Indulging My Inner 80s Child

I am a child of the 1980s and, gosh, that seems like a shockingly long time ago these days. Admittedly I was a baby for the first half of the decade, so some things slipped me by. I am only belatedly catching up with 80s film classics, which I simply could not have watched back when they were first out.

I recently discovered Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), for instance - a shocking oversight on my part, I have to say. Actually, a lot of the movies I know of from the 1980s are not because I watched them, but because there was a spin-off cartoon series that I would catch on the telly. That applies to Bill and Ted, Ghostbusters, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (seriously, what was that about?) and a lot more I have likely forgotten.

Yep, when it comes to feeling all fuzzy and nostalgic about childhood, I tend to find my mind wandering to the cartoons that filled a corner of my day (between 3pm and 5pm during the week, which was the scheduled children's television time in the UK) and linked in with a whole host of other things, such as toys - oh, man, my toy obsessions were definitely linked to TV and the characters I watched there! Product placement, oh yeah!

So, if you are like me and want to drift down memory lane to some dodgy 80s animation, and even dodgier plotlines and dialogue, let's delve into the video library of time and pick out some cult, cartoon classics.

If You Loved My Little Ponies

Remember My Little Pony? Oh gosh girls, this was MY thing. I loved those ponies. Ok, confession, I still have them tucked up in the loft somewhere, stashed in a suitcase. As a child, I never could remember their correct names (I made them up based on the images on their posteriors). I once traded one of my ponies with another girl's at school. The trade didn't last the week, because I missed my pony so much and she had to come back to me. Thankfully the other girl felt the same.

The My Little Pony cartoon featured all your favourite ponies (and if you didn't have certain ones, it was time to beg your parents to get it for you). The general premise was the ponies lived in a fantastical land, all rainbows and happy days, but there were other creatures in this land who wanted to enslave the ponies and this formed the crux of most stories - trying to avoid being captured or rescuing other ponies. Actually, some of the storylines were quite dark and I remember being quite scared and upset for my favourite ponies at times. But it always ended happily ever after, so that was ok.

The series first aired in 1986, shortly after the release of the first My Little Pony movie. The second season aired in 1987. There were also a handful of specials.

Now, if you loved My Little Ponies, then your next stop in childhood viewing has to be the equally multi-coloured, cheerful and sickeningly good natured Care Bears. I think my dad has been permanently traumatised by me heading into my parents' bedroom at 6am on a Sunday morning and switching their telly onto Care Bears. He can still sing the theme tune. He doesn't want to, it is just stuck in his head.

The Care Bears lived in the kingdom of Care-a-Lot which was set somewhere up in the clouds. Their goal in life was to share caring around the world, having to evade certain villains who were trying to thwart them. Cue sickly sweet storylines, happy ever afters and lots of emphasis on being nice to one another. The series ran from 1985 to 1988 (excluding a couple of specials shown in 1983).

If You Loved Thundercats

My friend had a traumatic experience the other day. She discovered that her favourite cartoon of the 1980s, Thundercats, had been remade in the last couple of years and transformed into some weird, surreal cartoon that bore no resemblance to the original series. Turns out she was not alone in being upset, and quite a few people were angry that their favourite Thundercats had been transformed into bumbling, bobble-eyed critters.

The Thundercats were humanoid cat-like creatures. Some looked more cat than others, and they had the skills of their relevant feline - so Cheetara could run really fast, for instance.

The Thundercats had lost their homeworld, Thundara, and were trying to reach a new planet, when they were attacked by mutants from Plun-Darr. A small number of Thundercats found themselves forced to land on an earth-like planet, where they tryed to build a new life while constantly being attacked by the mutants. Thundercats aired from 1985-1988.

If you loved Thundercats, and their animal-as-humans theme, then why not check out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Those pizza eating turtles were rather goofy and slightly annoying, but they were all named after famous Renaissance painters.

The four turtles started life as ordinary terrapins, but were accidentally dropped down a sewer where they were discovered by Yoshi, a disgraced ninja sensei living in the same sewers of New York. A mysterious green ooze transforms the turtles into humanoid ninjas, while Yoshi ends up as a five foot rat.

The green ooze eventually turns out to have been dumped into the sewer by 'Shredder' an old enemy of Yoshi who wants him dead. Cue an ongoing feud between Shredder's mutated goons and the pizza-obsessed turtle. The series was highly successful and ran from 1987 to 1996. The last three seasons took a darker direction than the earlier episodes, which was partly to bring the series more into line with other children's cartoons of the mid-90s.

If You Loved Ulysses 31

I'm guessing Ulysses 31 was aimed at the 10+ age group, well, my mum tells me I would sit through a whole episode age 4 and be engrossed. Ulysses 31 is a Sci-Fi adventure with amazing backdrops and a bold, intense theme for a kids cartoon. A French-Japanese co-production it rather expected children to be interested in more than just slapstick humour and bad jokes. It assumed children actually had brains.

The cartoon could be loosely described as the Odyssey in Space. Ulysses is the captain of a giant spaceship (the Odyssey), during one mission he destroys a vicious cyclops to save a group of enslaved children, including his son. This angers the divine entities who govern the universe and Ulysses is cursed to travel the universe with his crew frozen until he finds the Kingdom of Hades. All the right ingredients for an epic adventure through space.

Ulysses 31 was a single series of 26 episodes first shown between 1981 and 1982.

If you loved the epic drama of Ulysses 31, then you might also be taken by The Mysterious Cities of Gold, another French/Japanese project which was quite dark at times and definitely a 'thinky' cartoon. I saw one website that stated it is hard to imagine kids getting excited by such a cartoon these days. Is anyone feeling that cartoons have been dumbed down these days and actually we don't give kids enough credit?

The series is set in 1532 and follows the adventures of young orphan Esteban who joins an expedition to travel to the New World and search for the lost Seven Cities of Gold. Esteban has the magical ability to make the sun appear, which will prove useful on his adventures. There are lots of dark twists and turns on the journey and some scary scenes for younger viewers. The 39 episodes of The Mysteries Cities of Gold were first aired between 1982 and 1983.

I hope you are inspired to take a journey through 80s cartoon nostalgia by this brief list, there is certainly a lot more to discover once you begin.