Fair enough... but I mean, shows like "Honey BooBoo" "Adventure Time" "Mind Trip" "SuperJail" and just general tripe in which the only humor is, in essence, stupidity for the sake of stupidity at such a level as to make Jackass seem like a high quality investigative journal just... I dunno, it makes me sad that we consider such crap "entertainment". No plot, poor animation, et al... what happened to the days of Bugs Bunny, Ben and Jerry, etc?
Ben and Jerry are doing quite well with their ice cream business.
Tom and Jerry, on the other hand, don't seem to be regarded as "classic" animation like the Disney and WB cartoons are.
But considering the nature of your diatribe, I cannot for the life of me understand why you consider those old theatrical-release cartoons to be superior to the average fare on TV today. They were 99%
violence! How many times do you have to watch a roadrunner drop an anvil on a coyote before you wake up and say, "Do I really want my children to see this?" And would it be any better if, finally, in the closing episode, the coyote got to eat the roadrunner?
I remember the TV shows of the 1950s quite well. They were just as stooopid as today's. And just like today, there were a few that were considerably better.
People like to laugh at stupid people because it makes them feel superior, after spending all day taking orders from them--or worse yet, watching them attempt to run a country.
Where, even if the humor was slapstick, it was at LEAST well drawn and had quality voice acting... now it's just crap all around.
Cartooning goes through phases like every other aspect of culture. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a tremendous renaissance of high-quality Saturday morning cartoons. Mrs. Fraggle and I, then in our late 40s, taped several shows and watched them. "Doug," "Rugrats," "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh," "Mighty Mouse"... I can't even remember all their names. Not to mention a few astounding live-action shows like "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" and "Hey Vern, It's Ernest."
There were even a few great animated shows in prime time. "Duckman" comes to mind, one of the most incisive commentaries on contemporary culture and politics ever to air. "The Simpsons" and "South Park" started out good, but like all comic strips and animated cartoons that refuse to allow the characters to age, they became trapped in their own inertia, recycling old gags endlessly. "Beavis and Butt-Head" were clearly for stoners, but their spinoff "Daria" was great commentary with bittersweet laughter.
There's been an explosion of TV stations since cable and FIOS took over the airwaves. Sure, a lot of them are crap. But the market will prevail like it always does. In the meantime Americans are so beguiled by the choices that they'll keep channel-surfing the crap for a few more years. In the meantime, Jon Stewart is a beacon of sanity, satire and incisive commentary, disguised as humor to make it go down easier. I'm not very fond of Stephen Colbert, but I'm looking forward to John Oliver's gig.
And who can ignore the vast contribution of the Jim Henson organization to our culture? "Fraggle Rock" and "Dinosaurs!" were, IMHO, the best TV entertainment of the 1980s and 1990s, respectively. Talk about commentary on politics and culture! The closing episode of "Dinosaurs!" still makes me cry whenever it comes to mind.
"They left your Daddy in charge of the world, and I guess he didn't take very good care of it." That explained the mass extinction.