Dora, Dora the Explorer!
Boots and something, something, Dora, Dora!
Something Back Pack. Let’s Go! Jump in! Vamanos!
You can lead the way! Hey! Hey!
Do-do-Dora! Do-do-Dora!
Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping!
Dora the Explorer!
I know all of you mommies were singing along as you read those words. You can’t deny it. You know the song, and now it’s stuck with you all day. It’s toddler crack. And we’ve all smoked it (even if it’s just to take our daily shower or poop without an audience).
I cannot take one more episode of Dora the Explorer. I just can’t take it.
I used to think she was cute and educational. But now? Now I can’t stand her. I want to punt her little cartoon football head to the highest cloud. I know that seems sick. But it’s where I’m at with today’s cartoons.
I should be happy that my daughter can say some things in Spanish. And I should be pumped that her cousin, Diego, has taught my son about Jaguars and Mountain Lions (something I know nothing about).
But what happened to the good old days? Where have all the good cartoons gone? You know, the ones from back in the 80′s, when we were kids?
I miss Fraggle Rock, The Jetsons, and Schoolhouse Rock. I miss Muppet Babies, Inspector Gadget, the Smurfs, Jem and the Holograms, and the Care Bears. What happened to Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Ponies, and Rainbow Bright? I long for the boys to watch G.I. Joe, Thundercats, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Those were some (weird-in-a-good-way) cartoons, weren’t they? And most of us didn’t grow up to be axe murderers. So I’d say they were pretty okay to watch.
I remember my parents watching them with us, on that old tube TV that we constantly had to hit to make the lines stop running through the middle of it. That thing was a piece of furniture in our house, complete with doilies and gold lamp on top. But with the invention of better televisions and less shaggy carpet, so went the good cartoons.
I’ve tried to get my kids to watch the retro cartoon station. They don’t like it. They are so hooked on catchy jingles and brightly colored shapes, that they can’t see how awesome it is when He-Man and She-Ra work together.
Anyway, I miss the good old days. It all seems so, so, so… fake now.
What cartoons do you miss? Which ones do you like that are on today?
I so agree. While my kids do like the current cartoons, they do LOVE retro Scooby-Doo and my son adores Looney Tunes. That’s something right? LOL.
THERE’S A RETRO CARTOON STATION???? WHERE?
Boomerang.
BOOMERANG!
My kids LOVE Boomerang, and for the record, their favorite cartoons are: Tom & Jerry, Looney Toons, Flintstones, Pink Panther and Garfield.
Also MANY of these complete series are on Netflix right now.
I also own Fraggle Rock and The Muppet Show (complete series) on DVD and they devour those as well.
I don’t know what it is, but my kids prefer the hand drawn animation over computer animation. It also settles them more.
Can we trade?
Strawberry Shortcake still exists – except she’s been aged and tarted up. Of course, my 3 year old freaking LOVES it!
There are some decent cartoons out there – we watch Super Why and Busytown Mysteries mostly as well as old episodes of Madeline. Oh, and she’s also obsessed with the Care Bears Movie which makes me happy. All of these can be found on Netflix.
She stills enjoys Dora and Diego but seems to be more interested in different shows recently. Thank god!
My son LOVES Scooby Doo. I’m constantly on the look out for Scooby Doo stuff for him because they just don’t make that much anymore. (although I did manage to score him some Scooby Doo sheets at Target)
My kids will watch Boomerang, and they like a lot of the older stuff, but they tend to prefer the newer ones, of which I can pretty much only stand Phineas and Ferb.
They have tried to reinvent Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, Thundercats & My Little Ponies, but I’m not sure that they match-up to the originals. I also refuse to watch Diego, Dora, or even Spongebob (I even steer my son in the OPPOSITE direction from ANYTHING related in the stores). I have a 14 & 11 year old nephew & neice so by the time I had my own kids, I was just TOO burnt out on these shows to be able to handle them for another decade.
I like a lot of the superhero shows, especially Super Hero Squad, superheros don’t seem to ever go out of style & many of them have mroe than a few positive, strong-woman figures for my daughter to admire and my son to learn to respect. Phineas & Ferb is a TOP FAV in our house, my son becomes a bit of a zombie (which I really have mixed feelings about some days) when we click over to the last three seasons of this or the full-length movie. BUT, the music is original & it teaches lessons on building, imagination, & science that my husband & I can relate to as well as appreciate. My son also gets into the Tonka Chuck & Friends show, which my husband can only take so much of but I really don’t mind. It teaches really good social skills & my son loves to run around the house making “vroom” noises for hours afterwards (absolutely adorable). Also, for an educational reprieve, we’ve found a few LeapFrog 30min shows on Netflix that teach counting/letters/colors/etc & my son just ADORES his Scout toy, which is a main character in most of then newer episodes released.
I’m so grateful for Hulu, Amazon Prime, & Netflix these days as my kids can still watch all those amazing shows from my own childhood, like Fraggle Rock (still makes me smile almost 30 years later). Not to mention, we can still get our TV fix while not paying the outrageous prices for cable/satellite.
Animaniacs. Ooooh, God, Animaniacs.
I bought the first two seasons on DVD and watched them with my step-daughter. I can’t BELIEVE the crap that got past the censors back then!
I freakin LOVED those WB cartoons!!! Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Earthworm Jim, Freakazoid…….just the best!!!!!!
We LOOOOVE Phineas & Ferb in our house. Adults too.
As a kid I loved Garfield, and HeathCliff. I couldn’t get enough Scooby Do, or Looney Tunes on Sat mornings. Fraggle Rock and the Muppets were awesome too.
I don’t mind Diego, but I do mind when Dora is on it. Why is she always shouting? She makes my head hurt. I really really don’t like SpongeBob, or Dora, but I can tolerate Chuggington, Max & Ruby and Olivia.
My daughter has recently fallen in love with Dinosaur Train on PBS. We watch it on Netflix and on the computer, so I have no idea if it’s actually still on. She is 7, and gets crap from her friends about watching a baby show, but hello? The stuff in this show is far too advanced for babies. And I told her so. She’s a smart girl, and can recite more dino names than I could ever hope to know. LOL.
I’ve never seen Dora, but my husband and I watched the new My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic because so many of our single adult friends love it. It’s fun and cute. For older kids, the Avatar series (The Last Airbender & Legend of Korra) on Nick is soooo amazing. Worth watching even if you don’t have kids.
I loved Pee-Wee’s Playhouse as a kid. It’s super fun to watch as an adult too. I bought the whole series on DVD so my son will be able to watch something I like too. He’s only 7 weeks old so his main entertainment is boobies and the black and white clock on the wall. OMG clooooock.
I can’t wait to scream together whenever we hear the magic word. And see Morpheus in cowboy boots!
OMG! I *loved* Pee-Wee’s playhouse! We waited for Saturday mornings all week long.
Snorks was my favorite as a kid! I tried to get my kids to watch it and all they could say was, “Boring!” Apparently, my kids have no taste for the finer things in life.
The fact that you’re asking this about complete drek like Jem and Care Bears proves that we will always have deep nostalgia for what we saw as children, and will find every way we can to admire it with the rose-colored glasses of adulthood.
I know the SuperFriends were drek, but I did adore them as a child. That said, they don’t make me come out and bemoan the loss of great, great cartoons. There has been drek before and there will be drek again, and in-between you might get a few quality shows, but for the most part, children’s cartoons are cheap junk.
Definitely agree with his comment. There’s good kid shows and crappy kid shows now just as there were good kid shows and crappy kid shows 25 years ago.
Sorry, I meant “this comment”, not “his comment”.
She-Ra! I remember after my mom would pick us up from school I’d tell her to hurry up because we were gonna miss She-Ra! And then they’d give Jem! She’s truly outrageous, truly truly truly outrageous!!
Luvd Fraggle Rock! I always (and still do) wanted to eat those clear sticks that the doozers would build with.
And I luvd Today’s Special on Nickelodeon.
Oh to be young again…
What about those 90′s cartoons as well? Gummy Bears, darkwing Duck, Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers, Gargoyles,…..those were great as well!!!
Netflix has a TON of the old AMAZING cartoons!! My 10yr loves Jem and She-Ra, anything Jim Henson, Looney Toons….anything animated really.
I miss those old SNICK shows too! Where are more shows like that!?!? Are you Afraid of the Dark? was the best!!!
Hub and another channel have them. HUB has JEM and other good ones durning the day then good old 80 sitcoms at night. BOOM is the other channel. HUB is 200 on Buckeye and BOOM is 236 and buckeye.
I miss the original Smurfs, Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite.
Yes. This. I was deeply offended that my favorite Saturday morning cartoon ever when I was a kid, Thundercats, is being aired again as a (gasp) anime style show. WTH? Why are all the bigger kid cartoons anime??? ….sigh…. Up side to switching to only Hulu and Netflix? Retro cartoons. She-Ra, He-Man, Snorks, and Bullwinkle
Yeah, I don’t “get” anime.
LONG LIVE BULLWINKLE!
My girls watch a couple of the new ones like bubble guppis (super cute) and ugh Dora (but not for a long time!!). Mostly they watch the boomerang channel and are obsessed with scooby doo. Oh and there is always elmo. But I agree, most of today’s cartoons are crap compared to what we had. Especially all the anime type cartoons. Gag.
My kids love retro shit. I cram it down their throat like a male porn star, so that helps. And really, if you watch all of the older cartoons, they WERE better before we actually really knew anything. They lack education, unless you call lessons in homoeroticism, education. I still love them, but they really sucked. We just didn’t have much in the way of choices, and we only had like, two days to actually watch cartoons. Now they’re on 24-7 with multiple channels dedicated to them.
I’ll agree, I want to cunt punch Dora and hold Diego under the water a little too long. But every generation will be nostalgic to what they loved as kids. And like you said, you get to poop without an audience, so, you know. WIN.
^^^COMMENT OF THE DAY^^^
I’d like to thank the academy…
They are on Netflix… Netflix is awesome… also what’s stuck in my head is…
“This is serious”
and
“What’s gonna work, Teamwork!”
wonderpets is my hell…
I love the Boomerang channel and am so happy that my boys love it, too! They’re a little too old for Dora and Max & Ruby (THANK GAWD), but the other crap they sometimes watch: AdventureTime, Fanboy and ChumChum, and some other one that I can’t think of really drive me crazy. I miss 80′s cartoons!!
I F*cking hate Nick Jr with unprecedented passion. Wow Wow Wubbzy is currently on my TV, and I’m about one high-pitched platitude and “lalalalalala” away from slitting my wrists. But my 1 year old is eating cheese and *giggling* so it’s hard to change it. For serious, though. I hate my life when Nick Jr is on.
Jesus, I wish all the people who just ranted about missing the good-ol’-days would LISTEN to themselves. Did we learn nothing from Midnight in Paris? Nostalgia is POINTLESS. If your kids were watching Care Bears and the Jetsons, you’d wish they were watching The Ed Sullivan Show. You think the past was perfect because it’s not here right now. I can’t believe this mindless whining constitutes an “article.” Get over yourself.
“Nostalgia is pointless” is kind of a pointless response then if we’re going to get philosophical over cartoons.
When do you define something as being nostalgic then? The 2nd time you listen to an album? The second bite of the same cherry pie? Is sex with your significant other nostalgic because you’ve done it before? Nostalgia shapes your character.
Back to good ol toons, Saturday morning X-Men will always be my all-time favorite.
Husband,
I have been meaning to tell you, I like your giant nostalgia. I mean, penis. I mean, sense of humor.
Wife
I’m considering starting my own brand of educational kids stuff called REALITY KIDS, because now that I have a little son, I’m somewhat disturbed that 99% percent of everything that’s made for him is based in fantasy and imagination.
Been wondering why I can’t find children’s books that are just real photos of turtles sitting on logs with a story line that goes “turtles live in the water… and sit on logs.” Instead of “Sammy the Turtle decided to meet his fox friend, Juan at the train station.”
I kind of feel like this one observation holds the key to everything currently happening in our society…. anyways
We once missed a dinner reservation when Boomerang first came out. We were on vacation in a hotel room and could not pull ourselves away from the Snorks. This explains so much about our relationship.
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