I almost posted this elsewhere but felt it ran way off topic from it's inital theme. This is more of a criteque about animation/comercialism than anything. Please don't take offense.

 

I watched a handfull of eps from season 1, and then popped in an ancient VHS of M.A.S.K. from 85. I was blown away by the difference between the two almost imediately. Both were designed to be nothing more than a 20 minute comercial to push cool 80s transformable toys.

Transformers may have had a stronger concept/idea but was beaten hands down in the animation catagory. Kenner may have had the inferior toy line but for an animated comericial it rocks. Plots were well scripted, and the action sequinces were impressive for the day and age. Transformers G1 has a very rushed feel to much of it, and it shows in the scripting/ lack of plot and endless supply of animation errors. M.A.S.K. overall has a much more polished feel, and though it deals with many of the same themes it was much better executed. Animation and continuity is all together better, though the voicing throughot was amoderate setback.

Set against todays standards I can honstly see how people could be bored to tears since most of the action happens in the last five ten minutes and the rest is more of an investigation into the terrorist activities rather than blowing the crap out of everything in the first two minutes, and then slipping in selected bits of dilogue between even more senseless action sequinces. Personally I don't need a toon that feels it needs three epic battle sequinces in every twenty minutes. It get's repetitive and dumb. This was my only complaint about Beast Machines. Some really interesting dialogue would start up and then Vehicons would charge in and shoot at everything the next five minutes.

M.A.S.K. IMO was the better cartoon, and if Hasbro had put more money into doing more than just getting an a toy adversment out a lot of us may think more of it then we do now.

I used M.A.S.K. as my example what other 80's toons do you feel were better executed and for what reasons.

Meh...every 80's Cartoon that was made had it's fair share of problems, errors, failures. None of them should be considered too superior...but...

 

I do feel the First two Mini-Series and some of the First Season of G.I. Joe were better executed in the animation department than the TF G1 Cartoon.

Also I apply the same thing to the original TMNT and Real Ghostbusters cartoons to a point as well, but even they had errors, like ALL 80's cartoons.

 

EDIT -- Silverhawks, even though most don't like it and everything about it defies reality, had some really good animation and overall entertaining stories when it started out.

What sucked in other 80's cartoons

 

M.A.S.K.- That kid and his stoopid robot happening to get into trouble every time.

 

Go-bots- Scooter

 

GI Joe- Every soldier luckily jumped outta their vehicle before it exploded.

 

Starcom- The show

 

Robotech- Minmei(or however it's spelled), Dana Sterling, and That young kid in "New Generation"

 

 

BUT, besides Robotechs three annoying characters per season. It was by far one of the best series I've seen. Very mood orientated with great action sequences. Macross being my fav of the three.

Meh, M.A.S.K. never did anything for me.

i've never even heard of M.A.S.K. before...

would ninja turtles be considered 80's? with that said i wonder if anybody still has a collection of original turtle stuff... or if there is even a fandom for late 80's turtle stuff... i see peoples collection of stuff with cool anime stuff.. and transformers.. but never anything on ninja turtles... (or gi joes) makes u wonder.. but mask was a good cartoon.. never really got into it though because i was more into tf's and tmnt at the time.. but i wish cars could do stuff like what they did in mask... and i think transformers had their shot at mask toys with their actionmaster line. i always compared the am vehicles to mask ones...

would ninja turtles be considered 80's? with that said i wonder if anybody still has a collection of original turtle stuff... or if there is even a fandom for late 80's turtle stuff... i see peoples collection of stuff with cool anime stuff.. and transformers.. but never anything on ninja turtles... (or gi joes) makes u wonder.. but mask was a good cartoon.. never really got into it though because i was more into tf's and tmnt at the time.. but i wish cars could do stuff like what they did in mask... and i think transformers had their shot at mask toys with their actionmaster line. i always compared the am vehicles to mask ones...

Ninja Turtle's first season aired in 89. Therefore it's started out as an 80's cartoon for the most part.

 

And yes TMNT has a good solid following, particularly of the toys and comics. The new TMNT series has revived it as well.

And the original TMNT cartoon *takes deep breath* suuuuuuuuuuucked.

 

But AL is totally right about G1. I never watched MASK that much, but there were plenty of other shows out there that were way better than G1. The thing that bugged me the most about G1 wasn't the quality of animation per se - it was the lack of consistency in animation. It drove me crazy. It seemed like they were unable to draw Megatron the same way twice. He-Man or any other Hanna-Barbera cartoon was infinitely better in that regard. Now granted, Hanna-Barbera are the kings of animation recycling, but at least you knew that He-Man was gonna look the same in every episode. The lack of quality control on the G1 series continues to astound me. Look at FFoD - that was the best they could do in 1986 at the height of Transformers' popularity. It was pathetic.

i always felt that G1 got the shaft when it came to the quality of the cartoons/movies. compair it to the GI Joe cartoon/movie and it looks like the people at hasbro were playing favoritism.

 

say what you will about the overall story of the GI Joe movie, you can't deny that the quality was leaps and bounds above the TF movie.

And the original TMNT cartoon *takes deep breath* suuuuuuuuuuucked.

 

But AL is totally right about G1. I never watched MASK that much, but there were plenty of other shows out there that were way better than G1. The thing that bugged me the most about G1 wasn't the quality of animation per se - it was the lack of consistency in animation. It drove me crazy. It seemed like they were unable to draw Megatron the same way twice. He-Man or any other Hanna-Barbera cartoon was infinitely better in that regard. Now granted, Hanna-Barbera are the kings of animation recycling, but at least you knew that He-Man was gonna look the same in every episode. The lack of quality control on the G1 series continues to astound me. Look at FFoD - that was the best they could do in 1986 at the height of Transformers' popularity. It was pathetic.

I was about 8-10 years old when G1 originally aired, and I didn't notice/care about these things that bothered you. Perhaps I wasn't a l33t 8-year-old... :P