I don’t think my mom would like her, given her fear of bats (or of anything that could fly into her hair).

@BarryFromMars
 
… “I did watch Nickelodeon but only learned the title of that episode later…”
 
And I also learned the title of the T.V. show at least eleven years later.

@Neo987
 
I don’t recall seeing many episodes of that T.V. show in the 1990s, I did watch Nickelodeon but only learned the title of that episode later when I looked for information about it on IMDB. However, I get the idea of what you’re saying; When I was younger I was very bored whenever I went to hardware stores (really, what did I have to do but stay with my parents and breathe then?) such as Lowe’s and Home Depot. So, one time I ended up pressing a button which started a light flashing which an employee responded to. (the button was intended that way, it wasn’t behind a counter.) Hey, It was something.

@BarryFromMars  
Pete & Pete was pretty cracked out. Even as a kid I thought of it as “the world from a kid’s imagination standpoint” show. My favorite Pete & Pete was when little Pete made friends with/had a crush on a girl that might have been an alien. Think back to when you were a kid and the things you came up with to make the mundane more interesting; it didn’t need to have a point as long as you weren’t bored.

@Neo987
 
I’ve seen them all. And there’s also the very first episode which directly says that someone died. That someone is the cab driver. And there’s also the Gremlin Clown episode (Not the Zeebo episode although the one I’m talking about has a cameo reference to the Zeebo episode) which my Mom told me that I was scared of when I watched it.
 
There’s also Pete & Pete. I watched one episode of that titled “Pinned” which is about a wrestling match, and in it Endless Mike ends up either killing kids from the wrestling team or just causes them to be unable to join (either way his goal was only to kick older Pete’s ass) - But, as for what he did to two of the guys on the team? one guy was sucked into a public restroom hand-dryer and another was slammed against a wall with a bed. I was then not fond of hand-dryers in public restrooms partially due to that episode for some time.
 
On another subject that’s rather random what’s with the Pete & Pete episode with the character “The Strongest Man In The World” wrestling a bowling ball?

@BarryFromMars  
Loved AYAotD. The show, while cheesy at times, was well told for the first few seasons, and endeared you to the characters of each story, making you feel for any change, fall, etc. The Goosebumps show tried the same, but didn’t quite succeed.
 
The episode you speak of is actually from season 2. Before that, there were quite a few other episodes that dealt closely with death: Frozen Ghost (one of my favorites), Locker 22, Prom Queen, and Lonely Ghost.

@Neo987
 
Alrighty. I’m recalling watching TV back in the 1990s; One of the first episodes (if not the very first one) that I watched of “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” is “The Tale of the Shiny Red Bicycle” and in it a kid falls off a bridge and dies in the first four minutes and for much of the episode, it talks about his death and shows the kid as a ghost. Are you familiar with that TV show?

@BarryFromMars  
Affirmative

@Neo987
 
Are you still subscribed to this thread?

@qmm1337  
Bat pony drama.

What the fuck is going in this thread?

@HJSDGCE  
Just wanted to share this.

@Neo987  
“Honey Boo Boo” is less an argument for mandatory parenting classes and is really more an argument in favor of eugenics than anything else.
 
That aside it is true that shows of the 80’s were full of things that, today, generally aren’t allowed anywhere near a childrens tv show. Anyone remember ‘Inhumanoids’? Seriously, that show was pretty over the top even for the standards of back then - and the standards of back then included things like villains flat out murdering ships full of civilians (SWAT KATS), enslaving entire races to become living psychic batteries to power robot armies (Galaxy Rangers), deaths of named characters (Bucky O’Hare), and of course a nudist civilization (Thundercats).
 
And that isn’t even all the kind of stuff that hung around childrens cartoons of the time - so, y’know, it’s a long way to get to that kind of thing from the kind of stuff we have today.

@Background Pony #E407  
You may be right. Adventure Time, MLP:FiM, Steven Universe… it does seem like more creators are starting to fight back and I hope the trend continues. I might just be a little too critical. I just see, every day, lazy parents on one side afraid to let children be children, and when I look the other way I see Honey Boo Boo and REALLY wish “Parenting Skills and Theory” was a mandatory class for all adults in the USA, taught by nonpartisan, degree carrying doctors that put intelligence, sense and knowledge before religion, politics, the “moral majority” and the illusion of “social acceptability”.

@Neo987  
I don’t know. While I agree with you almost completely, I do think that cartoons are starting to move back to that of less “sheltered” style. If a cartoon about cute ponies aimed at girls is pushing the limit of “sheltered” toons at times, you know that things are changing, if slowly.

@HJSDGCE  
By modern “standards” (read as “sheltering”), maybe. But I grew up with 80’s/90’s cartoons, as well as the golden age of Nickelodeon/Cartoon Network; having a vampire in a cartoon back then was nothing when characters were being shot at, smoking, getting drunk, dying or being portrayed as dying…
 
Modern cartoons, regardless of target audience, are soft. It’s all “political correctness” today to the point that, if you ask me, children are being underexposed to reality and aren’t being prompted to ask their parents “Why isn’t Bambi’s mom moving?”, “What did he drink and why is he acting funny?”, “Are vampires real?”, etc.
 
Has nobody ever heard of psychological self-censorship? Kids imitate what they see, sure. and it’s a parent’s job to stop the child and explain why it’s wrong, not rely on a board of censors while they worry if the ball they just bought for their teenager is too sharp. But if something’s too much for the child to bear they will instinctively self-censor (shut eyes, turn off TV, leave room, etc.) as long as there are no compounding issues. But triggering this self-censorship in the first place allows the child to test mental boundaries and learn personal limits. Audio-visual stimulation, be it TV, music, movies, video games, or what have you, aren’t risk factors. They’re developmental aides when used properly, in moderation, and under the supervision of a parent with more than half a brain cell.
 
Sorry. I took this far beyond any rational tangent. But modern “standards” piss me the hell off. They let parents be lazy and ruin the world for everyone, child and adult alike.
 
/angryrant

@HJSDGCE  
>Also, I’m really surprised that vampires in children cartoons are allowed.  
Have you rarely seen any children tv at all?  
Before the Twilight books things aimed at kids was one of the most common places to find vampires outside of anything horror related other then Buffy.

@gittonsxv  
Just the team.  
Never Hasbro.
 
Also, I’m really surprised that vampires in children cartoons are allowed.

this episode has vamp shy?  
YES, 10000 POINTS TO HASBRO AND THE TEAM!

@RIG  
Flutterbat as one of Luna’s personal guards.  
Fuck that, make her the captain of that team.

@RIG
 
Pretty much everyone has already mentioned them in this thread

is like everyone forgot these guys  

Flutterbat was a feral marebat resulting from a magical accident (and then cured, mostly), Kind of like the Wallace and Gromit Movie, except with bats instead of rabbits.
 
The Batponies pulling Luna’s carriage are part of her night guard (either existing as a separate races, Thestrals maybe?, or changed by Luna herself).
 
I think the reason for the flood of Batponies is the same reason why Luna or the changelings got so popular, we knew very little about them, so when we first saw them, with little fanfare in the show, people began speculating on who, what and how they are. We may get some clarification later, but for now, all we can do is speculate.

Batponies are not Vampire Batponies in the same way that Fruit Bats are not Vampire Fruitbats.

@Tenafly Viper  
Also concept art before they even begin animating and actual story writing if you wanna go even farther back