Poll: New or Old School?

One thing I hear often from some of my older friends in the animation industry is that since the advent of computer-assisted 2D animation and the changes in styles to cut corners and adapt to the tastes of recent generations, animation quality has gone down the drain. It's too hasty, the plots are too racy and adult, the character designs don't work, and life would be better if we went back to the old days of Bugs Bunny and Tom the Cat - where cartoon violence may have been more graphic, dialogue may have been less politically correct, but dadgum it, at least it was done right!

As usual, I straddle the fence. I love old-school animations, and grew up on Looney Tunes long before I moved on to Tiny Toon Adventures and later successors to the Bugs Bunny legacy. I loved them all; I loved the classic slapstick and the skill and artistry it took to produce animation with nothing other than a pencil, paper, and manual tools, but at the same time I loved watching cartoons grow with the generations - brightening in colors, smoothing out, adapting storylines to suit the needs of their decade's children (and some adults). Granted, I can see where some shows cut corners to produce as much content as possible, and understand bemoaning it; tools that provide animation shortcuts should be used only where they can improve, rather than anywhere possible. But at the same time, animation techniques have improved drastically, leaving it a bit of a tossup in the middle...so I'm left wondering what others think. Do you prefer new or old school animations?

• Old school, definitely. The classic days were better.
• New school. We've come too far to ignore the improvements.
• I love both, regardless.
• I can see the merits and flaws in both, and stand somewhere in the middle.
• I don't really care either way.
• Other/will explain in comments.

Current Results

Have you voted in last week's poll? American animation, Japanese animation, or other?

Brief point of interest: If you follow the show 24 and will be missing it on TV this season, Degree Men (no, that's not product placement at all) and Fox have launched a series of online webisodes based on the show, called The Rookie. If you're missing your 24 fix, head on over and check it out. Not really of much interest to this site since it's not animated, but the Flash interface is pretty nice.