The first post here, and the reason for this thread was this comment:
Back during the boom period, I thought Disney had many cartoon series running... [the rest of the Disney TV output] is composed of live action sitcoms...I was pointing out that there are MANY, MANY more cartoons currently running. At least as many as during the better, earlier years.
What your initial comment seems to have evolved into is something akin to "there aren't as many cartoons currently on that appeal to me"/"the current crop isn't as good as the heydays."
And either - maybe both - of those statements might well be true objectively AND subjectively: presumably both are (more or less) true
for you. And that's fine. But Disney as a company and channel is demonstrably
NOT running out of animated ideas - they have many animated shows on, recently-on and in development.
Are they as good? Maybe. Are they skewed/aimed towards a different age range/audience? Possibly. But you have to bear in mind the many shifts that have happened: Disney movies typically aim for "PG" rather than "G" ratings now, because market research says that many children shy away from cartoons that they think are aimed younger than they consider themselves to be. At the same time, American (and many Western) audiences still think "cartoons" (and "comics") are
ONLY aimed at children, and young children at that. So added to both of those perceptions, plus the near-requirement that there be 'safe' shows for children* and the need/desire for Disney as a company and channel to aim at a young audience (both for educational reasons and for more nefarious marketing intentions), you get a lot more cartoons that are aimed at the younger end of the audience.
It may be a shame that the heyday of clever animated fare seems to have segued into a splintering of the familial audience - perhaps that's no surprise: families don't (we read) watch shows together; audiences are fractured and people are able to tailor their viewing habits more than ever - and that we are currently living in a golden age of 'adult' serialised TV may also play it's part. But the late-80s/early-90s output of (particularly) the US and UK that so many people-of-a-certain-age look back on fondly is a) over, b) great and c) perhaps not entirely as non-childish as some recall. Certainly there were shows like Animaniacs, Pinky & the Brain and Tiny Toon Adventures that still work wonderfully on a dozen different levels; certainly there were shows like Duck Tales and Chip 'n' Dale and Dangermouse that hold up well - but all of those are also clearly a lot more facile and "formulaic" when viewed through adult eyes.
There were shows spinning out of films back then: Jumanji, Beetlejuice, MiB, Ace Ventura, The Mask and (so I learned many years after the fact!) Disney films like Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. There are shows riding the coattails of big budget films now, although much is merely superhero fare that ostensibly re-adapts the comics source material and follows such well-loved heyday shows as The X-Men and Batman: The Animated Series. But those are out there, too (albeit non-Disney).
Also, the best of Phineas & Ferb can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the height of Animaniacs.
Many of the rest of the current Disney cartoons - and live action shows - are perhaps lesser fare... but they DO exist.
I tend to think that the live action 'children's' shows "aren't as good" these days, either. But I'd not a kid any more, and while I can still be nostalgic for shows like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Demon Headmaster, Aquila and The Queen's Nose (et al.), it often only seems to be those that adapted earlier material ('classic' books and comics, for instance) that actually hold up - and even those that hold up are still clearly not as clever in retrospect as they seemed at the time. Except
Maid Marian and Her Merry Men. Which is utterly superb.
*Not least so certain parents can use a whole channel as a babysitter....