I remember as a kid coming home from school each day and turning on Nickelodeon or Disney and watching the best cartoons while I ate my afternoon snack. Cartoons were my life. I watched them so much that I believed some of the characters were actually my friends (I'm looking at you, Eliza Thornberry). They were funny and weird, relatable and imaginative. I'm convinced that they helped shape me into the person I am today.
While I enjoyed some Disney cartoons like "Kim Possible," "The Proud Family" or "Talespin," Nickelodeon was my heart and soul. Shows like "Rocket Power," "Catdog," "Angry Beavers," "Doug"... the list goes on and on - they are forever a part of my childhood and will always evoke a sense of nostalgia in me.
But cartoons today just aren't the same as they were in the '90s and early '00s. In fact, they are basically non-existent. "Spongebob Sqauarepants" is almost the only cartoon that still plays on Nickelodeon, although it premiered in 1999 so it's not exactly of this decade. Other than cartoons or computer-animated shows for young children (like toddlers), cartoons just don't seem to be that popular anymore. And that makes my inner 12 year old very, very sad.
Child, preteen and teen -targeted shows seem to be mainly live action (as in they have real actors instead of animated characters). I'm not sure how this might change the way that television shows impact their target audiences, but I do know that they're simply not as fun, not as imaginative and not as quirky as the cartoons that I grew up watching. Now, I do recognize that this could simply be a personal bias, however, others have pondered if the lack of cartoons today has something to do with the disappearance of the concept of childhood.
With the rapid development of technology, kids have cell phones earlier now than ever before. This gives them access to information that was previously not accessible to people their age, bringing them closer and closer to adulthood. The magical time between being a toddler and being an adult, aka ~childhood~, seems to be becoming ever smaller. Perhaps this has something to do with the rapid movement in children television networks to move more towards live action shows because they are more similar to adult television.
Regardless of the reason, it's a sad truth that cartoons just aren't what they used to be. They used to be free, creative and weird in a good way. They used to make me laugh, give me characters to relate to. They used to cultivate an environment where being different or creative was admired. Cartoons, especially those '90s and early '00s Nickelodeon cartoons, were a part of my life. It makes me sad to know that kids and teens today are lacking that fundamental aspect of childhood. And I will always have that nostalgia for animated strangeness that they will never have.
