Silver Age, specifically the '90's for both Western cartoons and anime. Besides having the privilege to barely grow up in that decade (my earliest childhood memories date back to 1998 or 1999), it's quite obvious from my personal art style that I've been heavily influenced by '90's Nickelodeon in particular--stuff like Season 1 SpongeBob, Ren and Stimpy and Rocko's Modern Life. Of course, the '90's was also perhaps the last great decade for Disney, producing stuff as monumental as The Lion King or cult classics like The Goofy Movie. All the main animation styles, traditional 2D cel, cut-out animation, stop-motion and of course early attempts at CGi like Toy Story and Reboot all seemed to be able to peacefully co-exist in the '90's before CGi kicked out 2D animation in particular in the West (thankfully it at least seems to be the opposite in Japan, where 2D anime remains king outside of animating mechs and we seem to have yet to reach a "Toy Story" moment for CG-only anime after all these years).
YouTube has been a surprisingly good place to look at '90's animation that unfortunately didn't get as much attention as Renaissance-Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network back when cable TV in general was good, or hugely-popular anime like Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon or Pokemon. Recently I've discovered the likes of Serial Experiments Lain, the '90's anime adaptation of Berserk, MS Gundam 0083: Stardust Memories, Samurai Pizza Cats, The Twisted World of Felix the Cat (sort of the "CupHead Show" of its day), Beetlejuice, various shows naturally based on Jim Carrey's most popular movies at the time, that weird Donkey Kong Country cartoon, and most recently, Space Goofs. Seriously, how did I get this far in life without discovering Space Goofs?! It's like Ren and Stimpy without the baggage of being associated with John K or anyone like him--as far as I know, this is a French cartoon we're talking about, after all...
