Hi 5 to the OP for mentioning some of the best cartoons of all time from back in the day!
I can tell you what happened - Power Rangers. Live action kids shows started appearing and were horrible yet successful. It takes less time to film actors than to have to draw thousands of frames for a 20 minute show. Producers took the easy way out. Power Rangers would lead to things like Teletubbies and other brain damaging live action shows. This was a time period where older cartoon fans made a big switch to Anime, a la Pokemon, Dragonball Z and the like.
There were some cool, lesser known cartoons in the 80s too, like Dragon's Lair (based off an arcade game!) and Gummi bears (came before Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers)
The Carnival of Shadows - Folk Punk from Asbury Park, New Jersey
http://www.thecarnivalofshadows.com
