Cartoons were better when I was a kid.

My apologies to all my friends who have kids, but most of the cartoons today are pretty terrible.  I've been told of the virtues of Spongebob, Phineas and Ferb and Invader Zim, but they just don't do it for me.  And forget about most of the stuff that's on Cartoon Network in the mornings.  I don't even know what their names are, they all look like the same cartoon over and over and it's unwatchable.  Cartoons were awesome when I was a kid, back when Saturday mornings belonged to kids from 6am until OG Readmore had some movie about a book right before ABC's wide world of sports or some crap ended the fun times.

Thundarr the Barbarian

Answering the eternal question "What would happen if a runaway planet came along and broke the moon and stole all the clouds from Earth?"  Still not sure how a global catastrophe results in dragons, lizard men and the creation of magical powers, even after two thousand years of evolution, but the future is a confusing and mysterious place.  Also, they have "super science" and "sorcery" but the hero is a barbarian who wears fur skins yet wields a "sun sword" that clearly is using some advanced ass technology.  Whatever, all I know is this shit owned when I was a kid and Ookla the Mok rapes face.  If it wasn't already a band name, I would so be using it.

Tranzor Z

This show is fantastic just for the intro. "Tranzooorrrrrr Zeeeeeeee!"  Like Voltron, Tranzor Z was a giant robot tasked with defending the universe from other giant, destructive antagonists.  Unlike Voltron, Tranzor Z wasn't comprised of a multitude of smaller robots.  Adapted and heavily edited down from it's superior Japanese predecessor, Mazinger Z, Tranzor Z was still a lot more entertaining than the majority of domestically produced kids cartoons at the time.  Giant robots kicking the hell out of stuff is almost always a winning formula.  Speaking of Voltron...

Voltron

There were two versions of Voltron on American tv.  The first was the superior, lion-based series.  The second was a crappier, vehicle-based Voltron, formed of more "pieces" and not nearly as good.  The lion Voltron owned, though.  Also, you know you're a pretty rape show when Optimus Prime does your voice over narration.

Godzilla

It's all fun and games until Godzuki comes along and Scrappy-Doo's all over a great cartoon.  I still loved the Godzilla cartoon though, but that's just because I love all things Godzilla.  Really though, this cartoon isn't any cheesier than most of the actual Godzilla movies... well, maybe a little, but so what, it's Godzilla!

Spiderman and His Amazing Friends

This and the Incredible Hulk cartoon both owned.  Also, I liked Spiderman's amazing friends even more than Spiderman because of their powers.  I probably liked Firestar the best because she could fly and burn shit up, but Iceman was awesome too.  I'm pretty sure that they both could have raped Spiderman in a straight up fight, but they just let him be in charge because they didn't want all the pressure of leading the team, doing paperwork, cleaning up all the flip-around computer stuff so that it didn't get stuck halfway from a beer bottle or something getting wedged between the table and the floor... boss type stuff.

The Superfriends

There were a few different incarnations of the Superfriends, as they added more heroes and whatnot, but for the most part this show was the kind.  Yes, the Wondertwins stunk - I don't understand why Zan always took "Shape of... WATER!"  Like really, what's water going to do?  And the monkey was yet another lame, cutesy sidekick meant to keep the little kids entertained.  However, the Superfriends were pretty great... except for Apache Chief, if you're going to make up a brand new hero just to stick in your cartoon, you should give him a better super power than "Get bigger!"

Battle of the Planets

The G Force.  I barely remembered this cartoon until I saw the intro and then it was like a crazy total recall where it all came rushing back to me.  More proof of two constants when it came to watching cartoons in America between the 70's and the 90's - The Japanese-made cartoons were always the best and American producers would always suck most of the cool out of those cartoons and replace it with cheesy sidekicks.  In this case, the Wonder Twin monkey/Godzuki was 7 Zark 7.  I wouldn't discover until I was a lot older that the original versions of these cartoons were so much better than the Americanized ones, but they were still pretty sweet.  I mean, say what you want about cheese, it goes good on pretty much everything.

Dungeons & Dragons

Hands-down my absolute favorite cartoon when I was a kid.  This cartoon is the reason I was such a huge D&D nerd as a kid and the reason I'm such a huge MMO nerd today.  I loved everything about this cartoon, even cheesy ass Uni the unicorn.  The storyline for this cartoon is actually really good and it's a shame that the cartoon wasn't picked up for the 4th season, which would have seen the kids returning home, Venger redeeming himself and becoming good again and all the other resolution that would have ended such a great series.  If ever there was a cartoon that needed to be remade by a good team who could do it without screwing it up, it's Dungeons & Dragons.  I need to pick up this show on dvd or something, I'm itching to watch it now just from seeing the intro.