Anyone else besides me think Kids TV today is a joke?

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To me, It all depends on where you might look for it. Yes, I admit most of the cartoons I see on TV are less quality, but there are also some hidden jewels in there as well.

The difference is that kid shows from my youth were conceived as entertainment first, and then later merchandised. Today the characters are conceived as merchandise, then given something to do as entertainment.

* I miss the 90's just in general.*
Cartoons were better < sidenote> Animaniacs were my favorite and still are! , and The Simpsons too back when it had good writing.
Gas was under $1.00, people weren't so PC and jokes and puns were creative. Not only that, kids used to stay outside and play until sunset . You just don't see that anymore, and you could dance the marcarena without looking like a total fool.

I also miss the shows from my childhood, and I really feel that there has been a decline in quality in children’s entertainment. Sure, it may be the nostalgia talking since some of my favorite cartoons were wacky, cheesy shows that had their fare share of risqué humor, but there is more to it than that. The 90’s continued the animation renaissance of the 80’s – but since I wasn’t around during the 80’s, I’m only relying on hearsay – while the 2000’s made cartoons that were noticeably darker, more serious, and more realistic. Nowadays, cartoons seem to mostly rely on being surreal for the sake of humor. Call me a pessimist, but I think this is the end of an era of good animation.

Arguably, there was no 'renaissance' in children's TV animation until about '91/'92. I wasn't around in the 80s either (well, I was, but I was a baby), but I caught a fair amount of re-runs. 80s cartoons were not without merit, they were cool, they were fun, there was some quality stuff in there; no argument there. Some of the most iconic animated franchises started in the 80s.

BUT.

It was in the early 90s, with the appearance of shows like Rugrats, Doug, Animaniacs, Eek The Cat, etc. that children's animation became more adventurous, and also racked up the quality of the animation and experimented with many different animation styles. Also, these shows had massive crossover appeal, as parents who were watching it along with their kids could get some subtle references out of it as well.

I can't really speak of a decline in kids cartoons since the mid 2000s, as I pretty much stopped watching them altogether, but every so often I catch a glimpse of a show, and I don't feel as though the quality of kids TV overall has gone down. Sure, there are a lot of modern cartoons that employ low-cost animation and it shows, but that's not too different from the 80s, where typically the intros were animated better than the actual episodes, which would often re-use sequences or use few frames per second. As a comic book fan, I occasionally check out the Marvel and DC shows, and I have to say that those are pretty solid. Ultimate Spider-Man may feature a lot of zany gags, but for a kids cartoon, its storylines are pretty strong, and it looks great.

Watching cartoons when you're past a certain age, you have to remember that you're not the target audience, and that as time has marched on, kids are growing up in a different world from 20 years ago, so the shows cater to that, and will be attuned to the current vocabulary and frame-of-mind, the current zeitgeist if you will.

Something I'll always say whenever this topic comes up (and it comes up a lot): when I was little, I remember many adults, either parents, aunts, acuaintances, or teachers, bemoaning how the cartoons we were watching at the time were 'gross, crass, violent, nonsensical, badly animated', et cetera. I think they were just nostalgic about 70s cartoons. Which, in retrospect, we all know was pretty much the 'dark age of animation', yet folks who grew up watching those shows cherish them. see? Full circle. 20 years from now, the kids of today will be saying the same thing.

But at least the kids today don't have to be subjected to the deranged madness of Sid & Marty Krofft:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5e9yCB-hiw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjS1nrsJhTQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXZ3pOBX6Johttp://[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS_TmRtoO2khttp://[/youtube]

@CyclopsSummers: The writer of this article holds an interesting viewpoint. He points out how there have been good cartoons and bad cartoons in every era, but instead of being nostalgic for the shows of his youth, he claims that even the worst modern cartoons outrank the best cartoons from previous decades in quality.

http://www.smrt-tv.com/v1-01/column_zoinks.html

"Kids TV" has always been a joke. In my opinion, the best cartoons and family shows have always been the ones made to appeal to adults as well as children. Take a look at the old Warner Brothers shorts, those were originally made to play before movies at the cinema, so as a result, they were made to appeal to audiences of all ages, and to this day those cartoons remain absolute classics.

Also, for a much newer example, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Hasbro wanted a show to sell toys, but the creators knew better than to make ANOTHER puke-inducing little-girls' cartoon, so they purposefully made it so that virtually anyone could enjoy watching it, and as a result it was an unexpected runaway success. I will admit though, I think a lot of its popularity just came from the shock factor of a show called "My Little Pony" actually being fairly decent. It is actually a good show though, and I don't think I've ever watched another animated show of any kind, including animes and animated sitcoms, that had so many enjoyable, likable characters.

And don't get me started on Pixar movies. Those are just amazing. It always frustrates me though when people lump them in with Dreamworks movies, as those are typically made to appeal to more of a "lowest common denominator".

That is indeed an interesting column. It was written in 2005, but perhaps that's not too relevant. At the same time I'm wondering how much of the objective quality of children's television and animation in particular, is tied to financial resources.

It is a truth universally acknowledge that things have never been as good as they used to be.

Television aimed at kids has rapidly declined in quality over the last 20 years. I remember when intelligent humor like "Animaniacs" and "Looney Tunes" reruns were the norm, instead of mindless garbage like "Spongebob" and "Pokemon".

Also, so much TV is general is created to push leftist ideas on children, like embracing homosexuality or Communistic principles like arbitrary "offensiveness" and the new definition of "tolerance". The mass media is treating young kids the same way atheistic college professors treat young adults...demanding they leave all personal convictions at the door, lest they been seen as a "bigot".

Spongebob Squarepants' first 2 or 3 seasons and the movie have garnered praise from critics and a viewers alike. It is generally agreed that later episodes are not on par with the show's early quality, but Spongebob is, from an objective POV, a very strong format. It's not a very good example of the decline of children's television.

Also, last time I checked, kids' TV has yet to feature openly gay or bisexual characters. Many kids' cartoons have featured heterosexual innuendo from time to time, but simply featuring a same-sex couple is still a bridge too far.

THIS.

It isn't that kids shows have been getting worse, it's simply that they have a younger target audience, most kids from about the age 10 - 12 up stop having tv as their main form of entertainment.

I so very much despise the Di$ney Channel's live-action shows, primarily because of bad acting, bad writing, and how they look like they were produced on a budget of maybe $100. And no, that is not a typo.

The only shows I tend to watch on TV now are:
Adventure Time
Regular Show
The Amazing World of Gumball
Uncle Grandpa
Steven Universe
Sanjay and Craig
Gravity Falls
Wander Over Yonder
re-runs of Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures on the Hub Network

CyclopsSummers, I hope I'm not being too picky, but one of your comments seemed ambiguous to me:

"At the same time I'm wondering how much of the objective quality of children's television and animation in particular, is tied to financial resources."

Did you mean that cartoons might be more successful if they have bigger budgets? Or did you mean that cash cow cartoons tend to be derivative because more thought is usually put into merchandise than programming?