I mean some aspects like MAVO (Monsters and Villain Organization) don't appear in 8 episodes in but it either has arcs like the first five episodes having Teddy and his friend Grubby meeting Newton Gimmick who they remain with the rest of the show, plus some Crystal treasure which were once the source of power for the place they were found in.
Even with say episode 6 being a breather, it introduces for example an invention used for the next episode and story.
It can be argued the other way around in our gen trying to appear superior to later gens. That said it's not the exception, just some stuff like Transformers, G.I.Joe for example are iffy.
Some others that come to mind for quality The Raccoons (*), The Real Ghostbusters (Before the Q5 sabotage), Duck Tales (Still like the 2017 version), Gummi Bears, Beginning of Garfield & Friends (On Tubi TV entirely with the old Garfield TV specials).
Flawed but Dungeons & Dragons, also to a point the solo Spider-Man cartoon as well.
(*)Going to check for a thread on The Raccoons and if none, I'll make that with notes of it having YT distribution.
I'd say Sturgeon's Law holds true for '80's cartoons, much as with pretty much everything else. For every Dungeons and Dragons (a great cartoon, in my opinion—one of my favorites from childhood) there's Rubik the Amazing Cube, Lady Lovelylocks, Meatballs and Spaghetti, and a host of other cartoons that have been justly forgotten. As Mark Evanier has said, they were frequently up against so many challenges to quality that it's amazing more shows weren't worse garbage more often—Evanier said he often counted it a success if he could make something suck moderately less than it did before he was assigned to it.
The shows we remember as being good tried very hard to be good, and sometimes achieved it. I wouldn't say most 80's cartoons still hold up, but I'd say that the best of them do. The main difference between then and now, in my opinion, is that 80's cartoons, when at their best, were as good as anything today, but the cartoons of today, at their worst, aren't as bad as cartoons of the '80's were at their worst.
Edited by Robbery on Sep 1st 2024 at 8:20:58 AM

Rare example of Western one that is serialized without being a full on drama.
And it has a legit distribution on You Tube thanks to Jim Henson's Family Hub: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLifn29u_lcacGQzckLpwpsCrhp5Hr42Wz
Edited by Antiyonder on Sep 1st 2024 at 10:37:49 AM