So I think one of the reasons those clickbait headlines never lead to anything I want to read because I am sort of in between generations-- not quite Gen X, not quite Gen Y. I was born in 1979, which made me a few years younger than most people who consider themselves 80's kids (I was too young to be traumatized by The Day After) but am a few years older than those who identify as 90's kids (I was a little too old to get into Pokemon.)

Added to that, I was not permitted to watch prime time television until solidly in my teens, so around 1988-1990 (when I was 9-11 years old) I was still watching afternoon/Saturday morning cartoons, but had gotten to old to enjoy those marketed to young children (like Kissyfur and Gummi Bears.) I did watch some good shows, like Animaniacs and Duck Tales, but those won't make this list because a) they were quality entertainment, this is for bad shows and b) everyone remembers them because they were amazing.

Instead, this is about a weird subgenre of cartoon shows that existed right around 1990 that were marketed to pre-teens, like me, but featured teenage characters, and were, to put a point on it, awful. They were designed to be wish-fulfillment for kids and featured lazy writing and art, preposterous premises, really disturbing gender politics, paper-thin characters and a healthy dose of casual racism. I don't have any friends who watched these shows. There is no shared point of reference. It's a weird, embarrassing thing so naturally I am going to put it on the internet.

Anyway, it's a long weekend and I have a really long list of adult-type things to do like replace lightbulbs and get my car tire checked for leaks, and instead I'm feeling lazy and nostalgic, so here we go!