as a child of the 80's, the new strawberry shortcake and rainbrow brite made something inside me die a little.

but it's the dora the explorer that makes me feel worst for the current generation of kids. how you gonna EXPLORE with long flowy doll-hair and dainty little flats?!?

I'm not even sure what to make of the whole "taller, thinner, more make-up" redesigns of female characters that are supposed to be children. The continuing sexualization of pre-teen girls in our culture really astonishes me.

Aww, I just watched my entire childhood go up in flames. I'm going to have to see if I can find my old Rainbow Brite books so I can gain a bit of it back.

It's times like these that I'm so glad I don't want children...I can't imagine what it's like for parents to have to try to raise their kids when they're surrounded by these kinds of cartoon role models (because, yeah, at that age cartoon characters are your role models). It's bad enough that teenage girls have always been taught they ought to be thin, leggy, stylish, makeup-wearing girls, now they're trying to make pre-teens think they should be, too? And the redesign isn't helping young boys, either, who already are taught that they should be macho and muscular and bulletproof. It isn't as if gender role stereotypes aren't prevalent enough as is. -.-'

Does the new Rainbow Brite look like they ripped off a Lisa Frank folder cover to anyone else? Or is that just me?

If the GI Joe movie is on this list with all these other makeover failures, I'm certainly not going to bother watching it.

It IS hard when your five year old step-daughter tells you she wants to wear eye makeup because that's what her idol Hannah Montana does. She still has an old-school Strawberry Shortcake, but she loves Hannah and High School Musical (which her mother encourages, along with telling her that some things are BOY THINGS and some are GIRL THINGS, but I digress). When the only store in town that has toys is Walmart, and they have two toy aisles, one marked "Girls" with hot pink and Bratz dolls, and the other marked "Boys" with Star Wars, GI Joe, etc (don't ask about educational toys. According to Walmart, they apparently don't exist), it gets really interesting trying to raise tolerent, open to different gender role-interpretation kids.

add polly pocket to this list!! she looks like barbie now

"Hey, New Rainbow Brite, you're on at 10 p.m. tonight and you need to give the D.J. your music early or you'll be opening with "Cherry Pie" again."
LOL!!

I loved Rainbow Brite and Strawberry Shortcake when I was little... but I didn't like the way they looked back then. I mean I wanted to wear clothes just like them, but it always bothered me that they didn't look like me. I was never cute and chubby like they were; I was a skinny little twerp.

Sorry. Dora didn't get a makeover. That's some other Nick Jr character in the pic beside her.

Oh wow, that looks like fun dude.

Jess
www.privacy-tools.de.tc

you forgot carebears..........

My Little Pony is even worse than you posted. They were redesigned late in 2009 and don't even look like horses anymore. Now they're some sort of big-eyed, giant-headed, pastel-colored aliens. My daughters were crushed.

It was a nice read, but your pictures were confusing. It would have been better if you kept the consistency by putting all the remade on the left side and all the originals on the right side. I think it would have been better that way.

there is nothing I need to watch about a half-baked live-action remake of Joe.

The Baronness was bangin' in that movie; worth it just for her.

cute...nice post..the characters are ridiculious but they look cute :-)

check out Holly Hobbie too... sad. :(

Adults of today has really killed the childhood. Now we may have different opinions here and mine is that we are stealing every single one of the kids stuff to pleasure ourselves. Just look at the transformers movie. Regardless of their quality, I simply can not take my 6 year old kid to see the glorified sex symbol of Megan Fox. I heard that there are talks of making Thundercats and frankly I am scared of the outcome after looking at what they are doing to weekend morning cartoons that are turned into movies.

Anyways. So is Megan Fox will be playing live action movie of Dora trapped exploring playboy mansion?

Say it ain't so ... ANGELINA BALLERINA???!!! My kids had all the books. How could they destroy such a beloved character?

Every one of these remakes was to make the characters more athletic. I guess corporate sponsors don't want to be accused of encouraging fat kids. Stupid, on so many levels.

OMG. I had no idea this was happening. Dora is the biggest shock to me. I was watching that with the grandtyke only a couple of years ago and she still looked like the original. The remake is just awful.

I know comics and cartoons are often confused, but Archie had that Mystery show remember, just like Martin Mystery, but it was Archie, so the Betty and Veronica with the pug noses we've known over the years are now cosmetically modified to slender noses. Where was the Comics Code Authority on that disgrace?

Here's a Dora the Explorer parody you might like?? http://hidensneek.com/2009/03/20/teenage-dora-the-explorer-trying-to-find-herself/

I can't believe Care Bears is not on the list (I mean, they look like weird little aliens now!). I have more to add: Scooby-Doo (not just the new cartoon, but the attempt to make him girly), Holly Hobbie (which pretty much just looks like the new Strawberry Shortcake now), Garfield (why does everything have to be CGI now?), Blue's Clues (when they made Blue a talking puppet? WTF?), Archie (the weird soap-opera comics they're doing now)...I can bring up more, but I won't.

Hannah Montana is a teenager, as are the kids in HSM; they aren't five, so it really shouldn't be so incredibly challenging to take the time to explain to your stepdaughter that certain things are for *gasp* teens or tweens.
And the Ponies have been leggy since the early 90s. Stretching here, people, stretching. If you don't have 10 items to bitch about then don't invent stuff to round out an otherwise worthy post; just bitch about the actually disturbing stuff.

Great collection. That Woodsy Owl? What a disaster!

I made this one of the three links on today's Other Thought for the Day blog:
http://otherthoughtfortheday.blogspot.com/2010/02/02-17-cartoon-redesign-fails-new-music.html

All the best, Ted

Oh, I like the new Dora. I'd heard there was this huge controversy about her being incredibly sexualized and, I've gotta admit, I was ready and excited I'd get to call Dora whore. But I guess I'll have to keep that one in the back burner, she just looks like my nieces' plus some bling.

Pst said:
Sorry. Dora didn't get a makeover. That's some other Nick Jr character in the pic beside her

That is Dora. That is just the difference between 5 year-old Dora and 10 year-old Dora.

Actually, G.I. Joe has had more makeovers than Joan Rivers. I remember the original 11 inch tall Joe's that had metal rivets in their joints. Then they got fuzzy beards, kung fu grip, more outfits than Barbie, and even a giant Jeep. And all this was before they got shrunk to inch a half tall ninjas.

Aside from the make over of all these female characters what about changes made to the ninja turtles... They look more like an adult gang than a bunch of teenage turtles...

I'm with Paul on the whole Rainbow Brite = Lisa Frank ripoff. That was the first thing I thought when I saw her revamp.

I'm so happy I was a kid in the '80s.

I made the mistake of watching G.I. Joe thinking I would recapture part of my youth. Instead, that fantasy went up in flames along with Paris. The rest just strike me as a sick joke. They're somehow far too...perfect. They all strike me as the girl in the pageant or the perfection of the specimen (thinking the Michelin Tire Man and Woodsy Owl).

And opening with "Cherry Pie again" is absolutely brilliant. I remember watching Warrant on Johnny Carson perform that song when the album first came out and it is just completely fitting.

Having looked at Lisa Frank's work, I agree. New Rainbow strikes me as a ripoff. Great post. Thanks for killing my dreams of returning to youth. ;)

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I say all this remake crap is b.s. Why can't they come up with something new for this generation. Everything, movies shows characters, are just remakes. There's no originality anymore. Everything's just remade. It all makes me want to vomit

I'll be the first to admit it then, I like the new Owl better. (But, then again, I didn't grow up with him.)

I'm pissed off at the new Smokey the Bear commerical I just saw that portayed him as CGI.

Sorry admin - my post is test