Top cartoons of the 80's

Ok, I had the following website passed on to me (that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, I saw it on espn.com ‘s page 2). Anyway, www.askmen.com apparently puts together a ton of top ten lists because we’re guys and if there is one thing that we will always do it is put together top ten lists. Because we cannot accept this world unless it is in order and ranked with no questions about any of the items. There are no ties or honorable mentions, everything is in listed order. You can’t believe how important this fact is to most guy’s lives. Given that I’m kind of low on ideas right now, here is their list for Top Ten Cartoons From the 80’s along with my always insightful commentary.

#10 Mask: This show always seemed to be the bastard stepchild of GI Joe and Transformers and Gobots. I mean, it had interesting vehicles and battles where everyone shot laser beams at each other and no one died but it didn’t have any of the immense joy of the other shows. It seemed to be a thirty minute commercial for toys you wouldn’t want anyway.

#9 TranZor Z: I have no recollection of this one. Maybe I have killed one too many brain cells after all.

#8: The Smurfs: I need to present this theory to the Interweb. Did everyone have one girl in their grade school class who was just way too into the Smurfs? I mean, like she would bring in her complete set of Smurf trading cards to class. Or show off that she had like fifty of the little figurines? Ever wonder what happened to her? Can someone perform a sociological experiment and determine whether that results in a healthy lifestyle? I have a feeling that girl became that girl in college who had like a dozen stuffed animals on her bed and you learned very quickly to proceed with caution.

#7 Thundercats: Hell yeah this was a great show. Was there ever a bigger badass cartoon character than Panthro? You knew he was just sitting there, watching Lion-O and going “One day I am just going to have enough of you and your sword and just beat you to a pulp. And then I’m going to score with Cheetara.” (Cheetara, who is universely agreed to be the hottest cartoon character of the 80’s.) Plus, Mumm-Ra was the one cartoon villain on par with the heroes. You always knew that Cobra was going to get its ass kicked at the end of the day. Mumm-Ra always stood a fighting chance.

#6 Jem and the Holograms: I think we’ve covered this one before. I blame this for the rise of teen pop in the late 80’s. Imagine having that on your conscience, knowing that by producing a cartoon show you are personally responsible for unleashing Tiffany on an unknowing public. (Debbie Gibson gets a pass. She seems pretty cool in retrospect.)

#5 Inspector Gadget: I remember watching this show when it premiered and thought (as a nine year old) “God, this is going to be dumb.” I then proceeded to watch the show to an age that there is no way in hell that I am going to admit in public. I don’t know, it was an extremely silly show but unlike most of the other shows on this list actually seemed to have writers. Having the evil Dr. Klaw never seen or captured throughout the entire run of the series is a classic example of how you are supposed to write a television show.

#4 Voltron: Defender of the Universe: Voltron is number four? What moron put Voltron at number four? Dude, you had teenagers flying robots shaped like lions in space that combined to form an even bigger robot with a sword that took on even larger robots in these interplanetary battles. You’re telling me that there was an even better concept out there somewhere. Any show that causes one of my friends to state twenty years after the show has been off the air that “I think I’m just going to pursue my dream of piloting the black lion in Voltron” has to be higher than fourth.

#3 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Best action figures from a series ever. Sure, I watched the show but couldn’t recall much from it anymore. However, I can describe in great detail the pro wrestling league that my younger brother and I developed using the action figures. With title belts and rankings and steel cage matches and full cards and long lasting feuds. Is it sad that this is one of my most vivid memories from childhood? It’s like my past is sponsored by Hasbro.

#2 Transformers: I loved the fact that the evil leader Megatron turned into a gun. Everyone else turned into planes or cars and Megatron was just straight and to the point. Best idea ever in a cartoon series was the introduction of the Dinobots, who were unbelievably well developed characters. They were dumb but that was because they were dinosaurs. It made a lot of sense to a ten year old.

#1 GI Joe: Man, did I waste a lot of time that I could have spent playing outside watching every episode of this show about two dozen times. But you had to be there to see if Snake Eyes was going to do something cool. Or if Zartan was going to be cool and Australian in an episode. I saw an episode replayed on television about a year ago and after seeing it I am amazed that I even consider myself an intelligent human being after spending my youth watching that show.

Last note: No Battle of the Planets? No G-Force? Those are the shows that I end up buying the DVDs of. And what about Dungeons and Dragons (even if you wanted to kill that damn unicorn like the rest of us.)? I think this list is incomplete.