#1980s-cartoons

#1980s-cartoons

American Girl was acquired by Mattel for $700 million and drifted steadily away from what made it special. The historical characters were retired, replaced by contemporary dolls reflecting girls' lives today.

The Super Mario Super Show has started airing on MeTV using some kind of AI upscaling, and the results are as good as you'd expect. The original series wasn't some incredible production, but the AI has straight-up changed details and smoothed everything over in a weird, ugly way.

Cool Spot first appeared in 1987 to try to refresh the brand's image. The character was essentially an anthropomorphic version of the red dot in the 7Up logo. In commercials, the dot transformed into a tiny animated figure with sunglasses, sneakers, and a very cool 'tude. His chilled-out personality fit neatly into the brand's long-running "Uncola" positioning, which sought to frame 7Up as the cool and quirky alternative to traditional colas.

The hottest toy of 1998 was sort of adorable, and sort of annoying. It couldn't do much - couldn't do anything, really - but it could look at you, it could say some nonsense phrases, and it seemed uncannily aware of the world around it. That's all Furby needed to pretty much take over the world.

It influenced my idea of what animals and natural history were, almost before I knew what real animals in the real world were like. For some researchers, themes in the Pokémon games mirror their everyday work. Spencer Monckton, a research scientist at the University of Guelph in Canada, who grew up playing the games and watching the TV series, says that collecting Pokémon is very much the same thing as what an entomologist does.

Love it or hate it, Wizards of the Coast has leaned hard into its Universes Beyond subset of Magic: The Gathering cards as a way to collaborate with all manner of brands and IP, including Final Fantasy, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Marvel's Spider-Man, and soon, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This TMNT-themed set is an expansive release hitting card shops on March 6, and it includes the usual gamut of play and collector boosters, a Commander deck, chase cards, and more.

American Girl just announced that Historical dolls are being brought into 2026 to celebrate the company's 40th anniversary: Samantha has a shorter skirt and bare legs, Kirsten traded her looped braids for sassy space buns and Molly is sporting chain loafers. Addy, Josefina and Felicity also received updated looks.

We might be exposed to more ads and commercials today than ever before in human history, but the idea of advertising itself is certainly not a new concept. According to Instapage, the first signs of advertisements actually appeared in ancient Egyptian steel carvings from 2000 BC. Meanwhile, the first printed ad was published in 1472, when William Caxton decided to advertise a book by posting flyers on church doors in England.

It's dead, sadly. I say sadly because I actually thought there was something really special (and original!) there. Some truly extraordinary music we had figured out for it.

If you woke up too early on a Saturday, you'd turn on the TV to find... nothing. Just a test pattern or static. Television stations actually signed off at night and didn't start broadcasting again until morning. Can you imagine explaining this to kids today? That there was literally nothing to watch? No Netflix library, no YouTube, no endless content.

The Muppet Show is back and better than ever before. Well, not better, exactly. I guess a more accurate description would be exactly the same as. But after so many decades of failed attempts at keeping up with the times-after Muppets Now and Muppets Tonight and The Muppets Mayhem, not to mention the Office-style mockumentary series known simply as The Muppets-the Disney/ABC brain trust has realized that Jim Henson's frantic felt creations work best the way they always have.

The original closing date for the Museum of Brands' exhibition devoted to all things Gerry and Sylvia Anderson has been affected by a critical systems failure! After an emergency consultation between Tracy Island and Moonbase Alpha, a new flight plan has been authorised. Revised mission duration: now extended to 18th April 2026. Commander Koenig has confirmed there is no need to evacuate the gallery, Professor Bergman says the data is "far too valuable to abandon," and Doctor Russell has ruled out premature closure.