This marked the beginning of a new trend

This marked the beginning of a new trend that would be the demise of American animation. Although Star Trek the Animated series was good, it inspired Hanna-Barbara and other Cartoon producers to start producing new saturday morning cartoons based on popular TV shows.And over the course of the 1980's this would prove to be the death of american animatated series.

in a way this proves that in the 1980's cartoons were not about substance and creativity, but were instead used as tools to sell merchandise(toys) to youngsters (or were used to promote another TV show or movie) and there were even entire cartoons based on video games. It seemed that every 1980's cartoon that was introduced to our kids was trying to sell or promote something else.

gone were orginal charactors like Popeye, Yogi Bear, and the Flintstones. All orginalatity was goung to be replaced with other stuff....

I remember in the mid 1970s seeing animated version of Star Trek and thinking that it was cool. But I didn'realize was that the Star Trek cartoon was the beginning of a new trend. The trend was to take a popular TV show and reinvent it as a Saturday morning cartoon.

"The Dukes" was a saturday morning Cartoon that was based on the Dukes of Hazzard Tv show, and it wasn't all that bad. but it wasn't all that good either. It wasn't the only prime time driven cartoon out there in the mid 80's ..there was also Mr. T, The Fonz, The Real Ghostbusters, Rambo:The Animated Series, Hulk Hogan's WWF wrestlers(yes they too had their own 1980's cartoon), and lets not forget that George Lucas gave us "Driods & Ewoks" .all of these cartoons were based on other T.V. shows (Or Movies).and none of them proved to have any real staying power and were gone as quickly as they appeared. .

then there were the 1980's toy commercials cartoons, these were cartoons that only had one purpose and that was to sell more toys and the toy makers used the cartoon to promote their products. examples... G.I. Joe:Real American Hero, He-Man & The Masters of the Universe, Dungons and Dragons, Transformers the series, Captain Power, Teenage Mutant Nija Turltes And then in the mid 80's came the video game based cartoons such as Pac-Man, Q-bert and others. ...I can still remember that they had a prime time Pac-Man Christmas special. .

Just a side note........I actually did like the G.I Joe & Star Trek Cartoons. The Dukes of Hazzard Cartoon wasn't bad either, but some of those other cartoons were dreadful

but it seemed that ever 1980's cartoon that came on our tube was about something else other than just being a fun and entertaining.It was almost like animated producers had forgotten the purpose of cartoons.

I believe that is why the classic Disney(Mickey Mouse) and Warner Brother(Bugs Bunny) cartoons are so good and never go out of style. Those classic Cartoons are not trying to make us buy the latest fad, there not trying to get us to watch another TV show, there not trying to get us to play a video game...no...those classics are just fun and entertaining. And that why they never go out of style.