The Venerable Lineup of the Disney Afternoon - a 90s Afterschool Staple

Nostalgia has a powerful effect on most people. When you think back to the best parts of your childhood, of the greatest movies, cartoons, and video games, you revel in how much fun you had. If you were to take those pieces of classic entertainment and put them in front of a 10 year old of today's generation, they'd likely tell you how much your favorite show from 1984 sucks.

It's with that in mind that I remember fondly the days of Disney Afternoons and the cartoons of my childhood. It's been at least a decade since any of those shows has been on network television, in a place where I could readily watch the greatest after school cartoons ever made.

From the time of my first year at school back in the 80s, I remember coming home and watching Duck Tales or Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers. The memories are still crisp and when the DVDs were released a little over a year ago, I was the first in line to catch up on the times of old.

The results of course are anything but what I'd remembered. Those two classics along with Darkwing Duck and Tailspin were the first four of the venerable Disney Afternoons classics released on DVD and though I remember all of them fondly and still enjoy watching them today, it's interesting to look back on something that I thought was so clever 15 years ago to see that it is in fact a cartoon for children.

That said, these are still much better cartoons for children than anything on the air today. Were you to place Darkwing Duck alongside Ed, Edd, and Eddy I can't imagine anyone choosing the latter as a better program. It's just not. However, the times have changed and those are the shows kids are interested in these days.

Disney had it right though, at least for a while. They made good solid shows, with good writing, full orchestration, and funny characters that kids would love and parents wouldn't gag on whenever they came on. These were good shows and the days of hand drawn animation that doesn't look like a 12 year old was given a box of sharpies are dead along with them.

Join me then as I remember fondly the best of the years of Disney Afternoons: