My golden age of cartoons.

I want to let you in on something: I love cartoons. A little strange coming from a 25-year-old man and college grad (twice over!), I know, but it's true. And looking at the shows currently airing, it makes me feel...glad. Glad that I grew up in a time where cartoons were consistently entertaining, allowing me to be a little more discerning in my old age. I'll get to that later, but let me start off with my upbringing.

Like a lot of people, I was reared on "Looney Tunes". Less distinguished were the likes of "Care Bears" and, well, a number of Saturday morning toons from the '80s. The '90s rolled around and, in addition to the greatly entertaining "Garfield and Friends", there were the shows of the Disney Afternoon. I haven't seen many of the shows in years, so who knows if "DuckTales" and "Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers" will still hold up or if, like Super Fuzz or that Fat Boys movie, they'll be something that passes muster in childhood, but is impossible to sit through now.

Also, the turn of the decade brought the enjoyable "Tiny Toon Adventures", the first of several fine programs from Warner Bros. Television Animation. The humor, music and voice work kept me watching, even when the uneven animation and stories disrupted the fun. And, thankfully, it still holds up, esp. the later episodes when the writers pretty much bypassed the kids and injected more mature humor.

Little did I know at the time that this would be the first in a long line of shows that would entertain me. Over the next couple of years, I still watched cartoons, mainly on the burgeoning Fox Kids Network, as well as Disney's "Raw Toonage" (CBS) and "Bump in the Night (ABC). Also, Nickelodeon has started airing original cartoons: "Doug", "Rugrats" and "Ren and Stimpy".

However, I think it was my high school years when my golden age of cartoons occured. Let's see...there was "Rocko's Modern Life" on Nick and "Animaniacs" on Fox. "Freakazoid!" on Kids' WB and "Eek! the Cat" on Fox, both of which it took time to get into, and "Pinky and the Brain" had been spun-off into prime-time.

Airing on USA was the irreverent and uproarious "Duckman". With its pointed social commentary and bawdy humor, it was the must-watch-without-parental-knowledge show of my formative years.

MTV got into the act with "Daria", spun from "Beavis and Butt-head" (as amusing as it was at times, I never really got into B&B).

As I headed for upperclassmanship, I stumbled onto Nickelodeon's "The Angry Beavers", still the net's finest animated series. "Student Bodies" was an odd bird, but a hugely enjoyable one: the show revolved around a high school newspaper and the comics from a new student, enacted in crudely designed but funny animated sequences. As a Savage Steve Holland (Better Off Dead, the aforementioned "Eek!") devotee, this show was a pleasant surprise.

As I head to college, the good cartoon times were over, right? Wrong! Fox Kids delivered "Sam and Max: Freelance Police", "Ned's Newt" and "Toonsylvania". MTV stepped up the entertainment level with the funny and inventive "Downtown", "Undergrads", "3-South" and "Clone High". Among Cartoon Network's myriad of original shows, "Cow and Chicken" and especially "Sheep in the Big City" stood out for their humor. Nickelodeon's "KaBlam!" was maddeningly uneven (then again, for a show compiling several different recurring shorts, how could it not be?), but "Sniz and Fondue" and "Action League NOW!" were sure-fire in the laughter department.

With the primetime boom of the late '90s came a number of shows: "Futurama", "The PJs", "Family Guy", "Clerks" and "Home Movies" (which I admit to discovering years later on Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim").

Meanwhile, during the day - Saturday, mainly, there was "The Weekenders", "X-Men: Evolution", "Detention" (which was derided as a rip-off of "Recess", but, personally, I like this show better), "Pelswick" and "Fillmore". And while I'd caught a few episodes of "Sailor Moon", I've long considered "Tenchi Muyo" (airing on Cartoon Network's "Toonami", likewise its spin-offs) my first true anime experience.

So...what happened? Why did this golden age not last forever like I hoped it would?

Find out in the next column.