Why are we so interested in retelling the legends and myths of our youth. For thousands of years, mythology has been told and re-told in various stories of heroes. In one generation, the heroes are without fault and the villains are pure evil. In the next, the heroes are faulted individuals who must battle their own demons and an evil that appears to be a force of good on the surface.
Granted, the cartoon of Generation X (starting in the 1970s and going into the early 1990s) aren’t the first to have their mythology revised and reborn in numerous ways. And yet it interesting to note that only a handful of the cartoon characters from our generation are recognize as some of the greatest of all time (at least according to a TV Guide survey in 2002) compared with the mid-to-late 90s successors like the Powerpuff Girls, Rugrats, Spongebob, and Cartman. And yet, how many times have these cartoons of our generation been celebrated and reborn. Spiderman, X-Men, Transformers, He-Man, GI Joe, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, Inspector Gadget, and Voltron are the obvious examples of Generation X cartoons that continue to dominate our psyche and continue to be re-created with new takes on the original storylines—mostly without the critical acclaim. Now you can add Thundercats and Smurfs to the list of re-created cartoons as Cartoon Network has re-booted the Feline series and the tiny blue creatures have hit the big screen. The Hub network even shows classic Transformers, GI Joe, and now Jem and the Holograms.
Growing up as a Transformers fans in the 1980s, I have been fascinated as to how the story continues to be retold in new ways. Since G1 left the airwaves in 1987, we have seen Beast Wars and Beast Masters, Robots in Disguise, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron, Animated, and now Prime as new creations of the old storyline. That doesn’t even count the three live action movies or the Japanese storylines (such as Headmasters that just reached US shores). I have my favorites (Beast Wars/Machines was probably the best storyline) and least liked (Animated somehow had to insert every character into the story and did so horribly), but overall I’m happy that Optimus is still Optimus, no matter whether as a tractor trailer, fire truck, or “Primal” ape—and that he deserves to be on the Top 50 list of Greatest Cartoon Characters of all time.
We all have our favorite 1980s cartoons. What’s yours? Maybe one day we will see the 1980s cartoon get the respect they deserve and recognized as a golden age of character creation. I just don’t know how many re-boots its going to take for critics to see how special our cartoons were…
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