This is beautiful.

@Amethyst_Crystal
 
I know that the two TV specials are generally considered to have pretty good animation for their time.

The consistency of the animation itself varied between episodes and stories.
 
I might make a list of ‘overall best looking’ G1 MLP ’n Friends episodes at some point. :P

@Background Pony #1804  
Meh, some of these 80s toons actually had rather fluid animation.

TBH, I prefer modern cartoons, where backgrounds are just good enough to efficiently fill the space around the characters, but the actual animation (like walk cycles or facial expressions) is more fluid and natural.

@Bexar Bandito  
Probably Toei. AKOM wasn’t so good at backgrounds either.

@Jarkes  
if i’m not mistaken, in the days of cel animation the backgrounds and the characters were designed by two completely separate teams within a company, with the two coordinating movement later in the production process. that’s why you sometimes see characters in old cartoons move their legs faster than they’re moving across the frame (this was especially pervasive in hanna barbera cartoons). as for why the backgrounds tend to look better, the background artists were generally better paid and had more time to work on their designs, resulting in beautiful and elaborate backdrops for bland-looking characters. filmation in particular was famous for having very talented background artists (this isn’t filmation though, this is either AKOM or toei.)

@Jarkes  
Because the backgrounds don’t have to move and it was thus feasible to do really detailed paintwork on them within the available production time.

Why is it that the backgrounds in 80’s cartoons always look much better than the character models?