This week I've really been delving into cartoons, especially ones I've heard about for quite some time, but have never had the opportunity to view. Cartoons, such as Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, a show which has the heavy award of being the launchpad for animators such as John K. of Ren and Stimpy infamy, and Bruce Timm, of Batman: The Animated Series. The show was spearheaded by Ralph Bakshi, a man known for stretching the limits of adult animation, creating what is now known as some of the first pieces of "adult animation", albeit in its crudest forms, with movies such as Fritz the Cat, Coonskin, and Wizards.

The show initially debuted in the fall of 1987, for saturday mornings on CBS. The network gave the program the dreaded 8 AM slot, in its first season; but it would lead to substantial ratings until the show hit a minor snag. In an episode entitled "The Littlest Tramp", Mighty Mouse appears to crush a white flower into a powder, and sniff it, thereby fixing his weakness. One watchdog reverend saw it as drug usage in a kid's cartoon, being highly unacceptable. He raised an issue, CBS cut the scene, and not long after, buried the show(by then in its second season) in the death slot of 12:30 PM, leaving it privy to pre-emptions each and every week. The show was canned not long after.

However, in having an incredibly short run, this show really laid the groundwork for cartoons in the 90s. Remind yourself, that in 1990, Tiny Toon Adventures premiered. A show that would break the fourth wall, include humor that appealed to kids as well as adults, double entendres, and such. In 1991 Ren & Stimpy would come along. 1992 - Batman: The Animated Series. You get the idea. These shows may not have a lot in common, stylistically, but when you boil it down to the practice being preached here - these are cartoons that weren't exactly out to push a toy line, or just keep kids glued to the tv, while parents watched, bored out of their minds.

All of these shows would be nowhere if it wasn't for Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. Mainly because the team that worked on the show initially, included people who were involved in the creation of these groundbreaking programs. John K(R&S), Bruce Timm(Batman), Eddie Fitzgerald(Tiny Toons), these guys created a cartoon that was way ahead of its time, and when it got cancelled, and the team broke off into their seperate ways, they all would come back a couple years later, respectively, with their own strong products.

The show is [apparently, according to cartoon brew] finally heading to DVD, for a projected release date of early next year. I'm pretty excited for this, because it will really give me a chance to view this show, warts and all, and compare it fully to the creations that the team would later make.

And to think, without Ralph Bakshi approaching CBS about making a kids cartoon, we may have never had Ren & Stimpy.

Looking up random shit at Youtube can sometimes really bring together some crazy memories....on a late-night whim, I found this goldmine:

Fred/Alan IDs 1985-1991 from fredseibert on Vimeo.

Indeed. 3 minutes of high-quality Nickeloden ID's, from the mid-to-late 1980s. It's crazy to think that a quick flash of an orange logo, plus some distinctive doo-wop music can really take you back, but that's just the way the first kid's network clicked with me back in the day.

As a spry youngster, at the age of 2, I distinctly remember keeping my eyes at the television, watching Nickelodeon intently, Mr. Wizard's World to be exact, waiting for it to be over, and for Finders Keepers to start.

As the years went on, I remember watching for the top of the half/hour, for the next show to begin, and for the next new ID to show up. There used to be a time when I'd intently record said identifications onto a VHS tape, because I knew one day I'd love to have a compilation video of Nickelodeon IDs. I'm not sure if that video still exists amongst my piles of VHS tapes anymore, but the next time I'm home, I may need to start digitizing.

The ID, when it comes to Nickelodeon, really honestly, defined the network. A random, 10-second clip of animation(sometimes live-action), declaring, one way or another, that you were tuned into Nickelodeon. For the first two decades of its existence, both MTV and Nick had this on lock. Catchy, memorable, and just plain weird IDs that defined the network.

Looking back on this, it's rather unfortunate that neither network does any of this kind of promotion, especially with Nickelodeon celebrating its 30th year as a cable network, you would think they would take these old clips out of mothballs, and play 'em, or at least throw old-schoolers such as myself a bone, and play some of their old programming for a one-time-only thing.

However, knowing that Nickelodeon's audience isn't exactly teeming with my demographic, I don't see it happening...but that's alright. Just having little pieces of nostalgia like this online is a nice throwback to the classic days of the station.