Showtime Synergy~

Do you remember the cartoons back in the good old days of the late 80's and early 90's? Aren't they just great compared to the rubbish we get on all those cartoon channels we get now? Yeah sure things have gone more high tech with 3D lifelike animations and new-age funky animation styles, but what children really want are cartoons that can pique their imagination. gore, violence, dark storylines of crime was almost non-existent during my time.We had feel-good ,creative, painstakingly drawn 2D masterpieces! There were less cartoons then, but the quality and creativity of those cartoons just stay in our hearts forever.

There weren't many girly girl cartoons back then.The only one i can really remember is Jem! Whoa i really loved Jem but unfortunately it was shown on a Sunday and at that time in Johor our holidays were Friday and Saturday so i would almost invariably miss out unless i ponteng Sundays~

For those who don't know, this is Jem.

As you can see she is a rock star type with typical 80's BIG hair~ Jem was an American animated television series that ran from 1985-1988. However i think it only came to our shores a few years later cos i remembered watching it in the early 90's. The cartoon was about Jem and her band the Holograms who have to fend off unfriendly advances from a rival band called the 'Missfits'. It was so cute that the half hour cartoon was peppered with one minute music videos from the 'bands'. They even sold dolls with cassettes of songs from the show, with karaoke minus-one tracks to boot.

Jem and the holograms

Jerrica Benton is the owner of starlight music and she becomes Jem by using the power of Synergy, an incredibly powerful holographic/audio synthesizer, by touching her star-shaped earrings and saying "Showtime Synergy". Amazing powers i tell u! She can change her wardrobe and that of her whole band using that synthesizer! Why haven't they invented something like that yet?

The missfits

Due to my new found enthusiasm for 80's cartoons i went on major search overdrive on Youtube and i found a whole host of retro 80's cartoons.Some of them were such gems~ some of them i had temporarily forgotten their existence.

Dinosaucers

Take the 'dinosaucers' for example. Who remembers this one?I certainly did not until i saw it on Youtube. According to wilkipedia "The show follows the Dinosaucers and their battles against the evil Tyrannos. Each group is composed of intelligent anthropomorphic dinosaurs or other prehistoric reptilian species. The Dinosaucers are also allied with four humans known as the Secret Scouts. The two group originally come from a planet in acounter-Earth orbit known as Reptilon." High-tech or what?

The evil Tyrannos

The secret scouts

And of course who could forget every boys favourite cartoon?The Transformers~ The cinemas are going to be packed to the brim with nostalgic boy-men when this one opens in the cinemas soon. Be warned though the box-office version will be a live-action film with CGI robots and not like the 2D animations of the past.

Optimus Primus the big red truck.

Another evergreen fave 'Alvin and the chipmunks' were also one of my favourite cartoons. I especially liked the movie version of it way back in the 90's called the Chipmunk Adventure. I can still remember the soundtrack from the movie till this day.Mainly because my brother and i accidentally taped over my Dad's boxing documentary with the Chipmunks Adventure way back when VCR's were the way to go.

Female chipmunks from a still from 'The chipmunks adventure'.

Ok before u think i've gone out of my mind and just entered a phase of second-childhood, i just want to reminisce one more cartoon which is the very short-lived Galaxy High. I don't know whether anyone actually remembers this but it was one of my all-time favourites which i watched at 6pm while eating dinner. Note that this was during the time that i had an 8om bedtime.

Galaxy High

'Galaxy High is an American animated series that premiered on September 13, 1986 on CBS and ran for 13 episodes until December 6, 1986. The series was created by movie director Chris Columbus and featured music and a theme song composed by Eagles member Don Felder. Galaxy High was about two earth teenagers who were accepted into the interstellar high school, Galaxy High School on the asteroid Flutor. The teenage boy, Doyle, was popular in his earth high school while the teenage girl Aimee was shy and as the theme song states, "the smartest girl in school, not very popular, not very cool." But once in space, the alien teenagers seem to accept the not so popular Aimee, while Doyle tends to rub the aliens the wrong way. The show has hints of a budding romance between Doyle and Aimee but was never given time to grow due to only 13 episodes being produced' -source Wilkipedia


These bring back memories indeed. So if you're in the mood for a walk down memory lane , shimmy down to Youtube and search for these cartoons. You'll be smiling the whole time i gurantee it~

^-^