The Worst Shows You Used to Watch When You Were a Kid - I.E. Childhood shows that make you cringe in retrospect.

[RumblyTumbly]

In case you're curious, this is what they cancelled Thundarr for.

Christ almighty. I can't believe that's real. Well, okay, I guess I can given stuff like that was the trend back then, but something about that one seems stupider than the norm, and that includes the cartoon about time traveling Fonzie.

Anyways, shows I remember watching as a kid that are just horrible now....

Alf really comes to mind for me. I LOVED Alf as a kid and I remember getting super upset over the infamous cliffhanger in the finale. Revisiting shows I watched as a kid is usually not that terrible. Even though the shows are almost never as good as I remembered, most of them maintain a certain charm to where I can smile at it and go "I totally get why 5 year old me loved this".

Alf though was miserable to rewatch. It was like every bad sitcom mixed in with a poor attempt at replicating Henson's success. I was stunned when I tried to rewatch it and just how bad it was. I've heard that the cast was miserable making it and having rewatched some episodes, I can see why.

Another one that comes to mind is Captain Planet. I never loved the show as a kid, but it was always on before or inbetween the shows I did love, so I watched it. However, there was one episode that REALLY fucked with me....it was an episode about over population. Yeah, I know, family planning is a weird topic for a show geared towards 7 year olds, but I watched it, and it messed me up. In the episode (again in a cartoon intended for 7 year olds) they mentioned something about how every family should stop at two kids...and I was in a family where I came after the 2nd kid. So I walked away feeling like I was a burden on the planet and I even asked my mom if I was better off dead. My mother, naturally, freaked out that her young son was having an existential crisis because of something a cartoon said.

Looking back on it, I realize that Captain Planet was nonsensical propaganda sold to small children, so taking it seriously was a dumb decision on my part lol.

 

[Return of the Freaker]

Another one that comes to mind is Captain Planet. I never loved the show as a kid, but it was always on before or inbetween the shows I did love, so I watched it. However, there was one episode that REALLY fucked with me....it was an episode about over population. Yeah, I know, family planning is a weird topic for a show geared towards 7 year olds, but I watched it, and it messed me up. In the episode (again in a cartoon intended for 7 year olds) they mentioned something about how every family should stop at two kids...and I was in a family where I came after the 2nd kid. So I walked away feeling like I was a burden on the planet and I even asked my mom if I was better off dead.

Literally Ted Turner promoting Agenda 21. Captain Planet even had an episode where they had to save the then happening Rio Conference (where Agenda 21 was drawn up)

 

[Thomas Talus]

Another one that comes to mind is Captain Planet. I never loved the show as a kid, but it was always on before or inbetween the shows I did love, so I watched it. However, there was one episode that REALLY fucked with me....it was an episode about over population. Yeah, I know, family planning is a weird topic for a show geared towards 7 year olds, but I watched it, and it messed me up. In the episode (again in a cartoon intended for 7 year olds) they mentioned something about how every family should stop at two kids...and I was in a family where I came after the 2nd kid. So I walked away feeling like I was a burden on the planet and I even asked my mom if I was better off dead. My mother, naturally, freaked out that her young son was having an existential crisis because of something a cartoon said.

Looking back on it, I realize that Captain Planet was nonsensical propaganda sold to small children, so taking it seriously was a dumb decision on my part lol.

Yeah, I remember that episode. Super misanthropic, with the future versions of the fire guy and wind girl in a dysfunctional "barefoot in the kitchen/fat slob" marriage.

 

[StarkRavingMad]

The first one that comes to mind for me is undoubtedly Saved By the Bell. It's simply unwatchable as an adult.

Also, as a big fan of the OG Laverne and Shirley (a show I loved as a kid, and still love as an adult-- the first five seasons, that is. The show became trash once they moved to California), I had only heard about the cartoon series. Glad I never saw it; that clip is so bizarre ...

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

Christ almighty. I can't believe that's real. Well, okay, I guess I can given stuff like that was the trend back then, but something about that one seems stupider than the norm, and that includes the cartoon about time traveling Fonzie.

Anyways, shows I remember watching as a kid that are just horrible now....

Alf really comes to mind for me. I LOVED Alf as a kid and I remember getting super upset over the infamous cliffhanger the finale. Revisiting shows I watched as a kid is usually not that terrible. Even though the shows are almost never as good as I remembered, most of them maintain a certain charm to where I can smile at it and go "I totally get why 5 year old me loved this".

Alf though was miserable to rewatch. It was like every bad sitcom mixed in with a poor attempt at replicating Henson's success. I was stunned when I tried to rewatch it and just how bad it was. I've heard that the cast was miserable making it and having rewatched some episodes, I can see why.

Another one that comes to mind is Captain Planet. I never loved the show as a kid, but it was always on before or inbetween the shows I did love, so I watched it. However, there was one episode that REALLY fucked with me....it was an episode about over population. Yeah, I know, family planning is a weird topic for a show geared towards 7 year olds, but I watched it, and it messed me up. In the episode (again in a cartoon intended for 7 year olds) they mentioned something about how every family should stop at two kids...and I was in a family where I came after the 2nd kid. So I walked away feeling like I was a burden on the planet and I even asked my mom if I was better off dead. My mother, naturally, freaked out that her young son was having an existential crisis because of something a cartoon said.

Looking back on it, I realize that Captain Planet was nonsensical propaganda sold to small children, so taking it seriously was a dumb decision on my part lol.

Didn't Ted Turner go on to have six kids himself? Talk about being a hypocrite. "It's okay for me to have as many kids as I want, but I don't want you plebs stinking up the planet with your filthy bratlings!"

 

[Tootsie Bear]

I used to watch the 90's version as a kid. I unironically thought it was pretty neat, like if Dinosaurs met Jurassic Park. Now it's just embarrassing.

Whoa dude! I haven't watched this show since the early 90's. What's crazy I'm watching old school Beavis and Butt-Head when Bill Clinton was still President.

 

[XYZpdq]

Grizzly Tales is kid kino. Would put it up there with Are You Afraid of the Dark?

I've never actually watched Are you Afraid Of The Dark?, it's not from my generation. However, I remember Goose bumps. It was pretty good.

I wandered in and out of Are You Afraid, most of what I saw was pretty good. My dad grew up on EC Comics (and to some extent me) and he was pretty fond of Are You Afraid Of The Dark

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

South Park . The show needs to die

Season 20 or the 2016 election season was the time for them to quit. What I speculate is that they actually do have CNN on in their office all the time and unironically get all their news from it, which makes the insight in their episodes constantly off. Since comedy is often a blunt phrasing of the truth, if all they know is CNN lies, the jokes have to be based on those lies, so to the rest of us, it's just head scratching. PC Principal is the best example of their comedy that's sort of on point, but not quite right. He started off as a gag character on fraternity culture and their desire "to crush puss." Later on, it turns out he's a true believer and not just engaging in PC culture for sexual favors. If they knew what was going on in the culture war, PC Principal would look like a male feminist and Strong Woman would look like a dangerhair feminist landwhale. They'd be immediately visually offputting and them saying PC talking points would show just how absurd these characters are. Instead, he and Strong Woman are attractive Aryan white people.

You can even see the quality in comedy shift in between Stick of Truth and Fractured But Whole. Stick of Truth is the perfect encapsulation of the South Park experience. Fractured But Whole has a lot of sequelitis to it and a lot of memberberries in it like Kyle from Connecticut or Mitch Conner. South Park, which it still is the best out of the 90s holdover animated shows, has become directionless and not nearly as edgy as it was during seasons 3-15.

Power Rangers is especially a big one since I meet people in their 30's and 40's who are into it. The 40 year olds are the really weird ones to me as I'm pretty sure they would have had to have been in their teens when that debuted in the US.

Yeah, I was big on it too when I was five. Rewatched a little bit of it and I can no longer get past the shitty ADR. Just a turducken of bad acting, awkward dubbing, and bad dialogue in two minute spurts at a time.

 

[Bean5]

I have a love hate relationship with fanboy and chum chum. On one hand I remember liking it because it was stupid nonsense, and on the other I knew it was awful. But it still had fun and the intro is an earworm.

Smosh, egh

I only watched 'Almost naked animals' and sidekicks because it was on.

I hate watched kid vs kad because it was so brutal on the poor kid. Even the sister in phineas and ferb was given mercy and the rare 'win' at the end of the episode. Hell, Dib in invader zim had some pity. But the Kid in Kid vs cat was shat on my his aweful sister, told off by his dad and the cat was genuinely trying to kill him. I know he had a rare win but, not really

 

[John Titor]

Sliders: At the time it had a cool premise of hopping between dimensions but when I watched it again, I never realized how hilariously bad the episodes were. The pilot episodes were interesting because it was a "what if the Soviet Union defeated America" but it got silly after that when you think about how unfeasible the premises were (on top of my head, I can only think of the episode where democracy wouldn't exist if the American Revolution failed). There was an episode about how a woman dominated society wouldn't be much better than the one we have now because reversed gender roles would still have abuse and discrimination; try making an episode like that now. Don't get me started on when they started to rip off popular movies: they made a giant worm episode because of Tremors, a dinosaur episode because of Jurassic Park and so on. And the CGI was hilariously bad, when a guy got eaten by a giant beetle, all they did was slide a picture of him into the beetle's mouth.

The final nail to the coffin was that they turned a single episode about kromags, from an alternate Earth where the dominant species came from killer apes and they also discovered dimension hopping, became the show's overall arc. To make it worse, the show never got a proper ending, it always got a cliffhanger when it got cancelled.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Sliders: At the time it had a cool premise of hopping between dimensions but when I watched it again, I never realized how hilariously bad the episodes were.

I saw the pilot again and was surprised at how cheesy it is.

The last straw was when Quinn made it home but dismissed it as the wrong universe because his gate didn't squeak. Once he left, a repairman shouted, "fixed that gate for you Mrs. Mallory""

 

[John Titor]

I saw the pilot again and was surprised at how cheesy it is.

The last straw was when Quinn made it home but dismissed it as the wrong universe because his gate didn't squeak. Once he left, a repairman shouted, "fixed that gate for you Mrs. Mallory""

I'd have to watch it again but I remembered an effort was made in the pilot. And that twist really was an asspull.

 

[Vixenstar17]

Looking back on it now, mine would be Kimba the White Lion. I had VHS tapes of them as a kid and was obsessed with it. Looked at it recently just to see if it was what I remembered and god what awful voice acting lol

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

The Simpsons? Too obvious?

A lot of 80s animation was shit in retrospective, old ass shows like beverly hills teens and bucky o'hare are cancer and unwatchable now.

Bucky O'Hare is one I tried rewatching not so long ago. I had memories of it being like totally awesome dude, but like a lot of other cartoons I was too young and probably buzzing too much from the intro sequence to notice the episodes were kind of shit. Terrible voice acting, world-building crammed into an unsurprising 13 episodes that makes each animal race a shallow planet of hats, and bad character designs. It's possible to put cartoon animals even rabbits in serious battles, but this show looked like Hallmark characters put into Rogue One, with eyes deader than the most un-self-aware weebs fanart.

Spoiler: I mean, look at this fucking thing.

Freakazoid. At the time it was like the best of both DCAU and Spielberg-toons worlds. Even then the lolsorandom attitude turned stale very quickly.

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

Looking back on it now, mine would be Kimba the White Lion. I had VHS tapes of them as a kid and was obsessed with it. Looked at it recently just to see if it was what I remembered and god what awful voice acting lol

 

[McAfee'sCorpse]

I watched more Youtube as a kid than actual cable tv but I did catch some shows on there as well.

TV:
FanBoy and Chum-Chum
Breadwinners

YOUTUBE:
Fred
AnnoyingOrange

yeah that's pretty much it.

 

[Android raptor]

Rugrats

 

[Captain Syrup]

Rugrats

E.G. Daily is still hilarious on TikTok.

I don't care for Rugrats, but I do like her.

 

[Android raptor]

E.G. Daily is pretty active on TikTok, lol.

I never cared for Rugrats (it was part of the "Nicktoon" lineup alongside Doug and Ren & Stimpy), but I liked her.

I couldn't stand Tommy but I certainly never had anything against his VA. What kinda stuff does she do on tiktok? Wonder if she still does voice acting.

I watched Rugrats as a kid and some of the older episodes were ok (especially the like one or two about the twins), but like I said in the reboot thread I think it suffered from a lot of issues that were common in shows at the time, like tokenism and being overly preachy especially in the later seasons. Apparently one of the main writers left after the first season or two and that probably has a lot to do with it.

 

[Captain Syrup]

What kinda stuff does she do on tiktok?

Totally inane vids of herself bumming around L.A.

I wish she would record herself singing more often. (One of her albums made it into Scarface.)