I was snuggling with my laptop in bed, looking through Netflix’s “Recently Added” section when I discovered it. On March 30, Netflix added a collection of late-90s/early-2000s children’s shows to its repertoire. For a lot of people who fervently embrace their early-2000s nostalgia (or maybe just me), this was the best news of my month. Maybe even my year. But I resisted the impulse to click on Dexter’s glasses and asked myself: is it worth it? What if my favorite childhood TV shows weren’t as good as I remembered? What if the jokes weren’t as funny, what if the animation sucked? With great trepidation, I selected “Dexter’s Laboratory,” “The PowerPuff Girls,” “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends,” “Samurai Jack” and “Courage the Cowardly Dog” and waited to see if they lived up to how I remembered them. Upon watching them all, I got mixed results.
Dexter’s Laboratory
Before watching “Dexter” again, I’d forgotten how much I absolutely yearn to be as cool as he is. His scientific inventions (hello, a machine that changes your taste buds?) are amazing, his prowess with the ladies (“omelette…du fromage”) is undeniably smooth and his hair is an enviable poof of ginger. The show centers around Dexter, a genius elementary schooler who makes wacky inventions in his basement and his sister Dede, who consistently screws everything up.
Animation: 3/10
Of all the cartoons I watched, “Dexter’s” animation barely held up. The drawing was too simplistic and relied on stills too much for the audience to remain engrossed in what was happening.
Humor: 9/10
Unlike a lot of today’s cartoons, the show didn’t rely on inane jokes to entertain little kids. “Dexter” is still watchable whether you’re an adult or a kid, because the jokes appeal to both audiences.
Nostalgia: 9/10
Every episode I saw of “Dexter” instantly brought me back to when I used to watch it as a kid. The characters were memorable, and the whole thing was just fun to experience again.
Maybe this counts as cheating; I’m not sure, and I don’t care. After sitting down to re-watch “Courage,” I found that I couldn’t watch more than one episode. It wasn’t the cartoon about a silly dog protecting his owners and getting into crazy supernatural hijinks I remembered it to be. “Courage” was just plain creepy. Courage and his owner Muriel are constantly abused by Muriel’s husband Eustace, and even then, Courage still attempts to save both of their lives on an episodic basis. Courage’s cowardice, rather than being endearing, comes off as annoying and frustrating.
Animation: 6/10
The eerie purple and green color scheme gives the audience a sense that something is wrong, which works well with an adult audience but can be easily ignored by kids. The overall animation, however, is more crude than creepy.
Humor: 2/10
No memorable jokes that I could recall from my childhood, and what small amount of humor the show possessed was either hit-or-miss or just a bad pun.
Nostalgia: 2/10
In retrospect, even the one episode I watched wasn’t worth it. Really, I’m just fortunate I’m as normal as I am today, having watched “Courage” on a regular basis as a child.
I really don’t have anything to say except that “Samurai Jack” is awesome. Literally. It’s utterly amazing to watch, visually, and everything about it is cool. The show centers around a samurai, Jack, that gets sent into the future by an evil monster, Aku, and his journey back to the past. The plot is suspenseful, and all of the sound effects and voice acting are superb.
Animation: 10/10
The most appealing part of “Samurai Jack” is the art. Full of gorgeous transitions and coloring, the first episode, “The Beginning,” was utterly captivating. The setting and characters are all beautifully drawn, and the animation truly makes the show fantastic.
Humor: 2/10
To be fair, this is not a comedy. With a fast-paced, action-packed show about a samurai I didn’t really expect that many jokes, but what few jokes there are aren’t totally flat.
Nostalgia: 7/10
Watching “Samurai Jack” as a teenager is just as, if not cooler than it was as a kid. Despite how striking it is visually, I found that very few characters, plot lines or jokes were memorable at all.
Back in pre-school, “PowerPuff Girls” was my “Sex and the City.” You were either a Blossom, a Bubbles or a Buttercup. I hailed myself as a Bubbles. After watching the series again though, it’s harder to say. The show centers around a trio of crime-fighting little girls trying to save the world, and their science-loving dad who created them. The characters and the show ended up being far more complex than I remembered, and interesting to re-experience.
Animation: 6/10
The animation is simple and sticks with a black-white-red-pink color scheme, which can seem girly and cute to fit the show, but also vaguely scary. The villains in the show are drawn even creepier, with “Him” being reminiscent of a devillish Frank-N-Furter.
Humor: 6/10
Although several jokes were spread between episodes, nothing was memorable.
Nostalgia: 7/10
Re-watching “PPG” was extremely interesting, mostly because of the amount of information I never picked up on as a child. When I was five, I didn’t really pick up on Professor Utonium’s loneliness and single-dad sadness. The villains didn’t seem so creepy, and the characters didn’t seem so complicated.
Although “Foster’s Home” is one of the more recent Cartoon Network shows (2004), it still holds a place in my heart. The show follows Mac, a little boy, and his imaginary blob-friend Bloo and their adventures in a foster home for imaginary friends. And the show is cute. It’s really, really cute. All of the imaginary friends are adorable, and it really encompasses everything a Cartoon Network cartoon should be.
Animation: 8/10
Rather than the strict, crude lines of “Dexter’s Lab” and “Courage,” “Foster’s Home” takes a new approach: a lot of of blotchy colors, no specific color scheme, scribbles. It was refreshing after seeing the other shows doing the same thing as each other.
Humor: 8/10
“Foster’s Home” used a lot of immature “kid-humor,” and I loved it. Every episode was stupid and hilarious; while that could definitely turn some people off of the show, it worked perfectly for me.
Nostalgia: 4/10
Simply due to it being more recent, I didn’t have a lot of memories connected to “Foster’s Home.” However, it was great creating new memories with the show that I didn’t have before. If, in 10 years, I end up re-watching the show, it’ll still be great.
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