>>97071741Late 50s onward, you had the death of theater shorts with the rise of television. TV animation had a cheaper budget, so that's why the 60s look like of drab (same thing happened to Woody Woodpecker). The 70s and 80s were DARK times for most animated franchises, save for Disney who started to turn things around in 1985 with stuff like Gummi Bears.
The designs start to come back a bit with the 90s golden age, and I think the 2006-2008 design, while not like the 40s and early 50s designs, is a good, expressive, detailed design. The 2014 one is a step back down the quality latter, and actually makes the 06-08 design even more appealing.