What do kids do these days?

That's a great question. Only a few years ago, Dexter's Laboratory was on a lot, and while I was certainly never a kid while it was on, I can imagine that I'd love it if I had been. And there were other great kids' shows that aren't on anymore besides cartoons; let's not forget the genius that was Square One Television. Man, I ate that shit up.

cartoon channels on pay TV is terrible. the advertising is so damn repetitive it gives you a migraine.

the adventures of tintin were a pretty good cartoon based on the comic strips... there were tons of other good cartoons on abc then too... it i ssad they are gone but at least there are some good classic bugs bunny cartoons (not the new ones) and other old classic cartoons shown on bris31 (kids capers).

of course briz 31 is only in parts of australia.

Pretty much all of children's television is awful these days. What I never see is children outside. I used to swim and play ball outside for hours a day...I live next to a tennis/basketball court now and can't remember the last time I saw someone under 30 using them. This is part of the reason that we have a huge obesity problem.

well, i believe the turn in cartoon quality is due to brainwashing our youth. i guess we became immune to there old styles and now there taking a new much worse approach to it.

I think one of the main reasons is the decline of Kids WB. I mean, they had the Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Looney Toons, Freakazoid, a lot of the classics. Square One had the best educational yet interesting stuff, and Cartoon Network seems to have gone for this more "serious" cartoons angle, which sucks.

There's a possibility that there's a generation gap starting to form between us and younger kids. All of the shows that people listed as "the good old shows" are the ones we grew up with. I'm pretty sure that when those kids grow up, they're going to be remembering the days of Spongebob Squarepants and Fairly Oddparents.

When my dad was growing up, he watched shows like Gilligan's Island, Captain Kangaroo, and Bugs Bunny. Now, while I've never seen Captain Kangaroo, I never became fond of Gilligan's Island. It just wasn't something I liked. And I'm fairly sure my dad wasn't fond of Dexter's Lab or most of the local Saturday morning cartoons I watched.

I don't like a whole lot of the newer cartoons myself. But here's the thing: We're all adults or at least close to adults. I bet if we were all 5 to 8 year olds, we would think Spongebob was awesome.

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I'd say most kids these days spend enough time online in games like Halo or browsing networking sites like Myspace that they just don't bother watching cartoons that much. When I was trying out the God of War 2 demo at Gamestop, a kid (around 10-12) walked in wanting to know about the game, because he'd already played through the first one. Between that and stuff like Call of Duty or World of Warcraft to command the attention of tweens and teens, it seems the only real audience left for cartoon makers to pitch to is pre-schoolers.

These days? Homework and job hunting. And homework. And more job hunting.

When I was actually a kid, I'd go play outside until the street lights came on and then come in and read. I'd have sleepovers with the neighborhood kids and get homesick and go home at 10 pm but what I thought was 1pm. I'd go visit my grandparents. I'd write books and make up things. I'd go to work with my parents and attack his coworkers with my 5-year-old charm. :tongue:

I went through a TV phase, but my parents taped newspaper over the TV or kept it on the weather channel. They would also put it on mute, but I could still hear it, oddly.

The weather channel was actually pretty cool. It was boring and kinda ugly back then too. Orange and blue.

Amaster42 wrote:I think one of the main reasons is the decline of Kids WB. I mean, they had the Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Looney Toons, Freakazoid, a lot of the classics. Square One had the best educational yet interesting stuff, and Cartoon Network seems to have gone for this more "serious" cartoons angle, which sucks.

Come on, you're forgetting Pok�mon. 😛 Pok�mon [strike]is[/strike] [strike]was[/strike] is a great show. 😃

I grew entirely, and thankfully, out of cartoons. I cannot watch an episode of Spongebob or any of that without wanting to claw out my own eyes. I'm pretty much at the reality show/game show stage of life. Next stop: The History and Weather Channels.

I would LOVE to see a Wind Waker cartoon. It has a ton of potential for adventure and comedy. I think kids would really get into it, and I know a lot of adult Zelda fans would dig it too.

I can still watch kids shows from my day, and it's not because of nostalgia, it's because they were genuinely funny (at least some of them). I'm pretty sure that most of these came from Warner Bros., whatever happened to them?

It's all the old Nickelodeon stuff that was awesome. But then you get to highschool and forget about that stuff. But I think the shows that are on now may not be appealing to us, but they are to the kids that they're designed for.

But to answer your question, the internet and video games are what kids do now.

I started working at a Chuck E. Cheese type place, and whenever I run the ticket redemption counter, everyone calls the gummy hamburger candies "Krabby Patties". When the fuck did the word hamburger get replaced with Krabby Patty?

Masamune wrote:I started working at a Chuck E. Cheese type place, and whenever I run the ticket redemption counter, everyone calls the gummy hamburger candies "Krabby Patties". When the fuck did the word hamburger get replaced with Krabby Patty?

Probably since these started showing up.

You know, SpongeBob kinda sucks lately. I mean, the first three seasons or so? Hilarious. But I've seen a couple of the newer ones and they just aren't the same.

The show is great if you're into farce. If not, then it's a terrible show.

When I have kids, they will never ever watch Bob the Builder of Hannah Montana. I am raising my children on Power Rangers, both Batman:TAS and The Batman, the old Sonic show (the good one, not the campy one, and not Sonic X. You know the one I'm talking about.), pretty much anything they used to show on Kids WB (I'm talking Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Jackie Chan Adventures, Animaniacs), a whole host of animes, and, because my girlfriend demands it, Darkwing Duck.
Oh yeah, and they'll exercise and junk, do schoolwork, blah blah blah.

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4jd0UWGPgY
In case you actually don't know which one I'm talking about.

Before the dawn of the 21st century (or even earlier, given my limited knowledge of years due to my age), there was common sense in most everything. Now everything is the byproduct of randomness without even the slightest amount of common sense to go with it. I've seen some of the newer cartoons briefly (while at my friend's house)... bits and pieces of some of them are good, but past that... ... stupidity and either "uncommon sense" or "common nonsense" reign over the rest.

... oh... and has anyone noticed WHAT is being rated as "G"? Compared to about 5 years ago, it could go in either PG or PG-13 (not kidding).

Now everything is the byproduct of randomness without even the slightest amount of common sense to go with it.

WindStrike wrote:... oh... and has anyone noticed WHAT is being rated as "G"? Compared to about 5 years ago, it could go in either PG or PG-13 (not kidding).

I don't know how much exercise has to do with fat kids. I didn't grow up in front of a TV and played outside every day, but I was a porker kid. I weighed 170 when I was 13.

I gotta blame the parents on this one. I lived off of school lunches and microwave burritos. The moment we started getting real food, Zing, off came most of the weight, and I had stopped playing outside because I started getting homework. I have never seen a fat kid in a family that cooks dinner in something other than a microwave.

And about movie ratings... I was watching R movies when I was five, and I have no criminal record. I've never even had a detention. So I'm not in agreement with the "Movies make kids kill people" argument. I think boredom has more to do with violence than anything else.

Feasul wrote:When I have kids, they will never ever watch Bob the Builder of Hannah Montana. I am raising my children on Power Rangers, both Batman:TAS and The Batman, the old Sonic show (the good one, not the campy one, and not Sonic X. You know the one I'm talking about.), pretty much anything they used to show on Kids WB (I'm talking Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Jackie Chan Adventures, Animaniacs), a whole host of animes, and, because my girlfriend demands it, Darkwing Duck.
Oh yeah, and they'll exercise and junk, do schoolwork, blah blah blah.

:P Good plan. Those were good shows for the time (yeah for darkwing duck and old school sonic!). But please, if you show them power rangers, only show the first season. The series began going down the crapper once the heroes stopped having to juggle saving the world with school. Oh, and throw in Winnie the pooh for the heck of it. Can't go wrong with that.

Amaster wrote:About Animaniacs: If your going to be random, make sure you go all the way. If you don't, if theres even some reality in there, then you've lost it, and made a sucky show to boot.

Exactly. Animaniacs was a perfect example of HOW to do random. :P make it so insane that it has no point, so no one tries to learn anything from it. If TV was actually done RIGHT, then maybe we wouldn't have so many people who have absolutely no common sense! You either make the kid show so that it help instill some common sense, or you make it so over the top that no one would even TRY to learn from it.

Wind and Amaster have hit the nail on the head IMO. The only shows that are popular today (that I have seen because of my younger brother) that are even remotely worth watching are Fairly odd parents (It actually made me laugh out loud a few times), and Teen Titans.

and everything else > survivor > sponge bob

>_> I don't know HOW anyone can stand that show. All the characters are such total MORONS that they make my brain bleed.

...this topic is making me nostalgic...*goes to listen to the original power rangers main theme*

...I miss being a little kid...

I haven't noticed this, how bad have rated G movies gotten?

I'm with you. I haven't noticed how bad G movies are, but one could make a case in saying that a lot of PG-13 movies should be rated R. Any modern movie with Adam Sandler in it should be rated R, too.

The Longest Yard should have been rated R? Why?

I haven't really noticed poorly rated G movies, so much as the lack of G movies at all. It seems that no childrens film these days doesn't get rated PG, and 95% of the time, it's because of "crude humor". Ohh, he just farted, tee hee.

cinderella, dumbo, little mermaid and the jungle book DVD's are all rated G yet any other movies with the same level of violence or what-have-you are rated PG.

i think the best cartoon series was road runner rofl... maybe not but it was still a good laugh. Ren & Stimpy... OMG we used to absolutely adore this series... my bro got a box set of it recently and we've managed to get through all except the last disc.... it is just completely horrible lol.

another awesome cartoon/episode was that Bugs Bunny one where he's forced to read a book of a thousand stories to the sultan's son....

I could never stand Ren and Stimpy. I just thought in wasn't funny or clever or anything.

franpa wrote:cinderella, dumbo, little mermaid and the jungle book DVD's are all rated G yet any other movies with the same level of violence or what-have-you are rated PG.