Guilty Pleasures

[nordstar]

A lot of 80s cartoons are guilty pleasures for me. They seemed awesome when I was a kid, now they are only awesome during parties of drunk friends. But I still keep buying the boxsets. One specific one I've been enjoying recently is Jem. I was never really into most girly shows, but I can't stop. Its such an insane children's soap opera, and every episode has MTV style music videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSPb56-_I98

Tell me that isn't the most girly 80s opening ever?

Jem is Totally Outrageous. Don't fell ashamed by it. It is one of the best 80's cartoons. The stories are great, some are a little out there but they where solid. The music was great especially the MTV style videos. They really went out of there way to make something different and they did a good job at it. It showcased a lot of stuff going on in the 80's like the fashion and music and was able to throw in the whole synergy transformation weirdness that gave it that extra cool factor.

[usamimi]

oh GAWD I loved Jem as a kid. I even had a Jem Halloween costume when I was like, 5. XD I rewatched it when The Hub aired the repeats a while back and my bf would periodically comment on just how awful the plot was. (And I'll be one of the first to agree with him--it was pretty bad most of the time, lol.)

Sometimes the animation was great, other times it was unintentionally BAD. I remember there was an episode where they time-traveled, and at the end there was a dinosaur chasing one of the "bad guys"...and I SWEAR TO GOD, it just looked like they took a cutout of the character and bounced it around on the bg to make him "run" instead of actually animating him. He didn't even have 2 frames! It made me laugh so hard.

[llj]

I pretty much like all the 80s action-oriented Sunbow shows (I count Jem as an action show). A lot of people today laugh at the animation mistakes and design work, but I find that there's a lot more creativity in the graphic design and choreography in Sunbow shows than many cartoons today. Toei did some great stuff for Sunbow.

[usamimi]

I pretty much like all the 80s action-oriented Sunbow shows (I count Jem as an action show). A lot of people today laugh at the animation mistakes and design work, but I find that there's a lot more creativity in the graphic design and choreography in Sunbow shows than many cartoons today. Toei did some great stuff for Sunbow.

Yeah, even when there were small mistakes, on the whole they looked REALLY good. I blame Jem as one of the reasons I got so into Magical Girl anime later in life, lol.

[_D_]

In the 80s, I stopped watching US animated fare and had fully switched to anime. And trying to go back to watching it now is painful. The cliches, bad animation (where it exists at all), bad voice work, etc. do not add up to a great experience. Picked up a box set of She-Ra Princess of Power recently from a discount store. But after watching a couple of episodes, shelved it. This over a series like Young Justice?? Not worth my time!

For you JEM lovers, did you watch the DC Nation JEM shorts over the past several months? Dunno if you can find them online. I also like the Ardman Studios DC Heroes shorts. Fun stuff...

[usamimi]

For you JEM lovers, did you watch the DC Nation JEM shorts over the past several months? Dunno if you can find them online.

...do you mean the "Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld" shorts? Because that's not the same as Jem. "Jem" was something completely different. (Though I did see a bit of Amethyst and thought it was pretty cute.)

[_D_]

Sorry for the confusion. Yes, Gemworld then. JEM was the singer wasn't she? I vaguely remember it, MASK, GI Joe, Transformers and others. None of this stuff is in my old tapes collections other than the odd prerecord I happened upon over the years.

The only cartoon band I ever watched is from a generation earlier:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Archies

Though I do also remember watching these guys:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(TV_series)

[llj]

In the 80s, I stopped watching US animated fare and had fully switched to anime. And trying to go back to watching it now is painful. The cliches, bad animation (where it exists at all), bad voice work, etc. do not add up to a great experience. Picked up a box set of She-Ra Princess of Power recently from a discount store. But after watching a couple of episodes, shelved it. This over a series like Young Justice?? Not worth my time!

She-Ra and He-Man have fairly boring stories, but they have some nice background work, color design and some neat rotoscoping.

Today's cartoons are better written--dialogue wise anyway--but I really dislike how most of today's action cartoons crib from Bruce Timm. In many ways, I think Timm's influence was bad for action cartoons overall, even though I like most of his cartoons. I find there's a real design sameness right now that's prevalent in every action cartoon I see. All these sharp edges and straight lines. I don't mind it as a style, I just hate the "me-too" trend of it. Everything DOESN'T have to look like a Bruce Timm cartoon.

People who don't like anime often accuse the genre of looking all the same, but if we look in our own backyard, we'll find the same thing happening here too.

[llj]

Sorry for the confusion. Yes, Gemworld then. JEM was the singer wasn't she? I vaguely remember it, MASK, GI Joe, Transformers and others. None of this stuff is in my old tapes collections other than the odd prerecord I happened upon over the years.

Interesting piece of trivia: the speaking voice for Jem, Samantha Newark, actually sung "In Your Eyes" for Project A-Ko. It's the song that plays during the B-Ko bath scene when she's declaring her love for C-Ko.

I always find it interesting when Japanese anime companies hire foreigners to do songs for their productions. Like how TMS got 1974 Playboy Playmate of the Year Cyndi Wood to sing ALL the vocal songs for The Professional: Golgo 13. And she sang them all in Japanese, to boot. (Phonetically, I assume)

[_D_]

The problem with He-Man was that Skeletor could never win. According to the writers on that series, that was in the series bible. So, it became a running joke as to how Skeletor could amass all these armies of bad guys and lose every episode. Now in the real world, no one is going to work for you if you are a loser. Just about every series and most comics at the time featured just that...the villains could try as hard as they wanted but could never win! So, at that point, I just shelved the whole genre.