Hello World!

Dance your cares away
Worries for another day!
Let the music play
Down at Fraggle rock!

Well, with my dear co-editor in such a nostalgic mood yesterday, I thought I may as well take a similar line, though instead of reminiscing about the various Nintendo incarnations I owned (I never was a Sega user… though I did once own an Atari), I thought I'd take a look at some of my old favorite TV shows… (originally I was going to complain some about how sick I feel, but I thought I'd spare you that).

Now, modern-day cartoon have certainly produced some gems (eg 'Pinky and the Brain' and 'Daria') but they have also produced a number of things to make you shudder (eg scourge of scourges, Pokemon), many of which seem to be influenced by anime. I think anime is ok to some extent - at least for other people. I'm something of a western traditionalist when it comes to cartoons and find the whole anime craze somewhat puzzling. But back to the matter at hand – what ever happened to those classic cartoons. Not 'loony Toons', 'the Flinstones', 'the Jetsons' and 'Scooby Doo', which you still get today, but child-hood favorites such as the original 'Transformers', 'M.A.S.K.', 'Dinoriders', 'He-man', even 'GI Joe' and 'The Gummy Bears'? Even 'Animaniacs', 'Cities of Gold', 'Mighty Mouse'. 'Inspector Gadget' and 'Roger Ramjet' - I once spent a good hour trying to recall the complete theme to that one…. (sighs) Where did they all go? Also, there's 'Muppets Tonight' and 'Fraggle Rock' - the latter of which I actually saw two episodes of tonight – you don't even see that sort of puppetry any more outside of 'Sesame Street' and 'Farscape' – and then certainly not as the main component of the show.

So where did they all go? Are these icons of my childhood left buried in half-forgotten tapes in the studio vaults or dusty corners of home video libraries, never again to see the light of day? Will we be left with no reminders save a few half-forgotten recollections of theme songs that once signaled the start of after-school tv time? Sad to say it, but unlike the Sega console and games, which still turn up at car boot sales, swap-marts and school fairs, we may be destined never to see them again, save as mere shadows of themselves, brought to the big-screen in live-action, showy Hollywood trash to pander to the younger market who know nothing of the magic of the originals, with their sketchy plots, cool gadgets and retro 80's tracks, but buy into fad after fad based on Japanese animation.

Roger Ramjet he's our man,
Hero of our nation
For his adventures just be sure
To tune into this station!

If only…

Link of the Day

-http://www.wheezebucket.com/cartoonmp3.html which has recordings of many of the themes to shows mentioned above.

Trek BBS Today

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-Which captain would you feel safest under?

-Voyager's Best Guest Stars

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Today On TV

-In Canada, Space! will be showing TOS's 'The Alternate Factor' at 10am (repeat at 4pm), TNG's 'The Vengeance Factor' at 12pm, DS9's 'Hippocratic Oath' at 5pm and Voyagers 'Revulsion' at 10pm

-In the United Kingdom, Sky One will be showing Voyager's 'Juggernaut' at 5pm (repeat at 11:30pm) and DS9's 'By Inferno's Light' at 9pm Thanks go out to the Great Link for this!

-In The Netherlands, Net 5 will be showing TNG's 'Frame of Mind'at 18:00 CET.  Thanks go out to StarTrek.nl for this!

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