Old Vs. New

[Nintendude]

When you really come down to it, you have to think that the average American IQ has gotten a lot lower over the past 10 years. Where once we had shows with some kind of sense to them now we have shows that seem like a monkey is the director of it. An example of this I'm sure a lot of you all remember Captain Planet which at the end of it there would be some kind of message about saving the planet, where now we have shows like Flapjack or Chowder that make me want to beat my head in with a bat to keep from losing IQ. Also the old shows like Legend Of The Hidden Temple which would give kids some sense of knowledge but now we have stuff like Destroy Build Destroy and other kids shows like that which make absouletly no sense. I'm sure a lot of people here remember the old shows from the early 90's and if you really think about it slowly but surely everything has just been beat with a stupid stick right down to the commercials on TV. Old commercials were'nt too bad but todays commercials are the reason I don't buy name brand stuff anymore.This also goes for the Movies we see on the big screen older was better in a lot of ways but there have been some good movies Harry Potter is better than Dude where's my car. Does anyone else feel the same way about what we see in this day and age?

 

[LastSpartan]

Simply because people watch these shows. Producers don't need to break their head making something good, people will still follow a said show if the actor is good looking or if there are good visual effects.

 

[The King Cobra]

I feel the same way. I absolutely hate the new shows on Cartoon Network they are just ridiculous and dumb. I know I am a lot more mature now but I am sure the shows are stupider and dumber. I also absolutely love the old games like Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot but now they have completely gone down the drain and people have lost the true sense of Video games and just focusing on graphics rather than the actual experience and having a laugh.

 

[mkshane81]

Good point John!! Prime example: reality TV!! I don't think its possible to get anymore annoyed, from listening to in my case(wife), Real Housewives this, real world that, etc.......aaaaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! But then again, LastSpartan makes a valid point too. The plot of the show isn't everything.

 

[mustang2500]

I really hate what this world has turned into. Everything. Every single thing is just made for money. Especially that DAMN Family Channel. I am unlucky enough to have to listen to that sh*t like Hannah Montana when my 9 y/o sister watches it. The ********** SHOW ISN'T EVEN FUNNY!



I used to wonder why my parents hated when I watched shows like Spongebob, or... whatever I watched. (Can't remember, I'm too old...) All shows these days are all screaming, bad jokes, dumb and plain stupid. I'm probably going to look back at this moment in 6 years and think the same for South Park



But seriously. I agree.

 

[gakkengod]

I agree if it isnt a show or commercial about sex or drugs or violence(dont get me wrong i love violence). then its not on tv anymore... from experience in the feild media is seriously decreasing young mind's understanding between right and wrong.



Also little kid shows... i watch them and they make me feel retarded, I dont think they're teaching kids more than using the commercial market of little kids who watch the shows that teach gimme gimme gimme.... also could be parents fault.



thanks for listening to and letting me rant hare for a bit.

 

[jks soccer]

I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I think as a 16 year old I watch a lot if not the most TV of some of the age groups on here. However, I'd have to agree with you, the new shows tick me off SOOO much. I watch a mix of everything, shows like Chuck, Leverage, Burn Notice, Mythbusters... channels like Discovery and History channel, and occasionally cartoon network and disney. When the good stuff isn't on, or I'm working, I usually turn stuff on as background noise. But the new stuff annoys me so much, that I've been known to turn on Dora the Explora, I kid you not. I don't know what happened to everything. They should bring old cartoons back like Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry. Now those I can watch.

I do notice though, that the majority of the general population is, well, heading downhill. Some of the IQ levels of people nowadays, even for being 16 I notice, is lower than that of a few years ago. I do not have an anger management problem, but some people push me so close to the edge. I find it absolutely ridiculous...

 

[Nintendude]

Thanks for the responses so far everyone. A lot of the old shows are actually still going if you have Boomerang and sometimes they show the old MGM cartoons on Cartoon Network like Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry, but then again there's the shows like Tim And Eric Awesome Show Great Job which how the hell it got another season I have no clue, anyways I know that it probably won't make a diffrence but I'll be sending a rant off to Cartoon Network and Nick at the end of the month just so I can get my rant off my head and into someones e-mail. I know it won't make any diffrence to them probably because they are the ones making the money off of it but it will at least make me feel better. I think it's a little bit bad as well though that shows like the original X-Men, Silver Surfer, Incredible Hulk, Superman and Batman have all been put on at about 3 am in the morning on the weekend, what were they too violent for daytime so they used stupidity during the day instead?

 

[jks soccer]

I have regular, boring, old cable. And good channels are slowly disappearing, like nat geo. There's not much on my end.

 

[Boba Fett]

Could you imagine some of the 60's shows today? Star Trek, Combat, Lost in space, all were relatively simple. Saunders with the never-emptying Thompson would mow the Germans down, Dr. Smith would screw somthing up and Will and the robot would fight some aelian that was on last week's episode of voyage to the bottom of the sea, and Kirk would go kick some aelian butt. Yeah, not complicated, but they wern't dumb. People today can;t figure them out. I love those shows, despite some cheezyness. Little-kid shows are incredibly stupid. Certain ones, like PBS. shows are ddecent, you at least learn something from them. But the crap they play on cartoon network is insane. Occasionally there's funny stuff, but it's rare. I think people have just lost all common sense, and try to replace it with book-smartness. I know of several people who are fresh out of college with good degrees and are complete blithering idiots. I know a guy who has just a high-school education, but he has a lot of common sense and is very smart in his own manner. Seems like the world is filled with morons... And not my theory, Stupidity is a formerly recessive gene, but a mild mutation spread it to a dominant trait in the last 30 years... Your only hope is to have parents with the recessive trait. I need to reasearch this...

 

[ImaGonnaGetYou]

You're thinking more along the lines of nostalgic value than a decrease in intelligence.



More and more companies, shows, and ideas have entered the market, and competition is extremely fierce. Crude humor in cartoons is an almost sure-fire way to win at everything. Same with commericals, in the sense that their intellectual prowess will not get more customers. Not because folks are less attracted to intelligence, but that making some long or uninteresting ad isn't going to do anything. Seen those debt consolidation commercials recently, with the drawn out "we can help you like x or y or z" speeches? Yeah, I didn't think they were even remotely interesting to watch, either.



Plus, you're also disregarding the shows that put some witty, intellectual humor into the mix.



However, I will agree that the cartoon channels have really gone down the toilet recently, and anyone who watched them before they died off can agree. Is it proof that people have the attention span of gnats? No, but Cartoon Network and the like know that young kids are extremely impressionable and will watch just about anything that shows up on the tube. Regardless of show quality (which is clearly poor, seeing how many "new shows" are automatic flops), kids will watch, and they will make money, guaranteed.

 

[Dark Fang]

cartoon network has no value as a tv station any more adult swim used to be good to knows all syndicated shows we've all seen a hundred times and what isn't reruns are stupid shows like tim and eric. it would be dream come true when tv becomes good again, on another note what ever happened to tv land it used to be good old shows like mash and mr ed now all it is are shows that haven't been off the air for 2 years

 

[stilgarhammer]

Hello All,

I agree with most of you, I want the '80s shows back on, they had plots, decent acting, and some of them you actually learn something. what I am seeing now is, because of the crap shows of today, many of the teens and younger people have no manners, or respect for anyone or anything. Makes me often want to spank them and their parents, I also have noticed that parenting and discipline have gone to "bleeep".



stilgar

 

[Brandon McClain]

Amen! I mean, Looney Toons NEVER gets old! Where are the shows like Rescue Rangers, Tail Spin, Duck Tails, Gummy Bears etc? And when it comes to classics, Hogans Heroes. Its a more wholesome level of entertainment. I just don't watch TV anymore unless its something like Discover or TLC. There just isn't that much good TV anymore. I think it says a lot about society as a whole and our general value system. I love the quote that says "Our thoughts reap our actions, our action our actions reap our habits, and our habits reap our character". When you look at a lot of the junk there is on TV today, what does that say about our thinking in general as society, and in turn our character. Okay, done my rant! Those are my two cents.



PS. Some food for thought... Socrates said "We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit"... Where do we stand??

 

[Michalanthropos]

"Things were better in our days". You people are starting to show your age. But...I agree. Most shows today are dumb and retarded. It's just like music. It's hard (and therefore costs golds) to produce quality stuff, and it's harder to make the next stuff even better. But junk is easy and cheap, and so you can make more golds. People are forced to accept these things and lower their standards because there's nothing better on the telly, or the radio. Some people might seek quality in the past, old bands/movies/shows, while the rest just surrender themselves and drag the rest with them. But think for a moment there. The audience is not as it used to. Twenty-year-olds nowadays are different from those in the past. They read comics, they buy toys, and they play games. They are more immature. More...like menchildren. Is it the quality of the things on tv responsible for this, or is it the people's fault, who have become "simple" and today's junk is what strikes their fancy? Also, don't forget that many good old shows were rediculously soft, like He-man. He always gave moral advice at the end of the episode (which is good), and he never used his friggin' sword throughout the episode (non-violent softiness). Regardless, I like He-man. For me, the biggest old cartoon failures were turbo teen and scooby-doo.

And let's not put all today's shows together in the same sack. There are still good shows today. Yes even somewhat witty ones. Like the storm hawks.



Another reason why kids watch junk is because of foreign buisness interests. Pokemon, yugioh, budy-b-daman, all sorts of crap japan keeps throwing on the global market. It's like a cult brainwash movie. Constantly claiming they are the truth, and no fun at all. Yet the children watch this stuff, because they have nothing else to see. That will eventually turn them into apathic beings programmed to believe that "when you have what's in, then you're having fun!".

See? Fun!

 

[GMer56]

I think that society is just going downhill. Happened to the Romans eventually... is this a grim specter of what will come?

I somewhat doubt it.

All of these television shows with stylized animation & little kid soap operas (let's face it, that's what they are) makes me sad. I guess that's why they invented Netflix ^^

Although there are some diamonds in the rough. Two & a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, How I met your mother... oddly, I can't think of any consistently good cartoons.

These are the shows I miss:

Darkwing Duck, Talespin, Alladin (Mechanicles is awesome!), Tom & Jerry, The Pink Panther (oddly its on @ 12:30 on cartoon network the last time I knew), Beast Wars, Beast Machines.

I know I miss more, but I can't think of them: Memories are in .zip format and take a while to decompress



Stilgar Hammer, did Darkwing Duck ever say "I am the terror that flaps in the night, I am the crust on your grilled cheese sandwich!", it randomly came to me one day.



Mental note: track down Zelda cartoon series.



And you know what anime/manga was inspired from? Old American cartoons (Betty Boop?).

 

[mattmann1]

As a young teen I can say we all are not stupid enough to watch these new shows just most. But I really wish they would bring back the old. My favorite shows now are have either been running for years upon years (the simpsons) or are older (sienfeld, friends, malcolm in the middle) the shows today are mostly crap. Though the discovery and history chanel are still pretty good (for anyone who hasn't seen pawn stars I recomend it). Having been around young kids I am upset about how stupid the shows are. Where are the shows like rugrats, or invader zim. I guess it all goes along with the debt based consumeristic mentality that has put the economy in the toilet. People want instant gratification, not anything that requires thought.

Socrates said "We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit"...

ha that was the quote of the day in my social studies yesterday

 

[Michalanthropos]

Just wondering. Is education going downhill on your contries too?

 

[GMer56]

Just wondering. Is education going downhill on your contries too?

I would love to say yes, but I live in a place full of quasi-hillbillies (poor me), so my view is not impartial.

 

[Purrie]

Nothing will ever be as good as the 90's... However I believe that TV is a dying form of entertainment, and the internet will soon house everything- we already have networks that host their shows for free on their websites, so why would anyone pay extra for TV service? It's as thought cartoons are all anime, unoriginal, or the writers just don't care about the quality of work they produce. Shows like The Office continue to use good, clean, and clever humor- but even that show feels like it loses its charm and intelligence from time to time. The world is changing... people's attention spans are shrinking with their brains and soon shows will only be a 20 minute blurb of immaturity and unoriginality...