ME BEING PRETENTIOUS AND ARBITRARILY RANKING A BUNCH OF TV CARTOONS

or

THE 100 GREATEST ANIMATED SERIES OF ALL TIME

The Final Chapter

Are you ready?

I don’t think you’re ready.

You’re not ready for what I’m about to drop on you.

The Top 20 Greatest Animated Series of All Time.

The greatest of the great, the best of the best, the cream de la French stuff.  These are the shows that have stood out among hordes of others and have shown a level of quality that no other show can rival.  They earned their stripes.

Lives will be changed.

Minds will be blown.

And the world will never be the same!  AGAIN!

Before we get to it, a quick recap of the previous 80…

100. YoungJustice/Thundercats (2011)

99. Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

98. Mad Jack the Pirate

97. Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

96. King of the Hill

95. Beetlejuice

94. Kablam

93. The Smurfs

92. The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy

91. Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc

90. Rugrats

89. Doug

88. X-Men

87. Static Shock

86. Aqua Teen Hunger Force

85. Cow and Chicken

84. Moral Orel

83. Filmore

82. X-Men: Evolution

81. The Angry Beavers

80. Space Ghost Coast to Coast

79. Home Movies

78. Kim Possible

77. Pirates of Dark Water

76. Sym-Bionic Titan

75. Peter Pan and the Pirates

74. 2 Stupid Dogs

73. Beast Wars

72. The Tick

71. Batman: the Brave and the Bold

70. Muppet Babies

69. Johnny Bravo

68. Teen Titans

67. The Alvin Show/Alvin and the Chipmunks

66. Mighty Max

65. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures

64. Courage the Cowardly Dog

63. Roger Ramjet

62. The Critic

61. Goof Troop

60. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo

59. Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers

58. Batman Beyond

57. Aaahh!!! Real Monsters

56. Recess

55. Liquid Television/What-a-Cartoon Show/Oh Yeah Cartoons

54. Bobby’s World

53. The Fairly Oddparents

52. Aladdin: the Series

51. Daria

50. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

49. TaleSpin

48. Spectacular Spider-Man

47. Hey Arnold!

46. Aeon Flux

45. Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat

44. Tiny Toon Adventures

43. Futurama

42. Underdog

41. Freakazoid

40. Superman: the Animated Series

39. Invader Zim

38. Adventures of the Gummi Bears

37. The Schnookums and Meat funny Cartoon Show

36. The Jetsons

35. Garfield and Friends

34. Duckman

33. Ed, Edd, n Eddy

32. Bonkers

31. Pixie, Dixie, and Mr. Jinx

30. Beany and Cecil/The New Adventures of Beany and Cecil

29. Scooby-Doo: Where Are You

28. South Park

27. Jonny Quest

26. Gargoyles

25. Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends

24. Justice League/Justice League Unlimited

23. The Flintstones

22. Quick Draw McGraw

21. The Powerpuff Girls

And now, without further a-choo!  (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA)

Let’s get it on!

20. Top Cat: Top Cat was one of the coolest cartoons ever.  It was one of the first primetime animated series debuting just a year after The Flintstones.  The title character, Top Cat (T.C. to his friends), was a street-wise, crafty, greedy, but still noble con man and leader of a gang of alley cats whose get-rich-quick schemes often faced opposition by beat cop Officer Dibble.  Like Yogi Bear before him, Top Cat was crafty and defiant of authority, though where Yogi tended to be a bit on the dim side, Top Cat was smart and a lot more cunning.  Top Cat had very strong writing and great voice acting, especially by Arnold Strong, who played the title character, but this series ranks so high up on the list based on the strength of the characters alone.

19. Yogi Bear: One of the most iconic cartoon characters of all time, Yogi Bear was the breakout star of The Huckleberry Hound Show, and is arguably Hanna Barbera’s most popular character.  The series of shorts featured the escapades of the crafty, impulsive, and always-hungry Yogi Bear and his soft spoken and level headed sidekick Boo-Boo as they tried to steal picnic baskets under the nose of Ranger Smith in Jellystone National Park.  Yogi and Boo-Boo were such great characters and their dynamic was absolutely perfect; Yogi’s appeal came from his persistence and defiant nature, and Boo-Boo’s laid back attitude and willingness to let Yogi make an ass out of himself made him the perfect sidekick.  The background designs and color palette of the show was absolutely gorgeous, a perfect blend of earth tones that really helped bring Jellystone to life.  A beautiful looking show with great characters and stories, Yogi Bear was truly one of the best of the best, and the less said about that crappy live action movie, the better.

18. Dexter’s Laboratory: Gendy Tartakovsky’s breakout hit series about a young boy genius and his secret lab helped put Cartoon Network on the map.  Dexter’s Laboratory was one of the network’s earliest original cartoons, starting out as a couple of animated shorts on The What-a-Cartoon Show and soon gaining enough popularity to carry a 30 minute series.  The setting of Dexter’s Laboratory gave it a number of directions to go in.  Dexter could travel through time, space, under the sea and inside a computer.  He’s encountered aliens, built giant robots, and even used a giant stone Abe Lincoln to battle his rival and his giant stone George Washington.  But the strength of the series wasn’t just that or the animation, which had that great cinematic level visual storytelling that Gendy is famous for, but was Dexter himself.  He was little kid who despite being a super genius, was still a regular kid.  He had to deal with things like school, getting picked on, crushes, as well as his pesky older sister, Dee-Dee; and Dexter using science to solve his problems almost always backfired on him.  He was smug genius, but also kind of a loveable loser at times.  The writing was brilliant and you can tell the crew really let their imaginations go wild with the show.  Dexter’s Laboratory was one of the most creative, energetic, and fun shows to come out of the 90’s.  It’s been imitated, but never surpassed.

17. Avatar the Last Airbender: The closest thing this generation will have to a Star Wars type epic. Avatar the Last Airbender takes place in a world made up of Benders (people who can manipulate the elements of nature).  The world is divided into four different nations corresponding to a different element and kept in peace by the Avatar, who is the only person who can control all four elements.  12-year-old airbender Aang is the latest incarnation of the Avatar but fears his destiny and runs away, only to get frozen ice, rendering him absent when the Fire Nation seizes control of the world and wipes out the airbenders.  Awakened from his frozen sleep 100 years later by two Water Tribe kids, Aang must fulfill his destiny and master all four elements to save the world.  Nickelodeon took a chance with this series and it paid off big.  The series lasted three seasons and each was better than the last.  Each season had a unique look and feel, as well as its own sub plots, while still being a part of a major overarching storyline.  It built a magical world with creative creatures and deep characters that were never one-note, but instead had their own strengths as well as faults, growing as the series went on.  The environments were gorgeous, the colors had so much feel to them that they took on a life of their own, and perfectly matching the corresponding elements the seasons were centered around.  The animation was insane, taking its cues from real martial arts choreography and assigning different kung fu style to each bending art a to make the fight scenes look like nothing else that’s ever been done in animation.  It had adventure, action, drama, humor, romance, peril, and overall fun.  Avatar the Last Airbender truly earned the right to be called “epic”.

16. The Venture Bros: Who would’ve thought a parody show could turn into such a unique and original experience?  Venture Bros is hard to sum up in a few words.  It’s main characters are the clueless “super sleuth” brothers Hank and Dean Venture; their father, former child adventurer and current hack super scientist Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture; and their bodyguard the hulking, murder machine Brock Sampson.  Their main foe is the mostly inept, butterfly themed super villain The Monarch who is bent on destroying Dr. Venture for some reason.  The show mixes elements from Jonny Quest, The Hardy Boys, comic books, pulp adventure stories and is jam packed with the best pop culture humor on television.  The show started off very stand alone, but by the second season the writing had improved greatly and has crafted a deep storyline with many unexpected twist and turns.  The show has rich character development and isn’t afraid to make long lasting changes and shake up the status quo.  Plus, for an Adult Swim show the animation is pretty good.  Venture Bros is not only the best Adult Swim show, but one of the best most underappreciated shows on television.

15. Eek! the Cat: I am a major fan of Eek! The Cat.  Bill Kopp’s most successful series yet about a kind-hearted, optimistic purple cat named Eek who attempts to help people often caused him great physical harm was a major staple of Fox Kids and was one of their longest running shows.  Eek had it all; the writing was funny, fast paced, and new how to utilize both pop culture jabs and classic cartoon slapstick to its upmost effect.  Eek as a character is one of my favorites, he’s not cocky, he’s not a jerk, he’s not selfish or cruel, he’s a nice guy.  He goes out of his help anyone, always following his motto “it never hurts to help”, although in his case, it usually does.  Eek also had a great supporting cast including his morbidly obese southern girlfriend Annabelle, his friend Elmo the Elk, and Sharky the Shark Dog who’s usually hell-bent on destroying Eek.  Despite being a show for kids, there was a ton of humor that adults could enjoy as well and would often parody movies that are geared towards adults like Jaws, Apocalypse Now, and Pulp Fiction.  Eek! the Cat was one of the best cartoons of its time and has been a huge influence on me.  I’m proud to have it on the list.

14. Ducktales: Ducktales brought the adventures of Scrooge McDuck from the pages of Carl Barks’ comic book to the silver screen.  The treasure hunting adventures of Scrooge, his nephews Huey, Dewy, and Louie, and air-headed pilot Launchpad McQuack was one of Disney’s biggest television successes.  This was like a kids version of Indiana Jones with its exotic locales, mystery, and daring adventure.  The characters were all fun and the show perfectly conveyed the strong family bond between them.  It could be heartwarming when it wanted to be, but never short changed us on the action.  Almost no scenario was too crazy for Ducktales; time travel, magic, haunted houses, cursed artifacts, and hidden cities were all common place in the universe they set up, but it kept itself grounded with its down-to-Earth characters.  In its last season , the show began to shift more focus to a new character, Scrooge’s accountant Fenton Crackshell and his alter-ego, the cybernetic superhero Gizmoduck.  Fenton/Gizmoduck was a fine character but his stories took away from the excitement we had been used to before.  Still, the good outweighs the bad and there was a lot good with Ducktales.  It built an endless world of colorful characters, exotic locales, and daring adventure; and gave us the most insanely catchy theme song of all time.  I bet it’s in your head right now.  Life is like a hurricane, here in Duckburg…

13. The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show: Jay Ward and Alex Anderson’s classic about a moose and flying squirrel who, unintentionally, fought communism pretty much proved that a quality product could come out of a shoe string budget.  Rocky and Bullwinkle was amazing as both political and social satire comedy, and just a fun cartoon.  Despite its cheap and choppy animation, Rocky and Bullwinkle stands the test of time due to its top notch writing.  The show was serialized and really mastered the cliffhanger ending with its blend of suspense and humor.  The Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons weren’t the shows only offering, as it featured segments such as Dudley Do-Right, an action adventure parody about a heroic Mounty who foiled the plans of the evil Snidely Whiplash; and the time-traveling adventures of Mr. Peabody and Sherman in Peabody’s Impossible History.  Those shows were great, but to me ,the Rocky and Bullwinkle episodes were the highlights.

12. Beavis and Butt-Head: Never has dumb been so brilliant.  Beavis and Butt-Head’s premise is as simple as its main characters: the misadventures of two dim-witted teenagers who when they aren’t watching TV are looking for ways to either cause mayhem or score with chicks.  Beavis and Butt-head were great reflections of everything wrong with teenagers in the 90’s, and today even, but more than that, they were funny characters.  Their stupidity utter lack of common sense led them to make the simplest problems ten-time worse.  The animation was good for its time and Mike Judge’s visual style gave the show a grungy, realistic look to it that really made the cartoony nature of Beavis and Butt-Head much funnier.  A staple of the show was the commentary for music videos airing on MTV that the duo would provide between the episode segments.  It was both scathing and hilarious, and very insightful (well, as insightful as beavis and Butt-Head could get).  The show recently made a comeback after 13 years of being off the air, but aside from slightly improved visuals, you could barely tell it had left at all, it picked up right where it left off and the quality didn’t go down a bit.  It was great back then, and continues to be great today.

11. Darkwing Duck: The Disney Afternoon gave rise to many great cartoons, the majority of them you’ve already seen on this list, but without a shadow of a doubt, the best of the bunch has got to be Darkwing Duck.  Both a parody of the superhero genre, and a solid entry to it in its own right, Darkwing Duck was about a heroic yet sometimes inept superhero who protected the city of St. Canard from the forces of evil.  The show was a radical departure from the Disney shows before it.  The style was more rubber hose in nature and the humor was more focused on fast paced slapstick.  Darkwing Duck was also more action-oriented than the other shows in the line-up, but because of the slapstick could pass under the censor’s radar.  Darkwing was a great character.  He was egotistical, stubborn, and often relied too heavily theatrics, but was balanced out with his intelligence, nobility, heroic nature, an ability to cleverly pull out a last minute victory, and his supporting cast and rogues gallery were varied and energetic, and worked perfectly in tandem with our main hero.  The animation was the best of all the shows in the Disney Afternoon.  It had real emotional to it and made for some great visual humor.  Darkwing Duck had everything a kind could want in the 90’s and still holds up insanely well to this day.  The show experienced a brief revival in the form of a comic book series, and hopefully Disney will utilize this gem’s untapped potential more.

10. The Ren and Stimpy Show: Alongside Doug and Rugrats, The Ren and Stimpy Show was one of the original three Nicktoons.  But while the first two were very low key, Ren and Stimpy hit us all in the face with a sack of Gritty Kitty Litter.  Created by John Krisfaluci in the early 90’s, Ren and Stimpy, about an angry and violent Chihuahua and his dim-witted cat pal, and put the cartooniness back into cartoons.  John K took influence from classic Bob Clampett and Tex Avery cartoons, Hanna Barbera, The Three Stooges, and so much more when crafting the series and it’s very easy to see.  The animation was simply the best of its time, it was the polar opposite of Disney, it was crazy, it was bouncy, and it never held back.  The characters acted, an art which is lost in animation today.  With every move they made there was emotion to it, its timing was perfect it never used the same gag twice, there was life to it.  It was exaggerated as hell but there was also subtlety to the humor, for as much emotion as they actively conveyed, there was a lot more going on underneath it.  The music was jazzy and could tell a story well enough on its own.  After John K was fired from Nickelodeon, the show took a major downturn, but the Spumco produced episodes still hold up as animation gold.

9. Pinky and the Brain: This spin-off of Animaniacs proved to be just as popular on it’s on.  Pinky and the Brain told the escapades of two genetically engineered lab mice plotting to take over the world.  Pinky and the Brain’s dynamic was a classic double act, Brain was intelligent, short-tempered, stern, and ambitious in nature, in contrast to Pinky who was blissfully dim-witted, optimistic, friendly and crazy.  All the great writing from the Pinky and the Brain segments in Animaniacs carried over here.  The simple premise opened the door to many storytelling possibilities.  The Brain’s schemes were grand and original like becoming a country western star and using a hypnotic song to make people his slaves, or luring the people of Earth onto a papier mache copy to take over the real one, and were usually fouled up by Pinky’s stupidity.  The show mainly took place in the modern day but episodes could place them anywhere from the 1930’s to medieval times.  What really mattered was the core dynamic of Brain and Pinky, made all the more excellent by the voice acting of Maurice LaMarche and Rob Paulsen respectively.  This show about two little lab mice was larger than life and hopefully we’ll see the duo return in the future to try to take over the world once more.

8. Animaniacs: C’mon, if Pinky and the Brain showed up on this list, you knew this wouldn’t be far behind.  After the success of Tiny Toons, Steven Spielberg went on to produce another, even bigger animated hit in Animaniacs.  Animaniacs was a cartoon variety show centered around three lost forgotten, at least in the context of the show, animated characters of the golden age: The Warner Bros, Yakko and Wakko, and the Warner Sister, Dot.  The Warners were zany and chaotic in nature and served no other purpose but to drive people crazy.  Their personalities were strong and energetic, their dialogue was funny and unique to each character, and their designs echoed an earlier age of animation.  Other shorts in the show included The Goodfeathers, a Goodfellas/Godfather parody with New York pigeons; Slappy Squirrel, about a cantankerous old retired cartoon star; and of course Pinky and the Brain, who would spin-off into their own series. In addition the show was famous for its musical segments that fulfilled the educational quota of the show, but did it in a way that was entertaining as hell and didn’t make you realize you were learning.  We’ve yet to see another show like Animaniacs, and I doubt we’ll ever see one again.  It was a show perfectly of its time and was great satire of pop culture and entry into the legacy of Warner Bros cartoons.

7. The Simpsons: Many people of my generation can’t even remember a time when The Simpsons weren’t on the air.  This spin-off of The Tracy Ullman Show has managed to last well over 20 years and STILL has no foreseeable end in sight.   This show about a middle-class family of five and the crazy cast of townsfolk that inhabit Springfield, USA has become a major staple of pop culture.  Its dialogue is insanely quotable, terms it’s invented have made their way into our regular vocabulary, its characters both main and secondary are legendary, and the show has had cameos from so many celebrities from Adam West, to Kelsey Grammer, to Liz Taylor, to even Michael Jackson (supposedly).  In addition, its animation is pretty decent, and its voice cast is astoundingly talented.  The adventures of Homer, Marge, Lisa, Maggie, and Bart Simpson have spawned video games, comic books, toys, a movie, and over 400 episodes.  This country would not be the same without The Simpsons.

6. Rocko’s Modern Life: Nickelodeon’s cult favorite cartoon about a wallaby named Rocko dealing with the absurdities of life was an obvious in for this list.  Rocko’s Modern Life debuted in 1993 and launched the career of creator Joe Murray.  Unlike most cartoons of the time, Rocko had much more appeal with adult audiences and the subtle little mature jokes they threw in the show were proof of that.  Rocko had some of the strongest writing, characters, and animation of any cartoon series  The animation, while not as exaggerated as Ren and Stimpy, was still filled with so much personality.  Its striking visual style was very wonky, with everything appearing unbalance, reflecting the off-center nature of the characters of that world.  Rocko’s Modern Life was filled with every kind of un-desirable that you would find in real life, especially in you lived in the city, all played off of fish-out-of-water Rocko, who served as the straight man of the show and our avatar into this crazy world.  The writing team took real situations from their lives and used them as inspiration for episodes; things like getting the trash out on garbage day and or going to the grocery store became major sources for humor in the show.  You can really feel all the fun that the crew was having making this show.  Great writing, great animation, great timing, great visuals, great voice acting, Rocko had it all, and the fact that it never took off more in the eyes of the mainstream is a shame.  Though it would give rise to one of the biggest cartoons of all time.

5. Batman the Animated Series: What can I say about this series that hasn’t already been said?  It’s Batman the Animated Series.  It’s one of the most universally praised shows of all time.  It gave life to the title character like no other series did before.  It did practically everything right.  I don’t think I really need to explain all the pluses of the show, so I won’t.  Here’s a quick rundown of everything the show did right, though: writing, animation, art style, color, backgrounds, staging, action, characters, voice acting, etc.  It’s Batman: the Animated Series, ‘nuff said.

4. The Ruff and Reddy Show: Before Scooby Doo, before Fred Flintstone, before Yogi Bear, before Huckleberry Hound, there was Ruff n’ Reddy.  This was the first of the Hanna Barbera cartoons for television and definitely the most unique.  The series was about the adventures of buddies Ruff, a smart aleck cat, and Reddy, a dimwitted dog; simple, right?  What made this show so unique was that unlike the shows that would follow, Ruff and Reddy was a serialized series with a story taking place over 13-part episodes.  I love shows that aren’t bound to one setting and can have characters in almost any kind of situation and Ruff and Reddy was one of the best of them.  The snappy dialogue, excellent character design, and great lead characters, and brilliant voice acting by Daws Butler and Don Messick made up for the limited animation, which in itself wasn’t bad at all.  It’s rare to see any serialized cartoons anymore and it’s a shame because it’s a great format, and the show utilized it well.  Each episode was around four minutes long and the cliffhangers did leave you wanting more.  Despite being the first, Ruff and Reddy tends to be forgotten among the Hanna Barbera classics, but it’s influence can be seen and felt among the many shows that would follow it.

3. Spongebob Squarepants: For reasons I’m still trying to figure out, SpongeBob Squarepants has become the most popular cartoon in America today.  The character himself has become one of the most beloved, recognizable, and long-lived characters in animation history.  Created by former Rocko’s Modern Life writer Stephen Hillenburg, and has proven in almost every way its successor, Spongebob SquarePants is about the adventures and misadventures of a cheery and energetic yellow sponge who lives undersea with his friends and neighbors.  The show has done what every cartoon aspires to do, appeal to as wide an audience as possible.  Kids can appreciate the bubbly characters and great cartoony animation, while older audiences can find enjoyment in the great writing and subtle adult humor.  SpongeBob has thrived for over 10 years and has succeeded Rugrats as the most popular show Nickelodeon.  It’s unassuming in its brilliance and proven it can go on strong for years to come.  In an era where it’s rare that cartoon character reaches the heights of those of the golden age, SpongeBob has become a staple of pop culture and will be remembered for years to come.

2. Huckleberry Hound: Ruff and Reddy may have been the first, but Huckleberry Hound was the best.  Hanna Barbera gets a lot of flack for its limited animation and essentially creating the big divide between television and feature animation, but it doesn’t get enough praise for the stuff it did right, which was everything else.  Great writing, beautiful color mixes and background designs, strong character designs, top quality voice acting, and fleshed out, likeable characters.  Nowhere else were any of those qualities exemplified more than in Huckleberry Hound.  As I said for Ruff and Reddy, I like shows where characters aren’t bound to one setting, and Huck sure wasn’t.  The great thing about the show was that Huck could be anywhere and anything.  A cowboy, a cop, a knight, or just regular old Huck, what stayed constant was his character.  Huck was laid back, kind-hearted, and a little slow, but had his breaking points, he felt very much like a real person, and the way he broke the fourth wall and talked directly to the audience made us feel like we were a part of the show.  Huck would win some and he would lose some, but maintained his appeal throughout, and Daws Butler’s voice acting was the icing on the cake.  Huckleberry Hound was one of the first and without a doubt the best of the Hanna Barbera cartoons, and even today holds up among the modern offerings.

We’ve gone through 99, but now is the moment of truth.  The number one greatest animated series of all time is…

1. Captain Planet and the Planteers: Proof that the greatest animated series are created by crazy billionaires.  The show was about teens from all across the globe that were given magical rings, each embodying a different classical element, by the spirit of Earth, Gaia to fend off eco-terrorists.  When in trouble the teens would combine their powers to summon earth’s greatest champion, Captain Planet, a blue-skinned, green mullet having superhero whos powers included flight, super strength, and the ability to constantly make the worst puns ever.  Also you could kill him with trash.  Granted the writing sucked, the characters were all bland, the animations were awful, and Captain Planet was one of the worst superheroes ever, but the show had something none of the other 99 shows on this list had…Heart!

Okay I’m just messing you, the real number one is…

1. Samurai Jack:  I’ve gone on and on about how great Gendy Tartakovsky is, but I can’t say it enough.  The man is one of the best animators of our time and this series is proof why.  A time-displaced Samurai trapped in the far future must figure out a way to get back to his own time period to stop and evil demon named Aku from conquering the world as he’s already done.  That was the premise of Samurai Jack.  It was as simple as that, but still brilliant.  It had a set end point, but was in no rush to get there.  It was a ticking-clock show with no ticking-clock.  The show could go in so many directions and explore many different aspects of its world, and it didn’t have to worry about staying on track because it’s ultimate destination was in the past, not the future.  The reason Samurai Jack is at number one is mainly because of one thing, the visuals.  No other cartoon on or off this list has even come close to matching the level of visual storytelling this show achieved.  I feel like calling it cinematic would be an understatement.  This show proved multiple times it did not need dialogue to tell a story, but instead relied on the breathtaking color style, dynamic staging, and some of the most crisp and fluid animation I’ve ever seen.  Jack was like the Batman of samurais.  He was determined, he trained hard, and triumphed over his enemies using his cunning, his bravery, and his sheer will alone.  He was seemingly invincible but most of the time a victim of circumstance.  Aku proved to be a great villain; a looming shadow constantly hanging over jack who was both menacing and humorous.  Each episode was it’s on mini epic, with a color set and musical score tailor made to it.  Samurai Jack could cover a wide range of emotion, it could be adventurous, funny, serious, uplifting, heartbreaking, or unapologetically whimsical, but no matter what, it was always fun.  Ultimately what made the show brilliant led to its undoing.  It’s experimental style of storytelling didn’t catch on well with the mainstream and it was cancelled before we could get a series finale.  Normally that would be a negative but sheer brilliance of the show keeps me from holding that against it.  What it did right and what it did wrong was one in the same, but what it did right it did really right.  Samurai Jack was original, inventive, and absolutely astounding.  I can’t think of another show more deserving of the number one spot.

So there you have it, there’s my list of the 100 Greatest Animated Series of all Time.

I eagerly await your bitching and moaning.

ME BEING PRETENTIOUS AND ARBITRARILY RANKING A BUNCH OF TV CARTOONS

or

THE 100 GREATEST ANIMATED SERIES OF ALL TIME

Part 4

Greetings Toonsters!  We’ve passed the halfway point and are getting ever closer to the coveted Number 1 spot.  But before we get into round 4, let’s do a quick recap of the list so far…

100. YoungJustice/Thundercats (2011)

99. Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

98. Mad Jack the Pirate

97. Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

96. King of the Hill

95. Beetlejuice

94. Kablam

93. The Smurfs

92. The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy

91. Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc

90. Rugrats

89. Doug

88. X-Men

87. Static Shock

86. Aqua Teen Hunger Force

85. Cow and Chicken

84. Moral Orel

83. Filmore

82. X-Men: Evolution

81. The Angry Beavers

80. Space Ghost Coast to Coast

79. Home Movies

78. Kim Possible

77. Pirates of Dark Water

76. Sym-Bionic Titan

75. Peter Pan and the Pirates

74. 2 Stupid Dogs

73. Beast Wars

72. The Tick

71. Batman: the Brave and the Bold

70. Muppet Babies

69. Johnny Bravo

68. Teen Titans

67. The Alvin Show/Alvin and the Chipmunks

66. Mighty Max

65. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures

64. Courage the Cowardly Dog

63. Roger Ramjet

62. The Critic

61. Goof Troop

60. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo

59. Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers

58. Batman Beyond

57. Aaahh!!! Real Monsters

56. Recess

55. Liquid Television/What-a-Cartoon Show/Oh Yeah Cartoons

54. Bobby’s World

53. The Fairly Oddparents

52. Aladdin: the Series

51. Daria

50. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

49. TaleSpin

48. Spectacular Spider-Man

47. Hey Arnold!

46. Aeon Flux

45. Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat

44. Tiny Toon Adventures

43. Futurama

42. Underdog

41. Freakazoid

We’re almost there, so let’s quit the lollygagging.

40. Superman: The Animate Series: Four years after revolutionizing Batman, Bruce Timm and crew would apply the same magic to Superman.  Superman: the Animated Series did everything it needed to do with the character and more.  At a time in the comics where Superman was dead, alive, electric, red, blue, and had a mullet, the animated series kept it simple.  It was bright, optimistic, dynamic, and constantly looking ahead, reflecting the central character.  The supporting cast as well represented and could easily hold their own opposite the Man of Steel, especially Lois Lane who’s portrayal here was the best portrayal of the character outside the comic. The show had a booming orchestral score to rival the live-action movie and the acting was strong, passionate, and every actor gave their A-game.  This was one of my first exposures to Superman and the one that continues to hold up today.

39. Invader Zim: Possibly the darkest Nicktoon ever.  From the twisted mind of Jhonen Vasquez came Invader Zim, a series about a power man and painfully inept alien named Zim, whose mission is seemingly to conquer the Earth, when in actuality his superiors just sent him there to get him out of the way.  Zim was mind-blowingly dark and hilarious.  And when I say dark, I mean dark, one of the more memorable episodes had Zim harvesting organs from his classmates and replacing them with “stuff” in an attempt to look normal.  The characters were so dynamic and hilarious absurd, you could quote them endlessly.  Also the little emphasis they put on certain words like “horrible” and “filth” were genius.  The show has rightfully gained a huge cult following and the way it handled dark comedy was the stuff of brilliance.  In fact, if I had to sum up what made this series so good in one word it would be this: GIR.

38. The Adventures of the Gummi Bears: Adventures of the Gummi Bears was the first in a string of animated hits that would make up The Disney Afternoon.  Inspired by the candy of the same name, Gummi Bears was set in medieval times and centered around a group of mystical anthropomorphic bears called Gummi Bears.  These Gummis were some of the last of their race and lived in secret of humans and were only known by a select few: their young friends Cavin and Princess Calla, and their arch enemy Duke Igthorn, who wanted the secret of their GummiBerry Juice which gave the Gummis the ability to bounce like rubber and gave super strength to any human who drank it.  This show would go on to set the trend for future Disney shows to follow.  It presented a unique setting, interesting characters, great character design, top-notch voice cast, and solid animation.  Gummi Bears helped to revitalized television animation and remains a timeless animation classic.  Plus, it gets props for reuniting June Foray and Bill Scott (aka Rocky and Bullwinkle), as Grammy Gummi and Gruffi Gummi respectively.

37. The Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show: After Eek the Cat, Bill Kopp went on to create a number of great and off-beat shows that sadly never became as big, and the funniest of those funny cartoon shows was The Schoonukums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show.  Schnookums and Meat was Disney’s attempt to capitalize on the success of Ren and Stimpy, but sadly was cancelled too early, before it could gain the same audience numbers.  The show was divided into three segments: Schnookums and Meat, about a cat and dog duo with a style reminiscent of golden age Tom and Jerry; Pith Possum, about a Batman-style hero and his sidekick Obadiah, who’s look was invocative of what was done on Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures ; and Tex Tinstar, a parody of western serials, with looked like a better animated Jay Ward cartoon.  Though different, the three cartoons shared truly excellent animation, with each having their own unique look and style to them.  In addition, the humor was top-notch and relied on visual gags even more than dialogue, which is always a plus in my book.  It’s sad it never built a strong enough following, because this show was an absolute gem.  Plus the pasta it inspired was awesome.

36. The Jetsons: The polar opposite of The Flintstones, The Jetsons took the same premise, a typical American family, but this time set it in the future rather than the past.  The show was basically Blondie and Dagwood in the far future (in fact Penny Singleton(Jane Jetson) played Blondie in film and radio), except much more entertaining and creative.  In contrast to Fred Flintstone’s bombastic and oafish personality, George Jetson was bumbling, laid-back, natured and somewhat hapless, a great central character.  The show took full advantage of its setting and was constantly coming up with new and inventive futuristic gadgets.  The animation was solid enough but the writing was where the show excelled.  Like most old cartoons, this show saw a brief revival in the 80’s, but aside from a brighter color scheme and a new character called Orbity, the show wasn’t that much different from the original, keeping the original cast and the same quality storytelling, and as a kid I couldn’t tell the difference.

35. Garfield and Friends: Under the guidance of Mark Evanier, Garfield and Friends brought everything great about the comic strip and added to it.  Garfield and Friends worked so well because Mark understood what Garfield was at its core and never strayed from it.  Plus Lorenzo Music as Garfield was absolute perfect casting.  His mellow and smart allecky tone was a perfect fit for the character.  There was also another show in the mix called U.S. Acres, about a group of animal characters running a farm that was equally as good.  The characters were strong, the designs were great, and the writing was snappy and funny.  Garfield and Friends still remains much more enduring and entertaining than its source material.

34. Duckman: Created by Everett Peck and produced by Klasky Csupo, yes the same people who made Rugrats, Duckman was about the crass, foul-mouth, pornography-obsessed, abrasive, greedy character of Duckman, private dick and family man.  Duckman was certainly the most adult thing to come out of Klasky Csupo.  It’s jokes were more risqué, it’s visual style was very gritty and non-conformist, and it’s characters were more complex and morally gray.  Duckman on its surface looked like another raunchy late-night cartoon, but the show had real heart to it, and the characters, despite being loud and crude, had real vulnerability to them, making them much more relatable.  Duckman had great animation and real layers to it, just a great show all around.

33. Ed, Edd, n Eddy: Coming out of Cartoon Network’s big creator driven animation period of the 90’s, Ed, Edd, n Eddy stood out among the rest with its striking visuals and extremely non-conservative animation.  Ed, Edd, n Eddy stared three boys, all having the roughly the same name, and their various money making schemes.  The core of the show was the dynamic of the three main characters: Eddy was the fast-talking and money-grubbing leader; Edd (or Double D as he’s known) was the whimpy and OCD brainy one; and Ed was the blissfully dim-witted and sci-fi and horror movie obsessed lug.  The trio were distinct, unique, and their personalities were consistent made for great storytelling.  The animation was the high point of the show.  It was fast, fluid, and seemed to be always changing, always re-inventing itself with each new episode.  That can be attributed to the style of creator Danny Antonucci.    It was one of the longest lasting shows on Cartoon Network and never lost what made it good along the way.

32. Bonkers: Of all the shows on the Disney Afternoon, Bonkers was the most underrated.  Originally conceived as an Roger Rabbit series, the new character Bonkers D. Bobcat was used instead.  Bonkers, a former cartoon star turned beat cop was paired with human, Detective Lucky Piquel as they patrolled the streets of Hollywood and tackled toon-related crimes.  It’s easy to see the Roger Rabbit influence in the show, but it may be a little jarring seeing as how the show was fully animated rather than being a live-action/animation mix.  Still, the show worked well.  Bonkers and Lucky were great characters and their classic comedy double act worked well here.  The show was just zany fun and all the toon characters they came up with were inventive and cool to watch.  To date, this show as yet to come out on DVD and that’s a damn shame because this show deserved a wider audience.

31. Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinx: Tom and Jerry may be seen as the definitive cat-and-mouse cartoon, but I would rank Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinx as it’s equal.  Sure the animation wasn’t as great and violence was toned down, but it’s characters had a lot more personality, plus they talked.  Pixie and Dixie were very innocent and wittier and they made perfect counterpoints to Mr. Jinx, ho, while a jerk, was much more dim-witted and hapless.  As with all of Hanna Barbera’s cartoons, Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinx traded in lavish animation for snappy and character specific dialogue.  It’s not the most original premise, but it had a winning approach to it.  I loved those meeces to peeces.  And Mr. Jinx too.

30. Beany and Cecil/The New Adventures of Beany and Cecil: After leaving Warner Bros, legendary animator Bob Clampett went on to create two new characters for television.  Originating as a puppet show called Time for Beany, Beany and Cecil made the jump into animation in 1962.  The show, about a young, bright-eyed, toe-headed buy named Beany and his best friend Cecil, a sea serpent who’s only visible parts are his head and neck, proved to be a major success in both venues.  The show had Clampett’s trademark brand of exaggerated and insane situations and humor and the characters were simplistic, but very likeable.  In 1988, the show was revived as The New Adventures of Beany and Cecil, spearheaded by John Krisfaluci, fresh off Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures.  While the show wasn’t as successful, it kept the spirit of the original alive, had great staging and animation, and proved to be even stranger than its predecessor.

29. Scooby-Doo: Where Are You: Scooby-Doo has been one of the most enduring characters in animation history.  He’s had more shows under his belt than any other character not originating in the golden age.  The New Scooby Doo Movies, Scooby-Doo/DynoMutt Hour, Scooby’s All Star Laff-a-Lympics, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show, Scooby-Doo/Scrappy-Doo/Puppy Hour, The All New Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show, 13 Ghost of Scooby-Doo, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, What’s New Scooby-Doo, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue, Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated, not to mention a crap load of movies including four live-action ones and a string of imitators such as Clue Club and Jabberjaw!  But for the absolute best, we have to go back to the one that started it all…Scooby-Doo: Where are You.  The show was about a group of four teens and their talking dog, Scooby-Doo (although the fact the he could talk was never brought to attention),  as they solve various mysteries in their town and flee from ghost and monsters, who always end up being a regular person in a costume.  The stories may seem tired by today’s standards, but back then it was fresh and new.  Scooby-Doo: Where are You was definitely the most grounded of the series, feeling more like an actual mystery.  The characters are worked and made up a solid and interesting group that we could follow from show to show.  The show was also a lot more darker than it’s successors, with villains that actually seemed threatening and scary.  The various other shows in the franchise have ranged from creative and entertaining, to mediocre and repetitive, but this is another case of the original being the best.

28. South Park: What once started as a crudely animated 30 minute fart joke, has grown into an award winning, social commentating, crudely animated, 30 minute fart joke.  South Park originated as the short film, The Spirit of Christmas, and became an animated series in 1997.  South Park was famous for its extremely low-budget animation and infamous for its foul mouth and very crude and adult humor, juxtaposed by the fact that the main characters were four young boys.  As the series progressed, the show began to tackle current events and turned into one of the most looked to and quoted pieces of satirical media.  The show is absolutely ruthless in it’s approach, going after everything and everyone typically without bias.  Even when it’s not tackling what’s going on the news, the show has enough funny and interesting characters to build stories off for a long time to come.  It’s rare to see a show evolve in its approach only to get better and better.  There’s a reason why it’s Comedy Central’s number one show.

27. Jonny Quest: This was the shot in the arm Hanna Barbera needed.  So used to making kid-friendly cartoons, Jonny Quest burst onto the scene as an intense and engaging action cartoon.  The title character, Jonny Quest, was a young adventurer traveling the world with his super scientist father Dr. Benton Quest, bodyguard Race Bannon, adoptive brother and best friend Hadji, and pet dog Bandit.  Jonny Quest was ass-kickingly action packed and filled with all that glorious un-politically correct subject matter missing from today’s entertainment.  The show had the look and feel of a comic book and made up for its limited animation with a gorgeous visual style.  It had everything you need in an action cartoon, strong characters, crazy and creative situations, real peril, high stakes, stereotypical minorities, it was amazing.  The show saw a revival in the 80’s and again in the 90’s as The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, but none could really match the brilliance of the original.  Truly a show of it’s time.

26. Gargoyles: Disney’s answer to Batman: The Animated Series.  Created by Greg Wiseman, Gargoyles was unlike anything Disney had ever done,l and still has yet to do.  The show was about a race of beings known as Gargoyles, once plentiful in numbers, now rendered almost extinct thanks to human betrayl.  A group of six became frozen in stone by a magical spell and are reawakened a thousand years later in Manhattan by a billionaire named David Xanatos.  The six, under their leader Goliath, resolve to protect their new home from everything from organized crime, mystical creatures, mad scientists, and even other Gargoyles.  I’ve talked at length about it before, but this show was way ahead of its time.  Unlike the other Disney cartoons it was serious, the storylines were expansive and complex, the characters were constantly evolving, the way it drew upon folklore, mythology, and Shakespeare for inspiration was masterful.  Gargoyles could deliver morals but do it in a subtle and entertaining way.  It tackled things like illiteracy, gun violence, and even racism, all while being a kick-ass action show.  Like most of Wiseman’s works, it was cancelled well before its time, it was a show that held so much potential and wasn’t afraid to take risks.  Gargoyles was a masterpiece.

25. Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends: Craig McCracken’s beautifully animated show about a foster home where kids send their imaginary friends after they’ve outgrown them to be adopted by other children was probably the best thing ever done in Flash animation.  This show was the embodiment of joy.  Insanely creative, Foster’s had some of the best character designs ever, really drawing upon the creative minds of children to create the imaginary friends.  The show was rounded out by a great cast of core characters who were very well fleshed out and had real depth to them, especially the lead characters of Mac and his imaginary friend, the outspoken, selfish, manipulating, but otherwise friendly Bloo.  The voice acting was amazing, the writing and stories were hilarious and filled with all the great pop-culture jabs everyone loves.  But the best thing about the series was the look.  The color pallet was gorgeous and vibrant and the staging was truly cinematic.  It was creative, it was visually mind-blowing, it was funny, and it was fun.  You didn’t have to be a kid to see the brilliance in this cartoon.

24. Justice League/Justice League Unlimited: Superfriends used to eb the most well known portrayal of the Justice League of America in the mainstream media, but in 2001, Bruce Timm and crew would once again work their magic with the DC heroes and give us Justice League.  Taking some inspiration from various interpretations of the League in the comics, most notably the Grant Morrison run, Justice League assembled seven of the most recognizable DC heroes and pitted them against the greatest threats known to man.  This series continued the continuity established in the previous Batman and Superman cartoons and brought attention to various other DC heroes like Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, and Green Lantern John Stewart.  Each episode was about an hour long and typically split up into two parts, making each episode feel like its own mini-movie.  The characters were all engaging and had real life to them, the various ways the characters would interact with each other, as well as their conflicting styles and ways of operating made the stories that much more gripping to watch. In 2004 the show was relaunched as Justice League Unlimited and featured a greatly expanded cast of heroes and villains, and more stand-alone but still interconnected stories.  JLU proved to be even better than Justice League and the second season story-arc alone rivals anything that had ever been done in the comics and was some of the best writing on television.  Justice League and JLU was the exact thing comic book fans had been waiting for, a smart, serious, and fun animated portrayal of the greatest super team of all time.

23. The Flintstones: A true hallmark of Hanna Barbera, and animation as a whole.  The Flinstones, essentially The Honeymooners in a stone-age setting, was revolutionary as being the first prime-time animated TV show.  Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera wanted to re-capture the adult audience they once had and this was the perfect show for it.  The show was written not like a traditional cartoon, but like sitcoms of the time.  The characters dealt with more down to Earth issues played off this pre-historic backdrop with dinosaurs and saber-toothed tigers and stuff.  The show had some truly larger than life characters, especially Fred and Barney who would go on to outlive the show itself.  At it’s time, The Flintstones was the first cartoon in a long time to have a firm grasp on both younger and older audiences, and being the first animated sitcom it would go on to pave the way for shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy.  It was groundbreaking – or stonebreaking, HAHAHA!  See what I did there, that’s called comedy – for its time, and still holds up today.  The Flintstones is a classic.

22. Quick Draw McGraw: Hanna Barbera’s animated send up of the western genre was a great one.  One of the earliest Hanna Barbera TV cartoons, Quick Draw McGraw was about a good-hearted, semi-competent, but mostly dim-witted anthropomorphic horse sheriff named Quick Draw and his much smarter but laid-back donkey sidekick Baba Looey.  The show one of the original HB stable of toons of the 50’s, long before the quality of their shorts began to drop, so the formula was both fresh and engaging.  Quick Draw, as well as his alter-ego El-Kabong, was a great character.  He wasn’t as passive as Huckleberry Hound or as slick as Yogi Bear, but more a bit-more of a blow hart, which is always fun to watch.  He was always in it to do the right thing, but was just kind of a stubborn moron.  Baba Looey was cool, collected, and the wiser of the duo, so of course he was always ignored.  The show was funny and featured that good, but underrated HB animation.

21. The Powerpuff Girls: Craig McCracken’s breakout show about three super powered little girls still in kindergarten started out life as a short film called The Whoop-Ass Girls, but was toned down and real tooled for Cartoon Network.  The show was one of the absolute best of the creator driven cartoons of the 90’s.  The look was very much of the Hanna Barbera style, but the animation was far better.  The color style of the show was absolutely amazing and could tell a story better than dialogue could.  Not to say the dialogue was bad, far from it, the show was witty as hell and could parody the superhero genre and yet still be a great entry in its own right.  Everything from American comics, to anime, to action movies, was a big influence on this show and the characters very appealing, made all the more better by the top-notch voice acting, Cathy Cavadini, Tara Strong, and E.G. Daily all did amazing jobs as Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup respectively and they played off each other so well.  Powerpuff Girls had the kind of crazy fun missing from superheroes today and still remains a must see for any animation fan.

Well, next week will be the big one, the grand finale of this insane list, the top 20 greatest animated series of all time, including the number 1.  I’ve saved the best for last so get ready to have your feeble minds BLOWN!

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ME BEING PRETENTIOUS AND ARBITRARILY RANKING A BUNCH OF TV CARTOONS

or

THE 100 GREATEST ANIMATED SERIES OF ALL TIME

PART 3

Greetings Toonsters!  Are you ready for round 3 of the list?  Of course you’re not, you feeble minds aren’t ready to be blown, but they will be anyway.  First though, since I neglected to do this last time, a recap of the list so far…

100. YoungJustice/Thundercats (2011)

99. Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

98. Mad Jack the Pirate

97. Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

96. King of the Hill

95. Beetlejuice

94. Kablam

93. The Smurfs

92. The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy

91. Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc

90. Rugrats

89. Doug

88. X-Men

87. Static Shock

86. Aqua Teen Hunger Force

85. Cow and Chicken

84. Moral Orel

83. Filmore

82. X-Men: Evolution

81. The Angry Beavers

80. Space Ghost Coast to Coast

79. Home Movies

78. Kim Possible

77. Pirates of Dark Water

76. Sym-Bionic Titan

75. Peter Pan and the Pirates

74. 2 Stupid Dogs

73. Beast Wars

72. The Tick

71. Batman: the Brave and the Bold

70. Muppet Babies

69. Johnny Bravo

68. Teen Titans

67. The Alvin Show/Alvin and the Chipmunks

66. Mighty Max

65. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures

64. Courage the Cowardly Dog

63. Roger Ramjet

62. The Critic

61. Goof Troop

And now, on with the show…

60. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo: The big trend in animation in the 80’s and early 90’s was taking beloved cartoon characters and turning them into kids to appeal to a younger audience.  Muppet Babies, Flintstones Kids, Tom and Jerry Kids, Yo Yogi, etc.  They were all of varying quality, but the unquestioned best of the bunch was A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.  Scooby had a long string of cartoon adaptations prior to this, but this was the most different from them all.  The series still stared Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby, and they still solved mysteries and busted guys dressed like monsters, only this time as kids.  But what really made this show so memorable was that it was equal parts continuation and parody.  The show was very self-aware and frequently made fun of the common tropes of the series, from the chase scenes (now complete with dance sequences), to the “meddling kids” line, to Velma saying “Jinkies” every time she finds a clue.  While Shaggy and Scooby remained the same, the others had their personalities altered.  Freddie is still the leader, but is a outspoken dim-wit who believes aliens, vampires, bigfoots, etc are always behind the case of day.  Daphne, playing into the fact that her family was rich,  was now more snobbish, sarcastic, and skeptical, with her catchphrase being “Please, there are no such things as ghosts/monsters”.  Finally Velma, still the brains of the group, was now more quiet, only really talking when a clue had been found.  A new character, a bully named Red Herring, was added to the cast, who Freddie always accused (incorrectly except in one case) of being the monster.  The show was hilarious and still holds up to this day.  The most entertaining incarnation of Scooby-Doo to date.

59. Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers: A staple of the Disney Afternoon, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers took the classic Disney chipmunks, put them in a fedora and bombers jacket and Hawaiian shirt respectively, and turned them into detectives.  They were teamed with new characters Gadget; a female mouse who was a mechanical wizard, Monterey Jack; a burly adventurous mouse with a cheese addiction, and Zipper; a brave and fast little green fly.  Together they solved any crime that went down in the animal world and frequently battled the likes of feline mob boss Fat Cat, and mad scientist Professor Nimnul, their only human enemy.  Rescue Rangers was a lot of fun to watch.  The characters had a great dynamic, especially Chip and Dale, who bickered about practically everything.  The voice acting was also a high point in the show, featuring Tress MacNeille, Jim Cummings, Corey Burton, and Peter Cullen as regulars.  You can’t go wrong with that combination.  Rescue Rangers creative, playful, goofy, and was the best thing they did with Chip and Dale since, well ever.  Plus, it had one of the best theme songs in television history.

58. Batman Beyond: Theoretically, Batman Beyond should not have worked.  A teenage Batman in the future with a techno/rock soundtrack, craziness, but surprise surprise, it not only just worked, but was a brilliant incarnation in it’s own right.  Taking place in a future Gotham improved aesthetically by technological advancements, but still plagued with crime and corruption, Bruce Wayne, now elderly and long past his prime, has passed the mantle of Batman down to former delinquent seeking redemption Terry McGuiness, who in a similar fashion to Bruce, lost his father to criminals.  Batman Beyond took everything that made the previous animated series so good and adapted it here.  Terry was a very deep and fleshed out character, who had his own set of ethics, his own outlook on life, and his own supporting cast.  He was  very different Batman than the one we were used to and the fact that he had the older Bruce Wayne serving as a mentor/father figure made the transition more easier.  The show also succeeded in creating a great rogues gallery for Batman, making them multi-layered and somewhat sympathetic rather than stereotypically evil.  The show didn’t exactly have the same art-deco type design as the pervious one, but a lot the same elements carried over and mixed with elements of Japanese anime and futuristic movies like Blade Runner.  The stories were multi-layered, dark, and didn’t fall into the trap of focusing on stereotypical teen problems.  I could go on and on about this show, but I’ll conclude with saying Batman Beyond is a worthy addition into the Batman mythos.

57. Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: Aaahh!!! Real Monsters did what Monsters Inc would get famous for doing four years after the show was canceled, introducing us to the day to day lives of under-the-bed type monsters.  Created by Gabor Csupo of Klasky Csupo (the same people behind Rugrats), Real Monsters starred three young monsters named Ickis, Krumm, and Oblina who are studying in the Monster Academy, learning to become great monsters.  This was a really creative cartoon.  It succeeded in creating an entertaining universe that these monsters lived in and the rules that applied to them.  Things that were sweet and cute were like poison to them, while ugliness and rot and filth were their normal.  Their assignments were scaring humans and their most common method of transportation was through toilets.  The animation was also top notch, with great use of squash and stretch, especially during the scaring sequences.  It was a great black comedy series with memorable characters and voice acting.  Pixar did it good, but Aaahh!!! Real Monsters did it the best.

56. Recess: Recess was so simply brilliant it was a wonder no one did it before.  It was an entire cartoon set during recess.  The main characters we a diverse group of kids in the fictional 3^rd Street Middle School: TJ; the leader of the group and master schemer and prankster, Vince; the athletic kid, Spinelli; the tough kid, Mikey; the chubby poetic kid, Gretchen; the brainy kid, and Gus; the whimpy new kid.  They were stock types, yes, but entertaining stock types.  The real highlight of the show was the supporting characters who were all basically hyperboles of familiar personalities on school playgrounds like Randall; the tattle-tale, the Ashleys; four snobby rich and popular girls with the same name, Kind Bob; the king of the playground, and the tribal Kindergartners.  There were even characters defined by their niche like Swinger Girl, Guru Kid, and Hustler Kid.  It took all the everyday little things that happen in school and exaggerated them into world shattering issues.  This was one of the last good Saturday morning shows.

55. Liquid Television/What-a-Cartoon/Oh Yeah! Cartoons: Same type of show, three different networks, number 55 for the same reason.  All three were compilation shows, showcasing works from many different animators.  Liquid Television aired on MTV from 1991 through 1994, What-a-Cartoon Show aired on Cartoon Network from 1995 to 2001, and Oh Yeah! Cartoons aired from 1998 through 2001.  It might be strange to add compilation shows to this list, seeing as how they’re hard to judge, but I had to add them due to their importance.  Fact is, these shows are the breeding ground for new talent show what they got and potentially become the future superstars of the animation world.  These three shows combined featured the starts of guys who would go on to revolutionize the animation world and produce most of the shows on this list.  Gendy Tartakovsky, Peter Cheung, Craig McCracken, Mike Judge, Danny Antonucci, Butch Hartman, John R. Dilworth, Rob Renzetti, the list goes on.  It’s a damn shame there aren’t any shows like that on TV anymore, because if the animation world is going to thrive, it needs more imaginative, talented, ballsy creators like these guys, and these shows were the best ways to find them.

54. Bobby’s World: From the mind of comedian Howie Mandel came Bobby’s World, a cartoon series about everyday life told from the perspective of the over-imaginative 4-year-old Bobby Generic, voiced by Mandel himself who also voiced Bobby’s father, Howard.  The show was based around Mandel’s stand-up routines and the writers of the show drew upon their own childhood experiences for story and character inspirations.  Being a little kid during the entire run of the show it was easy to relate to situations Bobby went thrugh and the imagination scenes was always cool.  The show had a great mix of familiar characters and realistic storylines, but not too realistic.  Also, the character designs were done by Mitch Schauer, who would go on to create show number 81 on this list, The Angry Beavers.

53. The Fairly Oddparents: Fairly Oddparents spun-off of a couple of shorts from Oh Yeah! Cartoons and was centered around 10-year-old Timmy Turner and his two fairy godparents, Cosmo and Wanda.  A show where a kid can wish for anything he wants is a hard concept to base a show around, but Fairly Oddparents has been going on strong for over 10 years now.  The show’s animation is fluid and dynamic and the writing is very clever, with great character bits, snappy dialogue, and jabs at pop culture.  Fairly Oddparents continued the legacy of strong Nicktoons and it’s success has allowed creator Butch Hartman to develop two other shows for Nickelodeon, Danny Phantom and TUFF Puppy.  But neither have really reached the heights that Fairly Oddparents has, but that’s a really high bar to pass.

52. Aladdin: the Series: Rarely has the show been better than the movie, but here’s one of those cases.  Aladdin: the Series picks up right where the second movie, Return of Jafar, left off and continues the saga, (yes, I feel secure in calling it a saga), of Aladdin, Jasmine, Abu, Iago, and the Genie.  The style is the same as in the films, but the animation isn’t as strong, though it’s understandable seeing as how this is a 30 minute regular series.  All the original cast members return except, of course, for Robin Williams as Genie, whom they replaced with Dan “Homer Simpson” Castellanetta.  Aladdin’s transition from big to small screen couldn’t have gone better.  All the humor and action that made the movie so good was done better here and they even gave Aladdin a wide and colorful rogues gallery.  It was a show that was way better than it should have been.  Great cast, great adventure, one of Disney’s best.

51. Daria: Daria began life as a minor character in Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head who, right before the series cancellation, got her own series.  Daria Morgendorffer is a cynical, intelligent, and underwhelmed high school teenager who uses sarcasm and general apathy to deal with the craziness and stupidity that plagues her everyday life.  While having some of the worst and laziest animation I’ve ever seen, the show excels solely due to its writing and characters which are both phenomenal.  The dialogue was fast, scathing, and hilarious.  The show had some of the best cast of characters I’ve ever seen.  They were basically all the same people you know in real life exaggerated to the max but never one note.  Daria was a smart show with a message to get out and it got its point across every episode.

50. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Anyone who knows me isn’t surprised this is on the list, though they may be surprised it’s not higher.  I had to knock it down for the cheap 80’s animation.  Still, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the stand-out show of its era.  The series, based off the comics by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird about a quartet of turtles (Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo), mutated by radioactive ooze and trained in the art of ninjutsu by their rat sensei Master Splinter, took it’s own approach to the action cartoon genre.  When other shows like G.I. Joe and Transformers took themselves seriously, TMNT had fun with itself.  The Turtles were laid back, made jokes, and even broke the fourth wall on more than one occasion, and that worked to show’s benefit seeing as how at the time the most violent you could get away with showing was one character tickling another, TMNT, unlike others, had its witty humor to fall back on.  Rather than a huge cast of interchangeable characters, the four Turtles were core of the show and diverse enough in personality that everyone had their own favorite.  Plus, the soundtrack to the show was killer, and it’s theme song will be forever ingrained in the minds of every kid who grew up in the late 80’s and early 90’s.  The turtles have had a couple more animated outings since then with another on the way, but none have yet to capture the charm and heart of this one.  Turtle Power will never die.

49. TaleSpin: TaleSpin was the first original show for the Disney Afternoon.  Taking the characters from the Jungle Book and recasting them in an adventure series set in the 1930’s.  Baloo the Bear was now an ace pilot working for the Higher for Hire cargo delivery company.  Shere Khan and King Louie were the only other two characters from the original book to be used, the series had it’s own cast of original characters, most notably air pirate Don Carnage.  The show felt like one of those old timey adventure serials, complete with exotic locals, thrilling danger, and stereotyped minorities (though they used animals instead of people, so it’s ok).  It had great characters, great voice acting, and the animation was solid.  The art style had real feeling to it, from the rustic seaside city of Cape Suzette to the exotic locals the show ventured to, the art was simply beautiful.  TaleSpin was just all around great, shame it never got a movie.

48. Spectacular Spider-Man: Marvel’s best cartoon ever.  Ever.  Simple as that.  Not a single cartoon they ever put out before was better than Spectacular Spider-Man.  Instead of following the movie, or sticking painfully close to the comics, the show, chronicling the early super heroics of Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, took its inspiration from the early Stan Lee and Steve Ditko Spider-Man stories and created a fun, dramatic, and engaging series that captured everything great about Spider-Man.  The title character himself was sympathetic, funny, relatable, and heroic, all the things missing from Tobey McGuire’s Spidey.  He was surrounded by great supporting characters and a truly menacing rogues gallery.  The animation was fast, fluid, and breathtaking in some moments.  Spectacular Spider-Man ended way too soon, long before it reached its peak.  The next Spider-Man cartoon has a lot to live up to.

47. Hey Arnold!: Hey Arnold was similar to shows like Doug and Recess, except it felt like more of what those shows should have been.  Hey Arnold centered around the life of 9-year-old Arnold, a boy with and active imagination, wisdom beyond his years and a football-shaped head who lived in New York City.   Hey Arnold’s urban setting is what made this show so cool.  It’s supporting cast was diverse and eccentric, very fitting of New York, with their own unique voices and personalities.  The early episodes of the series were very stylized, complete with colored penciled backgrounds, and were focused solely on Arnold and his trippy day-dream sequences.  In later episodes of the show the animation became more on model and the day-dream sequences were done away with as the supporting characters began carrying their own episodes.  Thankfully the stories remained solid.  Hey Arnold was entertaining, clever, and never pandering.

46. Aeon Flux: Aeon Flux was created by Peter Cheung, who, after coming off Rugrats, wanted to push the limit of what could be done in television animation, and man did he succeed.  The sci-fi series was about master assassin Aeon Flux working to bring down the technologically advanced yet dystopian country of Bregna led by Trevor Goodchild.  The series is famous for its avant-garde visual style and animation, drawing inspiration from Asian and European art.  The way the series played with perspective, color, and character construction were like nothing else on TV at the time, or anything on TV now.  The series also had a very non-linear story structure with continuity rarely ever coming into play.  As a result, it was a very easy show to get into, each episode feeling like its own little production.  Aeon Flux was a show way ahead of its time, yet it fit perfectly with the alternative and innovative mindset of the 90’s animation world.

45. Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat: Until recently I had forgotten this show existed, and I’m glad I found it because it was really cool.  The show is a somewhat modern take on the classic cartoon character of the 20’s created by Otto Messmer and Patrick Sullivan.  Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat took a page out the Fleischer bros. book and substituted snappy dialogue and strong story structure for great, off-the-wall, cartoony animation, and it was great.  It was a pure, unabashed cartoon, not trying to be anything more.  The visual gags, the timing, the squash and stretch, it all worked perfectly.  It felt exactly like a cartoon of the golden era, and this was in 1995.  This show didn’t know the meaning of the word “on-model”.  Maybe that’s why it isn’t so well remembered, but it doesn’t make it any less awesome.  Find it if you can if you’re an animation fan.

44. Tiny Toon Adventures: While so many classic characters were being aged down, Tiny Toon Adventures took a different approach.  Rather than turn the Looney Tunes into kids, we instead got whole new characters, inspired by the classic characters, who were now their teachers at Acme Looniversity, as school where young toons learn to be next cartoon superstars.  The stars were the cool, wisecracking, and unpredictable Buster and Babs Bunny (no relation), the greedy and egotistical Plucky Duck, and his frequent sidekick, the soft-spoken and gluttonous Hampton Pig.  The show had a wide cast of characters each representing as different Looney Tune.  The show helped revive interest in classic cartoony animation, but it always did it with a slight wink to the audience.  The show was mostly made up of multiple shorts with the characters, mainly Buster and Babs, talking directly to the audience inbetween.  The writing was great and found humorous ways to get morals across to children, so we barely noticed it.  The music was also phenomenal, thanks to a number of different composers, including Richard Stone, would go on to use his talents on other Warner Bros cartoons.  Tiny Toons was the first in a long line of animation classics.

43. Futurama: Created by Matt Groeining and David X. Cohen, Futurama is consistently well written but sadly nowhere as popular as its “older brother” The Simpsons.  Philip J. Fry, a dim-witted pizza delivery boy in 1999 New York get’s accidentally frozen on New Years Eve and wakes up in the year 3000.  He then joins the Planet Express delivery crew alongside new friends Leela, a level-headed and bossy female cyclops, and Bender a foul-mouth and hard drinking robot, thus the premise for the show.  Futurama offers us a more realistic version of the future, giving us all the fantastic stuff we’ve always wanted like flying cars and spaceships, yet showing we’re still plagued with the same problems like crime, corruption and general debauchery.  Futurama’s writing has remained consistently hilarious and at times heartfelt over six seasons.  The show indulges in various jabs and homage’s of sci-fi movies, serials, and TV shows of the past and feels very much like a spiritual successor to them, a very sarcastic and raunchy successor but a successor nonetheless.  The show aired on Fox but was cancelled after four seasons, but a strong fanbase kept it alive to the point where the series was renewed on Comedy Central, and unlike another resurrected Fox show, Futurama came back just as strong as ever.

42. Underdog: “There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here”!  Those words were heard every episode of this Superman-inspired cartoon series.  Mild mannered Shoeshine Boy would spring into action every time Sweet Polly Purebred was in trouble by popping his Super Energy Pill (another pill popping hero), to become the mighty Underdog.  Just like Roger Ramjet, Underdog made up for it’s limited animation with strong character designs and fun writing.  Each episode was divided into parts, which made the series very suspenseful for kids.  The dialogue was fine, and the fact that Underdog always talked in rhyme never got old.  While his rogues gallery was limited to only two recurring villains, it was fine for the show.  It remained fun and energetic.  A movie was made in 2006 but the less said about that the better.  Just watch the cartoon.

41. Freakazoid: Another in a string of great Warner Bros cartoons, Freakazoid was a parody of the super hero genre, but offered much more than that.  The plot of the show was summed up in the theme song; Nerdy Dexter Douglas gets sucked into the internet, gains superpowers and turns into Freakazoid, a super strong, super fast, and super insane blue-skin, red long-john wearing hero.  Freakazoid, for a kids cartoon, was very hilarious.  The writing was both goof and intelligent, and you can tell it was a fun show to work on.  The characters were just all just as absurd as the show itself and didn’t so much balance out Freakazoid, as they did give him something to bounce off of.  As superheroes became more serious, it was nice to see the seriousness get thrown back in their face in such a loving way.  It was wonderfully cartoony and high energy and continues to hold-up for younger and older audiences.

Come back later for the next 20, when we, and by “we” I mean I, talk about superheroes, bouncing bears, and undersea sponges.

ME BEING PRETENTIOUS AND ARBITRARILY RANKING A BUNCH OF TV CARTOONS

or

THE 100 GREATEST ANIMATED SERIES OF ALL TIME

PART 2

And now back to our regularly scheduled list of the 100 Greatest Animated Series of all time.

We pick it back up with numbers 80-61…

80. Space Ghost Coast to Coast: The original Adult Swim show, but it long predates it.  Using the entire Hanna Barbera library for material, Space Ghost Coast to Coast used recycled animation and re-dubbed voices to create a hilarious and random talk show parody.  SGC2C took Space Ghost, the hero of those old Hanna Barbera action shorts and recast him as a washed up buffoon who now host a rinky dink talk show alongside former enemies Zorak, his band leader, and Moltar, his director.  The show had a large number of celebrity cameos featuring the likes of Metallica, Weird Al, Sandra Berndhart, Adam West, and Carrot Top.  The interviews were pre-taped a later synched up with the animation to make it appear as if Space Ghost was actually interviewing him.  The show was wonderfully weird with no regard for continuity or coherence.  The main characters all played off each other perfectly and their scathing banter between each other was gold.  Interviewees were sometimes in on the joke, and other times had no clue what was going on, which were always the best part.  The show also inspired two spin-offs, The Brak Show and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which has surpassed it in both longevity and poularity, but nothing beats the original.

79. Home Movies: Brendon Small’s crudely animated series about a boy who makes lower than low budget movies in his basement with his friends started life on UPN in the late 90’s before being rescued from total obscurity by Adult Swim in 2001.  Home Movies had a visual style that looked like a child drew it with animation to match, but it proved that good writing can save even the crappiest animation.  Home Movies writing and characterization were some of the most sophisticated I’d ever seen, there wasn’t really a bad character in the bunch, each had their own moments to shine, particularly Coach McGurrick, voiced by the great H. Jon Benjamin.  The dialogue, mostly ad-libbed, felt very realistic, right down to the fact that characters frequently talked over each other.  The show lasted four seasons and had a surprisingly emotional finale, I make it a priority to watch the show every time Adult Swim reruns it.

78. Kim Possible: The last good series to come out of the Disney Channel…hell maybe the only good series to come out of the Disney Channel.  Kim Possible’s premise was a simple one, summed up perfectly by the theme song, a basic average girl who’s here to save the world.  Kim Possible was a normal high school girl who doubled as a secret agent saving the world from evil of varying competence.  While the show used that flat, angular look for the characters and backgrounds that I’m not really too fond of, it used them to good effect.  The show’s voice acting and sense of humor also helped make the show so appealing.  The show was kind of similar to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but succeeded where that show failed in creating a likeable main character.

77. Pirates of Dark Water: Screw Pirates of the Caribbean, this show made pirates cool.  Set on the alien world of Mer, Prince Ren along with his crew Ioz, Tula, and Niddler must collect the thirteen treasures Rule in order to save the planet from being consumed by the deadly Dark Water which kills whatever it touches.  They must find the treasures before the evil pirate lord Bloth can obtain them for himself.  This show was an amazing mixture of action, adventure, and fantasy.  You had a group of heroes who are al deep and likeable on a mission that had real weight to it and a main villain who was very menacing.  The show had a beautiful look to it and the color style was a great unearthly earthly tone, not to mention its epic score.  Of all the Hanna Barbera action series this could have easily been the best, but it’s surpassed by one other that you’ll be seeing on this list.

76. Sym-bionic Titan: Gendy Tartakovsky is one of the undisputed geniuses in the field of animation.  His simplistic character designs and backgrounds were enhanced by his cinematic-style camera work, visual storytelling prowess, and myriad of pop culture influences.  Unfortunately aside from Dexter’s Laboratory his shows never got much mainstream exposure.  Sym-bionic Titan was one of those underrated gems.  Titan was Tartakovsky’s tribute to the giant robot shows made famous by Japan and was about two teens (Lance and Ilana) and their robot ally (Octus), refugees from a conquered planet the hide on Earth who unite to form the giant mecha warrior Sym-Bionic Titan to battle the alien creatures that hunt them.  I’m not normally a fan of traditional/3D animation mix, but it worked really well for this show.  The fight scenes were dope and surprisingly violent, but then again Gendy has always been able to get away with the intense violence.  The writing was extremely strong and could balance humorous and light hearted with dark and dramatic.  I’ve raved before about this show in a previous article so there’s nothing really new to say, except that it ended way before it’s time.

75. Peter Pan and the Pirates: Sticking closer to the J.M. Barrie stories than the Disney movie, Peter Pan and the Pirates centered around Peter, Wendy, John, Michael, and the Lost Boys adventures through the magical Neverland and their deals with Captain Hook and his crew.  All the characters were very well represented.  Peter Pan was cocky, adventurous, fearless, and a little selfish, as he should be, and Captain Hook, rather than the exaggerated buffoon he was in the Disney movie, was ruthless, cruel, and was a real threat to Pan, and it helped he was voiced by Tim Curry.  This was one of the earliest shows on Fox Kids and certainly the best before a show about a certain caped crusader debuted two years later.  The writing was creative and original and really took full advantage of the setting.  I’m a big fan of Peter Pan and this show proves why.

74. 2 Stupid Dogs: The title says it all, 2 Stupid Dogs is about…two stupid dogs.  Known only by Big Dog and Little Dog, these two dim-witted canines go through a series of misadventures caused by simple misunderstandings.  The show, while simple-minded, was funny as hell.  Big Dog’s slow, melancholic line delivery coupled with Little Dog’s hyperactivity and fear of cats made for some great comedic bits.  2 Stupid Dogs had a lot of great episodes, most notably the Red trilogy, with the duo pairing with a nearsighted Little Red Riding Hood to parody different fairy tale stories.  Each episode contained two Dogs shorts with the middle segment being a modern update of Secret Squirrel, which was equally cool, but the adventures of Big Dog and Little Dog were the true stars.

73. Beast Wars: Crappy CGI aside, what kid in the late 90’s didn’t love Beast Wars?  It was Transformers but with animals instead of cars and jets and tape recorders.  Instead of the Autobots and the Decepticons there were the Maximals and the Predacons.  Instead of Optimus Prime and Megatron there was Optimus Primal and…well, Megatron.  The show, set in the same universe as the previous Transformers series, but on a more prehistoric Earth.  Optimus Primal led the Maximals against the evil Predacons under the command of Megatron in an intense was.  Where it lacked in animation quality it made up for in writing, characters, and voice acting.  Rather than a multitude of interchangeable characters, the show was more focused on core group, which led to more character based storytelling and development.  The action in the show was insane and the show could get dark really fast.  Characters changed, characters died, it was playing a whole different game from what most other shows were playing.  Beast Wars was absolutely kick ass, especially Dinobot.

72. The Tick: The Tick was based off the independent comic of the same name by Ben Edlund.  The star of the show was The Tick, a large blue-clad superhero with super strength, nigh invulnerability, relentless optimism, and little intelligence.  He and his pudgy, insecure, moth-inspired sidekick Arthur protect the city from various evils like El Seed, Brain Child, Chairface Chippendale, and Handy (an evil hand puppet).  The Tick was absolutely hilarious, and for kids show one of the smartest comedies I’ve seen.  The show was a great send-up to the entire superhero genre with parodies of various heroes from Batman to the Punisher to the Fantastic Four.  The highlight of the show was the characters.  Die Fledermaus, Sewer Urchin, The Civic Minded 5, The Deadly Bulb, Big Shot, Sarcastro, there was no shortage of memorable and hilarious characters, whether recurring or one time, and the Tick was the perfect central character for all this madness.  The Tick was one of the many reasons Fox Kids owned on Saturday mornings.

71. Batman: the Brave and the Bold: As of the time of this writing, the latest animated incarnation of Batman.  Rather than follow the popular grim and gritty style, this cartoon took inspiration from the more light hearted and imaginative Silver Age of comics.  Batman was the star but he was accompanied every episode by a different hero of the DCU.  From the more well known heroes like Superman, Green Arrow, and Aquaman, to up-and-comers like Blue Beetle, Plastic Man, and Firestorm, to the totally obscure like Haunted Tank, the Challengers of the Unknown, and Ambush Bug.  They left no stone unturned.  This show was pure fun.  It knew exactly what it was and played to its strengths.  Batman could be fighting everything from super villains, to mind-controlled dinosaurs, to an army of shark riding gorillas, and it would do it unironically.  The show was a love letter to comic book fans and was packed with easter eggs only they would get, the show would also get with meat with itself and break the fourth wall on occasion.  The show was brilliantly written, the animation was solid, the voice acting was the highest quality and it was entertaining.  While the Bruce Timm-DCAU shows were better made, this show, in terms of pure quality fin, surpasses not just them, but every comic book cartoon ever.

70. Muppet Babies: It’s a wonder the Muppets never had more animated outings, considering how good this was.  Kermit, Gonzo, Piggy, Fozzy, Scooter, Rolf, and Animal were the stars of this show, but this time as babies.  Every episode took place in the nursery where the babies lived, but though the imagination of the characters they went everywhere from the worlds of Star Wars to Indiana Jones.  Really, that was the whole premise of the show.  The Muppets used their imagination to create fun scenarios, and it was awesome.  As a young kid, this was my first exposure to movies like Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters.  This show used a lot of stock footage, but it worked in the context of the show.  Plus every episode featured a new original song, so all-in-all, it perfectly captured the fun and spirit we expect from the Muppets.

69. Johnny Bravo: A lot of good shows came out of What-a-Cartoon Show, and Van Partible’s Johnny Bravo was one of them.  Johnny Bravo, a self-described studly ladies man and overall buffoon was the star of the series and episodes revolved around his misadventures and sad attempts to pick up women, and fail of course.  The early shorts only starred Johnny, Johnny’s mother Bunny Bravo, and his neighbor Little Suzy, eventually the series went through a slight visual re-design and introduced the characters Carl, Johnny’s nerdy friend, and Pops, a diner owner and Johnny’s mentor.  The driving source of the humor was Johnny himself and his dim-witted but mostly well meaning actions, the supporting characters weren’t has strong but Johnny I felt picked up the slack.  The show featured excellent animation with great timing acting from the characters.  Plus Jeff Bennett’s voice acting as the title character was always hilarious.

68. Teen Titans: Teen Titans was a unique show, in that it could pull off multiple styles pretty well.  The show, based on the DC Comics series, centered around five young superheroes, Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, Beast Boy, and their leader Robin.  Unlike other super hero cartoons, Teen Titans never got into the non-costumed life of the heroes, rather they were constantly in their super identities.  The show also never brought in the well known adult heroes like Batman and Superman, rather it stayed self contained with the Titans being the only super team, and that approach worked.  The show was visually eye popping, like a mixture of Japanese anime and swinging sixties culture.  As I said before it could pull off multiple styles of storytelling really well.  It could do light-hearted and comedic adventures, insightful character based stories, and heavy dramatic epics.  All four seasons each had an overarching storyline with self contained adventures thrown in the mix.  All five characters had a great dynamic and they never disturbed it by introducing a new member of the team.  It had great music, especially the theme song by Puffy AmuiYumi, great fight scenes, great visual gags, and great atmosphere.  This show rocked.

67. The Alvin Show/Alvin and the Chipmunks: Alvin, Simon, and Theodore have been staples of pop culture for decades.  Long before those CGI abominations, these were the Chipmunks only animated outings.  The Alvin Show from 1961 was very much like the cartoons series of that time, simplistic stories with strong character designs and staging.  Each episode would feature a Chipmunks short, another short series called Clyde Crash-up, and two musical segments.  The musical segments here featured more of the Chipmunks original songs like “Witch Doctor” and “The Alvin Twist”.  In 1983 the characters were redesigned and update for a then current audience.  Alvin and the Chipmunks, later retiled The Chipmunks, featured longer stories with a song injected into the story, only this time the songs were the Chipmunks covered popular song s of the time like Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and Billy Joel’s “For the Longest Time”.  This series in notable for introducing the Chipettes (Brittany, Jeanette, and Eleanor) into Chipmunks lorre.  What was great about the Chipettes is that rather than just be female copies of the male Chipmunks, they were strong, well developed characters in their own right and could even carry episodes by themselves, which is a rare thing, but they still never overshadowed the Chipmunks, who prove even today they still have staying power.

66. Mighty Max: Mighty Max was a cartoon series from the 90’s based on a popular toyline, which of course means the show would be crap right?  WRONG!  Mighty Max was one of the most brilliant and intense shows of its time.  The show’s protagonist was Max, a preteen who learns his destiny is to save the world as the “Cap-Bearer”, the wielder of a magical baseball cap that can open portals throughout the world and even throughout dimensions.  He’s aided by Virgil, a wise and bookish Lemurian, a creature that looks like a anthropomorphic foul, and Norman, his hulking, sword wielding, definition of badass bodyguard.  His nemesis was the evil Skullmaster (voiced by Tim Curry) who craves the caps power for himself, and was a truly terrifying villain for a kids cartoon.  The show was an amazing adventure series that literally went everywhere, no situation being too out there.  The show was very fun but could go dark very fast, specifically the final episode.  Oh God the final episode.  Max, Virgil and Norman prepare to have their final confrontation with Skullmaster, Norman and Virgil are KILLED, straight up killed, Max tries to battle Skullmaster and loses, and the only way to fix everything is to use the caps power to reverse time, to the very beginning of the series, with Max, still with all his previous knowledge, preparing to relive all the adventures again.  What the hell kids cartoon ever did anything like that.  Mighty Max was the biggest underrated gem of them all.

65. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures: The 80’s were a dark time for animation, with more emphasis being placed on toy sales than actual quality, but Mighty Mouse: the New Adventures was different than the rest, mainly due to it being spearheaded by animation bad boy Ralph Bakashi.  Mighty Mouse had incredible animation and real acting in the characters.  The show was comedy show with bits of action.  Mighty Mouse’s adventures were absurd and frequently featured parodies of everything from Batman to Alvin and the Chipmunks to modern animation as a whole.  The show was a hub for future stars in the industry like Bruce Timm and John Krisfaluci, Bakashi knew talent when he saw it and together they created one of the most visually appealing shows of all time.

64. Courage the Cowardly Dog: John R. Dillworth’s wonderfully dark, twisted and surreal cartoon about a small pink dog named Courgae who protects his elderly owners from the supernatural more than earns it’s spot on the list.  Courage the Cowardly Dog was based off the short “Chicken from Outer Space”, and if you’ve seen that short you know how perfectly that sums up the entire series.  It was a great black comedy with character designs that were solid and abstract.  The show had a cast of characters that could only work in a setting like this.  Really thinking about it, Courage is a hard show to put into words.  It was cartoony, but not off-the-wall, bouncy, high energy cartoon, rather a slow, deliberate cartoon that always built up its gags to big pay-offs.  The main characters were all balanced and likeable, even Eustece, whos entire purpose for being in the show was to be a dick to Courage and get his comeuppance at the end.  Courage the Cowardly Dog: bizarrely brilliant.

63. Roger Ramjet: Roger Ramjet followed the Jay Ward principle.  Got crappy low budget animation, make up for it with hilarious writing.  Roger Ramjet were the short adventures of Roger Ramjet, an all American superhero with his sidekicks, the youthful American Eagle squadron (Yank, Doodle, Dan, and Dee).  Whenever Roger was in a pinch, he would pop a Proton Energy Pills, which would give him the strength of 20 atom bombs for 20 seconds.  Ach short only lasted for about seven minutes, but told a solid story that wrapped up nicely.  It was fast paced and the gags where all dialogue based, and for a show of its time had pretty snappy dialogue with many pop culture references.  Roger Ramjet is a show that couldn’t work today, making this show all the more special.

62. The Critic: It only lasted for two seasons, but in those two seasons The Critic pretty much defined the 90’s.  The show was about a stocky, bald, and cynical film critic named Jay Sherman who hosted a film review show, Coming Attractions, and frequently put down the latest Hollywood outings with his catchphrase, “It Stinks”!  The Critic was pop culture machine and frequently went for the jugular with Hollywood.  Every episode featured a parody of popular movies or actors of the time and left no one unscratched.  Aside from that, the show had great characters.  Not just Jay, but his boss, the Southern, right-wing, wealthy, and power mad Duke Phillips who predated Alec Baldwin’s character on 30 Rock, Jeremy Steele, Jay’s actor friend who was a parody of the leading action men of the time, Jay’s dad Franklin Sherman, his rum loving, millionaire father who was completely out of his mind.  The Critic may seem dated by today’s standards, but its characters and voice acting brilliance have withstood the test of time.

61. Goof Troop: In 1992, Disney took two of its oldest characters, Goofy and Pete, and relaunched them both in a then new series called Goof Troop.  Goof Troop was like a cartoon version of a TGIF sitcom and gave the two classic Disney characters sons named Max and PJ respectively, (actually they gave Pete a whole family, but those four where the stars).  Goof Troop had all that great classic Disney animation and a slapstick style of humor that works best in cartoons.  Episodes would either focus on Goofy and Pete (where Goofy would be the clueless foil to Pete’s greedy schemes), or Max and PJ (where Max would drag the reluctant PJ on his plans).  With most of the other Disney Afternoon shows having underscores of action and adventure, Goof Troop was unique in that was family oriented.  No race cars, laser, and airplanes, or crimes to be solved, just low-key but high energy adventures of these two families, which was perfectly fine.  Goof Troop would later loosely spin off into the movies A Goofy Movie and An Extremely Goofy Movie making this series unique in that it’s one of the few western cartoons to have characters actually age, and in real time, but it’s hard to say if it fits in continuity.  Still, neither discount from how great Goof Troop was.

Well that’s all for now, stay tuned for the next bath where we look at future families and inept aliens

ME BEING PRETENTIOUS AND ARBITRARILY RANKING A BUNCH OF TV CARTOONS

or

THE 100 GREATEST ANIMATED SERIES OF ALL TIME

PART 1

Greetings Toonsters!  The year is almost over and 2012 is just around the corner, so before we all go down in a fiery and horrific apocalypse I thought we’d take a look back at all the cartoons kept us entertained.  That’s right, today we’re going to countdown the 100 Greatest Cartoon Shows of All Time!

Now let me preface by saying, this list was composed entirely by me, no one else.  No voting, no deliberation, no objective opinions, just me, because Extreme Inbetweens is MY damn column.  This isn’t a toonocrasy, this is toontatorship, so you can call me GaDaffy (see what I did there).  Will there be bias, yeah.  Will you people disagree with my choices and blast me for what I put on/left off the list, of course, but then again I never get any comments anyway so whatever, but in any case, if you guys don’t like it, make your own damn list.  Nothing’s stopping ya.

These 100 shows I felt really brought something entertaining to the world of animation.  Some have become megahits and some flew way under the radar.  Some have become cult favorites and some have just been plain forgotten.  But I didn’t just throw the list together all willy nilly, there were three strict rules adhered to, to keep this list fair and balanced…

1. No Golden Age Film Shorts, TV Only: I had to put this one in place early on, otherwise the number 1 would be too obvious (Looney Tunes for those not in the know).  Besides, those are a lot to take in and I wanted to keep this in the world of television.  No Popeye, no Betty Boop, no Mickey Mouse, no Woody Woodpecker, etc.  Not saying they’re great, but they’ve gotten their praise, let’s give the little guys a chance.

2. Only in America: I wasn’t about to try to factor in anime or any other foreign cartoon series.  I’m not opening that can of worms.  As much as I would like to include shows like Cowboy Bebop and Pokemon, I’m keeping this to just cartoons made in the good ol’ US of A.  And yes I’m well aware all of this stuff is animated overseas.  That’s not the point so shut up!

3. If I haven’t seen it, Then it’s a no-go: Obviously I can’t rank or critique any show I haven’t seen before.  That’s not how I roll.  All 100 shows on this list I’ve seen either in it’s entirety or a good chunk of the episodes to give me a clear vision of what the show is about.  So don’t get mad at me if I left something off that you love, I just may not of have seen it.  Or I didn’t think it was good enough, either/or.

So let’s get it started with numbers 100-81…

100. Young Justice/Thundercats: Yes we’re starting this list with a tie…but what a tie!  Young Justice is the latest offering from DC and Warner Bros and continues their long tradition of animation brilliance.  The show is centered around a team of six young heroes (Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Superboy, Miss Martian, and Artemis) brought together by a desire to establish themselves out of their mentor’s shadow.  Under the command of Batman and the Justice League, the team takes on the covert missions the high profile League aren’t able to.  Young Justice’s biggest strengths are it’s story telling, voice acting, and characterization.  The main characters are written like real teenagers, with their own unique voices who aren’t above goofing around with each other, but can make the switch to true professionals at a moments notice.  They feel human and you get engrossed in the show because of it.

Thundercats, on the other hand, is a reboot of the 1980’s toy commercial cartoon series.  Rather than be a complete retelling of the series, the show slaps some Tollken-style epicness into it, using pre-established characters in a new and more exiting light.  The show follows the adventures of Lion-O, lord of the once great race the Thundercats, as he and he’s allies try to save their world from the grasp of Mumm-Ra and his forces.  The setting, character designs, and plot have received a welcome update.  The show is engrossing and absolutely beautiful to look at, with some of the best animation on TV today.

These two shows are very different but are number 100 for the same reason, they’re really new.  At the time of this article, both these shows have barely got out of their first season, so it remains to be seen how far they’ll go and if the quality remains.  But if they stay on the track their on, I see nothing but great things to come.

99.  Avengers: Earth’s Mightest Heroes: Let’s pretend that other Avengers cartoon never happened and consider this the first true animated outing of the team.  Since being acquired by Disney, Marvel seems to be getting more serious about animation, and this shows.  Avengers: Earth’s Mightest Heroes, which chronicles the exploits of the Marvel Universe’s most powerful super-team, offers a unique visual style, more fluid animation than what’s been seen in most other Marvel shows, and much tighter writing.  Fan favorite characters like Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, and the Hulk are all beautifully represented and the show is both engaging and action-packed.  If only it had a better theme song.

98. Mad Jack the Pirate:  Around 1997, the great animation renaissance of the 90’s began to peter out, though in those few remaining years there were a number of great shows that never caught on big like other shows of that era like Animaniacs or Ren and Stimpy, or are as well remembered.  One of those shows is out number 98 and comes courtesy of Eek the Cat-creator Bill Kopp, Mad Jack the Pirate!  The show centered around the self centered, greedy, and cowardly pirate captain Mad Jack and his first mate, Snuk.  The show used relied on classic animation gags and top notch voice acting.  The animation was some of the best of that time and writing, while not ground breaking, were entertaining as hell.  It wasn’t afraid to be a cartoon, and that’s an attitude more shows should have.

97. Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic the Hedgehog has had quite a few animated outings, but the one that gets the most fan praise is the show simply titles Sonic the Hedgehog(or Sonic SatAM).  The show get’s praise for it’d dark storyline and additions of the Sonic cast roster.  But you know what, they don’t know nothing, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was the superior show.  AoSH didn’t take it’s lead character so seriously, instead focusing on a more cartoony tone with plenty of slapstick action.  Rather than a big cast of characters the show was just focused on Sonic and his sidekick Tails as the bomb around the city of Mobious, eating chill-dogs and foiling the schemes of the bombastic Dr. Robotnick and his bumbling robot sidekicks Scratch and Grounder.  The show was funny, colorful, weird, and fast-paced, prefect for a 90’s Saturday morning.  There weren’t any deep storylines or character development, but you didn’t need them.  The show was fun, the animation was good, and the music was painfully addictive.  Sonic was perfect character to translate into the medium of animation, and this was his greatest showing.  Forget about the rest, this one is the best.

96. King of the Hill:  It’s really rare for lighting to strike twice.  Most creators only get one hit, but Mike Judge was obviously doing something right.  After Beavis and Butt-Head ended, Mike Judge quickly came back to the world of prime-time animation with King of the Hill.  The show centered around The Hill family (Hank, Peggy, and Bobby) of Arlen,Texas and their friends and neighbors.  Compared to Beavis and Butt-Head, KoTH felt a lot more grounded, at least situation wise.  The characters themselves were all bursting with personality, balanced out by straight-shooter Hank Hill.  This show also came the closest to capturing true realism in animation.  There were no beautiful people, no glorified character designs, it chose to showcase the little imperfections of people making them look more lifelike than anything CG has ever done.  KoTH was one of the longest running cartoons of all time, it wasn’t wacky or outlandish, but was able to turn the mundane aspects of life into pure entertainment.

95. Beetlejuice:  Based of the 1988 film of the same name by Tim Burton, the cartoon series took a different approach to the characters.  The show focused on the title character, Beetlejuice, the ghost with the most, and his human friend Lydia  and the chaos that would encounter, mainly due to Beetlejuice’s actions.  The show wasn’t as dark as the movie, and Beetlejuice and Lydia, as well as her parents, were the only characters carried over.  The show had a great warped sense of humor, although the constant puns could get annoying at times, and it’s visuals were very unique.  The animation was very satisfying for it’s time and fit the tone of the show.  It’s one of the few movie-to-cartoon adaptations that, at least to me, surpass the source material.

94. Kablam: The 90’s had quite a few of these cartoon variety shows, Kablam was probably the last, or at least one of the last.  The show’s structure was that of  comic book and was hosted by cartoon duo Henry and June who would provide comedic bits inbetween shorts alongside their friend Mr. Foot(Bigfoot).  The  show had quite a bit of different cartoons but there were four mainstays each utilize a different animation style.  Sniz and Fondue, the traditionally-animated adventures of two roommates, Life with Loopy, the imaginative escapades of a 12-year old girl named Loopy told through her brother Larry done in cut-out animation, Prometheus and Bob, the claymated video diaries of an alien trying to educate a caveman with often painful results, and the most popular segment of the show, Action League, NOW!, a stop-motion animated series featuring a team of action figures who rescue people, or at least try to seeing as how their all idiots.  Action league eventually spun-off into it’s own series, but I’m honoring Kablam for its creativity and being a great animation showcase.

93. The Smurfs: Honestly, I can’t figure out the appeal of this show.  A spin-off of the Belgian comic Johan and PeeWee, The Smurfs takes place in the tiny Smurf village, inhabited by little blue creatures called Smurfs.  The Smurfs are pretty much defined by what they do, there’s Baker Smurf, Painter Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Jokey Smurf, Hefty Smurf, Clumsy Smurf, Smurfette(the only chick), etc, all under the watch of Papa Smurf.  The central conflict comes from their arch-enemy Gargamel, who wants to capture The Smurfs to…do something with them.  The show odd but I give it points for its fantasy setting, voice acting, and strange charm despite the ridiculousness of it.  For its sheer impact on pop culture, Smurfs gets a spot on this list.

92. The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy: It’s odd how a show this dark and twisted could be marketed to kids, but by God they did it.  Created by Maxwell Atoms the show was a spin-off of a larger show, Grim and Evil, but was cut down to just this one.  The set-up, The Grim Reaper, who for some reason was given a Jamaican accent, after losing a bet with two kids; the blissfully idiotic Billy and the intelligent, dark, and semi-sociopathic Mandy, is forced to become their eternal playmate.  The show was great, with a very dark sense of humor, with the characters dealing with everything from demons to a Red Foxx-like Dracula.  The shows biggest strength was the dynamic between the main characters with Grim always looking for a way to escape his debt, Mandy always being able to manipulate a situation to her favor, and Billy…well..just being a retard.  Insanely dark but insanely fun, Grim Adventures is a worthy addition to the list.

91. Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc: The latest in the long string of Scooby-Doo cartoons, this is one is one of the absolute best.  Rather than take a back-to-basics approach, the show takes a whole new spin on Scooby, giving the show a overarching story and introducing new character development and relationships.  Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo once again make up the core cast.  They still solve mysteries, but now in a small town where they face opposition from adults who are not only in on the ploys, but encourage them to gain tourist attraction.  This is also the darkest series of them all, with an overarching mystery dealing with the disappearance of a previous team of young sleuths and how it ties into the mysteries today.  Mystery Inc is also one of the funniest with clever writing that pokes fun at the show itself and all the tropes it’s created along the way.  Mystery Inc is one of the best cartoons today and is  recommended for fans and non-fans of the series alike.

90.  Rugrats: One of the original three Nicktoons, Rugrats was the biggest show Nickelodeon had before a certain yellow sponge burst onto the scene.  Rugrats looked at the modern world through the perspective of 1-year-old Tommy Pickels and his fellow babies.  Rugrats came from the minds of Arlene Klasky and Gabor Csupo was created the animation studio Klasky Csupo, which would go on to produce more shows for Nick, but this was their biggest.  In its days, Rugrats was a great commentary on life and how odd the actions of adults are when viewed through the simplistic eyes of a child.  It had a very distinct visual style with exaggerated body proportions on the characters and very warm feeling muted color scheme, but once The Rugrats Movie, those elements were toned down and the writing became, ironically, more child-like.  Still, the show was megahit in the late 90’s, and one of the biggest cartoons of the time, maybe the biggest.  Rugrats wins for great writing, great animation and voice acting in the early days.

89. Doug: It’s funny, when the first Nicktoons were in production, Doug was predicted to be the biggest of the three.  The three that included it, Rugrats, and Ren and Stimpy, thus further proof that no one really knows nuthin’.  Still, Doug was good show.  It centered on the life of 12-year-old Doug Funnie, a pretty average, mundane kid with a big imagination.  The show could get kinda mundane at times, but the best bits were whenever Doug would get lost in his own imaginative interpretations of problems, which could get really twisted at times, but accurately captures the anxiety of being an awkward pre-teen.  Doug had a strong, colorful (and I do mean colorful) cast of characters and a damn catchy and enigmatic score.  Of the little gems of the 90’s.

88. X-Men: Before being completely overshadows by Batman the Animated Series, X-Men was the pinnacle of super hero cartoons.  Based off the uber-popular Marvel comic of the same name, the show was about a team of mutants, people born with genetic abnormalities that give them super powers, assembled to fight to defend a world that hates their kind.  The theme of being a misfit, ostracized and different from normal people is what made the series resonate with a 90’s audience.  It had strong writing and deep storylines for older audiences and kick-ass action and powers for younger audiences.  Though the show’s main failing came from the animation.  It’s highly detailed character designs made it animate poorly and the final season looked even worse, and the show quickly became centered around the character Wolverine, to the detriment of the others.  Still, you can’t deny that it made a huge impact and will always be remembered, especially its theme song.

87. Static Shock: It’s always great to see more diverse representation in our entertainment, but that’s not why Static Shock is on this list.  Based of the comic series by the late great Dwayne McDuffie, Static Shock featured the animated adventures of teenager Virgil Hawkins who, after exposure to an experimental gas, turned into the electrified hero Static.  In a time were super heroes were being taken more seriously than they needed to by, Static Shock never forgot to be fun.   Granted it could get a little preacy at times, but it never stopped being entertaining and Static himself to be a popular and highly appealing lead character.  It had plenty of great action, a great cast of characters and villains, heart, and lots of cameos by other DC heroes like Batman and Superman.  Shame the current comics can’t be just as good.

86. Aqua Teen Hunger Force: What the hell can you say about this show?  It’s…it.  It’s what it is, complete nonsensical, episodes operate without regard for continuity, it’s lead characters are talking milkshake, box of fries, and wad of meat.  A spin-off of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, ATHF is the longest running show on Adult Swim, and when the episodes could literally feature anything and the show has nothing resembling a plot it’s easy to see why.  It’s random and the animation is some of the cheapest ever.  ATHF brilliance comes from the fact that it’s so dumb.  It’s an easy show to jump into and the characters are funny enough to hook you with ease.

85. Cow and Chicken: Speaking of dumb being brilliant, Cow and Chicken!  Created by animator David Fiess, Cow and Chicken was one of the most twisted, insane, and beautifully animated cartoons of the 90’s.  The show is summed up by the title; there’s a cow named Cow, and a chicken named Chicken.  They’re sister and brother…yeah, the show doesn’t make any more sense than that.  The show was funny, very funny, with most of the humor coming from general insanity, unique character designs, adult humor, and great visual gags.  It’s a wonder how they got away with half the stuff they did in this show, but I love them for it. Also it had a naked red devil running around.  Like I said, they show didn’t make sense.  The show spawned another cartoon series called I.M. Weasel, but we won’t get into that.

84. Moral Orel: Created by Dino Stamatopoulos, Moral Orel was not only the darkest show on Adult Swim, but one of the darkest in the history of television.  The used a stop-motion style in a send-up of Davey and Goliath, which put in an innocent face of the subject matter.  The show was based in a overly religious somal town called Moralton and stared a young boy named Orel Puffington who always tried to do what he thinks is right thing, but is constantly led astray by the several moral decay of the adults around him.  What made this show so good was how far it was willing to go, and I’m mean really far, not only  just taking jabs at Christianity, but the people who base their lives around it.  Episodes contained themes of unfulfillment, abuse, neglect, bigotry, accepted ignorance, and episodes would usually end with Orel getting a spanking an learning a morally backwards lesson from his father.  Thank God the show was so funny and self aware otherwise it would be utterly horrifying.

83. Filmore!: This show flew completely under the radar and that’s a freaking crime because this show was brilliant.  Think of all the cool police dramas and movies you’ve ever seen, now imagine them set in a middle school and replace things like counterfeit money and grand theft auto with counterfeit baseball cards and bike theft, that’s Filmore!.  The show was about Cornelius Filmore, a former delinquent who was given a chance at redemption and became his school’s greatest safety patrol officer.  Together with is partner Ingrid Third, the two work to clean up the halls of X Middle School of crime.  The shows unique take on familiar detective story tropes was very creative and fun as hell.  Filmore was a cool lead character and the shows clean animation and pop culture references make this one of my favorite shows ever.

82. X-Men Evolution: Marvel has had a long history of getting its ass kicked by DC in the field of animation.  While Bruce Timm took DC’s characters into a bold new direction style-wise, Marvel was lagging behind with overcomplicated designs and underwhelming animation.  But that all began to change in the 2000’s, starting with X-Men Evolution.  Evolution went back to basics with the X-Men making them teenagers again, but now putting them in a high school setting.  You’d think that would drag the show down, but it didn’t, the show still dealt with the same themes, and by season 3 began to resemble the comics more.  What was great about this wasn’t just character designs and animation, but that character development wasn’t just limited to Wolverine, everyone got a chance to grow.  The show took familiar elements of the comics and used them in new ways to set this series apart from everything done before.  It ran for four seasons and while the final two episodes were a bit of a let-down, it didn’t detract from what a great series this was as a whole.

81. The Angry Beavers: The best word to describe this series is “groovy”.  Mitch Scauer’s series about two beaver brothers striking out on their own was colorful, erratic, and wonderfully absurd.  The show had very abstract designs with an appealing eye-popping color scheme to accompany it.  The animation had a very fast paced timing behind it and wasn’t afraid to go totally cartoony.  What also made this show great was the dialogue.  The characters would frequently play with the pronunciation of words and invent their own like “spooty”.  The main characters Norbert (played by Nick Bakay, aka Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch) and Dagget (played by a post Alpha 5 but pre Zim Richard Horvitz) had great designs and a great dynamic between them.  The show also had a great self awareness, which ultimately got it in trouble, but still, a great series, one of the best of the Nicktoons.

Check back later for 80-61, when we’ll look back at teenage spies and warring robots.

PER JOHN’S REQUEST, A TRIBUTE ARTICLE TO CARTOONS OF MY YOUTH PAYING TRIBUTE TO ANCIENT PAGAN HOLIDAY

OR

THE BEST OF THE NICKTOONS HALLOWEEN SPECIALS

Hey there toonsters!  It’s October, and with it comes that special time of year for you to gather together with all of your love ones and scare the cranberries out of them.  That’s right, it’s Halloween time, and my favorite Halloween memories weren’t of dressing up in cool costumes, getting free candy, and dodging child molesters with their special “tootsie rolls”, no, my favorite Hallows eve memories were the CARTOONS! 

Really.  This is a cartoon-themed column, did you expect anything else?  If you did, stop being stupid.

Yes, ever October, most of my favorite cartoon shows would do very special episodes all dealing with the hijinks that ensue on this holiest of holy days.  Eek the Cat, Beetlejuice, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Bobby’s World, even Gargoyles all had Halloween specials.  Some great, some….eh…but the best ones were done by the none other than the Nicktoons.  Yep, Nickelodeon’s own original toons were the best when it came to the spooky shenanigans (Yeah I said shenanigans!  I don’t curse all the time you fucking twats).  Today I’m going to go over my six favorites.  This isn’t in any particular order, mostly because I don’t feel like ranking them, just know that they’re all great.

Doug: Doug’s Halloween Adventure

  We all remember Doug.  Okay most of us remember Doug.  While it didn’t have the cutsie appeal of Rugrats or the eye-popping and stomach churning animation of Ren and Stimpy, Doug holds the prestige of being the very first Nicktoon.  For those who don’t know, Doug was about 12-year-old Doug Funnie who was pretty average except for his overactive imagination.  Most of his problems were pretty mundane and down-to-earth like getting his first pimple and asking a girl to the dance, so you’d think his Halloween adventure would be equally mundane.  WRONG!  WRONG YOU HEAR ME!  Doug’s Halloween Adventure scarred the sweet little baby bejeezus out of me as a kid.  It’s starts off with Skeeter telling Doug the scary backstory of a new amusment park attraction, Bloodstone Manor, a ride through a real haunted house.  Doug, being to chicken shit, decides to keep him and Skeeter so occupied with trick-or-treating that the park closes before they get a chance to ride, but with some goading from Roger, the three sneak into the ride.  But things stop being fun when Roger disappears and Doug and Seketer must brave the horrors of Bloodstone Manor to find him.

This episode was great.  It struck the right balance of fun and creepy and had a great ending.  As good as Doug, there were times the show could get pretty mundane, but their Halloween special was hella-fun.

Angry Beavers: The Day The Earth Got Really Screwed-Up

Ah, the Angry Beavers.  A quirky, hip, little under appreciated gem of the 90’s.  The show was about two Beaver brothers named Norbert and Daggett who’ve moved out on their own and spend their days watching bad sci-fi movies, eating jalepenos, and getting into cartoony hijinks.  The show was great at lampooning everything from comic book superheroes to Woodstock, and for their Halloween episode they did a perfect send up of 1950’s sci-fi monster movies.  Norbert and Daggett are out trick-or-treating the night before Halloween, (to get a head start on all the candy),  and end up in the home of their favorite actor Oxnard Montalvo (pronounced:Montallllllllvo).    Unfortunately for them at the same time an alien entity has come to Earth and is using it’s power to take over the world by bringing all the monsters from Montalvo’s movies to life.  The Beavers end up living out their fanboy dreams as they must team with Montalvo to defeat evil alien guy thingy.

This episode was amazing.  Every little bit of the Angry Beavers trademark humor is there in prominence.  Nearly every joke is delivered with perfect delivery and features great physical humor and voice acting, especially by Tom Kane who voices Montalvo.  He’s so funny that you come out of this wishing they’s make a spin-off cartoon staring him.  It’s fun, it;s faced paced,   it’s one of the best episodes of the series, possibly the best.

Hey Arnold: Arnold’s Halloween

Hey Arnold was a great show.  It was similar to Doug, but did a lot more.  It was about a 9-year-old kid named Arnold with a football-shaped head living in New York city surrounded by a robust, colorful, and diverse cast of characters.  Their approach for a Halloween special was a very inspired one.  Arnold and Gerald decide to play a prank on the residents of Arnold’s boarding house by staging a fake radio broadcast to make them believe aliens have invaded Earth (sound familiar).  Their prank works…a  little too well.  Their signal is picked up by crackpot journalist Douglas Kane who mistakes the broadcast for real and sends the entire city into a panic, which does not bode well for Helga and the rest of the neighborhood kids who’ve dressed as aliens for Halloween.

  I remember taping this episode, back when VHS was still hip with the kids, because I wasn’t going to be home to see it.  I loved it then, and still love it now.  Before then I never heard of the Orson Wells War of the Worlds broadcast, so this was my introduction to it.  In fact, Maurice LaMarche voiced Kane in this episode using his famous Orson Wells voice.  This episode made the 9-year-old me want to pull off a hoax that big.  It’s a shame kids today would be pretty lost watching this episode, seeing as how no one knows what the hell a radio is anymore.

Rocko’s Modern Life: Sugar Frosted Fright

It’s a shame Rocko’s Modern Life never got as big as Rugrats or Spongebob, for it was a show truly ahead of it’s time.  The show about a wallaby named Rocko trying to cope with the absurdities of modern life in the 90‘s.  It ha great characters, great animation, a unique visual style, and so much hidden adult humor that it’ll take you years to get.  Rocko’s Halloween adventure see’s him and his pal Heffer take their neurotic friend Filburt out trick-or-treating for the very first time in his life, seeing as how he’d been scarred away from it with tales of dangerous candy and one-legged ghost soldiers.  When Filburt takes his first bite of sweet, sweet candy, he goes into sugar-induced rage and begins to consume everything that even looks like candy, leaving Rocko and Heffer to try to talk him down.

Rocko rarely had a bad episode and this was not one of them.  There are so many great bits, from the “creepy” intro, to Rocko/Bigman costume gag, to Filburt’s sugar rage, to the ending which has one of the funniest moments of the episode.  The second cartoon in the episode, Ed is Dead, is also good, but not as hilarious as this one.  Watch it if you can find it. 

Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: The Switching Hour

Fitting for a show about three young monsters training in the underground Monster Academy to learn how to better scare humans, that their first episode be a Halloween episode.  The Switching Hour introduces us to the hidden world of the monsters and our three main character: Ickis, Krumm, and Oblina.  In the episode, our main characters, though forbidden to by their headmaster The Gromble, go out to scare on Halloween night.  Through a quick mix-up, Ickis ends up trading places with a boy named Bradley who’s costume resembled Ickis.  Now Ickis has to find a way to get back to the Academy while Bradley has to pose as a monster to keep from being detected by The Gromble and the brutal disciplinarian The Snorch.

For Halloween episode, only the first thrid of it takes place during Halloween.  The rest takes place after, but I still felt compelled to include it.  It’s a good episode that sets the tone for the series nicely, and offers some fun little bits along the way, like Ickis trying to get through a day in human school.

Invader Zim: Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom

Practically every episode of Invader Zim could be a Halloween episode.  This dark comedy by Jhoen Vasquez was about an incompetent alien named Zim trying to conquer the Earth.  The show had a lot of dark and horrible imagery and subject matter, so really there wasn’t much of anything different they could do for a Halloween episode.  In the episode, Zim learns of Halloween and prepares to defend himself against the “candy zombies”.  At the same time, Dib accidentally opens a portal to a nightmare dimension located in his freakishly large head, that’s trying to claw it’s way into reality.  Dib and Zim get sucked in and must work together to stop the nightmare creatures from getting loose…which doesn’t go very well seeing as how they both screw each other over first chance they get.

Like I said, this episode isn’t much different from the rest of the series, but it’s still great.  It ha great animation, especially on some of the monsters, the jokes hit way more than they miss, especially all the jokes about Dib’s supposedly gigantic head, and GIR as always has some great bits.  This is definitely one of the best episodes of the series, go watch it.  Hell, just watch the whole series, it’s a perfect Hallows eve watch.

So there you have it, the best the Nickelodeon had to offer when it came to Halloween.  Other Nicktoons have done their Halloween episode as well like Rugrats, Spongebob, and Fairly OddParents, and their live-action shows had some great ones too, most notably Adventures of Pete and Pete, but these are the ones that stuck with me the most.

If you can track ‘em down, or if they end up airing on Nickelodeon or on the new 90‘s Are All That block on The N, kick back, grab a big bowl of candy preferably without razorblades in it, and watch because you’re too old to trick-or-treat so you’ve got nothing better to do.

See you next time, and Happy Halloween!

Confronting Fears of an Uncertain Future of Corporate Controlled Zombie Cartoons

or

The Future of Animation and Me

What’s happened to traditional animation?  Truthfully, nothing really.  It’s in smaller quantities now, understandably due to the advancements made in CGI, but it’s still very much around.  New shows like Tuff Puppy, Adventure Time, G.I. Joe Renegades, and the new Thundercats still utilize the classic hand-drawn style, as well as established shows like Spongebob Squarepants, Dora the Explorer, and Fairly Oddparents.  Traditional animation is still here, it’s the personality behind the animation that’s gone away.

Back in the 1990‘s film and television animation went through what most call a Renaissance.  Disney returned to their former glory, putting out big screen hits like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, as well as developing the Disney Afternoon cartoon block for television.  Warner Bros and Stephen Spielberg partnered to create shows like Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, and Pinky and the Brain, in homage to the golden age cartoon shorts of Warners.  Nickelodeon burst onto the scene with animated hits like Doug, Rugrats, and the Ren and Stimpy Show.  And Cartoon Network began producing their own original cartoon series like Dexter’s Laboratory and Powerpuff Girls.  This era launched the careers of some of the best animators in the business.  John Krisfaluci, Gendy Tartakovsky, Craig McCraken, Joe Murray, Glen Keane, Bruce Timm, all got their big breaks around this time.  While not every cartoon to come out of this era was a winner, this time in the animation, proved unique because it seemed like studios then were more willing to take a risk.  Obviously there were the shows driven toy companies and whatnot, and those were interchangeable, but there was a surprising number of innovative cartoons that look, felt, and acted nothing like those studio driven ones.  Cartoons like Ren and Stimpy, Rocko,  and Dexter’s Laboratory were excellent because you could feel the creator’s personality injected into it.    From the design of the backgrounds, to the way the characters acted, to the timing of the gags, to the type of stories they told, they had their own way of expression that no other show could copy.  You could get a gauge of their thought process, their outlook on the world, their influences, to them, animation was an outlet to express their creativity.

Enter 2011, as I look at all this new animated programming coming in, I’m not seeing personality, I’m seeing trends.  It’s becoming more and more clear that studios don’t want to finance creativity, or at least creativity that hasn’t proved it can sell before.  To your average modern day studio executive, animation is something that can just be done on computers.  They don;t understand the care that goes into making a good cartoon good, because that’s not their language.  Why do you think most cartoons nowadays seem more like animated sitcoms, it’s because the world of live action is more familiar to executives.  They can understand a script perfectly, but for some odd reason can’t comprehend a storyboard, which is basically like a comic strip panel without the word balloon.  They don’t get that animators don’t think in words, but in images.  But what do they care, they ship is all over to Korea anyway, so it’s not their problem. A show like Rocko’s Modern Life came out at just the right time.  If Geraldine Laybourne wasn’t running Nickelodeon’s animation department then, this gem of a show might never have seen the light of day.  Today, no way it would fly, at least not the way Murray would have intended.  The show would be toned down heavily, the “off-balance” style might be replaced with something more static, and the humor would primarily be all dialogue based.  Why, because that seems to be the route things are taking.

I could be wrong here, but the way I see it there are three types of cartoons that seem to be coming out more and more.  The studio/toy company driven cartoons like the ones that make up the Hub’s programing block (G.I. Joe Renegades, Transformers: Prime, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic), the completely CG animated series like the ones Nickelodeon is putting out more of (Fanboy and Chum Chum, Penguins of Madagascar, Planet Sheen), and the post-modern humor, low quality, “ironic” shows that Cartoon Network now seems to be fond of (Adventure Time, The Regular Show, Amazing World of Gumball).  Obviously the types aren’t exclusive to each network, but you can see a patten forming.  I’m not trying to say these showas are all bad, their not all bad, some from what I understand are quite good, but there’s no denying there’s no heart in their animation.  They all just kind of blend together, nothing original, nothing that let’s me get to know the creators more.    Even the shows today that are creator driven, that are still semi-traditional in their animation, the all seem to be conforming to the same flat style.  The 2D cartoons that we all love have become just that, 2D, in look and feel.  Nothing that makes me think the characters could hop off the screen and move in real life.  The Renaissance is definitely over, it seems now like we’ve entered into a new dark age.  It’s not all bad, but there excitement and optimism of the 90‘s seems to have gone away.

All this rambling brings me back into my own head.  I want to be in the animation business so bad.  I want to create shows that will appeal to all audiences.  I want to make real animation.  I don’t just want to ship it off to some other country and be satisfied with whatever comes back, I want to give it a certain flare that I know only I can put into it.

Here’s a clip from the episode of Ren and Stimpy, “Sven Hoek”.  This is perhaps one of the greatest pieces of animation ever done:

I could do a whole article on why it’s so damn great, and one day I just might, but in short, this is the kinda thing I want to do.  I want my characters to have personality, to be able to act like real people would.  I want to put some humanity back into animation, but I’m scared I wont be able to it.  The thought of me not being able to create the show I want to because it might not be trendy, or some douchebag exec who can’t even grasp the complexities of a stick figure just “doesn’t get it”, terrifies me to no end.  Is this the real future of animation.  Souless, corporate driven, carbon copied?  I’d love to be able to get some experience working on some of these shows, but I don’t want to be doing other peoples visions for my entire career.

I know in order to survive in this business, you need to be flexible, you need to learn how to pick your battles, and you can’t always get exactly what you want.  But I don’t know how much I’d be willing to give up.  Would I have to change my entire style, my entire way of thinking to fit some trend that’ll ultimately burn out and be forgotten in time?  Or will I catch that lucky break?  The hopeful dreamer in me thinks that one day soon, we’ll get some studios that want to take a chance again and do something different, and hopefully, I’ll be ready when it comes.  Until then, I can only watch and learn.

A Celebration of the Unsung Talents that Helped Shaped the Childhoods of Millions and Put Most of Hollywood to Shame

or

My Top 10 Favorite Voice Actors

Hey there sports fans!  Wait, you guys aren’t sports fans.  HOW DARE YOU DECEIVE ME!

All kidding aside, I’m back folks, where I’ve been is too horrifying to reveal here, but here I am ready to dive back into the world of animation. For this new entry I’ve decided to take a minute to shine a light on one of the most important aspects of animation, and one of the most misunderstood…voice acting.  A lot of people, like most Hollywood studios, seems to think voice acting is nothing but rolling up to a mic and reading off a script, sometimes in a funny voice.  Those stupid, misinformed, little people.  The “acting” part of voice acting is too often forgotten.  A lot of special craft goes into creating the voice of a character.  The voice has to reflect the character’s look and personality, they have to be able to convey the characters in all sorts of emotions, it has to make the character sound unique and original, and make the character come alive.   Think back to some of the most famous cartoon characters in history, what’s the first thing that stands out about them?  Their voice.  What would Bugs, Daffy and the rest of the Looney Tunes be without Mel Blanc?  What would Popeye be without Red Pepper Sam?  Yogi Bear, Homer Simpson, and Spongebob would’nt be half as well remembered without Daws Butler, Dan Castellanetta, and Tom Kenny respectively. A strong, recognizable, and unique voice is key to an animated characters success and today I’m going to pay special tribute to my top ten favorites.

Keep in mind I said favorites, and not who I’d consider the very best.  Otherwise greats like Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, June Foray, Paul Winchell, Don Messick, and Gary Owens would dominate this list.  This is a list of voice actors who I’ve grown up listening to.  Their voices are etched into my most precious childhood memories…all those years I spent not going outside and watching non-stop cartoons.  These ten are all extremely talented and deserve to be bigger than they are, though I think most of them prefer to be low key.  A lot of great names ended up getting left of my ten, greats like Tom Kenny, Kevin Michael Richardson, Cree Summer, Frank Welker, James Arnold Taylor, Debbi Derryberry, Candi Milo, and Christina Cavanaugh, but nonetheless, I’m quite proud of this list.  So let’s begin.

10. Phil LaMarr

You may remember him from Mad TV, but Phil’s voice acting debut was in the Mr. T cartoon as Woody, but he’s ore memorable from him roles in Justice League as Green Lantern, Grim and Evil as Hector Con Carne, Virgil Hawkings/Static in Static Shock, Hermes Conrad in Futurama,, Wilt in Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and the title role in Samurai Jack.  Phil’s background in improv lends itself well to the world of voice acting. Phil has a great sense of comedic timing and is an amazing impressionist.The Weekenders was probably the first I recognized him from and I remember how much he made me laugh in the role, and it’s that same humor that makes every one of his comedic roles so great, I dare anyone not to love his Red Foxx as Blacula as Dracula in Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.  On the flip side, Phil can do serious really well.  He’s played characters like Samurai Jack, Green Lantern, Kit Fisto, Aquaman, and Vamp in Metal Gear Solid and in each he brings a level of strength and power that puts him on par with the best of the best.  Here’s a little example of that…

9. Tara Strong

Tara is just awesome.  Tara Strong started her career in voice acting in the late 80’s and early 90’s on shows like Care Bears, Hello Kitty Fury Tale Theater, and the Beetlejuice animated series, but her breakout roles came in 1998 as Baby Dill Pickles in Rugrats(she also voiced the older version of the character in sequel series All Grown Up) and in Powerpuff Girls as Bubbles.  As Bubbles, Tara could be cute and, well, bubbly, but could flip into vicious and hardcore at a moments notice, and it was excellent.  From there she’s had starring roles in shows like Xiaolin Showdown as Omi, Filmore as Ingrid Third, Teen Titans as Raven, Batman the Animated Series as Batgirl(taking over the role from the late great Mary Kay Bergman), Ben on Ben 10, and of course, Fairly Oddparents as Timmy Turner.   She made a radical departure from the kid friendly roles on the Comedy Central series Drawn Together as Princess Clara and Toot Braustien, and she delivered two more phenomenal performances.  And it was just hilarious to hear all the vile,dirty, racist, sexist, homophobic, lines come out of the same mouth that voiced a rugrat.  In addition to her acting skills, she’s a great singer, and she’s even put those skills on display, like in  Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea as Ariel’s daughter Melody. 

8. Charlie Adler

Charlie Adler is hands down one of the best voice actors to ever live.  He’s been every cartoon you could think of and has voiced a wide array of characters, from the evil record executive Eric Raymond in Jem and the Holograms to heroic Chance Furlong (aka T-Bone) in Swat Kats: The Radical Squadron.  Charlie can act more with his voice than most people can with their entire bodies. Growing up in the 90’s, Charlie was a staple of that era’s cartoons.  The Bigheads in Rocko’s Modern Life, Ickis in Aaahh Real Monsters, Buster Bunny in Tiny Toon Adventures, I.R. Baboon in I.M Weasel, both the title characters in Cow and Chicken and also the “Red Guy”, Professor Monkey for a Head in Earthworm Jim, Mechanicles in Aladdin, Mad Dog in TaleSpin, it was impossible NOT to hear him.  Charlie has an amazing vocal range and isn’t afraid to go over-the-top with his performances when it calls for it.  He can be smarmy, he can be sarcastic, he can be energetic, he can be subtle, he can do it all, he’s that damn good.  He was also Starscream in all three Transformers flicks, but due to how little the robots were featured in those movies you could barely tell.  What a waste of great talent.

7. Jess Harnell

At first glance Jess looks like a aging rock star, but he’s really one of the most talented guys working today.  His breakout role is one any child of the 90’s would recognize him from, the goofy, ever-hungry, and often flatulent Wakko Warner in Animaniacs.  He hasn’t had as many lead roles as the other actors on he list, but that doesn’t make him any less amazing.  He was able to channel Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man to voice the character Sewer Urchin on the Tick, he was Hunter the leader of the Road Rovers, Captain Hero on Drawn Together, Secret Squirrel in the 90’s Super Secret Squirrel cartoons, and he portrayed the characters Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon in multiple games of their respective series, as well as roles in games like Ratchet and Clank and Kingdom Hearts.  Jess is just as funny on camera as he is off, and he proved that in Mark Hamill’s Comic Book the Movie were you can hear him do dead on impressions of Albert Brooks, Ozzy Osborne, and all four Beatles.

 6. Billy West

YOU EEEEEEDIOT!  Those two words helped make Bily West one of the most notable voice actors today.  As if you didn’t already know, he made a name for himself as Stimpy in The Ren and Stimpy Show, and later took over as the voice of Ren as well.  At same time he was doing that he was also staring in another Nicktoon, Doug as title character Doug Funnie and the bully Roger Klotz.  Since then, Billy has been all over the map doing major and supporting roles in shows like CatDog, Project GeeKeR, Queer Duck, and Mad Jack the Pirate, as well as movie rolls like Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, Joes Apartment, and Space Jam where he played Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.  But what’s really made him a household name is is work on the hit series Futurama is Fry, Dr. Zoidberg, Prof. Farnsworth, Zapp Branigan, and multiple incidental characters.  Oh, and did I mention he’s also the Red M&M.  Yeah, he’s good.   Really good.

5. Tress MacNeille

A true icon in the voice acting world, I would call her my generation’s June Foray if June Foray still around then.  Tress has a tremendous vocal range and a tremendous amount of comedic talent.  Tress has a huge list of credits under her belt, all of witch are favorites of mine.  Dot in Animaniacs, Babs Bunny on Tiny Toon Adventures, Daisy Duck, Chip and Gadget on Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers, Angelica’s Mom on Rugrats, Dorris on the Critic, Callie Briggs on Swat Kats, Colleen on Road Rovers, as well as numerous roles on both the Simpsons(Agnes Skinner, Dolph, Crazy Cat Lady, Lindsay Neagle, Cookie Kwan) and Futurama(Mom, Crazy Old Lady, Ndnd, and Tinny Tim).  Tress’ voice can be heard in literally hundreds of cartoons and animated movies and she’s absolutely brilliant in every one of them.

4. Jeff Bennett

Jeff Bennett was a VA I never was able to recognize until much later.  As a kid the only things I knew him from were Gargoyles as Brooklyn(and as I later found out, Owen Burnett and the Magus) and Mighty Ducks as Duke L’Orange, both my favorite character on the respective series.  But as soon as I learned how many roles he’s done that I recognized, it blew my mind.  Dad in Dexter’s Laboratory,  Cowlarado Kid in Cowboys of Moo Mesa,  the title character in Johnny Bravo, Lord Bravery in Freakazoid, Blitz in Road Rovers, Bud and Stereo on Space Goofs, and 3/5 of the Gangreen Gang on Powerpuff Girls.   Nowadays I can pinpoint his voice more easily, but that doesn’t change how talented the man is.  I know I barely scratched the surface with his credits, but those are the ones that are the most special to me.  I thank you, Mr. Bennett.

3. Maurice LaMarche

Maurice LaMarche has done a voice in pretty much every cartoon you grew up with, if you grew up in the 80’s and 90’s that is.  Formerly from the world of stand-up, Maurice brings an amazing and dynamic vocal range and a knack for impressions to this field.  He’s most notably The Brain in Pinky and the Brain, but let’s not forget some of his other roles.  Squit of the Goodfeathers in Animaniacs(Best Ray Liotta impression ever), Egon in Real Ghostbusters, The Chief in Inspector Gadget(and later Inspector Gadget himself), Apache Cief, Fred Flinstone and other characters in Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, Dizzy Devil in Tiny Toon Adventures, Big Bob Pataki in Hey Arnold, not to mention his numerous roles in Futurama, including but not limited to, Kiff Kroker, Morbo, Lrr, and Calculon.  And of course, his dead on Orson Wells impersonations.  They made for some of the best moments on The Critic.

2. Jim Cummings

A true god amongst gods.  Jim Cummings is a phenom.  He can act, he can sing, he can be goofy, he can be powerful, he can do it all. It’s hard for me to encapsulate his talent in words, so it’s best to just let his credits speak for themselves…The title character in Darkwing Duck(as well as his arch nemesis Negaduck), Bonkers D. Bobcat and Lucky Piquel in Bonkers, Don Karnage and King Louie in TaleSpin, Pete in Goof Troop and Kingdom Hearts, Fat Cat and Professor Nimnul in Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers, Zummi Gummi(taking over for Paul Winchell) in Gummi Bears, Dingo in Gargoyles, Winnie the Pooh AND Tigger in New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and most of the Pooh movies, Nessus in Hercules, Ray the firefly in Princess and the Frog, Razoul in the Aladdin series, Ed the Hyena in The Lion King…and all that’s just his Disney work!  He was also Morroco Mole in Super Secret Squirrel, Taz in Taz Mania, Leatherhead in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles(as well as an alternate voice for Shredder), Mayor Manx in SWAT Kats, Dakota Dude in Cowboys of Moo Mesa, Dr. Robotnik in Sonic: SatAM,…*whew*.  Yeah, and there’s still a lot more to go.  The man is amazing.  Fun fact: During production of The Lion King, Jeremy Irons'(Scar)  vocal chords ended up blowing out while recording the song “Be Prepared”, the song where Scar explains his master plan of killing Mufasa and Simba.  He couldn’t finish the song so Jim Cummings was brought in to finish it.  Listen to the song as see if you can hear where it becomes Jim singing.

1. Rob Paulsen.

Even with greats like Charlie Adler and Jim Cummings on this list, hands down my favorite voice actor of all time in Rob Paulsen.  No other voice actor stands out the most in my mind.  No other voice actor had the most impact on my childhood.  Rob Paulsen is an immense talent.  His charm, his wit, his likability, his quickness, all through the roof.  Rob started his voice acting career in the 80’s doing minor roles,even voicing Hadji on The New Adventures of Jonny Quest, but his big break came in 1987 when he voiced the sai-wielding, quick-witted, fourth wall breaking Raphael in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles *squee*.  From there, his career took off.  Rob would go on to make a huge name for himself by voicing Yakko Warner in Animaniacs, and the dim-witted Pinky in the spin-off series Pinky and the Brain.  Those two became the signature roles of his, showing off the best of Rob’s abilities.  Rob continued to make my childhood awesome by voicing characters like Throttle in Biker Mice from Mars, Arthur in The Tick, PJ in Goof Troop. Steelbeak in Darkwing Duck, Hard Drive in SWAT Kats, Antoine in Sonic SatAM, and the title character in Mighty Max.  Rob also played Carl Weezer in Jimmy Neutron and Planet Sheen, an took over for Jim Carrey as the voice of Stanley Ipkiss/The Mask in The Mask the Animated Series, an was better at it in my opinion. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him yet, but as far as I can tell, Rob is the nicest guy in the world, he does a lot for work for charity, offers vocal coaching sessions, and always has time for his fans.  His new podcast, Talking Toons with Rob Paulsen is just a peak into the life of this amazing talent.  Rob Paulsen is an icon to me, and I can’t help but smile every time I hear his voice in a cartoon.

At the time of writing this, The Smurfs has recently come out in theaters.  It’s another example of my growing problem with animated movies and studios going for any celebrity they can get rather than actual voice actors.  Why the need for Jeff Foxworthy, Anton Yelchin, and *ugh* George Lopez in Smurf roles when Jeff Bennett can do half those voices himself.  Katy Perry is completely unnecessary when voice actresses like Grey DeLisle and Tara Strong exist.  The voice actor community is filled with extremely talented and versatile actors and actresses, and it’s long past time they be given their due.  And now to take us out, Rob Paulsen showing us why he’s one of the best, preforming live the song “Nations of the World” by his Animaniacs character Yakko Warner.  Enjoy.

So it’s Come to This, or, My Review of the Looney Tunes Show

…….Yep……The Looney Tunes Show.  The latest incarnation of the Looney Tunes from Warner Bros.   I’ve finally seen the first episode…. of The Looney Tunes Show.  Taking a page from Spider Jerusalem from the awesome Transmetropolitan series, I’m summing up my review with this…..

F**k                                                                                                                      .

Fuck Fuck

FUCK

FUCK FUCK FUCK

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FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

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FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK…………

Two Pieces of Great Foreign Animation that put most of the Good Ole U.S. of A’s Stuff to utter Shame.  Or, My Reviews of The Secret of Kells and Dead Leaves.

Here in America, CGI has become the dominate media for animated films.  Some utilize it to great effect like Pixar and Blue Sky, and some…well…don’t.  I wont name names of course *cough*Dreamworks*/cough*.  Point is, it’s always interesting when an animated film comes along that’s stylistically different from the rest, and takes bold new approaches to animation.   But you’re not going to find it here, studios and most audiences fear and reject change, no, we must look to other countries for new exciting animated films.  Today I’m here to review two such pieces, both very different from each other, yet equal in level of quality and fun.  2009’s The Secret of Kells from Ireland and 2004’s Dead Leaves out of Japan. Both offer quality viewings, each in their own unique ways.  So let’s dive in.

The Secret of Kells (2009) directed by Tomm Moore

The Secret of Kells was a film I was very vaguely familiar with.  I had only heard about it when I read that it was nominated for Best Animated film at the Oscars.  I hadn’t seen any clips or images of it, and I remember being disappointed that it was nominated and Ponyo from Hayao Miyazaki got snubbed.  It wasn’t until earlier this year (2011 for all you people in the future reading this, hope your alien/robot/Sasquatch overlords are treating you kindly), that I decided to sit down and watch the flick…I was blown away.

The story is set in 9th century Ireland and tells the fictionalized story behind the Book of Kells.  The main character is a young boy named Brendan, an apprentice illuminator who works with a famed illuminator Brother Aidan to complete his manuscript, The Book of Iona.  But his uncle, Abbot Cellach, a former illuminator, wants Brendan to follow in his footsteps and help him finish construction on a wall around their village to protect them from invading Vikings.  The creation of the Book is the framework of the story, but the true core of movie is Brendan growing up and reaching out from his sheltered existence and discovering the world past the walls.  The story is easy to relate to and very emotional.  The main characters each have their own charm and could very well be real people.  The classic archetypes are well represented and they don’t feel forced or one-dimensional like in other stories.  Brendan isn’t annoying or whiny like most kids in animated films, he’s adventurous, creative and kind-hearted.  Any of us who’ve ever felt like we’ve been smothered or sheltered can see ourselves in him, he’s someone longing to discover new things and doesn’t want to be forced into the shadow of someone else.  Abbot Cellach could have easily have come out a typical oppressive figure for our hero with no real motivation for being a dick other than being a dick, but instead he’s portrayed as someone who cares, both for his nephew and his people, but has become grizzled and hardened over time, losing his hopefulness in favor of realism.  He’s so focused on protecting everyone it actually blinds him both from the outside world and his nephew’s plight. He’s a very multi-layered character, he doesn’t yell, he’s very calm, rational, and intimidating, and his arc and relationship with Brendan is one of the strongest aspects of the movie.  Brother Aidan is the stark opposite of Cellach.  He’s optimistic, easy going, and imaginative.  He’s the one to encourage Brendan to open his eyes to the world around him.  He’s kind of like that fun Grandpa who takes you to the zoo, and gives you money, and takes you to candy factories run by Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp.

The true highlight of the movie is the visuals.  They’re in a word, phenomenal.  The movie combines traditional and digital animation.  The look of the movie is very flat, meant to give the illusion of a storybook, however the flatness works in the film’s favor.  It allows the animators to play with depth and perspective in a way never before seen.  The characters and environments all appear two dimensional but the characters freely move around the world as if in three dimensions, to see it is mind-boggling.  The use of colors is absolutely astounding, looking so rich and detailed that it rivals even hand painted backgrounds.  The colors enrich the emotional beats of the movie.  The use of bright blues, yellows, and greens for the seen where Brendan and the fairy, Aisling, give a sense of wonder and magic, while the powerful use of blacks, grays, and dark reds in the Viking scenes add to the dread and terror.  The music is done by Bruno Coulais and it is beautiful.  The animation was done by three different studios in three different countries.  Cartoon Saloon in Ireland, Vivi Film in Belgium, and Les Armateurs in France, all three at the top of their game here.

Looking at the film it reminded me of one of my favorite animators, and on I’ve spoken of many times here, Genndy Tartakovsky.  The flat imagery and dynamic cinematography and very reminiscent of his work on shows like Samurai Jack and Clone Wars, and that’s a very good thing.  I cannot recommend this film enough, I’m embarrassed it took me this long to see it.

And now, onto an animated film of a completely different nature…

Dead Leaves (2004) directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi

Remember all those fast paced, high energy, and nonsense cartoons of the 90’s?  Well, they got nothing on Dead Leaves.

Done by the animation studio Production I.G., Dead Leaves is a crazy, balls-to-the-walls animated action spectacle that trades in plot, character development, and emotional depth in favor of insane visuals, intense cartoon violence, and the crudest of crude humor.  And believe it or not, that’s a good thing.  The movie focuses on two characters, Retro, a hyperactive dim-wit with a TV for a head, and Pandy, an ass-kicking femme fatale.  They wake up naked on Earth with no memory of how they got there, and after and wacky violent encounter with the cops, they end up in a prison colony on the moon where their memory begins to return.  All the while people get killed horribly, things get blown-up, and some sexin’ goes on.

This movie makes absolutely no sense and it’s awesome!  It knows exactly what it is and delivers on every level.  It’s extremely fast paced, and rarely, if ever, slows down long enough for you to catch your breath.  The characters, while lacking any true depth, are all in their own way, charming, and you find yourself getting attached to them, if only it’s because their all funny.  The humor is about as childish as you can get.  Sex jokes, poop jokes, penis jokes, they’re all there.  Hell, there’s a guy named Dick Drill, and it’s exactly what the name implies.  Yet for all the immaturity you can’t help but to laugh and feel good for doing it.  The violence is insane.  Think of the crazy anime fight scene you can picture, it pales in comparison here.  It’s like The Matrix on 12 pounds of sugar and crack, bullets and blood fly everywhere.  Ancillary characters get killed left and right while the main characters are left magically unscathed. It’s hard for me to even really describe what goes on here, you just have to see it for yourself.

The animation in this movie is sick.  Unlike the elegance of Secret of Kells, this movie features heavy shadows, sharp designs, and extreme exaggeration.  It’s seems cluttered and chaotic but there’s really strong construction in it and features excellent staging. It’s like a Fleischer Bros. cartoon if the Fleischer artists were Japanese and on heroin.  The rock soundtrack only adds to the energy of the film.  I’m a little late getting to this one, but I’m glad I stumbled across it, the smile I had on my face while watching it had to be surgically removed.

So there you have it, two great animated films, from two great countries for animation, both using traditional techniques in combination with modern advancements to create astounding visual epics.  People, I’m saying it again, check out Dead Leaves and The Secret of Kells, you will absolutely not regret it.  As for animation studios here in America, I can only say this, STEP IT UP!

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