Special Article Review

Hello, Retrojunkies! I am your fellow member, dalmatianlover. In honor of this being my 20th article on Retrojunk, I'm doing something a little different. I thought I'd recap all my past articles and share some of the fond memories I've had with each of them as well as what I've learned from the past.


I stumbled onto this site about 2 years ago. I found this site through a post advertised on a MySpace group I was on made for fans of the 80's, and I thought it was a cool site for me to look at classic commercials. When I joined the site, another member found the comments I've been making on the commercials to be hillarious (even though most of the time, I wasn't intending to be funny).


One day, he suggested I write an article. I took a look at some of the other articles that other members have made. I found some of them to be very interesting. They also gave me an idea of how an article on this site should be. I carefully thought about what I should write about, and throughout my time on this site, I've made numerous articles on various retro topics. As far as responses go, I've gotten different kinds of responses. I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly.



For my very first article, I decided to make one about "101 Dalmatians: The Series". This 1997 cartoon series was a very special and important part of my childhood, because once I started watching it, my life was changed forever. That should be a good enough reason for making this retro article. Most people who claim that they've never seen this series either haven't seen it or don't remember it, but those who do remembered it loved it. I don't think I've met anyone online who hated this show, but I knew there had to be at least one, and I found one. Take a look at this comment below. This was an actual comment made by someone on that particular article:


Wow! What an asshole!



My follow up article was a video game article. There have been several video game articles on Retrojunk, and most of them were Top 10 lists or something like that. For my first video game article, I decided to take people into the Video Game Vault and talk about a handful of underrated video games in no particular order that I've played in the past. Some of which I enjoyed, and others, not really. Pretty much everyone who read this article appreciated it, and some told me about other underrated games. For the most part, I'd say this was a pretty successful article.



My third article was my first Top 10 list. This one got numerous good and bad responses (unlike my previous two). Maybe I didn't choose an appropriate title, for one thing. This article was basically a list of my Top 10 favorite 90's cartoons, so maybe I should have called it something like that. Anyway, the people who loved this article were obviously children of the 90's or 90's fans, but most of the comments I've gotten were people giving me their Top 10 lists. The people who hated the article hated it either because there was a show on my list that they didn't like or one of their favorites didn't make the list. Here's an example:


I was a child of the 90's! I didn't grow up on those shows as a kid!

Yeah, most 90's fans loved shows like "The Simpsons" or "Beavis and Butthead". However, throughout reading a long list of comments, I've discovered that one of the most memorable cartoons of the 90's is...


Now, I have nothing against the fans, but this was a series I never really got anything out of. To me, this show was just plain boring. While it is very action-packed, everything is so dark and quiet, and every time I watched it, it put me to sleep. That's just me. I know other people have different opinions.

I also found a comment that misunderstood something that I said:

Some people don't understand a little something we call Use of Imagery.

The quote from my article was this: "I am a little dissappointed that Pokemon went away just as the Power Rangers and the Ninja Turtles did (but the Ninja Turtles have been making quite a comeback lately)." When I said that those shows "went away", I meant that back in the day, they were fads, and today, they're no longer popular, not that they got cancelled. As for the Ninja Turtles thing, I was referring to the fact that a lot of old-school Ninja Turtle fans have been talking a lot about how cool they were.

Ahem, alright, enough with this article...



For my next video game article, I decided to do a little thing based on my memories of the Sega Genesis. I did a Top 5 list of the worst games I ever played for that system. These were just games that were all just really frustrating and not in the least memorable. This article got some thumbs down ratings, and it turned out to not be a popular article at all. Still, I would say that if James Rolfe has any of the games I listed, he should definately check them out.



For my fifth article, I made a list of the Top 10 worst movies I have ever seen in my entire life. This was by far the only article I made that got moved to the back page. There were numerous reasons why it did. For one thing, I badly ripped off the Angry Video Game Nerd. If I'm gonna write an article on here, I should do it in my own passion, and not do it in the style of someone else on the Internet who's famous. The main reason people hated this article is because there were a couple movies that made my list that they liked. Take a look at the comment below:


As you can see, three of the movies that made my list turned out to be favorites of many. "Animal House", "The Brave Little Toaster" and "Moonraker". "Animal House" I can understand since that seems to be a popular movie. "The Brave Little Toaster" I guess I can understand since even though it was pretty bad concept, it wasn't one of the worst movies of the 80's (just to be fair with the fans). I don't understand, however, why so many people like "Moonraker" so much. That's the hands down worst movie in the James Bond series. It's James Bond in space, which would equal an automatic failure. So what if it's the only movie where Jaws talks? Bond and "in space" just don't go together. Remember, this is all based on matter of opinion.

Now, there was also something that a lot of people misunderstood. For some reason, they thought I said that I hated "The Land Before Time".


What the heck are you talking about? I never said that!

To clear things up, this is what I said in that part that they read: "Now, the 80's were a good era for animated movies. Take a look at such classics like "The Land Before Time" and "The Chipmunk Adventure"." I was trying to tell you that "The Land Before Time" is a great movie, not a bad movie! I made another article that proved my point, but we'll get to that one later.



I've noticed that for a lot of retro fans, the 80's stands out as the most memorable decade of all time. In honor of that, I decided to make an article basically talking about some of the big things to hit pop culture in the 80's. Such included Ghostbusters, the Ninja Turtles, Back to the Future, and MTV. With this article, I really knew how to please a reader. Even though it seemed like a simple article, it still very much got a lot of appreciation being that a majority of the members on this site are 80's fans.



For my next article, I did a little tribute to the Nicktoons. There were already a ton of articles on here about people giving their thoughts on the Nicktoons of the past and how the current ones rank up. Those articles inspired me to do this one. Basically, I went through each Nicktoon one by one starting with the very first one ("Doug") all the way to the most recent one I can remember before I stopped watching Nickelodeon ("Invader Zim"). As far as responses went, I got some medioker responses on this article, but I admit that it was pretty well-written.



I next decided to do an article based on my memories of the Bullwinkle's restaurant. I probably wouldn't have been able to pull this one off had it not been for a little site known as "Wikipedia". This article didn't get a lot of feedback, but all the comments I've been getting were positive comments, so I feel that I did bring back a lot of memories with this article.



Alrighty, then. Article #9 of mine focused on my thoughts about the change of animation these days. Like my Top 10 90's Cartoons article, this article saw a lot of ups and downs as far as responses go. The people who loved the article understood how I felt about computer animation replacing cartoon-style animation. The people who hated it found a lot of inaccuracies in the animation history portion of my article; some of which made bulk comments making such a huge deal about it.

I'm talking to you, Colonel Gentleman!

I mean, look at this! This is just from a single comment on my article, and this is only half of the comment:

What a comment! It's bigger than the article itself! And once again, they're misinterpretting "use of imagery".

I should have spent a little more time on writing the article, and should have researched it better. I didn't know that "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was not the very first feature-length animated film ever made, but that doesen't mean that I'm stupid! One thing I didn't know (as did many other Americans) was that there were a few animated movies that were released before "Snow White". Those films, however, weren't released in the US at the time of their theatrical release. Despite Colonel Gentlemen's chagrin, this is one of the articles I feel most proud of. If I was given the opportunity to rewrite this article, however, I would have done it.



My tenth article I was planning to have be something special. I wanted to make a tribute to Thurl Ravenscroft, one of my all-time favorite voice tallents. I saved this article specifically to be released on the 2-year anniversary of his death. When I posted it, I was very surprised that the article got so much appreciation. It's amazing how many have appreciated the man behind the Frosted Flakes mascot.


See? I'm not a horrible writer.



Next up in my lineup is an article that talked about my memories of Disney's 1 Saturday Morning. That's right, the Saturday morning block on ABC that ran from 1997 - 2002 that was intended to replace the Disney Afternoon did hold some of my fondest childhood memories (at least the first season did). Like my Nicktoons article, I got some medioker responses on this article, and I was a little amazed that a lot of people agreed with my thoughts on "Science Court". For the uninitiated, I thought that show sucked. Anyway, I found this to be one of my most well-written articles and another article I feel most proud of.



I next decided to do a little "Then and Now" look at Disneyland. I've been going to Disneyland since the year I was born, and I've seen numerous attraction changes. This article talked about some of the past attractions at Disneyland and what's in their place now. I got a lot of good responses on this article. Most of the poeple who commented on the article haven't been to Disneyland for years, and some not even at all! I did bring back a lot of memories to hardcore fans of the park, though.



Alright, here's an article that took a bit of a downfall. For my first music article, I made an article that listed what I thought were the Top 20 best songwriters in the history of Rock n Roll. The people who loved it were pleased that I put some people like Pete Townsend and David Bowie on my list, and they found my #1 choice to be acceptable. The people who hated it hated it for the exact same reason:

It's quite obvious that there were tons of other songwriters that I left out: Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, John Denver, etc. There were quite a few that I was intending to put on my list but accidently left off. If it were possible to put all of the great songwriters on the list, I would have done that. Still, I kept getting the same responses: "Pfft! Where's Kurt Cobain?" "Pfft! Where's Bob Marley?" People have different opinions, and I can't put more than 20 names on a Top 20 list, but that doesn't mean that I suck at life.


There was a similar article on this site where someone known as Celeste made a list of her Top 10 favorite drummers. That article took a bit of a downfall too because a lot of people were displeased the fact that she put Ringo Starr as her #1 (which obviously indicates that she's a huge Beatles fan). They were even more dismayed that she put him over John Bonham and Keith Moon (At least she mentioned them!) and failed to mention Neil Peart (Maybe she's not a Rush fan or doesn't know who Peart is.).

There are tons of artists out there, and it's hard to not talk about them all. I mean it too. We'll get to that one sometime later.



Shortly afterwards, I suddenly got onto a Care Bears kick, since I had just revisited for the first time in years the original "Care Bears" movie. I was a huge Care Bears fan in the 80's. Colorful bears that lived up in the clouds and shot lasers out of their stomachs. It was bad ass! This article revisited my memories of the classic Care Bears movies from the 80's. As far as responses went, I did bring back a lot of memories to Care Bears fans. Someone suggested I write an article on the Care Bears TV series. You want to know what I thought of the series? Next time.



My next article was a Top 5 list of what I thought were the most memorable games in the Kirby series. Since I happen to be a big fan of the Kirby games, I thought I'd do this. Again, this article didn't get a lot of feedback, but I did get a lot of good responses from other Kirby fans.



I next decided to make a Top 10 list of what I thought were the best animated movies of the 80's. This article got tons of positive feedback. Each movie on my list turned out to be a favorite to most people. However, quite a few people have told me that there was one specific animated movie from the 80's that should have made my list:

Apparantley, there was a G.I. Joe movie. I didn't know there existed such a movie. All I knew about the G.I. Joe franchise was that there were video games, a cartoon series, and of course a line of action figures. All I know about G.I. Joe as far as movies go is that there is a new live action G.I. Joe movie in the works right now.

So you just assume that everybody on the planet has seen that movie? You'd better watch what you say. You could hurt a guy's feelings saying something like that.

Ignoring comments like these...

...this is another article that I feel most proud of.



As time continued, I decided to make an article about the major changes television had since the 80's and 90's. There were already a lot of articles on here where people ranted about how TV sucks now, but most of them only focused on one channel or subject matter. Also, there were some who didn't give valid explanations as to why they think they suck. This article of mine, on the other hand, focused on various networks and I actually described how much they've changed in good detail. This article, of course, did get a lot of positive feedback. Even though the article might have been inaccurate in some places, I was very passionate, and a majority of Retrojunk aggreed with what I said. The haters of the article said the exact same things to all those other articles like this one:

This turned out to be another article that I feel most proud of. Why? Well, I pretty much explained why in this whole section!



As we move on, my next article was similar to my Nicktoons article. This one, however, focused on Cartoon Network's Cartoon Cartoon series'. While some may think these cartoons are not retro enough, they still hold some of my fondest memories. What kind of surprised me is the fact that I got a lot of good comments from fans of the shows. The only bad comments I got were from people who hated the shows and were obviously fans of the "golden age" of animation.



My most recent article was a little article about the band, Queen. This article focused on the band's albums and some of their history. I had a feeling this article would get a lot of good ratings since there seem to be a ton of Queen fans out there. In fact, I don't know a single person who hates this band. This article only got one bad comment:

This guy's obviously a critic.



I had just given you all a retrospective of my 20 articles on Retrojunk. As far as comments go, maybe I'll get good comments for my good analogy, or maybe I'll get bad comments because people don't like the subject matter. Who knows? Maybe this article will get sent to the back page the day it gets posted. Either way, I guess I'll just have to live with it. People like to criticize. Believe me, I know about criticizing...


So, in conclusion, I'm just going to say that I hope you enjoyed reading this article and that you look forward to reading my next articles. If you didn't like it, then look forward to some better articles in the future. Thanks for reading; dalmatianlover has spoken.