8 Important Lessons Learned from '80s Cartoons
We'd like to point out that we're aware of the fact that some of the cartoons listed below did not originate in the '80s. However, they were on during the '80s, that's when we watched them, so they're '80s cartoons to us. It's like when we refer to bedwetting as "late '90s behavior." Without further ado...
LESSON: Communism works!
For naysayers who point to the Former Soviet Union as proof that communism is inherently flawed, may we merely direct your attention to Smurf Village, where everyone shares everything, wears similar utilitarian clothing, battles Gargamel and his turn-Smurfs-to-gold get rich quick schemes and obeys the dictates of a bearded, red hat-wearing, benevolent authority figure. Quoth Comrade Papa: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Really, he actually said that.
How it affected us as adults: Secret communist agendas ceased being dangerous, or really any adjective of consequence, years ago. The worst thing communism does these days is make Ivy League students waste a couple of years wearing ugly clothes and attending boring meetings. However, the sexual politics of Smurf Village, with its one female for every 30 guys, did go a long way towards preparing us for freshman year of college.
LESSON: Spinach is good for you.
Sure, it doesn't taste as good as candy, ice cream or opium, but it' full of essential vitamins and minerals that'll make your muscles explode like battleship cannons. If you want to triumph over the bullying Blutos of the world and win the affections of your own lovely, leggy Olive Oyl, pound a can of spinach at least once a day. Or put it in your corncob pipe and smoke it, like everybody' favorite ornery, mumbling sailorman. Toot toot!
How it affected us as adults: You only need to look at the steroid scandal rocking Major League Baseball to see that Popeye raised a generation that is willing to use performance enhancers. Also, it should be pointed out that Olive Oyl was the first anorexic sex symbol.
JEM ROCKED!
Replydid anyone else notice that in the scooby doo picture up there, scooby's disconected freaky hand-paw is either feeling up vhelma or trying to strangle her? am i the only one who found that strange?
ReplyOk, first off, there are more females in college than males, so how does one girl for every 30 males prepare you for your freshman year? And what do mean Jem is "our sister's show"? Why do you assume that only men read Cracked, and only women can enjoy a female star?
Replycritisizing a comedy site. nice work.
The only thing I learned from Transformers was that when I got older, I could drive a car that turned into a giant robot.
Reply...I'm, uh, still waiting for that..
The funniest part of this piece, and really any past commentary on the war in Iraq, is that the strategy did work. We did win. We created a magnet for all jihaadists and when they showed up in their best bathrobes we cleaned their clocks. And then that stupid notion that we had that a free Iraq would spread democracy and destabilize the surrounding totalitarian regimes? Yeah. That worked too. It's almost like we have a military full of people who when tasked with missions that people dismiss as fantasy go out and perform miracles. You would think that those naysayers would stand up and say, "shit. Looks like we were the ones who were totally wrong. Good job guys.". But no. They move on to the next mission and say that there is no possible way that we will ever be able to track down the most wanted and violent man on earth...oh wait. Yeah we did that too. How about never being able to restore civilization to a completely lawless afgahnistan while pushing the enemy into small pockets of resistance and focusing their attention on our well armed soldiers instead of teenage girls? Hmmm...don't look now but I think we did that one too.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesUh.. wow.
The fact that we were greeted as liberators and it only cost the 3 billion dollars as predicted by Wolfowitcz and the troops were all home after decaring "mission accomplished" really drives your points home.
Oh wait... 10 years, 50,000 US casualties, 3 Trillion dollars spent and over 1.5 million Iraqis killed. Oh, Yeah, we did all that too.
Um Swrrws you do know Team America: World Police wasn't a documentary right?
@cardec Iraq isn't anywhere near 50,000 U.S. casualties, about a tenth of that. Plus the Fed's spend than 56% (19% is Social Security) of the national budget on entitlement programs and less than 19% on the department of defence.
cool story bro. did you fall asleep when learning about the war in Iraq?
I know it wasn't meant to, but it came across like Jack was suggesting that "It's ok to be gay" and "spinich is good for you" are bad lessons to teach kids.
ReplyI know the title says "important lessons", but all the other lessons mentioned are negative ones.
Last thing I want is for Cracked to get all PC-obsessed, but it was just a little unclear.
april oneil is hot
ReplyOlive Oyl is a sex symbol? Because her style says "potato-planting peasant your hero can rescue with no romantic issues" to me.
ReplyTMNT taught me to be creative with my environment(ie, skateboarding) and embrace eastern philosphies in order to vigilantly rebel against alien cyborg underground base biulding evil-doers from dimension x.
ReplyApril Oniel is Hot
Popeye is 30s and Scooby-Doo was 60s. Not one of the best Cracked articles I've ever read.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesRead the disclaimer dumbass. It clearly says that he is considering them 80s cartoons because he saw them in the 80s. He even acknowledges that most of these were not from the 80s
so then why call it cartoons from the 80s? Why not call it cartoons we watched in the 80s?
why not call yourself pedanticassholekillerfirefly81
The Masters of the Universe are Skeletor and crew...
ReplyScooby-Doo is really a sixties cartoon.
Replyread the opening paragraph
Can you please finish all of your apostrophe "s" words? It' really obnoxious when Jack' words remain incomplete.
ReplyIt's a flaw with the formatting. A lot of old articles have this issue. As has been mentioned in previous articles, it seems like an oddly specific formatting issue, but it manifests in all of the old articles I've read.
If the Smurfs were communists, would they have an authority figure in charge? Don't confuse a totalitarian regime like Stalinism with true communism. What you describe sounds more like a benevolent dictatorship; like the one the ancient Athenians had under Pericles, for example.
Reply Hide All See All 3 Repliesbenevolent? papa smurf ruled through FEAR! his pants were stained red with the blood of a million crushed rebellions! also that grandpa smurf with the yellow pants that I remember seeing in a smurf special? he had bladder problems.
You question the regime, comrade? Demitri, show this traitor how we treat those who ask questions...
Saying the Soviets were Communists is like saying the Nazis were biologists; only half true and misleading to boot. Also:
@JohnStraube Smurfs bleed blue.
"The Smoggies" should be added! The protagonists, the Sun Tots, taught us to recycle and keep our planet clean while out smarting the villainous Smoggies in their plot to pollute the earth and steal the Sun Tots coral. Hooray for a generation with legitimately decent cartoons! Not like the crap they're shilling out these days!
Replyhe man gay? negative model after a barbarian yes. Cohan the barbarian was dress similar and he wasn't gay. jem was a good cartoon for girls since all cartoon were towards boys. knowledge is half the battle is something thats been said before gi joe was even an idea in someones head. just seems like some of these so called messages are just put up because someone had extra time on their hands.
ReplyIt all boils Down to: conan got laid, He-man is a "confirmed bachelor".
Easily could have been put conveniently on one page, not frigging four. Irritating.
ReplyThis is how cracked articles were written back in them days
@Emjeah Probably because computers didn't have to memory to show 4 pages at once. Now they don't have the speed to click 4 times for one article.
's
ReplyIs that so hard? 's to indicate ownership please!
Have you never noticed this before? It's a formatting error in all of their old articles when they converted to a new system.
April was originally created to be a mother figure to the turtles.XD.
ReplyI'm kicking myself for saying this, but, I don't think He-Man is gay. Although I wonder about the one named Ram-man.:p.
That Scooby-Doo image seems photoshopped to me. For one, they have no shadows. And what the eff is with Velmas' hand?
I'm still waiting for the Jem Live Action Movie... crap did I just give some Hollywood producer an idea... no? Thank the Godz
Reply