Dark Age of Cartoons

I may be 23, but I feel I will never be too old to enjoy the animated entertainment medium. However, recent years have shown that we have entered a dark time for cartoon lovers. It is an age of poorly animated, witless shows that do nothing to hide the fact that they’re only on TV to hock their merchandise and have us believe that there truly isn’t anything better to watch on TV. This is the Dark Age of Cartoons.

If there was ever a symbol for this atrocity of children’s television, it would have to be the trading card. Since the popularity of Yu Gi Oh, toy makers have found a new way to teach kids to gamble, as they fritter their money away on booster pack after booster pack looking for rare cards. True, Pokemon was also a player in this, but that show managed many years of characters that we could actually care about, and plots that were more than “The fate of the entire world rests on a card game.” With the success of Yu Gi Oh, 4kids Entertainment began making the majority of the shows they host to be about trading cards, from Dinosaur King and Chaotic, to Kamen Rider and Huntik.

But it was more than just 4Kids polluting the TV with garbage about needing all the best cards. Cartoon Network and ABC Family were following suit, putting up Duel Masters and Beyblades, more shows that are just about saving the world through playing games. Even worse, once great TV blocks like Toonami and Fox began to die, being replaced with live action movies (this is CARTOON Network, why is there live action?) or simply infomercials.

Now I will not say that this is the first time in history that TV stations have based their shows on promoting their toys. After all, the 80s were full of shows that were about showing their toys in 30 minute long commercials, such as He Man, GI Joe and Transformers. But there was a difference, as those shows weren’t about the actual action figures the show was selling, they were about the characters based on the action figures, getting into exciting adventures that were actually engaging. A young child’s mind was full of ideas of fantastical locations and action, and not just “I need to get that card.”

Then came the 90s, the Golden Age for cartoons. Animation was at its peak, and Warner Brothers and Disney fought each other for the attention of the children, with Animaniacs, Tiny Toons and Freakazoid, some of the finest pieces Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg has ever produced, facing off against Darkwing Duck, Aladdin and Rescue Rangers. Morning and Afternoon were full of cartoons fighting for our attention, and you could almost always find something to keep yourself entertained.

But around the turn of the century, the companies started giving up. 4Kids started to take over more programming, Disney started following after the pop kids who were into Miley CyrusMiley Cyrus and Jonas Brothers, and Cartoon Network just stopped trying to be all about cartoons, and just be Nickolodeon’s older brother. Meanwhile, Klasky Csupo started to fizzle out on Nick, and the channel seemed to have turned into a Spongebob Squarepants marathon station.

So for those who still care, who hope that this generation of kids don’t turn out to be the generation that ends lacking any real enjoyment from what they watch beyond looking at idolized teens and poorly written garbage, seek a change, don’t buy the cards, and hope that whoever buys 4Kids knows what they’re doing.