Being a child of the 80's, I can tell you that cartoons make for some great sources of inspiration for role-playing games. Such shows are full of strange characters, weird worlds, high adventures, and it don't delude itself with a lot of realism or continuity (not to mention all the cool toy tie-ins). Although when converting these shows to an RPG, the unusual nature of these cartoons tend to be a hurtle with most players who opt to run it a pure way. This is because most role-players are grown people with mature notions, while cartoons are really awesome concepts that have been dumb-down to make them "kid-friendly" (well, more like "media-watchdog group friendly"). As a result, fights are nerfed with stun-weapons and robotic henchmen, characters and plots are dumb-down, and morality plays are forced into place. When video games - especially the older ones - are converted this way, items and monsters tend to act in the same way as they do on-screen, and for it, it all comes out all really goofy. That is, all bows magically eat money in Hyrule, and Moblins wander around until they see someone to throw a spear at, then wander off.
Consider He-Man. The concept for this is a Conan-like sword & sorcery with a lot of science fantasy elements, in a post-apocalyptic setting no less! Basically, the world of Eternia was torn by a long, protracted war that left behind a lot of strange magical and scientific relics from a bygone era. He-Man was a barbarian from the frozen north (sound familiar?) who received a number of powerful artifacts from a Sorceress after he saved her life. Skeletor was a powerful warlord-sorcerer from another dimension, who was trying to unlock the secrets of Grayskull, so he could continue to takeover one world after another. When it became a cartoon, He-Man became a soft-spoken superman, who has the alter-ego that plays-out like a gay pool boy. Filmation was notorious for bland character interaction, and deluding their programs with blunt morality plays, politically correct messages, and sappy PSAs (or creepy if you remember He-Man & She-ra talking about "getting touched in that special place"). In all the politically correct action, all the Sword & Sorcery elements got lost. The 2002 reboot did much to redeem the older show, but there is something nice about the untouched sandbox that was the original mini-comics.
When making such a fiction into a tabletop game, the
Purist Method would to keep the sappy elements of its own sake, while a
Working Model would retool the fiction like the '02 reboot did in order to make it more palatable for a more mature audience. On the other hand, I notice Grognards like to take the the original (forgotten) premise of something, ignore everything that came after, and making something unique and interesting from it. For example, I have seen a debate at an old-school D&D forum about how awesome Battlestar Galactica could have been if they had stuck with the original concept art that made it look more like a sword & sorcery version of Star Wars. I call this
Retroactive Foundation-Work, and I consider this a lot more creative then copying a fiction verbatim. With He-Man, it would be like making something unique out of the old mini-comics.
I have seen folks make source materials for cartoons (comicbooks, videogames, and such), but they usually go with the
Purist Method with little regard to making a good
Working Model. To me, a good cartoon (or equivalent) sourcebook looks at a show for what it has, then consider how it would have been without a bunch of
meddling executives and broadcast standards breathing down the necks of the writers and producers, and to present the ideas of these changes on sidebars if they seem relevant. So if you like a show and you what to make game materials for it then by all means, do it! Don't be afraid to make the good guys less goody-two-shoe (or a little more anti-heroic), the bad guys smarter or less monolithic, the action more raw & bloody, add more sensuality (you need not to make things perverted to do so), the world less forgiving, and so on, so the setting can be more palatable to fellow gamers of reasonable maturity.
I just spent a good part of the morning uploading 32 issues of Epic Illustrated at a site called Beware ,There's A Crosseyed Cyclops In My Basement!!! This comic book magazine is a lot like Heavy Metal magazine, with it's pulp-like selection of stories, and mature content. The Crosseyed Cyclops blog is a great place for back issues of old comics, magazines, and videos. I used it to load the complete collection of Komandi: the Last Boy on Earth, and Mighty Samson, so I can provide more info in the Mutant Future Wiki I have been working on. I really enjoy finding and reading the strange and obscure fiction found at that site. The only downside it having to deal with all the damn pop-ups and countdowns that crops up on Rapidshare and Magaload - if you are not careful, they might give your PC the AIDS or something from those pop-ups! But all-and-all, its worth it to find all those fantastic files.