Nick was still running good shows and quirky programs like "Rocko's Modern Life", "Hey Arnold", "Doug" (before it's disney era of suck and ultimately losing what was good about the show), "The Angry Beavers", "Aah! Real Monsters!" and a slew of others. Cartoon Network was firmly entrenched in running vintage cartoons like "Thundercats", "Battle of the Planets" and "Voltron" while running newer 'edgy' fare like The Batman and Superman animated series'. On top of that, they also ran "The What-A-Cartoon! Show" which gave small time animators screen time and led to really unique shows like "Dexter's Lab", "Johnny Bravo", "The Powerpuff Girls" (yes, I'll come out and admit I watched it, stop laughing) and "Courage The Cowardly Dog". All the while the WB was turning out insane crap like "Freakzoid", "The Animaniacs" and "Pinky and the Brain".

Most of these shows I mentioned, and many others that were equally good were great as kids shows, but there was a certain depth to them that left them enjoyable to more mature audiences. Hell I still sink a lot of time into watching them when I can. Of course, I'm a huge media geek who's never really stopped being a kid so that might be part of it, but I'm not the only one who does this because there are fansites and, in the case of "Gargoyles", even conventions around some of them. Fans of these cartoons are dedicated, no doubt.

But, as I get older it's hard not to notice a sad trend in animation these days. When I say animation, I'm not talking about Anime because there is a very strong difference in approach. Japan has seen animation as just another medium of expression whereas, excluding Matt Groening and Seth MacFarlane for the most part, animation will and always has been for kids in western culture. It is this difference that I think leads to the problem with Western animation: it's increasingly become drivel with no value beyond momentary entertainment.

It's not as though this has been a sudden transition though. there have always been a fair share of insipid pointless cartoons (I'm looking at you "Rugrats"), Sturgeon's Law affects everything after all (you know, that fun little law that states 90% of everything is crap?), but they didn't seem to be based in the predominate thought process of the people making the shows. I mean, even on the crappy old "Godzilla" series (the horrific old Hanna-Barbera one with the Minilla *shudder* knockoff called Godzookey, not the horrific one based on the horrible 1998 Matthew Broderick film) there was a message or something. The difference is that they were trying to TEACH kids something rather than keeping them preoccupied for a half hour. Hell, education was the whole premise of "The Magic School Bus", "Histeria!" and "Captain Planet".

The problem started becoming prominent (or perhaps I just noticed the problem becoming prominent) about the time the "Spongebob" movie came out. Prior to that it felt as though there was some semblance of quality control still in place. I mean, "The Fairly Oddparents" while a little on the absurd side, was still fairly clever and enjoyable even if you weren't five and the target audience. Hell, I'll even admit I genuinely liked "Spongebob" in it's early days (I mean a squirrel scientist living underwater and a feud between two fast food places run by a miserly crab and a megalomaniacal piece of zooplankton? How could that NOT be awesome?) but when it became glaringly obvious that you could made quite frankly ludicrous amounts of scratch simply by having a beloved cartoon character star in it, no matter how inane, well, I think that was the beginning of the downhill slide.

That's not to say that there haven't been attempts at more mature cartoons. "Teen Titans" did a good job of walking that line as did "Danny Phantom" (I'd throw the "Jimmy Neutron" series up since it's been consistently clever and amusing since the movie with some really funny homages and winks to older movies, TV shows, etc., but, well, I'm sure I'm like one of five people over ten who liked that series) and "Avatar", though the first and the last hid under a cloak of faux anime. Not to mention "Family Guy", "American Dad!" and "The Simpsons" have always made a killing and "Futurama" did well enough in the direct to DVD movies and the show DVD sales that it's coming back for a second season.

The point I'm laboriously making is two fold. Firstly, kids are a lot more intelligent than cartoonists now are giving them credit for and they deserve better than brightly colored dross with the depth of a spoon. Cartoons can be a teaching tool instead of a time waster and there's no reason for them not to be. Secondly, there is an audience beyond kids that enjoy cartoons, that's why the old 90s cartoons like "Freakazoid!" did so well on the DVD sales. Any of you cartoonists, if you're reading this, all I'm saying is there's a lot of money to be made reaching out to older fans like me. Think about it.

Wondering when the hell "Tiny Toons" is finally going to hit DVD.

Jenna Darknight