest turned to me, a look of unfulfilled promise on her face and asked "how long is this like this for?"

They seem to have missed out on the short cartoons thing, going straight from Teletubbies and In The Night Garden to real-life acting like Sarah Jane Adventures and Tracy Beaker. They'll happily sit through anything by Pixar though, even if they've seen it before.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Perhaps what makes The Clangers etc different from more modern cartoons and animation is a) narration is not used nowadays b) though the stories may not be more complicated now, they are told in more detail with things constantly happening.

[microphonie]

and the wonderful Monkey Dust.

Hell yeah - I'd forgotten about that!

Most of the stuff from when I was a kid (the 70s) has been mentioned. I don't remember watching many cartoons in my teens with the exception of Dangermouse (things like Thunder Cats passed me by, for example) .

More recent(ish) stuff:
Ren & Stimpy
South Park (I didn't get Beavis & Butthead)
Angry Beavers
Cow & Chicken
I Am Weasel
Dexter's Lab
The Powerpuff Girls
Rocko's Modern Life
The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

Quite like Family Guy now but it took a while to 'get'. I can't get into American Dad or The Cleveland Show though.

Also like The Life & Times of Tim which took a lot of googling to find the name of...

[Arch]

Just remembered a huge favourite from childhood: Marine Boy. Probably my first experience of anime. I always wanted some oxy-gum so I could breathe underwater.

Oh yes, I liked that too!

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/bvmf_yWefvg&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/bvmf_yWefvg&rel=1</a>

Who knew Barry Gibb was a prehistoric cave-dweller?

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'm amazed that my dino-mad son hasn't introduced me to that before.

[graculus]

As you may have guessed I was (and am) a fan of Noggin the Nog, the Clangers I really enjoyed as well. Friends had a video of Noggin, and this was put on once when we were round at their house to keep our two children (then 5 & 3) quiet for a while. When it was time to leave we were told very firmly by the elder one "We can't go yet, there's still another saga to go".

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I'm amazed that my dino-mad son hasn't introduced me to that before.

I don't think it's been on since the early 70s. All I remember of it is the opening sequence, so it can't have been that good.

[andrewc]

I'm amazed that my dino-mad son hasn't introduced me to that before.

I don't think it's been on since the early 70s. All I remember of it is the opening sequence, so it can't have been that good.

That belongs in the same cobweb festooned part of my brane as Land Of The Giants and the Planet Of The Apes TV series......someone will dig up Fantastic Journey  or Vidar And The Ice Monster next...

[AndyK]

One of the odder cartoons I remember is Barbapapa.

[red marley]

It was a one-off, but this made a huge impression on me as a young teenager

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/qQ6qw1nh0tA&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/qQ6qw1nh0tA&rel=1</a>

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'm amazed that my dino-mad son hasn't introduced me to that before.

I don't think it's been on since the early 70s. All I remember of it is the opening sequence, so it can't have been that good.

He's a 3rd-millenium child, quite capable of searching YouTube for "dinosaur films"!

[Arellcat]

The end credit of a black screen with a cut-out B showing through to a sliding rainbow of HannaBarberas is prominent in my memory of childhood cartoonery.

A fluffy young Arellkitten watched Bod (loving Derek Griffiths' frenetic rhythms as much as anything), Mr Benn ("ting!") and pretty much the entire output of Smallfilms and Gordon Murray.  The Camberwick Green musical box scared me for some reason, and I always wondered why Dr Mopp's car wobbled so much.

When Children's Telly™ became the after-school activity, it was animation like Inspector Gadget and Pole Position (because my friend Robert said I should watch it), and in the stop-motion puppet world, Terrahawks, which was the coolest thing in the world ever.  Later on I was absorbed in the animated marathons of Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, Around the World with Willy Fog, Ulysses 31 (of which only the introduction I can remember now) and of course The Mysterious Cities of Gold.  I think everyone at school watched TMCG.  I remember watching a lot of Battle of the Planets too, because their space helmets had tinted visors, which was the coolest thing in the world ever.  Tom and Jerry I mainly saw thanks to Rolf Harris and later, Tony Robinson, and yes, Fred Quimby wins hands down.

The Flintstones was on between Blue Peter and The Six o'Clock News, so that was a staple of my teenage viewing, and with the advent of cable TV, I watched a lot of Beavis and Butthead* and The Simpsons.  I quite like Futurama too, but have never quite settled into it.  And from the ridiculous to the sublime, like many others I have a great fondness for Bagpuss, but I can't bring myself to watch an episode anymore because I will start crying almost immediately.

* To be honest, I mostly watched B&B to see the music videos, like Peter Gabriel, Crowbar and GWAR, and to laugh along with them at Krokus and Grim Reaper.

[AndyK]

Terrahawks, like all Anderson productions, was not stop motion. It was puppetry.

[LEE]

An interesting effect of that upbringing is that I'm most aware of US regional accents through cartoons, Foghorn Leghorn, for instance is Kentucky/Virginia, voiced by Mel Blanc.

I find it interesting that all young American females now sound exactly like Bart Simpson.

I rest my case

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/DekHor8xqrk&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/DekHor8xqrk&rel=1</a>

Interesting device though

[Kim]

Has anyone mentioned Belle and Sebastian or The Mysterious Cities of Gold yet?  That's well into what I'd describe as 'anime' rather than 'cartoons', but were both very special.  I re-watched MCOG a few years ago thanks to the electric internet, and it totally holds up.

And it seems that a second series is now in the pipeline!

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/56272

(I expect the fansub version will appear on a torrent site in good time.)

[geoff]

as a 10 yr old, I snagged a book from Monmouth Library which had stills from and text about the classic Disney stuff, (Fantasia, Dumbo, Steamboat Willie junior) plus many other early animation artists like Max Fleischer (from memory, Sylvester the cat, Betty Boop, Out of the Inkwell). There were sections in the book on story-boarding and making one's own flick-books and I'm sure I defaced a few of my own books with animated bouncing balls, logs being sawn etc.

We didn't have a telly for another four years (c. 1968), but before that then I was hooked by animation...and  I'm currently delighted to be living in an apparent golden age of digimation, claymation, anime etc etc

but that early stuff is glorious...

[rogerzilla]

Beavis and Butt-Head is actually rather well-observed, as are Mike Judge's other cartoons (Daria and King of the Hill), which broke away from the "inane comments on pop videos" format, ingenious though that was.

[a lower gear]

One result of the preceding pages of reminiscence-festing is that I emerge mildly depressed because I now find myself I'm in the older demographic*. However, Mrs. lower gear, being not only slightly older but an authentic American to boot, can recall a slightly older generation of American carooons, some so dire or so specifically American that the the UK never imported them.

It is particularly facinating to find that some yacfers are so much younger (at least if the cartoons they reference are any guide) than their online, somewhat reactionary / fuddy-duddy personas suggest. So perhaps I'm not so old after all...   

[* its the fifth-decade syndrome, I'm sure]