Top 10 80’s Cartoons

They probably formed your personality more than your parents. They were there on the weekend, after school… and on your VCR. Yes, they were 80’s cartoons, and in case you forgot how incredible they were, here’s a little refresher. Now you can realize how much of your personality, is, indeed, attributed to the cartoons you were weened on in your TV-addicted youth.

10) Gummi Bears

Bouncing here and there and everywhere… What’s cooler than a bunch of fa furry bears getting drunk on gummiberry juice? If it takes place in medieval times, and the bears dress in funny outfits. Yes, fitting into the “drunk pets” category of cartoons, the Gummi Bears, when high on “gummiberry juice” have magical powers… like the power of bounciness. But their secret stash is sought-after by the evil Duke Igthom, a renegade noble, who seeks to obtain the gummijuice to acquire superhuman strength and to power machinery in order to take over Dunwyn castle, which the gummiberry juice apparently does.

The gummies of the Gummi gang are (per wikipedia):

• Gruffi Gummi (Bill Scott (Season 1), Corey Burton (Seasons 2-6)) – The no-nonsense, perfectionist and conservative every-job-Gummi. He is the technician of the group, and has a running feud with Grammi; their banter suggests that he is very conscious about his height. Gruffi also can be viewed as the de facto leader of Gummi Glen. His stubbornness, conservatism and use of pure muscle could be counterproductive to the Gummis at times, but beneficial other times. However, Gruffi is respected as a source of stability with his practical nature that saved the day numerous times, such as convincing Zummi he could defeat an evil wizard without magic, or rebuilding an old mechanical knight to help Princess Calla save her father.
• Zummi Gummi (Paul Winchell (Seasons 1–5), Jim Cummings (Season 6)) – The colony’s “keeper of Gummi wisdom” turned magician with unreliable skill. Largely due to mild cases of nervousness and lacking self-confidence, Zummi forgets important things, including spells, at the worst possible moment and does spoonerisms when stressed. He is also very helpless when he loses his glasses and suffers from acute acrophobia (fear of heights), which troubled the Gummi Bears frequently. Zummi is one of the oldest Gummies of the group, the other being Grammi.
• Grammi Gummi (June Foray) – The matriarch of the Gummi clan, she cooks and cleans and prepares the gummiberry juice, a skill that is privileged to a select few among the Gummies themselves. Her cooking – which is sometimes purely experimental – is not always appreciated by the others. In her arguments with Gruffi she is just as hot-headed as he is, but when defending the other Gummies from his ravings she takes the maternal, moderating role.
• Tummi Gummi (Lorenzo Music) – The gluttonous teenaged Gummi who is seemingly slow in thinking and action, but has shown extreme courage in tough situations. He has a sweet tooth, is a talented planter and loves building model boats. Tummi also has excellent skills at seamanship when he is on a real boat.
• Sunni Gummi (Katie Leigh) – The preteen of the bunch who often rebels against the clan but learns her lessons eventually. Sunni is quite fond of rather ‘radical’ fashions, and her dream, with an overactive romanticism, is to one day be a princess. Sunni is Calla’s best friend. Other male Gummi bears have often paid Sunni compliments to her attractiveness. She has a crush on Gusto, but in his obsession for art he doesn’t take much notice of her.
• Cubbi Gummi (Noelle North) – The youngest Gummi. An aspiring knight, he is always looking for adventure and often finds it. Because of his youth, he is often not taken seriously by the others, which is frequently a mistake. When fighting crime at Dunwyn, he uses the masked identity of the Crimson Avenger, which he assumed soon after Calla dubbed him “the unseen defender of Dunwyn” for saving her from Igthorn

Together, they fight the Duke, wizards and a host of other antagonists to try to remain anonymous to preserve their ancient bear culture.

9) The Smurfs

The smurfs are a bunch of commies! At least that’s the ginned-up controversy purported by paranoid nut-jobs. No, really, the smurfs are the incredibly cool, little blue guys who impart to us the moral good in sharing. They are a collective of 99 smurfs. Each smurf is the same height, they live in the same size house, and each one of the smurfs has a special skill that they use to contribute for the betterment of the group, and to outwit Gargamel, the the sorcerer who’s their sworn enemy. Gargamel is an evil wizard, though his powers appear very limited; he actually seems to be more of an alchemist, as his main ability is to create magic potions. His main goal in life is to destroy the Smurfs and/or capture enough of them to create a potion to turn base matter into gold… which apparently smurfs can do?

Papa Smurf is the leader of the community. Other smurfs generally named after their personal characters, for example, Brainy, Greedy, Vanity, Lazy, Clumsy, Hefty, Jokey, Dreamy, or their profession, like Poet, Actor, Handy, Grouchy, Harmony, Farmer, Clockwork, Painter, Tailor, Miner, Architect, Reporter, Timber, Barber, Doctor Smurf.

Can 99 little blue guys outsmart one greedy, cowardly, not-so-bright alchemist?… Yes, every episode. See! that’s the magic of sharing, kids!

GI Joe

Ah yes, a kid show about bad-ass special ops forces trying to disarm and dismantle COBRA, a group of terrorists who are bent on world domination. Relevant, no? Appropriate for children? Well, bullets were a no-no for the Joes, lead by the fearless Hawk and Sergent Slaughter. Instead the guys feature high-tech weapons and hand-to-hand combat in order to defeat COBRA, lead by the Cobra Commando, who’s head is almost always covered by a hood or helmet. Curiously, some of the Cobras like Destro and Baronness are European. Destro, for instance, is a Scot. Interesting for a terrorist, no?

These cartoons were flashy, loud, in your face, and all around dominating. GI Joe’s strength and rigor were consistently tested by Cobra who was always stealing things like teleportation units and weapons that could manipulate weather. These were certainly large tasks for the GI Joe team all bundled up in half an hour segments.

At the end of each segment was a PSA, so as not to unduly influence kids to go around attacking people after they watched their heroes blow sh*t up for the last half-hour. At the end of every PSA was the slogan “now you know, and knowing’s half the battle.” The other half is blowing your enemy to smithereens!

7) He-Man

“By the power of Grayskull…I have the power!” This command allows mild-mannered Prince Adam of Eternia to transform into He-Man, who is a Schwartzenegger-esque muscle-clad, sword-wielding badass. He-Man’s true identity is Prince Adam, son of King Randor and Queen Marlena. They rule the planet of Eternia along with Adam and the rest of their inner circle. The Sorceress of Castle Grayskull endowed Prince Adam with the power to transform into He-Man,  a secret identity he only shares with a few. Even his lady friend, Teela thinks he’s lazy and cowardly. Ha! Little does she know… Despite this, Teela’s father, Duncan, is the Man-at-Arms and the Eternian royal family’s developer of technology and weapons, which He-Man uses to defeat Skeletor and other evil-doers. However, He-Man’s primary weapon is his good ol’ Power Sword, which he also needs to transform into He-Man. He-Man has a trusty sidekick, his pet tiger Cringer, a cowardly yet loveable pet by day, who also transforms into BattleCat, He-Man’s heroic steed and fighting companion. He-Man  receives telekinetic messages from the Sorceress of Castle Grayskull in order to get helpful information to defeat his enemies. All told, He-Man is both a prince and a secret soldier, endowed with powers, both magical and technological, to defeat Skeletor and other enemies seeking to do harm to his home of Eternia. F-in’ cool, man.

6) Transformers

“More than Meets The Eye!” The transformers are good, peace-loving robots who fight evil robots. Occasionally, they combine to form even bigger robots, when their enemies combine to form even bigger robots. Yeah. That’s cool. The good robots were the Autobots, headed by their savvy leader Optimus Prime. They do battle with the Evil Deceptacons, headed by Megatron. They’re competing for the world’s resources, in an epic battle for survival. That’s right… there series was cool even before Megan Fox was in the movie.

5) Chip & Dale’s Rescue Rangers

After school, Chip & Dale were the coolest friends to have. Together, they teamed up with Montgomery Jack, Zipper, and Gadget, to form a detective agency, handling the cases that were “too small” for human detectives… namely those involving animals, who were their main clients. The cases usually lead the gang into a confrontation with either the Mafia-style tabby cat, Fat Cat and mad scientist Norton Nimnul.

Chip was the serious one. Dale was the fun-loving slacker with and a chocolate addict. They were both attracted to Gadget Hackwrench, who looked damned fine for a little pale rodent. She also was completely oblivious to Chip and Dale’s feelings, so she usually just invented stuff out of everyday substances (a la a cartoon female rodent MacGyver). Complementing this love triangle was the big, fat, Australian Monty, as well as his tiny sidekick, green housefly Zipper, who talks in unintelligible squeaks only comprehensible to Monty.

4) Duck Tales

A woo-ooo! Everyone watched every episode of this show. After school at 4:00, you know where you were: Watching Huey, Duey, and Louie, along with their Uncle Scrooge McDuck cause and/or prevent trouble (their other uncle Donald left them in his charge when he joined the Navy… no kidding). Their adventures usually consisted of thwarting attempts to steal from their rich Uncle Scrooge, the richest Duck in the World, usually by the villainous Beagle Boys, Magica de Spell, or Flintheart Glomgold, who seeks to dethrone Scrooge as the richest duck in the world.

And they would go on hunts for more riches as well, helping to aid their businessman Uncle reach even greater heights of wealth.  The adventures that the three of them would go on would be epic. They went through Amazon rain forests, go back in time to ancient Greece, and even deep underwater looking for a fortune for their rapacious uncle.

Yeah, it was cool.

3) Thundercats

Thundercats had a similar plot to Superman, their planet Thundera blew up, and they had to flee, so they ended up crashing on a planet called Third Earth. What happened to the first two we’ll never know, since that was never addressed in the plot. They also fought a demonic, evil mummy creatively named was Mum-ra and his mutant cohorts. Bottom line: The Thundercats ruled. Their leader was Lion-o, the leader, Cheetara, the “hot cheetah chick”… I think we all had weird infant sex dreams about her… as well as Panthro, Tygra, WilyKit and WilyKat, and Snarf.

2) Ghostbusters

The Ghostbuster were awesome. The 1984 movie ruled, and the cartoon series that followed continued the legacy. There was the over-enthusiastic Ray Stantz, the brainy Egon Spengler, “token black dude” Winston Zedmore, and the sarcastic misanthropic star, Peter Venkman. Together with their receptionist Janine and their mascot ghost, the gluttonous Slimer, the Ghostbusters were a force to be reckoned with if you were a ghost. This motley crew of ghost-hunters were out to defend New York City from terrifying paranormal creatures, and they made you laugh all through their adventures as well.

1) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Four giant, mutant rats live in the sewers below New York City. There, they are brought up by a mutant talking rat named Splinter, a ninjutsu master. The de facto father of the turtles, Splinter, named them after his favorite Renaissance artists: There was Leonardo, the leader (blue headband), Michelangelo, the creative-stoner- fun-lover (orange headband), Donatello, the technical genius (purple headband), and Raphael, the aggressive and sarcastic turtle (red headband). Together, these ninjutsu-trained turtles teamed up to fight crime and the evil lord Shredder, the leader of the nefarious foot clan.

The guys also team up with a fine-lookin’ human woman April O’Neil, who helps the turtles in the public sphere, where the turtles don’t like to go. In the films, she is a news reporter. Her love interest is Casey Jones, who helps the turtles fight crime with a variety of sports equipment. He also wears a hockey mask when doing so, making him look scary like Jason from the Friday the 13th movies. why the animators chose this getup, we don’t know.

The comic started as a one-issue comic in New Hampshire in 1984, meant to parody other comics like Marvel Comics “Daredevil,” and “New Mutants,” Dave Sims’ “Cerebus,” nd Frank Miller’s “Ronin,” but after being picked up and developed by various comic companies, the ingenious cartoon and  “Turtle Power!” as we know it came to be.