Plavski posted:

Nah, I'd grown out of them by the late 90s. I would've been proudly smashing them together in cornflakes box diaramas in about '91 or '92.

Ein cooler Typ posted:

Terminator 2 is a children's movie thematically

it just has violence and cussing

twistedmentat posted:

I got them and it's so weird missing the music, Mission Hill suffers from the same problem.

RagnarokAngel posted:

At the time of old Simpsons it would have been very difficult to be topical, in the same way south park is now, due to the time between production and airing.

It did have its moments though, like they slipped in a crack at Bush sr. by inserting a scene where Homer makes a jab back at him for insulting the Simpsons.

twistedmentat posted:

I got them and it's so weird missing the music, Mission Hill suffers from the same problem.

RagnarokAngel posted:

At the time of old Simpsons it would have been very difficult to be topical, in the same way south park is now, due to the time between production and airing.

It did have its moments though, like they slipped in a crack at Bush sr. by inserting a scene where Homer makes a jab back at him for insulting the Simpsons.

Choco1980 posted:

Still not as awkward as the Oprah home interview thingie they did.

Choco1980 posted:

Simpsons-mania was a weird thing. I remember an old Inside Edition piece where they were trying to get an interview with Bart, acting like they were real people and not cartoons...yet also talking to the voice actors. It culminated in the reporter getting knocked over by Bart on his skateboard while we don't actually see him. Still not as awkward as the Oprah home interview thingie they did.

Choco1980 posted:

Simpsons-mania was a weird thing. I remember an old Inside Edition piece where they were trying to get an interview with Bart, acting like they were real people and not cartoons...yet also talking to the voice actors. It culminated in the reporter getting knocked over by Bart on his skateboard while we don't actually see him. Still not as awkward as the Oprah home interview thingie they did.

Phanatic posted:

The topical jokes are the stuff that dates it. With the exception of the dirtiest joke they ever snuck past the network censors.

RagnarokAngel posted:

When Ronnie Reagan lifted the restrictions on advertising to children the floodgates opened to try and sell goddamn anything for toys.

Leavemywife posted:

Could you elaborate on this? I've never heard about it before. Being born in '91, I'm used to being advertised to, and had no idea there were restrictions.

quote:

The backstory behind Shrek hawking Twinkies

If asked to think of the lasting legacies of Ronald Reagan, you might conjure up the long shadow of US military intervention in Central America or the coordinated attack on organized labor and public-sector programs. Probably few of us would think about the spectacle of Shrek hawking Twinkies. But one lasting consequence of Reagan’s reign is felt by every parent in the country every day: As president, Reagan opened the floodgates to targeted junk food marketing to children and teens.

By the late 1970s, concern about advertising to kids had grown so strong that a Federal Trade Commission taskforce took on the question about whether to ban or regulate this onslaught of marketing. Sixty thousand pages of expert testimony and 6,000 pages of oral testimony from leading experts on health, child psychology, and nutrition followed. The conclusions were clear: kids can’t distinguish between programs and commercials. As the report published at the time put it: “very young children are cognitively unable to understand the selling intent of ads.” Experts argued that these findings provided strong legal ground for special protections for children.

Based on recommendations from the taskforce, the Federal Trade Commission proposed sweeping regulations to restrict television advertising to children. The proposal would have covered all television advertising to children too young to understand the concept of commercials – ads deemed “unfair and deceptive.” For older kids, the recommendation was a ban on television advertising for highly sugared products. The idea was that although older kids realize they’re being advertised to, they’re still not sophisticated enough to understand long-term health consequences. For ads targeted to older kids, proponents suggested in-ad warning disclosures or funding public service announcements to balance the commercial messages.

But as the rulemaking got bogged down in negotiations, the food industry got busy. Companies with much to lose if the restrictions passed raised $16 million to lobby against them. (To put $16 million in perspective: that was one-fourth of the entire budget of the Federal Trade Commission at the time.) As Tracy Westen, former deputy director for consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission, explains it: “No one had ever raised that much money to oppose an agency rule-making proceeding.” And it wasn’t just food companies who banded together. According to Westen, “The sugar industry, the candy industry, the toy industry and the broadcast industry. The farmers were against us because they were raising wheat that was being used in sugared cereals. We even had the cigarette industry against us.”

Everything changed in 1980. As one of his first moves of his presidency, Reagan appointed a new FTC chairman, one more interested in pleasing business than parents. Within a year, the proposals were killed. What’s worse, Congress passed the Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act, which, Westen says, “mandated that the FTC would no longer have any authority whatsoever to regulate advertising and marketing to children, leaving markets virtually free to target kids as they saw fit.” Over the next couple of years the Reagan administration eliminated any remaining government oversight and deregulated children’s television.”

That was 1981. Ever since, the regulatory climate for marketing to kids has been pretty much the same: let the industry self-regulate while advertising continues unabated. Deregulation not only meant advertisers could sell kids sugary cereal during breaks in morning cartoons, but they could actually craft entire shows around toys to sell products. A year after deregulation passed, the top ten best selling toys all had their own television shows, including Transformers, GI Joe, and Carebears.

Today, the food industry reports spending nearly $2 billion a year in marketing directly toward children. Despite industry promises, there has not been a substantial improvement in the nutritional content of food and beverage ads. By 2009, 97.8 percent of television ads seen by children aged 2 to 11 years old were for products high in fat, sugar, or sodium. And, none – not one – of the cereal brands marketed to U.S. children met nutritional standards set for advertising to UK children.

quote:

Reagan Vetoes Bill Putting Limits On TV Programming for Children

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6— President Reagan has vetoed a measure overwhelmingly approved by Congress that would have reimposed restrictions on television programming aimed at children.

The President, who exercised a pocket veto late Saturday, said he disapproved of the bill because it was an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of expression. Supporters of the measure today called the veto a disservice to children and said the legislation would be reintroduced next year.

The House of Representatives passed the measure, 328 to 78, on June 8, and the Senate gave its approval Oct. 19 by unrecorded voice vote that could have been blocked if only one Senator had opposed it.

The bill would have limited advertising during children's programming to 10.5 minutes an hour on weekends, and 12 minutes an hour on weekdays. It would also have required broadcasters to provide educational and informational programs for children as a condition of license renewal.

Such limitations had existed under longstanding Federal Communications Commission rules until 1984, when the commission removed them. The commission said then that the marketplace would determine what programming was best for children. Robert Hallahan, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters, said in the summer that his organization had surveyed 469 television stations and found that the average number of commercials carried during children's programs was 8.5 minutes per hour. An aide to Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, a co-author of the bill, said that about 20 percent of the 1,000 stations in the country broadcast programs that exceeded the proposed limits. 'Ideological Child Abuse' Cited

Along with the deregulation came many other changes in children's television. Toy manufacturers, for example, became heavily involved in children's programming, developing shows based on toys that, in some cases, broadcasters were enticed to schedule in exchange for a part of the profit on toy sales.

''This bill simply cannot be reconciled with the freedom of expression secured by our Constitution,'' President Reagan said in announcing that he had used the pocket veto to kill the legislation.

Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children's Television, a principal proponent of the bill, said: ''I think that killing a bill that would have encouraged terrific television for children is another example of the ideological child abuse prevalent in the Reagan-Bush Administration. It makes no economic sense because it doesn't affect the deficit or push up taxes.''

Ms. Charren said that the assertion that the bill was unconstitutional was ''a double-speak excuse.'' The legislation, she said, simply furthered the mandate of the Communications Act that every station serve the public interest. Current children's television, she said, does not do that. Wait Until Final Hours.

After Congress sends a copy of an approved bill to the President, he has 10 days, not counting Sundays, to act on it. If he signs it, the measure becomes law. If he fails to act within 10 days while Congress is in session, the legislation becomes law without his signature.

But if he fails to act within 10 days while Congress is in recess, as it is now, the measure dies. For the children's television bill, the 10 days expired at midnight Saturday, and the White House, without explanation, waited until the final hours to announce the decision. Throughout most of the day Saturday aides asked about the fate of the bill responded only by saying that the President was not expected to take action on any legislation that day.

One major opponent of the bill was Dennis R. Patrick, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, who said last month when the Senate passed it, ''The bill is both unnecessary and ill-advised.''

Mr. Patrick said it was unnecessary because the commission had pending proposed rules aimed at over-commercialization of children's television. A spokeswoman for the commission said that Mr. Patrick had no comment beyond that statement. Bush and Reagan Assailed

Senator Timothy E. Wirth, Democrat of Colorado, who had favored a measure even more stringent than the one passed, said after the Senate voted last month that the present system was not working. ''As a result of the F.C.C.'s neglect of this problem,'' he said, ''a troublesome situation has grown much worse.'' Representative Markey, who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on telecommunications and finance, said: ''President Reagan's action punctuated with an exclamation point the Federal Communications Commission's decade-long assault on children's television and exposed the hypocrisy of the Reagan Administration.''

While saying that children's television ''should not be and need not be a partisan issue,'' Mr. Markey sought to turn the veto to political advantage. ''Is this veto what Vice President Bush means when he pledges to be the education President?'' Mr. Markey asked. ''The Reagan-Bush team extolls family values and education but never misses an opportunity to take concrete action to deprive our nation's children.'' Constitutional Issue Raised

In announcing his action, President Reagan said: ''While I applaud efforts to increase the amount and quality of children's television programming, the Constitution simply does not empower the Federal Government to oversee the programming decisions of broadcasters in the manner provided by this bill.''

He added: ''Conditioning license renewals upon the Federal Government's determination as to the adequacy of a licensee's programming would violate the First Amendment. It would inhibit broadcasters from offering innovative programs that do not fit neatly into regulatory categories and discourage the creation of programs that might not satisfy the tastes of agency officials responsible for considering license renewals.''

The National Association of Broadcasters had supported the bill that Mr. Reagan vetoed as preferable to Mr. Wirth's. Edward O. Fritts, president of the association, said today:

''While we recognize this legislation charted some new territory, we were willing to accept its outcome. Frankly, we expected the President to sign it. Under any circumstances, we are very sensitive to our responsibility to provide quality programming to children and we will continue to do so with or without legislation.''

twistedmentat posted:

The commentaries mention that early on in the shows life, Fox was trying to maintain some mystery to the cast, like they weren't permitted to appear as the characters in interviews and if they did the voice they could not be shown. It was weird.

The comic store i work PT at has been clearing out the basement, and they found a box that's been sitting downstairs since at least 97. Inside were a bunch of shits that were so 90s; a Death Shirt, 2 Sandman shirts, a 90s Sabertooth shirt, Strangers in Paradise, and the best, an Legend of the Overfriend shirt. Looking on Ebay, the Overfeind sold for $75 worn, and this is in the package.

Choco1980 posted:

Those Death and Sandman ones probably could sell for a good price too, knowing how fanatical Gaimanites are. (I used to be one)

You Are A Elf posted:

I've got one that rivals it:

Ein cooler Typ posted:

I don't get it

Kavak posted:

Sneed's Feed and Seed
Chuck's...

GWBBQ posted:

This is an important point. Back when it was animated by hand, it would take months to make an episode, so it could explore cultural trends and realities but had to do it without seeming dated or old news by the time it aired. Look at the Wikipedia page on Politics in The Simpsons and watch a couple of episodes from even a few seasons apart that deal with the same theme to get an idea of how it's changed, the first pair they mention is Homer's Phobia (season 8) and There's Something About Marrying (season 16) and I think it provides a good contrast. Keep in mind that Fox originally refused to air Homer's Phobia and objected to using the word "gay" on-air.

spudsbuckley posted:

I've seen this referenced elsewhere and always thought it was a bit of a stretch and not really that clever and/or funny at all :/

kith_groupie posted:

Even though I was aware that the name of that episode was Homer's Phobia for years and years, I just now realized it's a play on 'homophobia'

RCarr posted:

A stretch? What do you think it's just a coincidence?

Kavak posted:

Sneed's Feed and Seed
Chuck's...

Busket Posket posted:

Remember when we were young and wanted to be Rose McGowan?

Busket Posket posted: