The old days of cartoons

Can you remember those days watching telly
When toons made us laugh till it hurt from the belly
Saturday mornings -- we lived for that day!
When after, we'd talk with our friends while we'd play
'Bout comings and goings of Optimus Prime
Of Turtles and Splinter and green mutant slime
In days when we worried for Ch-ch-ch-chip and Dale
When shows weren't cancelled and aired without fail,
Those days I miss dearly, our loss I lament
And mourn now the death of the cartoon establishment.

Last night a bunch of us went out for sushi buffet (Emily, Dave, Tony, Saigin, John, and I) and among the many interesting interesting topics that came up was the fact that cartoons today are sucky. Yup, there's nothing else to it other than the fact that they stink. Really and truly. And the thing is, cartoons back int he 80s used to be so good, I mean, I'm sure everyone can remember actually getting up early on Saturday (I used to be up by 7am without my parents waking me up) because we couldn't miss the latest episode of GI Joe, or Transformers, or (my personal favourite) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You know, I don't even remember caring about new episodes. It was just enough that they were on, whether or not I had seen it before.

But todays cartoons just have no identity whatsoever. The animation is really ugly, and there's no longer an art to it. On top of that, the premise of the shows just are not engaging at all (I mean, please -- Powerpuff Girls?!). And on top of THAT, american cartoons are starting to steal anime styles (there's this galaxy racing show which I'm sure is having an American-Japanese identity crisis).

And one of the things that came up at dinner was that one part of what made these cartoons so great was the fact that they had GREAT theme songs.

ex1: "We're tiny, we're toony, we're all a little looney, and in this cartoony we're invading your tv!"

ex2: "Captain Planet, he's our hero -- gonna take pollution down to zero, he's our powers magnified and he's fighting on the planet's side."

ex3: "Do do do do do Inspector Gadget, do do do do do do do hee hoo..."

ex4: "Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines. Raphael rules, Michaelangelo is cool...turtles in a half shell -- TURTLE POWER!"

I think I'm going to have to go with Tiny Toons as my favourite theme song though. It's witty, rhymey, fast-paced, and just great over all. But yet, the green dudes take the pizza. Cowabunga.

So here's where I ask for some audience participation: could I get some comments of your favourite cartoons/theme songs?