Fans of the 80’s cartoons tend to think alike

I made some interesting observations while surfing Amazon recently to check out the latest cartoons DVDs released this year end.

The customers who bought JEM DVDs, also bought DVDs on She-Ra and My Little Pony.

The My Little Pony customers in turn bought DVDs of other ‘cute characters’ cartoons like Rainbow Brite, Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake (80’s versions of course!).

When I looked at the She-Ra DVDs, the customers who bought them also bought all the He-Man DVDs (well, I’m not surprised on this one since it is a related cartoon to She-Ra).

The He-Man customers also bought DVDs on Thundercats, Voltron (the version with the 5 lions), Defenders of the Earth, The Real Ghostbusters, Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles and G.I.Joe.

Except for G.I.Joe, I watched and followed the other above-mentioned cartoon series of the 80’s during my childhood.  I’m delighted to know that there are many fans out there throughout the world who still share my same passion and wonderful memories of these 80’s cartoon series.  Fans like me who grew up watching the 80’s cartoons generally agree that the cartoons back then were way better than most of those being shown on Cartoon Network and the local Kids Central channels today; in terms of originality, storylines, creativity and even artwork, despite being mere 2-D animations.

The above cartoons were actually also unofficially known as “20-minute animated toy commercials” because they were originally produced to sell their respective toylines, which were all conceptualized and planned for the retail stores way before the cartoons were aired on TV.  As far as I know, the He-Man cartoon series started this ‘trend’ in way back in 1982.  There would be 2 x 5min ‘messages’ breaks to slot in the TV commercials to sell the actual toys.  When I watched my JEM DVDs, there would be special scenes within the episodes that announced, “JEM would be back after these messages” & “And now back to JEM”, specially designed for the commercial breaks.

I recall reading online articles a few years ago that back in the 80’s, some critics disapproved of this marketing technique but I think the people behind this idea are geniuses.  Thanks to them, fans like me have many great quality cartoons and toys to remember our childhoods by.  The toys back then were also of much better quality.  Many of these toys that I came across in the second hand market like My Little Pony and She-Ra were still in very good shape for their ages.  Even if some were stained and messy (toy collectors call this ‘played-with’ condition), many could still be restored to their former glories and look almost brand new, just like fresh out of their packages back in the 80’s!

Another plus point is that many of these 80’s toys, especially the action figures and vehicle toys, were able to perform the feats and transforming functions seen in their cartoons (e.g. M.A.S.K. & Transformers).  The toys brought the cartoon worlds that the kids saw on TV into ‘life’ in our real world.  That was the best part!

Oh how I missed those 80’s cartoons.  If you read the reviews by the Amazon customers who bought those 80’s cartoons DVDs, they are mostly adults in the 25-35 years old age range.  The cartoons were released on DVDs mostly because these adult fans requested for them and DVD companies saw demand and hence provided the supply.  I am so happy that I finally own the DVDs of my 2 all-time favourite cartoons - She-Ra and JEM!

Now I’m awaiting the release of the 90’s cartoon: The X-Men Animated Series, on DVD.  I have the entire series recorded from TV on VHS but they will not last long.  I could convert them to VCDs but I would rather own the DVD sets with the nice cover graphics, special features like episode commentary by the writers, exclusive and insightful interviews with the people behind the scenes and other specials like character bios and original script; like the ones included in my beloved She-Ra and JEM DVDs.

I definitely look forward to more 80’s cartoons and some of the better 90’s cartoons being released on DVDs in 2008!