Nostalgia is an intoxicating sensation, one that rockets you back to simpler times when life was less complicated and standards were low enough that just about everything seemed pretty good. So it stands to reason that nostalgia would be a pretty big business, and that recycling nostalgic films, tv shows, and cartoons would be an effective way to make money.
But nostalgia only gets you so far. If you make a movie out of a nostalgic cartoon like Transformers, G.I. Joe or He-Man, you also have to make sure it can work in the present day. It has to attract new audiences, not just appeal to old ones. And that means that a lot of the junk we watched as kids, nostalgia or no, needs to be identified for what it really was: total junk, and not worth making a movie about.
So before Hollywood gets in over its head and green lights a big budget summer blockbuster of every cartoon, here’s a reminder that some of those 1980s cartoons were just absolutely awful, and don’t deserve the big screen treatment. Come to think of it, they didn’t deserve the SMALL screen treatment either.
Eight 1980s Cartoon Shows That Should NEVER Be Movies:
Top Photo: The Taft Merchandising Group
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
Eight 1980s Cartoon Shows That Should NEVER Be Movies
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Beverly Hills Teens
Bevery Hills Teen was an animated teen soap opera about kids who were rich. Ridiculously, cartoonishly rich. That's the whole gag. Look at how much better, funnier and cooler they are because they've inherited their parents' wealth. Thanks, 1980s.
Photo: DIC Entertainment
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Denver, the Last Dinosaur
The last dinosaur has awoken, and he wears sunglasses and plays guitar and gets into wacky misadventures. Denver, the Last Dinosaur was trying so hard to create a marketable, "hip" character that it basically punched itself in the face.
Photo: World Events Productions
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Gilligan's Planet
The castaways of Gilligan's Island could build just about anything... except a boat. So this animated spin-off in which they built a wooden spaceship was just too absurd to exist. But exist it nevertheless did.
Photo: Filmation
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Laverne and Shirley in the Army
Hey, remember when Laverne and Shirley joined the army? You might, since they actually did that once in their hit sitcom, but there wasn't enough material there to justify a whole animated spin-off... even if The Fonz WAS their mechanic (and he was, he really was).
Photo: Hanna-Barbera
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Pac Man
Everyone knew that the best parts of the old Pac-Man video games were the characters and plot. So this, the first cartoon based on a video game ever, was exactly what we wanted. A weird sitcom alternate reality where Pac-Man and his Pac family routinely ate their local rivals, a gang of ghosts. Surreal and bad. Just bad.
Photo: Hanna-Barbera
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Paw Paws
Hanna-Barbera made a lot of strange choices in their long, storied, career. Paw Paws is right up there as one of the worst. It's a racially insensitive series about cute, cuddly teddy bears who are also Native American stereotypes, protecting their magical totems from evil villains. Not only should it never be a movie, but it should probably never be spoken of again.
Photo: Hanna-Barbera
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Rubik, the Amazing Cube
OH GOD WHAT IS THAT WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT
Photo: Ruby Spears
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Turbo Teen
In one of the stupidest things ever - not just tv shows, but things - a teenager transforms into a car whenever he gets warm. The transformation is kind of like An American Werewolf in London but more horrifying.
Photo: Ruby Spears
