Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for April 28, 2018

Dad, go read a book and leave Calvin alone.

When I read this comic as a kid, I had a hard time picturing whatever Calvin was watching because I wasn’t familiar with the crappy eighties shows like He-Man that this is most likely referencing.

Say what you will about SpongeBob SquarePants, but at least that show actually has fluid animation.

Well excuuuuse us, dad!

It’s natural you don’t understand cartoons Dad. Cartoons aren’t for you, they’re for kids like Calvin.;-D

Quite aside from that, look. Given the date of the comic, Dad was a kid in the 1960s. He claiming that the likes of The Mighty Hercules or Clutch Cargo or Mighty Mouse were anything but bargain-basement animation?

So now you know.

And knowing is half the battle.

Where’s Hobbes?

I grew up on Looney Tunes and Tex Avery cartoons and I agree. Cartoons today are crap!

the makings of a good cartoon is turn the sound down and if you can still follow 75 to 80% the “action” of the cartoon it is a good cartoon

Hey Dad, don’t you have a bike to ride?

Do they even broadcast Looney Tunes nowadays? I haven’t seen Bugs Bunny cartoons in DECADES.

Just a few years in and Watterson was already letting disappointment with his industry peers slip out. And it’s predictable that Dad would single out lack of movement, considering what a masterful knack his creator had for conveying motion in print comics.

When it comes to film animation though, nobody did it better than the crew of Termite Terrace.

Of course, if you like the idea of an animated show MAKING FUN of Animated Shows, find “Harvey Birdman; Attorney-at-Law” on DVD. There were also several episodes of “Futurama” that just SHREDDED different animation styles. You haven’t lived until you have seen them done as Japanese Anime characters, or as the “Gang” from “Scooby-Do”!

I new it was the end of cartoons when they went from using an entire orchestra score to using an accordion.

Most of my education and amazing social abilities were derived from Rocky and Bullwinkle, or “Moose and Squirrel” as Boris would say. For comic relief I turned to Bugs and Daffy, et al.

So that’s a Thumbs Down then (wayyy down)…

Today they’re not called cartoons, they’re just called animated shows.

There’s loads of movie critics on You Tube instead.

Warner Brothers’ Loony Tunes and Merrie Melodies were all originally theatrical releases, short subjects to be shown prior to the featured film as were MGM’s Tom & Jerry cartoons, Disney’s Silly Symphonies, and (if I’m not mistaken) Paramount’s Woody Woodpecker shorts. Since they were shown in theaters, they had to amuse the adults as well as the kids. This was back in the day when a small town had only one local movie house (with only one screen), and maybe a drive-in. My point is that the production values were much higher until cartoons began to be made expressly for television. Lower budgets and time constraints led to the loss of background and good musical scores. And while these movie studios did tap in to TV, Hanna-Barbera sort of cornered the market on made-for-TV cartoons, and some of their creations were prime-time offerings; The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Johnny Quest, and Top Cat to name a few. Lord, have I dated myself or what?!?

Yeah, as I recall, Gene was the much more “critical” one, caring too much about the making of the movie(direction, script, lighting, etc.), rather than, was it entertaining. My impression of Roger was that he was more of the “every-man”, thus more in line with the movie-going public.

The cartoon is boring so that Calvin will find the toy commercials more entertaining and pester his parents, especially dad, to go buy the toys.

Johnny Quest was the one I couldn’t think of.Thanks.Snagglepuss,exit stage right ;~)

Wow, what a trip down memory lane, y’all! I woke up to Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle cartoons (after the whatchamacallit sign went off the air) on Saturdays, and truly weird (to my eyes) ‘toons from the ’30s or ’40s where the characters, when doing nothing else, would bounce up and down to show animation. And the GREAT Popeyes, the old ones, from which the Altman-Willimas film got its weirdness. And of course, the king of them all, Warner Bros. Fast forward 30+ years and they brilliantly reprised themselves with Animaniacs — some of the most hilarious entertainment anywhere. I’d love a station that would bring that stuff back!

My dad did the exact same thing, when one day he went from passive to aggressive and blew up, not understanding why I would watch such garbage. I then watched with a more critical eye to prove they were not garbage, only to conclude that, yes, they were. TV, how could you let me down? It didn’t occur to me until years later to question what my dad would prefer to watch: bad Japanese monster movies. And my choices were garbage? My dad redeemed himself years later when he pointed me toward furry fandom.

Cartoons have never been “high” art.

I too was a kid of the 60s and i agree with Calvins’ pop 100%! :)

When I was young cartoon strips used to be funny too. Except Dick Tracy.

Hey! What’s wrong with Scooby-Doo? Rod Ram It!

Can anyone name a single cartoon, from any decade, that can be described as in panel 3? The closest I can think of is a joke video called “Rocko’s Postmodern Life.”

In the first half of this decade, Cartoon Network’s Saturday morning lineup was pretty much like that; the majority of the shows were action cartoons based off toy lines, and to me they could be pretty boring and occasionally preachy. Except they did move a lot more.

I would probably have asked Roger Ebert for his opinion!

It is true that 80s cartoons were just glorified toy commercials!

Dad you are wasting your time with this conversation

Simple yet effective. That’s how the older cartoons worked.

Simple yet effective. That’s how cartoons those days were.

I watched a show like that when I was small. It was supposed to be scary, but it was the cheesiest, most boring, preachy show ever. The only thing it had going for it was that it didn’t just shamelessly plug cheap toys for half an hour.