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> People who were kids with no taste and a lot of time to fill

Very true. I grew up in Germany, but we got most of the cartoons that were popular in the US (plus some Japanese stuff) as well, dubbed.

One particular situation from the late 80s or early 90s that I remember was when the channel that showed the Smurfs, which I liked, was somehow repeating the same episode over and over again. Maybe there was an error at the station (I wouldn't be too surprised if nobody paid that close attention to the children's programming), or maybe I just happened to catch all the reruns in strange coincidence. It's hard to remember the specifics.

But what I do remember well is that I watched that episode, one that I actually did not like to begin with, over and over again, disliking it more and more each time. When the episode started playing and I realized that it was that episode again within the first few seconds, I got so disheartened and disappointed. And then I continued watching it.

Nowadays, that's a pretty funny, if not somewhat bizarre, memory. As an adult, there is no way I would force myself through any show's episode that I don't like anyway repeatedly, why did I "have to" as a child? Similarly, I remember a few entire cartoons that I was not particularly fond off, or sometimes actively disliked, and I still watched those, too, "because that's what was on TV right now".

Apparently, realizing that I had agency over how I spend my own entertainment time was something I had to learn better growing up.

For me I dunno if it's more agency or just more difficult to stay entertained. I used to play world of Warcraft for ten hours marathons on summer break. Same for counter strike, half life deathmatch... Hell even single player games like ocarina of Time would take me months to get through because chopping down all the signs in the beginner area, leaving, coming back, and doing it all over again would be enough "game" for me.

Now I barely touch games... Can do about an hour and a half of tv or movie max (barring good 2h+ films). Multiplayer games I can do maybe an hour or two a couple days a week, more if we're in the same room.

I mean I watched Alladin every day for a good few months once. I'm typing this out because I got distracted from Netflix just now. Something's different about me, I wonder if it's true for others?

> Multiplayer games I can do maybe an hour or two a couple days a week, more if we're in the same room.

Same here. I suspect that it's simply easier to enjoy these things socially and then do other things alone (like coding or reading).

This really resonates with me. I guess at some point games et all stopped being mentally "rewarding" to us.

I wonder if it's partly our broadened scope as adults. We can do real things in the real world, so pretend (more or less elaborate or formalized) is less appealing.

That was true for me for a few years in my 30s. Now, for some reason, I’m actually very happy that I seem to enjoy games a lot again. Bought a Switch, and it’s getting a lot of use.

I only ever played single player games, though. Gaming was always “me time”, and there was always plenty of opportunity to meet people to be social, without games (unless it’s board games, which I enjoy too).

Maybe you're just more demanding nowadays.

That's definitely the case for me. After a long break in playing games where I thought games are just not for me anymore, I rediscovered that I actually still like spending lots of time with them. It just has to be the right games, and those differ from the games I enjoyed when I was young (the sets are dissimilar, but not entirely disjunct).

Your story about feeling obliged to watch a bad cartoon over and over again resonates with me.

I was a film projectionist at a single-screen theater in Harvard Square in 1988, the summer "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was showing. I saw the opening scene (the baby cartoon with Roger subjected to various painful acts) several hundred times.

The first time I thought it was funny. After 10 times it was boring. After 30 it made me very uncomfortable. I probably saw it about 250 times in all.

A few months ago I started to watch it with my son (it was on Netflix or Amazon), but I had to stop a few minutes in. The feeling of mild revulsion was just too much.

ETA: Makes me appreciate the patience of editors and other film professionals who are probably sick of seeing certain scenes by the time it hits theaters or the small screen.

I haven't specifically edited film, but I've done some similar things, and I've found when you have agency over the result it wears differently. You may still "get tired" of it, but it's a different sort of thing. I think it's easier to watch the same scene a hundred times if you're editing it actively than if you are just passively consuming it and making no active decisions. My bigger problem was really losing the perspective of someone who is brand new to the content than exhaustion.

You're right. I had no creative skin in the game other than being the poor slob who was basically responsible for turning on a giant light bulb.

Regarding loss of perspective, that's why focus groups/test audiences are so important. From what I understand, they are particularly crucial for comedies where the timing of jokes matters so much and a mishandled edit can ruin the scene.

TV was very mysterious back then. I would not see most of the episodes in a series as I had no way to record anything nor any idea when they were on besides having a TV Guide (which we never bought) or the local newspaper tv listings which got thrown out more often than not. TV was more of a random access experience back then. You got what you got. Saturday mornings were pretty awesome as far as cartoons went, but in some ways they weren't--it felt like not a lot of thought or effort was put into that programming and it was mostly about toy commercials. I watched a shitload of Saturday morning cartoons. I would usually get up at 6am and watch the national anthem which played both verses, and then some goofy local show involving a very fat lady and her dog would come on and she would talk about local scene stuff that I had no idea about. After that wa PBA bowling (TV Tournament Time). Cartoons came on around 7:30 or 8am, I think, and ran until about 11am. Maybe bowling was after, can't recall.

For most people, especially kids, shows had no continuity at all. I remember trying to watch Robotech (re-runs?) in the mid '80s and once in awhile I'd see two episodes in a row that were in the correct order. Doctor Who was the same way except that was on PBS and often times I could see a couple in a row. Things didn't change until my parents got cable sometime around 1985 or so.

One more anectdote I'll share: My kids both loved Scooby Doo so we bought all the old episodes on DVD. What strikes me most about the cheap animation is how few characters there were in Scooby Doo. If the gang was walking in a town or an amusement park, there were almost no local color--no people at all. That gives the show a creepy, xenophobic vibe. The gang is always all alone in an alien landscape, sort of like they were transported into an alternate reality.

> "Illustrated radio" is a term that animation nerds throw around for the vast majority of their output.

And they even cheaped out on the "radio" part, in that their jokes and plots were stale, unimaginative, and just as recycled as their backgrounds.

Rocky & Bullwinkle did "Illustrated Radio" well because it had a good writing staff.

The cardinal sin of making media is condescension. Don't talk down to your audience, and don't make media you yourself wouldn't consume.

(There might even be a broader lesson there.)

Hanna Barbera had good music (props to Hoyt Curtin, the Hanna Barbera musical director), sound design, and voice acting. But you are soooo right about the writing -- it is disheartening to go back and watch these cartoons now.

Illustrated radio basically sums up most TV anime.

> The cardinal sin of making media is condescension. Don't talk down to your audience, and don't make media you yourself wouldn't consume. (There might even be a broader lesson there.)

Advertisers should pay attention to this more. Looking down at the "consumer" and downplaying the "audience"'s intelligence are still common practices.

As you said, the broader lesson applies to all media. The same sin affects bad entertainment and bad journalism (or infotainment).

I have fond memories of those characters from my childhood and my adult hood when [adult swim] came along and gave us fresh and absurdist/adult-oriented versions of some of our favorite characters.

Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, The Brak Show, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, Sealab 2021, many others.

I hope you've discovered Venture Bros? Best of them all!

Yes. It's covered in the "many others". There's a Brock Sampson shirt somewhere in my closet.

At around 7 minutes he goes into Hanna Barbera's "Limited animation" including a surprising reference from Dextor's laboratory to the cheap animation style and that animator Chuck Jones called it "Illustrated radio".

The video puts the 80s era of licensed properties/toy cartoons (GI Joes, Transformers, etc.) as the first thing to really challenge HB due to the , and that during that time HB struggled to adapt and compete and that the Smurfs seemed like their only success during the era.

He says they had a revival after being bought by Turner in the 90s and making decent cartoons for cartoon network but were ultimately absorbed by WB animation after the companies merged.

Outsourcing in the animation industry isn't just something that hit the US. Japanese anime is now often made in Vietnam and South Korea.