Hmmm, well I'm not sure if I agree with Bob about the Internet, though I agree Freakazoid was an overlooked gem.
Simply put I think The Internet could have been everything that was promised, and it does indeed have all of those positive promises contained within, but it was introduced badly. I think half the problem is arguably the degree it was made accessible and how it was changed for accessibility. If it had remained a powerful tool, something people had to actually practice to use and reap the rewards, it would have been fine.
I think technology is something that can bring about self improvement by forcing people to adapt to use it, it's when you dumb everything down to the lowest human denominator that technology and it's promises fail, because it falls into mediocrity and pretty mych stays there.
Kids have shown they can rapidly learn new and complicated technologies if introduced to begin with. The problem was when "they" wanted to get those who were already complete people and who weren't nerds online, which meant changing everything for the tech-ignorant and making things simpler and dumber, instead of increasingly more powerful.
To an extent I think Freakazoid wasn't really prophetic of what happened, he wind up becoming what he was because of the explosive potential of the internet, combined with youthful enthusiasm, ans what I think was supposed to be a metaphor for what your nerd was holding pent up inside, and was going to see an avenue of expression. At the end of the day the guy was a Freakazoid, but he did great things and saved the day. In reality we wound up where we are now not so much because of 4-chan and groups like that, as much as because of businessmen who wanted to get your dad and grandmom on the internet, and when they weren't willing to learn (and weren't inspired by the possibility) things were gradually limited, and dumbed down until they could use it. When you had these kinds of people involved they had no real interest in what The Internet could do, and instead got into the whole personalization aspects, and when you get a lot of people who weren't worthy of the technology to begin with involved, you see the changes to lead to things like Lol-cats, massive porn, pro-wrestling and NASCAR fan sites, etc... which are what those people are like and are projecting onto the Internet. Instead of using the internet to propel people forward, it was changed due to improper handling (and "right at this moment" greed) into simply a platform for all of the garbage it was supposed to move away from.
Basically The Internet should have remained entirely in the hands of nerds, and the upcoming generations, and slowly intergrated into society, as opposed to being plastered everywhere over a mere two decades.
I think there is a bit of a distinction between this, and what Bob is saying, unless I misunderstood his points.
That said, I always felt Freakazoid as an IP was one that was inevitably going to be resurrected.
