Saturday, August 28, 2021

Thinking back to old Fox Kids shows this morning



I've really been enjoying these old cartoon and commercial compilations on YouTube. Especially this past year. It's been a nice nugget of joy to relive a pre-covid era and just bathe in the nostalgia of my youth. These shows really take me back. There are a few channels who make these and if I had any sense I would start downloading them. It's stuff like this that I really love, the archiving of old media. There's no reason lost media of any kind should exist anymore.


Plus some cartoons are just plain fun. I rewatched TRANSFORMERS: ROBOTS IN DISGUISE and MEDABOTS and they're a lot better than I remember. I remember being a fan of MEDABOTS but being a real snob about American dubs when I was younger but I'm really glad I grew out of it because a lot of the jokes really made me laugh, even the dumb puns. 


One of the cartoons I really loved from this era was THE RIPPING FRIENDS, which was a creation of John K., who worked on REN & STIMPY previously. It had a lot of the same retro-futuristic humor that R&S had, plus it was about superheros so I felt like it was tailor made for me. It did fall kind of flat on it's face though, and it wasn't very liked when it first came out. There was supposed to be a line of Playmates action figures but they were never produced. 


I mean I like the show but it's definitely not for everyone. I feel like if it had premiered on [adult swim] or some similar network it would have done better. It felt too close to being a show for an older crowd than for kids. A lot of the aesthetics were from old sci-fi movies, Doc Samson pulp heroes, and gold age comics, all mixed with gross out humor and jokes. 

I wish this sort of Saturday morning compilation stuff would have a home release, with commercials and everything included. They make nice time capsules. I never thought I'd be nostalgic for old commercials interrupting my shows but where we are. I'm even beginning to fall in love with old songs I used to hate because they bring me back to a certain time and place. It's nuts. 

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