Top Cartoons of the 80s

A show that served as a vehicle for action figure advertisements, G.I. Joe was brilliant in its premise and execution - little boys like violence and blowing things up, ergo lets make a glorified war propaganda cartoon and sell 10 tons of soldier dolls and plastic jets. Even more amazing were the zero casualties between Cobra and Joe throughout their decades long war.

Starting as little more than a clever way to sell toys, little kids became obsessed with these sentient robots from another galaxy who change into crappy cars and cassette tapes. For me personally, I remember few things as traumatic to my six year old psyche as watching Optimus Prime die in the original Transformers Movie. He was the Autobots ROCK!

Make no mistake, this cartoon was terrible. I mean, dancing mice? It didn't matter though, because it had GIANT LION ROBOTS who combined into a crazy mecha warrior and, more importantly, TOYS of GIANT LION ROBOTS. I owned the original Voltron toy set, each lion was made of metal and weighed like six pounds. You kill kill someone with the black lion. "...and I'll form THE HEAD!"

He-man was saved by a cool villain. You have to love Skeletor - his premise sucked - he was an evil skeleton, but for some reason the dopey name and the creepy castle and the raspy voice worked. Oh, and Prince Adam was such a tool I knew he was lame when I was seven.

I have no idea why this silly show resonates so much with my generation but rest assured, if you were born in the late 70s/early 80s you know the name Lion-O. Possibly the best creepy/stupid villain ever in MUM-RA, an old frial mummy who transforms into a....younger, muscular mummy.