You'll Never Remember These 4 Cartoons from the Late 80's and Early 90's Because They Were TERRIBLE

[Mara]

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!

[Russ]

Speaking for the rest of the forum, we LOVE Mara threads...

Do continue!

[Mara]

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

Ran from 1990-1991.



There were a rash of kid's cartoons around this time that were based on non-animated films, often films that were optimally marketed to people a decade older (Beetlejuice, Ghostbusters, etc.) but this one might be the weirdest. The original film was a cult film from 1978 parodying monster films of the 50's, but someone decided this was a perfect vehicle for an animated show written for kids who weren't born when the original film came out, and had no idea about monster films of the 50's, or a clear understanding of what a parody was.

In fairness, though, the opening song was kind of catchy.



The premise was theoretically about a young pre-teen boy, but the actual main character was an air-headed sexy teen named Tara who was a literal tomato. They also had a pet furry tomato that they pretended was a dog. This, by the way, is what a fashion-forward teen looked like in 1990:



She also had a breathless, squeaky voice and dim disposition. Tara only turned into a tomato when she had salt poured on her and turned back into a person after being doused with pepper (and sneezing.) Based on my google searches today and the extremely weird video below, Tara was really important to a VERY VERY specific kind of fetishist:



Maybe the strangest thing about the show (and that's saying something) is that Tara is shown as pretty clearly having a crush on the young boy, and this is played for laughs.

It was weird.

It was very, very weird.

[Mara]

Denver, the Last Dinosaur

Ran from 1988-1990



What was cool in the 1980's? Teenagers, California, surfing, skateboarding, electric guitars, and... time travel? Well, stick it in a blender and I guess this is what you get.



A group of teenage kids who all live in California (not Colorado, this always bugged me) find a dinosaur egg, which hatches, and produces... um... this.



It's kind of like a dinosaur, except smaller, and understands English, non-aggressive, and enjoys late 80's hobbies, and... licks things a lot. You can tell from the opening credits that the creators of the show did have at least a functional understanding of dinosaurs, but I don't recall there ever being an explanation why Denver, and only Denver, was less of a dinosaur and more of a green skate-boarding puppy.

Also, if you touch a piece of his shell you can travel back in time.

Naturally.

[Mara]

Galaxy High

Ran for four months in 1986; only 13 episodes ever produced. I think I watched it in reruns a couple of years later.



This had a pretty straight-forward premise. Aimee is a bookish, underappreciated nerdy girl on earth and Doyle is a handsome jock. They are chosen to attend school in outer space with a bunch of aliens, where their roles are suddenly reversed: Aimee is considered beautiful and likeable, but Doyle can't seem to fit in. Guess who this show was marketed to. GUESS.



This might have been the least-bad show on the list, as far as I can remember. But my main memory of the show was a character that I found disconcerting as a child, to the point where I had nightmares about him. He was an alien who looked like floating scrambled eggs and was obsessed with Aimee. My research today turned up that this character's name was THE CREEP... seriously, THE CREEP. And he was, somehow, worse than I remembered:



"At night when you're asleep, into your spaceship I will creep."

Nothing terrifying here! No threats of sexual violence and imprisonment by a magical floating creature! Let's all just move along!

[Mara]

Beverly Hills Teens

Ran from September through December 1987, but somehow has 65 episodes. Again, I think I was watching this in reruns a couple of years later.

This is, easily, the worst show on the list. I mean... just egregiously, phenomenally bad.



I'm sure we all remember that capitalism was accepted and celebrated in the 1980's-- Greed is Good and all that-- but you remember how bad it got? DO YOU?

This is a show about teenagers that sincerely and without irony pushed conspicuous consumption to its furthest possible extent. These teens rode limousines to school and took helicopters to go shopping. They surfed on gold-plated boards and all took turns modeling for Teen Magazine, which ran nationally but seemed to focus exclusively on about six girls. They dressed in ballgowns for school and wore jewelry and white cotton gloves at all times.

They had, as far as I can tell, no parents, and spent all their time at a "teen club" which was like a fairy-tale version of a country club-- private beaches, a palace, horseback riding, etc.

The show was so bad that even I knew it was bad. I couldn't watch it if my brother was around, for example, because I was too overcome with shame. But I couldn't stop watching it.

In just a few years, everything about this show would become hopelessly dated. The main character, Larke, was shown as being absolutely perfect, and the definition of "absolutely perfect" meant she was blonde, blonde, blonde, blue-eyed, skinny, a fashion model, and insanely popular. In fact, you could tell the good guys from the bad buys on the show by hair color-- the better they are, the blonder. The main antagonist's most dominant trait is masses of black hair . Also, glasses = nerd, but you already knew that.

Here, for example, are two of the main girls: Larke and Blaze.



DIVERSITY.

Now, here's a weird little note. I noticed in the opening credits that there is an actual black girl in the cast-- something I had forgotten because she was such a minor character. She shows up every once in awhile and might have one or two lines. What's really astonishing, though, is that they un-blacked her for the actual show.

Here she is in the opening credits:



But in the show itself:



Her hair went from black to brown, and her skin went a half-shade darker than the pasty white folks around her. Like someone panicked: "She's too black! TOO BLACK!"

Anyway, despite my fascination with the show, it was one of the first times I remember quitting a show because it was just too awful, even for me. It might seem like a minor straw to break the camel's back, but I remembered it so vividly that I easily found the episode where it happened this morning. Here it is:



In this episode, a prince from a country known only as "Very Far Away" comes to the teen club after seeing a picture of Blaze on her horse. The show was lazy enough from a characterization perspective that "has a horse" was Blaze's main defining trait. He pretends to be a stable hand to fit in with the other "common people," though keep in mind that the lifestyles of these teenagers is roughly on par with members of the Saudi royal family.

Anyhoo, three seconds later when his disguise is uncovered Blaze is deeply offended for reasons that make no sense (motivations not being one of the writers' strengths.) He follows and begs her forgiveness and asks her to go to the Royal Ball with him that evening in his helicopter.

Blaze looks up at him, stalling for dramatic effect, and says a line that no human being has ever said in the history of all time: "The answer is... yes!"

And... that was it. I shut off the t.v. I reevaluated my life choices.

Here's where it gets weird: in 1990 a show premiered called Beverly Hills, 90210. My friends with more permissive parents started watching it immediately and talked about it incessantly. After a few conversations, I said, skeptically, "It sounds just like that cartoon, Beverly Hills Teens." My friends looked at me like I'd grown a second head and I realized that not a single one had watched, or even heard of this show that I'd been so into. In fact, I had to wait for the internet to be invented to prove to myself that I hadn't just made it up. But in my head, 90210 was always a rip-off of the earlier show.

[Mara]

And a bonus show: in doing my research this morning I kept seeing references to a show called Maxie's World, which I never watched, but only because I didn't know it existed:



A blonde surfing ultra-popular California girl who has her own tv show? I WOULD HAVE BEEN ALL OVER THAT AT 10 YEARS OLD, THANK YOU.

[Dukefrukem]

I was hoping Mighty Max was gonna be on this list, but I definitely clearly remember Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. The others, not so much.

[Thirdmango]

It's nice knowing that we were similar in age and seeing shows I definitely watched. There was an episode of at midnight that showed a clip from galaxy high and the person I was with was like, that show didn't exist did it? and I was like, not only did it exist, I watched every episode.

[Sycophant]

Wonderful thread, Mara. I remember the first two, actually! I don't think I ever actually saw an episode of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but I remember it being advertised incessantly. The Disney Afternoon aired on my local fox affiliate, so I saw advertisements for it every damn day.

Denver the Last Dinosaur I have a distinct memory of seeing once. In my house, we were a Disney family, so we always watched ABC on Saturday mornings (that's where the first run non-Disney Afternoon Darkwing Duck episodes and such ran). But one day, I slept over at the house of a friend of the family's. Their kids weren't into the kiddie Disney stuff and preferred action shows and whatever else was on. So I was forced to watch a whole line-up of shows I had no interest in and thought were awful.

[number8]

I remember all of these. Beverly Hills Teens is the only one I never watched, but I remember seeing it on the air.

I think Denver was the only one that I was aware of other people watching it, though, as I would sing the theme song in the schoolyard and several other kids would know it. The other 3 were just things I would catch on TV, be vaguely piqued, but don't think about all that much afterwards and never bring up to another human being.

[Acapelli]

know the first three, but i'm blanking on the third

[Grouchy]

I remember the Killer Tomatoes one and not the other three.