The Top 50 Animated Television Shows

[Greg1]

Here's how it works!

You were asked to send me a list of your 25 favorite animated television show. Five ballots were received, and the show were ranked on a point system allowing 25 points for a #1 choice, 24 for a #2, and all the way down to 1 point for #25. The points were added up, and what follows are your selections.

Tiebreakers work like such: If two show have equal pointage (and neither got a number 1 vote), the show that appeared on the most lists ranks higher. If those shows appeared on the same amount of lists, I went with whatever ranked highest on the individual list. A show that was someone's #4 beats another person's #6, for example. And then if they still were tied I just picked one.

What we don't want: your entire lists posted, cloggin' up yer thread
What we do want: everything else. Kick yourself for fogetting one show or another/debate on if one show is better then the other/etc. Discussion is the whole point!

The countdown begins now. Let your conversations begin~!

[Greg1]

"You know, you're making it really difficult to be an eco-villan."

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50. Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990) - 11 points

Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, is awoken from a long sleep by human activity destroying the planet. Realizing that the damage was extensive, Gaia created five magic rings, each with the power to control an element of nature and one controlling the show-specific element, heart. Gaia sent the rings to five chosen youths across the globe: Kwame, Wheeler, Linka, Gi, and Ma-Ti.

In situations that the Planeteers could not handle on their own, they could combine and magnify their powers to summon Captain Planet, who possesses all of their powers magnified (although in practice his powers seem to expand to include whatever the writers currently have in mind), symbolizing that the combined efforts of a team are stronger than its individual parts. Captain Planet only appears in his Captain Planet garb. These are not clothes but elements of the Earth that are integral to his composition. He is able to rearrange his molecular structure to transform himself into the various powers and elements of nature, e.g., water, wind, fire, ice, etc. Captain Planet's outfit does not represent a specific culture. He has grass-green hair, sky-blue skin, earthy brown eyes, blood-red chest, gloves and boots, and sunlight-yellow insignia/globe. In a manner similar to the early Superman, Planet has seemingly godlike superhuman powers, and seems to gain more to deal with whatever the situation requires. However, his "kryptonite" is pollutants which sap his strength, from smog to radiation.

A relatively common criticism of the show was that its theme as a superhero show made it unhelpful as an educational tool. It has been argued that while the show effectively presented pollution and environmental destruction as bad, the very nature of the show meant that it did not explore the reasons why pollution and environmental destruction occur. Instead, this argument says, the show presented these things as the result of direct and deliberate action by evil villains who often were out to damage the environment purely for the sake of doing so, either with no greater objective at all, or because of an exaggerated and overly stereotypical motive.

The show's related merchandise was also criticised as hypocritical. A show promoting environmental awareness and recycling undermined its own message, this argument goes, by selling plastic action figures and similar toys.

[Greg1]

"Dear Journal, hi! It's me, Doug."

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49. Doug (1991) - 11 points

Doug was an animated television series on Nickelodeon and is the first Nicktoon ever made, starring a 6th grader named Doug Funnie (full name: Douglas Yancey Funnie). The series originated with an unpublished book, Doug Got a New Pair of Shoes, by artist and series creator Jim Jinkins and writer Joe Aaron, which was followed up by a USA network promo featuring Doug and his dog Porkchop, and an ad for Florida Grapefruit Juice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7kVm-MfP1E
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In February 1996, Disney bought Jumbo Pictures, and ordered new episodes of Doug to be produced (renamed Brand Spanking New! Doug and then later Disney's Doug). The new episodes featured a new theme song and brought a new baby sister for Doug as well as a change in age to 12½ years old. It also brought a new haircut for Patti, more money for Roger, weight loss for Connie, and much more. This included a change of clothes for everyone and a brand new middle school. These episodes aired on ABC's One Saturday Morning cartoon block from September 1996 to September 9, 2000. In March of 1999, Disney introduced Doug: Live! to its Walt Disney World theme park. This musical stage show based on the television series ran at Disney-MGM Studios until May of 2001. After 65 additional episodes and a theatrical feature-length film, Disney's Doug went out of production in 1999.

[Greg1]

"Now you can see three cartoon originals... IN ONE SHOW!"

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48. The What A Cartoon Show (1995) - 12 points

What a Cartoon! (originally known as World Premiere Toons, later as "The Big Cartoon Show" now known as The Cartoon Cartoon Show), was the mid-1990s animation showcase that appeared on the Cartoon Network. It served as the launching point for several original cartoons including Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, The Powerpuff Girls, Courage the Cowardly Dog, I Am Weasel, and Mike, Lu and Og. The Big Cartoon DataBase cites What a Cartoon!/World Premiere Toons as a "venture combining classic 1940s production methods with the originality, enthusiasm and comedy of the 1990s."

World Premiere Toons was an animation project conceived and produced by Fred Seibert, the original creative director of MTV and Nickelodeon who served as the president of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc., prior to founding Frederator Studios. Its mission was to return creative power to animators and artists, by recreating the atmospheres that spawned the great cartoon characters of the mid-20th century. Each of 48 short cartoons mirrored the structure of a theatrical cartoon, with each film being based on an original storyboard drawn and written by its artist/creator.

The first World Premiere Toon to be broadcast in its entirety was The Powerpuff Girls' "Meat Fuzzy Lumpkins", which made its world premiere on February 20, 1995 during a television special called the World Premiere Toon-In (termed "President's Day Nightmare" by its producers, Williams Street). The special was hosted by Space Ghost and the cast of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, and featured comic interviews and a mock contest with the creators of the various cartoons.

[Greg1]

"This is so not fair! I mean, I realize Plastic Man is in the League too. I'm not dissing the guy's skills, but c'mon! I have it all over that guy! One time I disguised myself as a vase. For 3 days! "

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47. Justice League (2001) - 12 points

Animator Bruce Timm, having successfully adapted both Batman and Superman into animated television programs in the 1990s, took on the challenge of faithfully adapting the Justice League comic book. Ignoring the sidekicks, pets and other extraneous elements of the earlier Super Friends show, the line-up of this new JLA adaptation was created with two things in mind: to pay tribute to the original line-up of the Justice League of America while also reflecting racial and cultural diversity. Significantly, the well-known (but much-depreciated) superhero Aquaman was left out of the lineup (although he would be used on the show) in favor of a second female on the team - Hawkgirl - and the African-American Green Lantern John Stewart, who has worked with the League in the comics before, was used rather than either of the better-known modern-era Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner, even though Rayner had appeared as Green Lantern in the Superman animated series. (In the second season, Rayner is described as a Lantern in training under Stewart's old mentor, explaining his absence. Both he and Jordan make brief appearances in Justice League Unlimited.)

The show met with significant success, partially due to loyal fans already familiar with these incarnations of the characters, and partially from a new generation of viewers. The two-part nature of most episodes led Cartoon Network to choose to air the episodes back-to-back.

In February 2004, Cartoon Network announced a follow-up series, Justice League Unlimited, which premiered on July 31, 2004. Justice League Unlimited features a greatly expanded roster of heroes, usually with only a few appearing in any given episode, although there are a few featuring just about the entire roster fighting against one giant enemy.

[Greg1]

"I can't even say your name forwards, how am I supposed to say it backwards?"

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46. Superman: The Animated Series (1996) - 13 points

Airing ten years after the 1986 "reboot" of the Superman comic book character, the animated series paid tribute to both the classic Superman of old and the newer "modern" Superman. Perhaps most significantly, Clark Kent displays the more aggressive personality used by John Byrne in his reboot of the comic book continuity. Elements of Superman from all eras of his history were included in the series, especially in a potrayal of the planet Krypton, the planet that Superman was born on, that fans praised as a "modernization" of Superman's origin that contrasted John Byrne's reboot, and some fans felt was superior to the "newer" comic book version. Notably, the evil computer Brainiac was not only now from Krypton, but was portrayed as responsible for preventing the knowledge of Krypton's imminent destruction from reaching its people. In a lesser innovation, the ship that carried the infant Kal-El to Earth was designed to land smoothly upon reaching its destination, rendering it in perfect working condition during Superman's adulthood and is used as his mode of long range transportation in space.

While the series featured fresh recreations of much of Superman's rogues gallery, the series' writers supplemented the limited supply of enemies by paying tribute to Jack Kirby's Fourth World creations which also introduced the villain Darkseid to the series as one of Superman's greatest enemies. Darkseid had been portrayed as a villain in Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show and The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians in the 1980s, but in the new Superman series, he was closer to the enormously powerful, evil cosmic emperor originally envisioned by Kirby. The tribute event extends to the supporting character, Dan "Terrible" Turpin, who is visually modelled on Jack Kirby himself.

Due to Lex Luthor's pronounced lips and tanned skin, several fans mistakingly thought he was African-American. This is due to the Telly Savalas inspiration for his look - the reason for which is that producer Bruce Timm thought of Clancy Brown's take on Luthor as a "cultured thug", the same way he saw Savalas' Blofeld in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Timm's favorite Bond film). Sometimes, the animated Luthor is portrayed as being distinctly darker than the people around him, and sometimes (like the shot in "A Little Piece of Home" where Luthor literally puts his face right into Superman's) his skin color is exactly the same as everybody else. Timm is rumored to quip that his Lex Luthor must "tan easily."

More in a few hours

[Greg1]

"When Polly's in trouble, I am not slow, So it's hip! hip! hip! and away I go."

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45. Underdog (1964) - 13 points

In 1960, handling the General Mills account as an account executive with the Dancer Fitzgerald Sample advertising agency in New York, W. Watts Biggers teamed with Chet Stover, Tread Covington and artist Joe Harris in the creation of television cartoon shows to sell breakfast cereals for General Mills. The shows introduced such characters as King Leonardo, Tennessee Tuxedo and Underdog. Biggers contributed both scripts and songs to the series. When Underdog became a success, Biggers and his partners left Dancer Fitzgerald Sample to form their own company, Total Television, with animation produced at Gamma Studios in Mexico. At the end of the decade, Total Television folded when General Mills dropped out as the sponsor in 1969. Only when it was shown on a major network like NBC were all four episodes shown on the same half hour, without the extra cartoons. The show is also remembered for its clever and dramatic theme song.

Underdog was an anthropomorphic superhero parody of Superman and similar heroes with secret identities. The premise was that "humble and lovable" Shoeshine Boy, a cartoon dog, was in truth the superhero Underdog. George S. Irving narrated, and comedy actor Wally Cox provided the voices of both Underdog and Shoeshine Boy. When villains threatened, Shoeshine Boy ducked into a telephone booth where he transformed into the caped and costumed hero, destroying the booth in the process when his super powers were activated. Underdog almost always spoke in rhyme.

Underdog gets his powers from a special "super energy pill" concealed in a special ring. Before taking one, he would utter the words, "The secret compartment of my ring I fill with an Underdog Super Energy Pill". He appears to be a normal, powerless being without it and must take one in order to use his powers. There have been times where he has overworked himself, and must take another pill in order to sustain his powers. Underdog is shown to have powers similar to Superman, including those of flight, super strength, and invulnerability to conventional weapons. However, the number and scope of his superpowers are inconsistent from episode to episode, being subject not only to the conventions of superhero comics, but also to the conventions of humorous cartoons. In one episode he easily moved planets, safely butting against them with his rear end. In another episode his super energy pill, diluted billions of times when added to a city's water system, was capable of giving normal humans who drank the water enough strength easily to bend thick steel bars. However, these strengths are not consistent; e.g., in another episode a simple metal sword stuck down the back of his outfit gave him disabling fits of pain.

[Greg1]

"Once I found a perpetual motion machine just lying in the trashcan. Of course, by then it had stopped moving."

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44. Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (1989) - 13 points

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers was an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and created by Tad Stones and Alan Zaslove. It featured the classic Disney chipmunk characters Chip 'n Dale, with three new friends, as detectives. The show as originally conceptualized by Tad Stones was not centered around the Chip 'n Dale characters, but, as relayed by him, a rework with the chipmunks was ultimately green-lighted by Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

The series began airing on March 5, 1989 on the Disney Channel, where the first 13 episodes ran. With the airing of the two hour standalone television special, "Rescue Rangers: To the Rescue" in the fall of the same year, the show began its syndicated run, where it was often paired in an hour-long show with DuckTales. The last episode aired on November 19, 1990, by which time the series was a part of the then-fledgling Disney Afternoon and continued to air in its lineup until 1993.

A popular eponymous Rescue Rangers platform video game was produced for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Capcom in 1990, followed by a less successful sequel. A third game was made for the PC. The video games featured gameplay that was rather similar to that of Super Mario Bros. 2. Although they did not strictly follow the premise of the TV series, some of the game missions did match episode plots, and included recurring appearances of minor series characters such as a mechanical dog and a robot.

There were plans for a theatrical feature film based on the series (a 1990 issue of Comics Scene gave information on a planned release in 1991), but it never came to fruition, possibly because "DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp" underperformed at the box office.

[Greg1]

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em... then beat 'em."

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43. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! (1989) - 13 points

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! was the only one of the three American Mario animated series to air in syndication. The first and last parts of each episode were live action and showed Mario (played by "Captain" Lou Albano) and Luigi (Danny Wells) living in Brooklyn, where they would often be visited by celebrity guest stars, such as Cyndi Lauper, Danica McKellar, and a Cher impersonator. Occasionally, the main actors would be playing guest stars themselves, forcing their regular characters to leave when it came time for their other characters to show up.

The second part of each episode was a cartoon based loosely on the Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2 video games, where Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool (as Peach was called in North America until the release of Yoshi's Safari), and her loyal mushroom retainer Toad battle against the reptilian villain King Koopa, often in a movie or pop-culture parody. Getting into the spirit of these parodies, Bowser usually had a different outfit for each one. Wart, the main antagonist of the second game, was never in any of the episodes, yet most of his minions appeared in the show.

The Super Mario Bros. cartoon was shown on Mondays through Thursdays. On Fridays, the show would air the Legend of Zelda cartoons based on the game of the same name, in which the elf-like hero Link and Princess Zelda fight against the forces of the evil wizard Ganon. Scenes from the episode were shown during the live-action segments on the preceding days as sneak previews.

[Greg1]

"My mentor is an over-sized chicken?"

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42. Mighty Max (1993) - 14 points

Mighty Max was an animated action/sci-fi/horror television series which aired from 1993 to 1994 to promote the British Mighty Max toys, an offshoot of the Polly Pocket line, created by Bluebird Toys in 1992. It ran for two seasons, with a total of 40 episodes airing during the show's run. It starred the voice talents of Rob Paulsen as Max, Richard Moll as Norman, Tony Jay as Virgil, and Tim Curry as Skullmaster.

The series follows Max, an adventurous preteen boy who receives a package in the mail. The package contains a small statue of a fowl, inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs. The translation reveals a message which reads: "You have been chosen to be the cap-bearer. Go to the mini-mart and wait for a sign, Mighty Max." Shocked by the message, Max drops the statue, shattering it and revealing a red baseball cap emblazoned with a yellow "M" which he puts on.

Upon arriving at the mini-mart, he is chased by a lava-monster sent by Skullmaster, a megalomaniacal demon who lives within the earth and has the power to create evil minions. As Max races away, the cap activates a vortex which transports him instantly from his current location (which is assumed to be somewhere in the United States)Washington D.C., to the Mongolian desert, where Max is met by Virgil, a nearly-omniscient Lemurian, whose appearance is that of an anthropomorphic "fowl" (a running gag in the series is that Max refers to Virgil as a "chicken" to which the Lemurian replies "Fowl, actually."). Virgil explains that Max's reception of the cap was prophesized circa 3,000 BC. Max, Virgil, and Norman, his Viking bodyguard (he is three times bigger than Virgil), travel together around the world, defending Earth against the minions of Skullmaster, who is responsible for the downfall of both the Lemurians and the people of Atlantis. Norman (which may or may not be his real name) is supposedly immortal and has inspired legends of various heroes, including Sir Lancelot, Thor, Samson, and Hercules.

In all episodes, there is a short ending scene which preludes the credits. Max is shown at his desk in his room, where he discusses with the audience some aspect of the episode in an educational way, usually the location where the events took place, &c. Occasionally, Max is shown in another setting such as a library or museum, or is simply heard recorded on an answering machine (such as "Armageddon Outta Here", the series finale). However, these sequences were not broadcast in some regions, such as Britain.

The merchandising was far more popular than the show itself.

[Greg1]

"Uh, listen Jet. You said bell peppers and beef. There's no beef in here. So you wouldn't really call it bell peppers and beef, now would you?"

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41. Cowboy Bebop (1998) - 14 points

In the year 2071, the crew of the spaceship Bebop travel the solar system trying to apprehend bounties. In the slang of the era, "Cowboys" are bounty hunters. Most episodes revolve around a specific bounty, but the show often shares its focus with the pasts of one of each of the four main characters and of more general past events, which are revealed and brought together as the series progresses.

Cowboy Bebop was almost not on Japanese broadcast television due to its depictions of violence. It was first sent to TV Tokyo, one of the main broadcasters of anime in Japan. However, at the time, TV Tokyo was avoiding violence and sexuality in anime after the notoriously controversial broadcast of Neon Genesis Evangelion between 1995-1996. The show had an aborted first run from April 3, 1998 until June 19, 1998 on TV Tokyo, broadcasting only episodes 2, 3, 7-15 and 18. There are rumors that the network purposely tried to "sabotage" the series (perhaps due to the climate in the aftermath of Evangelion), but there is evidence to suggest the time slot after April 23 was already booked, leaving little room for the new series. In fact, the episode number XX is said to have been protested by staff for the treatment of the show.

One of the most notable elements of Cowboy Bebop is its music, performed by Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts, a band Kanno assembled to perform music for the series. The jazz and blues themed soundtrack is a defining factor in the series, almost as much as the characters, writing, and even animation. Many fans find the soundtracks enjoyable to listen to as albums on their own, independent of the series.

[Greg1]

"I am the cheese. I am the best character on this show. I am better than the salami and the bologna combined."

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40. Rocko's Modern Life (1993) - 14 points

Rocko's Modern Life was an American animated television series whose four seasons aired from 1993 to 1996. The show was based around the surreal, parodistic adventures of an anthropomorphic wallaby named Rocko, and his life in the city of O-Town. The series was created by Joe Murray. One of Nickelodeon's Nicktoons, it was the fourth series released in the Nicktoons group, and the first to be introduced since the original three were introduced in August 1991. The program was produced by Joe Murray Productions and Nickelodeon Studio, and occasionally by Games Productions.

Rocko (voiced by Carlos Alazraqui) is a wallaby who emigrated from Australia to the United States. He is a sensible, moral, and somewhat timid character who enjoys the simple pleasures in life, such as doing his laundry or feeding his dog, Spunky. He is neat, compassionate, and self-conscious. Rocko usually works at "Kind of a Lot o' Comics" (but once worked at Conglom-O where Ed Bighead attempted to make him quit) and his hobbies include Rocko, as seen in Wimp On The Barbie.recreational jackhammering and pining for the love of his life, Melba Toast. Due to Rocko's benevolence and non-confrontational personality, he is often taken advantage of by the other characters. Rocko would prefer to live a quiet life, but his reckless friends often throw him into turbulent situations. His most common catchphrase is "______-Day is a very dangerous day," even once saying "Open Mike night is a very dangerous night."

Heffer Wolfe (voiced by Tom Kenny) is Rocko's best friend, a happy-go-lucky and not-too-bright steer whom he met in high school. Heffer is an absolute glutton and loves to eat and party. Filburt (voiced by Doug "Mr." Lawrence) is Rocko's other best friend, a neurotic, hypochondriac turtle wearing Woody Allen-style glasses. He started out as a background character and became a main character in the second season. He lives in a trailer and earns his money by collecting cans "here and there", and has a penchant for "sauce".

[Greg1]

"Cheer up, Gri... hey! Mandy's not my girlfriend! She's just my FRIEND, who HAPPENS to be a girl, just like I HAPPEN to be a boy, and you HAPPEN to be a skeleton! It's the differences that make our planet so rich! So diverse! And wonderful!"

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39. The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (2001) - 14 points

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, created by Maxwell Atoms, is an American animated television series that currently airs on Cartoon Network and Teletoon. The two main characters, Billy and Mandy, have obliged the Grim Reaper, here usually called Grim, to be their best friend forever after having won a bet over a sick hamster through a game of Limbo.

The show's existence is largely the result of a viewer poll. An Internet and call-in event called the Big Pick was held from August 24 to August 25 in 2000. The three final choices were The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?, and Longhair and Doubledome. Out of the three, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy won. The first season appeared on Cartoon Network in 2001. Robot Jones would later be made into a full series despite losing; Longhair and Doubledome would reappear with another pilot episode in another Big Pick-style show later on, only to fall short once again.

Originally labelled Grim and Evil, the series was a combination of two shows in one. In each show, a segment of Evil Con Carne was put between two Grim cartoons. In 2003, the network separated Grim from Evil and gave both a full length show. The short-lived Evil Con Carne show was cancelled once all the already-made episodes were aired. In 2005, Evil Con Carne was given another short-lived run with the newly created intro and end credits, only to be cancelled again. Some characters from Evil Con Carne occasionally appear on The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.

In a "Behind The Scenes Interview" by Cartoon Network, Maxwell Atoms stated that Billy and Mandy originated from an Animated Student Film that he did while in college and that Grim and the conceptual idea came later on. He said that his prime influences as an animator are Surrealism, monster movies and old Saturday Morning Cartoons he watched as a kid. "I love the idea that anything is possible in animation. I learned a lot from all of the great animators working out here, too."

[Greg1]

A random line from Romeo & Juliet

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38. Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992) - 15 points

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (also known as The Animated Shakespeare) comprised two six-part television series, first broadcast in 1992 and 1994. Each episode was an animated half-hour adaptation of one of Shakespeare's plays.

The series was commissioned by BBC Wales for the Welsh language channel S4C (although it was commissioned in English). Production was co-ordinated by the Dave Edwards studio in Cardiff, and executed by well-known Russian directors and animators in Moscow. The scripts were written by children's author Leon Garfield, using mainly Shakespearian language. The academic consultant was professor Stanley Wells.

For the English-language version, the productions generally used British actors for the voices. A Russian dubbing was recorded afterwards. After the success of the first series, the voice actors in the second series tended to be "bigger names".

The series was noted for its wide range of animation techniques. The animation was done completely in Moscow at Christmasfilms Studio, by a selection of Russia's most renowned animators. Other animated adaptations produced by the same team include Operavox (1995) and The Canterbury Tales (1998–2000).

[Greg1]

"A sea monster ate my ice cream!"

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37. DuckTales (1987) - 15 points

DuckTales was the most successful of Disney's early attempts to create high-quality animation for a TV animated series (earlier shows included The Wuzzles and The Gummi Bears in 1985). Disney invested a far greater amount of money into the TV series than had previously been spent on animated shows of the time. This was considered a risky move, because animated TV series were generally considered low-budget, throwaway investments for most of the history of TV cartoons up through the 1980s. Most DuckTales episodes were animated in Asia by companies such as Cuckoo's Nest Studios, Wang Film Productions of Taiwan, and Tokyo Movie Shinsha of Japan.

The general premise of the show was about the adventures experienced by Scrooge and his nephews. The nephews, who were originally living with their uncle Donald, were left in Scrooge's care when he went off to join the Navy. Being the richest duck in the world, Scrooge constantly came up with ways to try and increase his wealth, or to protect it from villains who wanted it for their own greed. In general, there were several different plotlines that were used throughout many of the episodes, although there were numerous other episodes with completely different plots.

DuckTales was largely based on Carl Barks' classic Scrooge McDuck stories which ran in various Disney Comic publications. Scrooge was originally introduced as a supporting character in Donald Duck's stories but soon became so popular that he was given his own spinoff series, and soon became the center of what was eventually dubbed "The Scrooge McDuck Universe" by fans. Many DuckTales episodes, especially in the first season, are directly adapted from comic stories by Barks. Other major elements, such as Scrooge's money bin, the Junior Woodchuck organization, the city of Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, are culled directly from the comics.

[Greg1]

"Kim Possible, you think you're all that, but you're not!"

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36. Kim Possible (2002) - 15 points

Kim (voiced by Christy Carlson Romano) often finds herself criss-crossing the globe in an attempt to rescue people, stop crimes, and battle supervillains... all the while being expected to come home and complete her homework in time. Kim Possible attends Middleton High School, and is captain of the school's cheerleading squad. However, the red-haired crime fighter cannot save the world alone. Alongside her is Ron Stoppable, her goofy, wisecracking partner and boyfriend, and his scene-stealing pet naked mole rat, Rufus.

The series premiered in June 2002, and the first episode to air, Crush, was nominated for a Primetime Emmy award the following year. With the premiere of this episode, Kim Possible was regarded as the most watched and highest rated television show on the Disney Channel at that time. The series as a whole was nominated for the Daytime equivalent in 2004, and again in 2005 (that year saw it receive 5 nominations with 1 win). The show has widely been praised for its smart dialogue, fluid animation, and engaging, well-written characters (both heroic and villainous).

According to creators Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, they created the show in an elevator. As they tell it, McCorkle looked at Schooley and said, "Kim Possible: she can do anything." Schooley at once replied, "Her partner is Ron Stoppable: he can't do anything." The creators also maintain that it was always their intention for Kim and Ron to eventually become involved romantically, instead of remaining best friends. This becomes reality in the supposed series ending movie "Kim Possible: So the Drama." The romantic theme also continues in season four.

[Greg1]

"Atta boy, Mac! Down with tyranny! Up with... nontyranny!"

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35. Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends (2004) - 15 points

Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends is a cartoon that takes place in a home where imaginary friends go, when their creators outgrow them. The inspiration came when Craig McCracken and his wife, Lauren Faust, adopted a pair of dogs from an adoption shelter. McCracken was then inspired to wonder what if there was a similar place for childhood imaginary friends.

In this world, imaginary friends become real the instant a child imagines them. Unfortunately for the imaginary friends, the children outgrow them. When that happens, the friends are left to fend for themselves. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends was founded by the elderly Madame Foster to provide a foster home (hence the title) for abandoned imaginary friends; their motto is "Where good ideas are not forgotten." There are (according to "Setting A President") 1,340 imaginary friends at Foster's Home. It has been suggested that the house itself may be imaginary, as well. In the end of "Emancipation Complication" Madame Foster states that there are 2,037 Imaginary Friends currently residing in the house.

Foster's is completely animated in Adobe Flash, the backgrounds are cleaned up in Adobe Illustrator, and then both are compiled in Adobe After Effects. The idea saves some money compared to hand-drawn animation, but not a substantial amount.

[Greg1]

"If you didn't wake me up, I might've had a nightmare and it would've woke me up. Then, I could've woke you up and we would both be awake. But since you did wake me up, I can't wake up from this nightmare so I can't wake you up! So we're both still asleep."

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34. 2 Stupid Dogs (1993) - 16 points

2 Stupid Dogs was a cartoon about a stupid dog and another stupid dog, with an animation style that was unusual (at the time); a very flat, simplistic style similar to early Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 1950s and 60s, with early 1990s humor and sensibility.

2 Stupid Dogs was the beginning of the successful revival of Hanna-Barbera's fortunes, since the studio had not launched a bona fide hit since The Smurfs in 1981. Turner Entertainment president installed MTV and Nickelodeon branding veteran Fred Seibert as the head of production. Seibert's plan to reinvent the studio was to put his faith in the talent community, a first for television animation, and HB in particular. His first pitch and first series put into production in 1992 was 2 Stupid Dogs, by recent California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) graduate Donovan Cook. The show was considered by some to be Hanna-Barbera's attempt to cash in on the popularity of Ren and Stimpy, which was at the height of its popularity when 2 Stupid Dogs hit the air. Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi was credited to adding "tidbits of poor taste" to the three Little Red Riding Hood episodes, and a few other Spumco artists also contributed to selected episodes during the course of the show.

Several artists and directors from the show became the first creators in Seibert's innovative What-A-Cartoon! program; 48 theatrical length, original character cartoons, made expressly for the Cartoon Network, and designed to find the talent and hits of the new generations. 2 Stupid Dogs spawned creators Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack), Craig McCracken (The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends), Miles Thompson, Paul Rudish, and Zac Moncrief. Many of their shorts were imparted with the same strikingly two-dimensional, purposefully cartoony animation style.

[Greg1]

"Bear is driving! How can that be?"

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33. Clerks: The Animated Series (2000) - 16 points

Clerks: The Animated Series (also simply Clerks) is an American cult animated television series based on Kevin Smith's 1994 film debut Clerks. It was developed for television by Smith, Smith's producer Scott Mosier and former Seinfeld writer David Mandel.

The main characters, Dante Hicks, Randal Graves, Jay and Silent Bob, as well as the setting and basic premise, are taken directly from the movie. The show differs from the movie in many ways, however, due to the additional freedom animation provides, as well as the language and content restrictions that broadcast TV demands. For example, the characters of Jay and Silent Bob were changed from drug dealers to mischief makers (selling fireworks instead of marijuana), and the explicit sexual dialogue in the film (which was enough to initially achieve an NC-17 rating in the U.S.) is drastically toned down. The series also introduced a new villain, Leonardo Leonardo, after whom Leonardo, New Jersey is named, the town in which the series, and the film, takes place. Leonardo was voiced by Alec Baldwin.

Only two episodes were aired on ABC in 2000 before the series was cancelled. Several factors contributed to the cancellation, including low ratings, the show's not fitting in with ABC's other programming, unsuccessful test-screening to older audiences, and ABC's decision to air the shows out of order. ABC aired the fourth episode first, as opposed to the intended first episode, and then aired the second episode despite the fact that the second episode is the 'flashback' episode, and derives much of its humor from the fact that it flashes back almost exclusively to the first, unaired episode. In fact, the second episode aired without the scene from "Flintstone's List", the fictional RST Video rental that spoofed Schindler's List.

The show did make it to DVD, and it has proved to be much more popular than the show was when it aired on TV.

[Greg1]

"Ha ha ha. You merely separated my head from my body. A courtesy I will gladly extend to you all, for none of you are leaving here alive."

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32. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) - 16 points

The 2003 animated series deviates from the 1987 - 1996 animated series significantly. While still a Saturday morning cartoon, the show bears more resemblance to the original, "darker and edgier" comics, published by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's Mirage Studios. Gone are a cartoony Shredder and his inept mutant/alien associates. Bebop and Rocksteady, Krang, the Technodrome and Dimension X are all absent from this series since they were not in the original comics and were created for the 1987 animated series, and Shredder is much more menacing and threatening than his previous cartoon incarnation. In addition, there is a main plot and several sub-plots running through the series, revealing hints which will develop as the series unfolds. Although many of the episodes are stand-alone, each usually has a key element that relates to the plot as a whole; furthermore, there are frequent two-to-four-episode continuous stories.

In the 2003 cartoon show, the four Turtles personalities are in someways different from the 1987 cartoon, they reflect the more somber mood of the 2003 cartoon and are an attempt to follow the Mirage comics more closely. All characters are more fleshed-out and more sensitive, and have a stronger family bond. Leonardo is more skillful and meditative than in the 1987 series (where he was slightly serious, but occasionally does silly things whenever his brothers do); episodes of the 2003 series that focus on The Shredder and ninjitsu also focus on Leonardo. Leonardo's strained yet close relationship with Raphael is an important plot element. Raphael is much angrier and more emotional (in the 1987 show, he loves to make jokes and is more friendly), and sometimes fights with Leonardo, but is shown to deeply care about his family and friends on several occasions. When the Turtles pair off, the least likely duos are Leonardo and Michelangelo as one pair, and Donatello and Raphael as the other, due to their drastically different personalities, but the show explores each relationship more with each season. One unique new trait is that major TMNT ally Casey Jones is given a larger supporting role, unlike the original 1987 series where he was just a minor recurring character, and the 2003 series also shows him having some romantic feelings towards the Turtles' other major ally April O'Neil (who also is a supporting character in this series) - just like in the original comic books and the first movie. The original show's catchphrase, "Cowabunga," has been joked about several times (with Raphael telling Michelangelo not to say "cowabunga" anymore). (Even the "Turtle Power" catchphrase has been almost totally left out of the 2003 series)

In the 2003 TMNT cartoon, as in the original comic, Splinter, the Turtles' sensei and father, is depicted as a rat who has been mutated to a humanoid form, instead of a man who has been mutated to rat form as in the 1987 TMNT cartoon. Baxter Stockman is African American (like he was in the comics) instead of Caucasian, and April is initially his lab assistant and later, the owner of an antique shop, instead of an anchorwoman. She has also been studying Ninjitsu under Splinter, and is now capable of holding her own in a fight. The character Leatherhead, who in the 1987 show was an evil, cajun-sounding mutant alligator with limited intelligence, in the 2003 show is a highly intelligent mutated crocodile whose origin involves the Utroms, prefers peace but becomes violent when provoked, and is considered by the turtles and Splinter to be family.

[Greg1]

"They locked down their fortress - with locks!"

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31. Invader Zim (2001) - 17 points

Invader Zim is an American animated television series created by comic book writer/artist Jhonen Vasquez and aired on Nickelodeon. First broadcast on March 30, 2001 (the same day as The Fairly OddParents), the show's strange animation, quirky humor, and dark, cynical style gave it a devoted cult following, with an audience of an older average age than those of most of Nickelodeon's other cartoons. Because of this, ratings for Nickelodeon's core demographic, 2-11 year olds, were fairly low. Disappointed with its low ratings and high production costs, Nickelodeon cancelled the show.

Zim is a member of the mighty Irken race, a species of alien life forms whose social hierarchy is based on height. The Irken leaders are the Almighty Tallest (during the course of the show, leadership of the Irken Empire is shared by two Tallest, Purple and Red, who are exactly the same height). Zim was banished to the planet Foodcourtia as a fry cook for the remainder of his life for destroying a sizable portion of the Irken home planet, Irk, with a giant robot, known as the Frontline Battle Mech. The robot was part of Operation Impending Doom I, a major galactic conquest venture by the Irkens. Zim was overeager (as usual) and activated his robot before leaving his home planet, much to the chagrin of his leaders.

Upon hearing of Operation Impending Doom II, Zim "quits" being banished and arrives at the Great Assigning where Irken Elite soldiers are chosen to become Invaders, special soldiers whose mission it is to blend in with the indigenous life forms of their assigned planet and collect intelligence. Zim pleads with the Tallest to assign him a planet, and in a desperate act to get Zim as far away as possible, they assign him to a "Mystery Planet", which turns out to be Earth.

The show features Zim trying to conquer the Earth while his human arch-nemesis Dib tries to stop him. Technically, the show takes place in a world of its own, with a present-day Earth more technologically advanced than ours. Because the alternate universe aspect was never emphasized, the result is that the series appears to be set at some point in the near future.

Creative differences with Nickelodeon drove Jhonen Vasquez from the show. Even if the show is ever picked up again, a key staff member, Steve Ressel, has already expressed that he won't return to the show. In an IGN interview, Vasquez has claimed that if he were to get creative freedom on Zim, he may possibly continue it. Since the cancellation, Mr. Vasquez and the other crew have moved on to other projects.

20 down, 30 more to go. We'll continue tomorrow. Feel free to discuss.

[John Pannozzi]

Very nice. My only nitpick is that you didn't mention the origin of Rocko's Modern Life. Rocko originated in a comic strip that Joe Murray never sold.

[Peter Paltridge]

What's that Shakespeare thing doing in there?

This is all you British people's faults!

[Greg1]

"Ah, there now, you see, this looks like Vince's frontal lobe. I reckon that Random Pavarotti Disease is a psychological phenomena and that we should be able to locate it in the otherworldliness of his brain."

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30. Rex the Runt (1998) - 17 points

Rex the Runt is an animated (claymation) television show produced by Aardman Animations. Its main characters are four Plasticine dogs: Rex, Wendy, Bad Bob and Vince.

The series began with a short, Ident, in 1989 directed by Richard Goleszowski. After a long gestation period this developed into two unaired shorts and then thirteen ten-minute episodes that first aired over two weeks on BBC2 from December 1998. A second thirteen episode series aired from September 2001 on the same channel. As well as the core cast guest voices included Paul Merton, Morwenna Banks, Judith Chalmers, Antoine de Caunes, Bob Holness, Bob Monkhouse, Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton, Arthur Smith, June Whitfield and Eddie Izzard. The animation is unusual in that the models are almost two-dimensional and are animated to exaggerate this - they are flattened in appearance and animated on a sheet of glass with the backgrounds behind the sheet.

The stories are quite surreal with plots including:

-Shrinking a submarine to enter Vince's brain in order to cure his random Pavarotti disease
-Destroying the world by drilling in the north pole
-Going back in time to prevent their house being stolen
-Falling down through the bottom of the bed where they soon find a sex clinic
-Using Bob's shrinking ray to reduce the city of Birmingham to a domestic ornament (with a waste disposal problem)
-Rex being turned into spaghetti
-Vince learning to say the word "sausages".
-Bad Bob joining a punk gang called The Slippers ("We got sole!").
-Wendy joining the army.
-Vince declaring war on France
-Vince being held hostage by killer plants.
-The gang going to an out of town garden shop only to find out it is a spaceship.
-Bad Bob hosting a show while Rex is on holiday.

Plots also regularly make reference to the fact that characters are made of Plasticine, such as one episode where Wendy goes to a hair salon and starts melting when under the hairdryer.

[Greg1]

"Hey,boss! Look! The eraser is stuck up Bin Laden's pooper!"

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29. American Dad (2005) - 17 points

American Dad! is an American animated television series produced by Underdog Productions and Fuzzy Door Productions for 20th Century Fox. It was created, in part, by Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy. The pilot episode aired in the United States on Fox on February 6, 2005, thirty minutes after the end of Super Bowl XXXIX; the regular series began May 1, 2005, after the season premiere of Family Guy. American Dad! follows the events of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent Stan Smith and his family.

The Smith family lives in the fictional U.S. community of "Langley Falls, Virginia" in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The town name is a composite of Langley, Virginia and Great Falls, Virginia, both of which are located in Fairfax County. Langley is the real-life location of CIA headquarters.

Stan Smith (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) has worked for the CIA since the 1980s as a "weapons expert" always on the alert for terrorist activity. He can be quite paranoid and protective: he has a terror-alert color code on his refrigerator, and is so high-strung as to shoot the toaster when the toast pops up. Stan is in mostly top physical shape, though he has a bit of a gut, and has no qualms about kidnapping, drugging, or tasering anybody, even family members, if he sees it as a means to an end. Francine Smith (voiced by Wendy Schaal) is the sweet, stereotypical trophy housewife of Stan Smith. She keeps her own opinions and party-hearty personality mostly to herself, for the sake of her husband's ultra-conservative views. She rarely has any friends because she has no career outside of the house, and Stan always scares the neighbors.

Hayley Smith (voiced by Rachael MacFarlane) is the ultra-liberal daughter of Stan and Francine. Because of her views, Stan distrusts her more than her brother. She is eighteen and goes to community college. She enjoys recreational marijuana, usually with her on-again, off again boyfriend Jeff Fischer, and goes hiking with him. Steve Smith (voiced by Scott Grimes) is the fourteen-year-old son of Stan and Francine. Roger seems to be his best friend. Steve goes to extreme measures to raise his social status and get dates, yet he actually knows very little about sex. Klaus (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) is the result of the CIA swapping a libidinous East German Olympic ski-jumper's brainwaves with that of a goldfish in order to prevent him from winning the gold medal. Klaus manifests some sadistic tendencies, usually offering the explanation, "I'm German!", and lusts after Francine. Roger (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) is the sarcastic, surly, lonely, aloof, and flamboyantly effeminate space alien who saved Stan's life in Area 51. He spends his time smoking, drinking and eating (mainly unhealthful foods). Roger is an avid film, television and celebrity buff.

[Greg1]

"I can't believe they killed the main character in the first scene!"

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28. Excel Saga (1999) - 18 points

According to manga creator Koushi Rikudou, Victor Entertainment solicited his publisher about adapting his famous on-going manga, Excel Saga, into an anime. He agreed, but asked that the anime have a different storyline from the manga, which was and remains on-going. Rikudou says he is very pleased with the adaptation and that he sees "much appeal in the anime world." Shinichi Watanabe, the director, was for his part surprised to learn that he was specifically requested by Yousuke Kuroda, one of the show's writers. He adds that his first thought on looking at Rikudou's material was, "Wow, there's so much here that can't be broadcast on TV."

Both the manga and the anime follow the trials and tribulations of ACROSS, a self-styled “secret ideological organization,” in its quest to conquer the world and rid it of corruption. Its leader, Lord Ilpalazzo, plans to begin with just one city: F City, F Prefecture. He justifies this strategy by saying that conquering one city allows leeway for setbacks, and that the people of the world would not be ready for immediate unification. Defending the city are Dr. Kabapu and his Department of City Security, also known as the Municipal Force Daitenzin, a masked fighting force. While the manga and anime both principally revolve around this conflict, each medium features unique subplots. The anime adds a side story mostly independent of the main plot, focusing on the ghost of Pedro (an immigrant construction worker), Nabeshin (the director's alter ego), and That Man, a villain introduced in later episodes.

Excel is the hyperactive protagonist and title character, who approaches her work with abundant determination, but little foresight. Her mission is to further ACROSS' city conquest, but her personal desire is to win Ilpalazzo's affection and praise. Despite being his most senior officer, she frequently finds herself out of the loop or passed over for promotion. To accelerate his plans, Ilpalazzo soon hires a second agent, Hyatt, a demure and frail woman with a habit of suddenly dying and reviving in quick succession. Despite this limitation, she soon becomes Ilpalazzo's favorite, but Hyatt seems unaware of his favor and holds her senior in high regard. The two agents of ACROSS keep a dog, named Menchi, as both a pet and "emergency rations"—but although Excel and Hyatt often plan to “declare a state of emergency” and have Menchi as a meal, they never do so.

The twenty-sixth episode, "Going Too Far," never aired in Excel Saga's original run on TV Tokyo because it was purposefully too violent and obscene for broadcast in Japan. The opening sequence is altered to contain pixelated nudity and more blood, and the closing presents the translator on fours, wearing a collar, and singing the "Bolero," as Menchi translates into her own language. The episode itself, in addition to much more violence, blood, and gore, features graphic sexual situations variously containing nudity, lesbianism, soaplands, paedophilia, and a love hotel—in several instances involving minors. The episode also makes a reference to using sarin gas as a method of extermination, a very sensitive subject in Japan due to the 1995 subway incident. In the Japanese version, the word "sarin gas" is bleeped out, although it is left in in the English dub and in the subtitles on the DVD. The director himself remarks that it "felt good to go past the limits of a TV series," although he thinks it "is not something that you should do too often."

[Greg1]

"What would a rag doll do? What would he eat?"

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27. Bagpuss (1974) - 18 points

Bagpuss is a popular 1974 UK children's television series, made by Smallfilms. It is fondly and widely remembered, despite the fact that only 13 episodes were ever made. Each programme would begin the same way: Through a series of sepia photographs, we are told of a little girl named Emily (played by Emily Firmin, the daughter of the illustrator Peter Firmin), who owned a shop. The shop didn't sell anything, however - instead, Emily would find lost and broken things and display them in the window of the shop, so that their owners could one day come and collect them. She would leave the object in front of her favourite stuffed toy - a large, saggy, pink and white striped cat named Bagpuss. She would then recite a verse:

Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss
Old Fat Furry Catpuss
Wake up and look at this thing that I bring
Wake up, be bright, be golden and light
Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing

When Emily had left, Bagpuss would wake up. The programme shifted from sepia to colour stop motion film, and various toys in the shop would also come to life: Gabriel the toad and a rag doll called Madeleine. The wooden woodpecker bookend became the drily academic Professor Yaffle (distantly based, it is said, on the philosopher Bertrand Russell), while the mice carved on the side of the "mouse organ" (a small mechanical pipe organ which played rolls of music) woke up and scurried around, singing in high-pitched voices. Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner provided the voices of Madeleine and Gabriel respectively, and put together and performed all the proper songs. All the other voices (including the narrator and one out-of-tune mouse) were provided by Oliver Postgate.

The toys would discuss what the new object was; someone (usually Madeleine) would tell a story related to the object (shown in an animated thought-bubble over Bagpuss's head), often with a song, which would be accompanied by Gabriel on the banjo (which often sounded a lot more like a guitar), and then the mice, singing in high pitched squeaky harmony as they worked, would mend the broken object. The newly mended thing would then be put in the Shop window, so that whoever had lost it would see it as they went past, and could come in and claim it. Then Bagpuss would start yawning again, and as he fell asleep the colour faded to sepia and they all became toys again.

Most of the stories and songs used in the series are based on folk songs and fairy tales from around the world. In 1999 it came first place in a BBC poll selecting the nations' favourite children's show. It also came fourth in the 2001 Channel 4 poll The 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows.

[Greg1]

"ISSGON' RAIN!"

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26. Family Guy (1999) - 18 points

Family Guy is an American animated television series about a nuclear family in the suburb of Quahog, Rhode Island. It was created by Seth MacFarlane for FOX in 1999. Family Guy's humor is famous, or even sometimes infamous, for its use of non sequiturs, usually in the form of flashbacks. The show was cancelled once in 2000 and again in 2002, but strong DVD sales and the large viewership of reruns on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim convinced FOX to resume the show in 2005. It is the first cancelled show to be resurrected based on DVD sales.

The show revolves around the adventures of Peter Griffin, a bumbling but well-intentioned blue-collar worker. Peter is an Irish-American Catholic with a Rhode Island / Eastern Massachusetts accent. During the course of the series, he discovers he is part African-American and has been known to have Spanish, Mexican, Scottish, and German ancestors. He is known for his trademark laugh. His wife Lois, who has a similar accent, is a stay-at-home mom/piano teacher, and is a member of the Pewterschmidt family of wealthy Protestant socialites. Peter and Lois have three children: teenage daughter Meg Griffin, who is frequently the butt of jokes for her ugliness; goofy and low-intelligent teenage son Chris Griffin, in some respects a younger version of his father; and diabolically evil infant son Stewie Griffin, bent on world domination and the death of his mother. Stewie speaks fluently and eloquently, with an Upper Class English accent and stereotypical arch-villain phrases. Even though the family can hear Stewie's talk of world domination and of Lois' demise, all but Brian (the intellectual talking pet dog) hear his speech as baby gibberish. Brian is the only family member who understands Stewie, and doesn't treat him like an infant, although minor characters have conversed with Stewie in different episodes. Stewie refers to his mother and father as "Lois" and "the fat man" respectively. Brian is anthropomorphized in that he walks on two legs, drinks Martinis, owns his own car (a Toyota Prius, circa 2004) and engages in human conversation, though he is still considered a pet in many respects. Occasionally, Brian will act in a stereotypically canine manner, usually for comedic effect (such as his inability to stand up in the back of a car, chasing tennis balls, fear of vacuum cleaners and barking uncontrollably at black people—which he blames on his father's side of the family). He does, however, object to any overly submissive domestic behavior.

Family Guy's first and second seasons were made starting in 1999 after Larry shorts (its predecessor) caught the attention of the Fox Broadcasting Company. Previously, MacFarlane had pitched the the Family Guy concept to "Weird Al" Yankovic to be used as short segments for "The Weird Al Show". Weird Al loved it, but it didn't fit into the educational kids show format Al had been forced into. Weird Al commented "We could have been the Tracy Ullman Show for Family Guy".

[Peter Paltridge]

So much has been mentioned already that it makes me wonder what DID make the top 10. Judging by the results so far, I'm guessing #1 will be all eight episodes of 1975's "The Good-Humour Adventures of Lord Fuffy Fufflebottom and His Bloke."

From my nation's perspective, this is a lousy list.

[Greg1]

"And now, here to tell you everything about anything is Mr. Know-It-All."

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25. Rocky & Bullwinkle (1959) - 18 points

The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show is the collective name for two separate American television animated series: Rocky and His Friends (1959-1964) and The Bullwinkle Show (1961-1973). Rocky & Bullwinkle enjoyed great popularity during the 1960s. Much of this success was a result of it being targeted towards both children and adults. The zany characters and absurd plots would draw in children, while the clever usage of puns and topical references appealed to the adult demographic. Furthermore, the strengths of the series helped it overcome the fact that it had choppy, limited animation; in fact, some critics described the series as a well-written radio program with pictures.

The series was created by Jay Ward and Alex Anderson, who had both previously collaborated on Crusader Rabbit, and was based upon the original property The Frostbite Falls Revue. This original show was about a group of forest animals running a TV station. The group included Rocket J. Squirrel, Oski Bear, Canadian Moose (Bullwinkle), Sylvester Fox, Blackstone Crow, and Floral Fauna. The show in this form was created by Jay Ward's partner Alex Anderson. Ward wanted to produce the show in Los Angeles; however, Anderson, who lived in the San Francisco Bay area, did not want to relocate. As a result, Ward hired Bill Scott, who became the head writer and co-producer at Jay Ward Productions, and who wrote all of the Rocky and Bullwinkle features. Ward was also joined by writers Allan Burns (who later became head writer for MTM Enterprises) and Chris Hayward.

The series began with the pilot Rocky the Flying Squirrel. Production began in February 1958 with the hiring of voice actors June Foray, Paul Frees, Bill Scott, and William Conrad. Eight months later, General Mills signed a deal to sponsor the cartoon, under the condition that the show be run in a late-afternoon time slot, where it could be targeted towards children. Subsequently, Ward hired most of the rest of the production staff, including writers and designers. However, no animators were hired, since Ward was able to convince friends of his at Dancer, Fitzgerald & Sample, an advertising firm that had General Mills as a client, to buy an animation studio in Mexico called Gamma Productions S.A. de C.V. This outsourcing of the animation for the series was considered financially attractive by General Mills, but caused numerous problems.

The show was broadcast for the first time in the fall of 1959 on the ABC television network under the name Rocky and His Friends. In 1961, the series was moved to NBC, where it was renamed The Bullwinkle Show. Subsequently, in 1964, the show returned to ABC, where it was canceled within a year. However, episodes were still continually aired on ABC until 1973, at which time the series went into syndication. In addition, an abbreviated fifteen minute version of the series ran in syndication in the 1960s under the title The Rocky Show. This version was sometimes shown in conjunction with The King and Odie, a fifteen minute version of Total Television's King Leonardo and His Short Subjects. The King and Odie was similar to Rocky and Bullwinkle in that it was sponsored by General Mills and animated by Gamma Productions.

[Greg1]

"This looks like a job for Bi-Polar Bear... but I just cant seem to get out of bed."

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24. The Tick (1994) - 19 points

A square-jawed, muscular, bright blue figure with antennae sticking up from his head, the Tick is a surreal parody of superheroes. The Tick is high-spirited, frequently obtuse, and prone to quipping odd, dim remarks and "inspirational" speeches filled with bizarre metaphors. His superpowers are nigh-invulnerability, which allows him to crash and bang about without injury; super strength (he can bend a steel girder with ease); and something referred to as "drama power", or basically a tendency for the Tick's powers to increase as the situation becomes more dramatic. He can also survive out in space without a suit and underwater without oxygen. He is known for his nonsensical battle cry, "Spoooooon!", which he decided upon one day while eating breakfast (specifically the cereal "Drama Flakes").

Like many superheroes, The Tick has a sidekick: an accountant named Arthur, who wears a white moth suit that allows him to fly, although he is often mistaken for a bunny due to the long ear-like antennae of his costume and the fact that his wings are often folded up inside his briefcase. The Tick is impulsive, and Arthur serves as a sort of conscience; the hero often irks his sidekick. The Tick's battle cry is "SPOON!" Arthur's "battle cry" is "Not in the face! Not in the face!"

In 1986, 24-year-old Ben Edlund created The Tick as a mascot for the newsletter of New England Comics in Boston, where he was a customer on occasion. The character, which somewhat resembled The Cockroach from Cerebus the Aardvark, became popular and the store financed a few black and white comic books, written and illustrated by Edlund and featuring the character. In 1994, The Tick #4 introduced Arthur. The Tick became extensively popular in the underground comics scene. Soon New England Comics published a regular series in color which featured the character. Spinoffs followed which featured characters such as Paul The Samurai, Man-Eating Cow, and Chainsaw Vigilante. Edlund continued to write and illustrate these projects through his years as an undergraduate film student at Massachusetts College of Art.

In 1994, the Fox Network licensed The Tick as a Saturday morning cartoon show, which Edlund wrote and co-produced. The Tick was voiced by Townsend Coleman, and his sidekick Arthur by Micky Dolenz in season one, with Rob Paulsen taking over the Arthur role in seasons two and three. The series also featured Die Fledermaus as a shallow, self-absorbed Batman parody; Sewer Urchin, a Rain Man-like version of Aquaman; and American Maid, a more noble superheroine featuring aspects of Wonder Woman and Captain America. Reruns on Comedy Central helped make the series a cult hit with adults.

[Greg1]

"I'm Bill Clinton! I'm gonna push over this cow!"

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23. Robot Chicken (2005) - 20 points

Robot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created by Stoop!d Monkey and Sony Pictures Digital. Seth Green and Matthew Senreich are the creators and executive producers of the show. They are also on the writing team, provide the majority of voices, and have even directed a few episodes. Robot Chicken is a variety show that parodies a number of pop culture conventions using stop motion animation of toys, action figures, dolls, and claymation (usually for special effects) and various other objects, such as tongue depressors. The show's name was inspired by a dish on the menu at a Chinese restaurant, Kung Pao Bistro, where Green and Senreich had dined.

The show was inspired by the comedy antics of Twisted Mego Theatre (now called Twisted ToyFare Theater), which appears monthly in Toyfare Magazine, published by Gareb Shamus' Wizard Entertainment. The segment "The Aussie Hunter" on FOX's MAD TV is an early work of the group. Matthew Senreich worked in various capacities with Wizard Entertainment prior to working on the show. Some of the first shorts were originally on the now-defunct Sony ScreenBlast website under the name "Sweet J Presents"; this website also hosted the animated Lenore shorts. The show is similar in appearance to the many shared internet videos created using toys and household items. Many figures and sets are custom built, or adapted from commercially available toys such G.I. Joe or Barbie, or vehicles such as the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard are also sometimes used.

Robot Chicken often uses extremely outrageous and twisted humor like changing up Dora The Explorer (Dora Behind The Scenes). One recurring theme is the "Hilarious Bloopers" guy, a parodies of the Bob Saget era of America's Funniest Home Videos. Whenever he is featured, he commits suicide at the end of his skit using various household methods. The show tends to avoid political issues, instead mocking pop culture, referencing toys, films, television, and popular fads. When political figures are depicted on the program, the focus of their appearance is usually only tangentially-related to recent news or their positions in world affairs (such as Fidel Castro's "Dance Dance Revolution" video game competition from Season Two). One particular motif often involves the idea of fantastical characters being placed in a more realistic world or situation (such as Stretch Armstrong requiring a corn syrup transplant or Optimus Prime contracting prostate cancer).

It is also good proof that I was not able to rig this list!

[Greg1]

"It is the nature of humans to fear what they do not understand. Their ways are not our ways."

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22. Gargoyles (1994) - 20 points

Gargoyles is an acclaimed American animated series created by Greg Weisman, produced by Greg Weisman and Frank Paur and aired from October 24, 1994 to February 15, 1997. It was at the time hailed as one of the more ambitious Disney animated series in history, targeting an older demographic and taking a darker edge. The series was known for its complex story arcs and drama, a prime example being the controversial first-season episode "Deadly Force," which addressed the consequences of gun violence, including a graphic depiction of the wounds of a gunshot victim. Character arcs were heavily employed throughout the series. As the series progressed, it became deeply meshed with medieval history, particularly kings and princes from ancient Scottish history, and worldwide mythologies such as the King Arthur mythos and Norse Mythology among others, as well as the works of William Shakespeare, most notably A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth.

The series features a clan of warrior creatures known as Gargoyles that turn to stone during the day. Led by their leader Goliath in the year 994 A.D., they protect Castle Wyvern and its resident humans on the coast of Scotland until betrayal causes a massacre of the clan and a magic spell forces the six survivors into stone sleep, until the castle rises over the clouds. In 1994, a billionaire named David Xanatos purchases the castle and moves it to the top of his New York City skyscraper, breaking the spell. Awakening in modern day Manhattan, the gargoyles must adapt to this new world as they vow to protect the citizens of New York. A myriad of gargoyles, humans and creatures from mythology and superstition feature prominently throughout the series. Although series creators considered the series an ensemble piece, storylines revolve primarily around Goliath and his clan.

Series creator Weisman, a former English teacher, has often cited his goal of ideally incorporating every myth and legend into the series eventually. Perhaps because of Shakespeare's similar use of existing source material, many Shakespearean characters and stories found their way into the show's storylines. Weisman has also noted, among many other influences, the impact that Gummi Bears and Hill Street Blues had on the series. The latter in particular inspired the ensemble format of the series and the 30-second "Previously, on Gargoyles..." recap found at the beginning of later episodes. The former was an influence on the original comedy development of the show, which was subsequently changed and made darker and more serious before being released.

[Greg1]

"Sorry, Lalah, I... I still have a place I can come home to."

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21. Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) - 20 points

Universal Century 0079: The Principality of Zeon has declared its independence from the Earth Federation, and subsequently launched a massive war of independence, a war which has raged in every continent on earth and in nearly every space colony and lunar settlement. The Zeon have the upper hand through their use of a revolutionary new type of weapon, their humanoid mobile suits. When a Zeon recon team disobey mission orders and begin attacking Side 7 its citizens stumble across the Federation's latest weapon: the Gundam. With the aid of Earth Federation soldiers stationed aboard the MS carrier White Base the newly formed crew of refugees set out to change the course of the One Year War — or die trying.

The series was not popular when it first aired, and was in fact cancelled before the series was intended to end. The series was originally set to run for 52 episodes and was cut down to 39 by the show's sponsors, which included the original toymakers for the series. Luckily, the staff was able to negotiate a one month extension to end the series with 43 episodes.

When Bandai received the licensing to the show's mecha, however, things changed completely. With the introduction of their line of Gundam models, the popularity of the show began to soar. The models sold very well, and the show began to do very well in reruns and even better in its theatrical compilation. Audiences were expecting another giant robot show, and instead found MS Gundam, the first work of anime in an entirely new genre, the mecha drama or the 'real robot' genre as opposed to the 'super robot' genre. Much like the original Star Trek, the original Gundam was not appreciated by its initial audience, and also like Star Trek, proceeded to spawn a massive sci-fi franchise, spawning numerous sequels, model kits, and videogames up to the present day.

[Greg1]

"No matter where you go, everyone's connected."

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20. Serial Experiment Lain (1998) - 21 points

Serial Experiments Lain is an anime series created by Yoshitoshi ABe and produced by Ueda Yasuyuki (credited as production 2nd) for Triangle Staff. It was broadcast on TV Tokyo from July to September 1998. The series featured a scenario written by Chiaki J. Konaka and original character designs by Yoshitoshi ABe.

Lain is influenced by philosophical subjects such as reality, identity, and communication. The series focuses on Lain Iwakura, an adolescent girl living in suburban Japan, and her introduction to the Wired, a global communications network similar to the Internet. Lain lives with her middle class family, which consists of her inexpressive older sister Mika, her cold mother, and her computer-obsessed father. The first ripple on the pond of Lain's lonely life appears when she learns that girls from her school have received an e-mail from Chisa Yomoda, a schoolmate who committed suicide. When Lain receives the message at home, Chisa tells her (in real time) that she is not dead, but has just "abandoned the flesh", and has found God in the Wired. From then on, Lain is bound to a quest which will take her ever deeper into both the network and her own thoughts.

Serial Experiments Lain deals directly with the definition of Reality, which makes its complex plot difficult to summarize. The story is primarily based on the assumption that everything flows from human thought, memory, and consciousness. Therefore, events on screen can be considered hallucinations of Lain, of other protagonists, or of Lain fabricating the hallucinations of others. Story misdirection is central to the plotline; even the offscreen voices or narrations' information cannot be considered truthful. The series consists of a cross-reflection of philosophical themes instead of the traditional linear events depiction: episodes are called "layers".

[Chris]

I know what's going to come in first: Bananaman. Either that or Teeny Little Superguy, no wait, that was a Sesame Street segment. Bagpuss looks kinda interesting. So does Rex the Runt. I really like MPFC's animation. If it was 30 minutes worth of cartoons each program(me), I would've voted it in my top 5.

[Greg1]

"Excuse me sir, but can you direct me to the location of where I can locate some eggs for I would like to purchase them so that I can take them home with me and I can eat them today. And maybe tomorrow."

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19. Powerpuff Girls (1998) - 21 points

Craig McCracken, a student of California Institute of the Arts, created The Whoopass Girls in 1992 in his short film The Whoopass Girls in A Sticky Situation. Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation selected the short in 1994; McCracken submitted it to Cartoon Network while working on Dexter's Laboratory. As Cartoon Network could not keep the offending name, the girls were renamed the Powerpuff Girls. Their first appearance on Cartoon Network was the short “The Powerpuff Girls in: Meat Fuzzy Lumkins” as part of World Premiere Toons.

The Powerpuff Girls live in the fictional city of Townsville (not to be confused with Townsville in Queensland, Australia). The girls are drawn with physical traits that make them "cute". They have large eyes, and, although they are able to hear, smell, and hold, their bodies are drawn without noses, ears, fingers, or toes. The girls are very aware of that, and it is shown that they do not have fingers, and instead, their fingerless hands can pick things up at will. (In fact, in one episode where everyone swapped bodies, Buttercup, who had swapped bodies with the Professor, complained that his hand didn't work.)

They also have many superpowers like those possessed by Superman, including:

-Super-strength
-Flight
-Super-speed
-X-ray vision
-Ability to project a variety of energy blasts
-Limited invulnerability

Among their enemies include Mojo Jojo (voiced by Roger L. Jackson), A mad scientist chimp with vast intelligence, notable for his cod-Japanese accent and his overly convoluted manner of speaking, Fuzzy Lumpkins (voiced by Jim Cummings), a large, husky, furry pink hillbilly monster who loves his hunting gun (or "boomstick") and his banjo (nicknamed "Joe"), and who will shoot anything he finds trespassing "on his property", Him (Voiced by Tom Kane), a mysterious, super powerful, red-skinned, and effeminate devil creature with crab-like hands, and Princess Morbucks (voiced by Jennifer Hale), a spoiled, insecure little rich girl, whose unseen "daddy" allows her to finance various evil plots to destroy the Powerpuff Girls.

[Greg1]

"whistle noise. beeping noise. another whistle noise."

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18. Clangers (1969) - 22 points

The Clangers is a British stop motion animated children's television series made by Smallfilms, the company set up by Oliver Postgate (writer and narrator) and Peter Firmin (modelmaker, animator and illustrator). Music (which was often significant in the stories, as well as being theme and incidental music) was by Vernon Elliot.

The programme featured a number of small creatures living in peace and harmony on - and in - a small, hollow planet far far away, nourished by Blue String Pudding, and Green Soup harvested from the planet's volcanic soup wells by the Soup Dragon. The Clangers looked similar to mice and piglets, though they were pink, wore clothes, and spoke in whistles.

One of the most noted aspects of the programme was its use of sound effects, as this was the Clangers' sole form of communication, and score composed by Vernon Elliot under instructions from Oliver Postgate. Most of the music used over the two series was written by Postgate in the form of "musical sketches" or graphs which he drew for Elliot who would then convert the drawings into musical score. The music would then be recorded by the two along with other musicians, dubbed the Clangers ensemble, in a village hall where they would often leave the windows open leading to the sounds of birds outside being heard on some recordings. Much of the score was performed on Elliot's bassoon and also included the sounds of harps, clarinet, glockenspiel and bells.

[Greg1]

"The Animated Tales of the World theme song"... I guess.

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17. Animated Tales of the World (2001) - 23 points

Animated Tales of the World was a short lived animated program, each episode featuring two story adaptations representing two different countries and featuring a variety of innovative animation techniques made by studios from the country the story came from.

From the HBO website: "Animated Tales of the World was inspired by a simple idea: no nation is poor in stories, and we are all enriched by sharing them. In this series, village storytellers become global storytellers for all the children in the world. These indigenous tales and mythology form part of the heritage of each country, and each has been painstakingly crafted in a style of animation that reflects the spirit of its own culture."

One observed fact about the show was that the folk tales remained mostly unaltered from their sources.

[Greg1]

"Won't you join us for dinner? There will be red things!"

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16. Azumanga Daioh (2002) - 23 points

This anime, produced by J.C.Staff and broadcast on TV Tokyo, TV Aichi, TV Osaka and AT-X in five minute segments every weekday, and as a 25 minute compilation each weekend, follows everyday Tokyo life through a Japanese high school which is never explicitly named. The audience follows the trials and triumphs of six girls: Sakaki's obsession with cute animals, Chiyo's struggle to fit in with an age group far above her own, Osaka's perspective on the world and Yomi's patience with a playful best friend, Tomo, whose energy is rivaled only by her total lack of sense, and Kagura's efforts towards sports, school, and her friends.

Azumanga Daioh spans three years in which accounts of tests, culture festivals and athletic events are seen at the school. After school life plays a role in the story at the nearby shopping district and Chiyo's large house. Chiyo's summer home on the coast, an hour-long drive from Tokyo and the nearby theme park, Magical Land, are seen as places visited between school terms.

After the end of the animated series, a hoax of a live-action version of the show was announced to be created by the Tokyo Broadcasting System and Suntory which would be named either Azudorama Da Yo! or Azumanga Daioh: The Drama. Professional-looking promotional material and photos were prepared and presented on the internet with "actresses" who resembled their animated counterparts with a fair degree of likeness.

The final 15 tomorrow! Stay tuned!

[John Pannozzi]

You neglected to mention that Gargoyles was originally conceived as a comedy. Or that in the last season, the creator left the show, but he is now in charge of a Gargoyles comic book.

[DarthGonzo]

What's with 18, 17 and 18? I've never even heard of these shows.

[Greg1]

I will not reveal who voted for what, but I have to say I really enjoy the variety of American, British and Japanese animation.

[Greg1]

"Of all the cartoon shows in all the Universe, I get stuck on this one!"

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15. Cartoon Planet (1995) - 24 points

Cartoon Planet was an animated variety show that premiered in 1995 on Superstation TBS, and afterwards from 1996 to 1999 on Cartoon Network. A spin-off of the successful "Space Ghost: Coast to Coast" talk show, the premise was that Space Ghost had recruited his imprisoned archnemesis Zorak and the then virtually unknown Brak to assist him in hosting a variety show. It originally began in an hour-long format, and included entire cartoons from Ted Turner's film library, including old theatrical shorts, and Hanna-Barbera produced action shorts, including original 1960s Space Ghost episodes. Eventually, it was repackaged into 22 half-hour "episodes" which retained clips from cartoons that were used in the various skits, but omitted the entire cartoons that were formerly shown.

Cartoon Planet guised itself almost like a hokey after-school show: the clichéd "mailbag", in which Space Ghost displayed difficulty with reading; classic cartoon interludes; and strange conversations among the hosts. The humor was a toned-down version of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, but still bizarre, such as when the cast would break out into song with strangely edited music videos.

Regular segments featured on the show included Brak's School Daze, Zorak's Horror Scopes, Poet's Corner, Brak's Monday Ratings Report, The Top 5 Cartoon Countdown (discontinued in 1997 after the show's slot on Saturday mornings was shortened from an hour to a half hour), Vacation Spots Around the Universe (pieced together from clips of Ultra 7 episodes), Messages from Outer Space (also pieced together from the aforementioned Ultra 7, and starring the nefarious Hot Dog Men), Mailbag Day, readings from the Cartoon Planet Storybook, messages from Count Floyd (Joe Flaherty's local access horror movie host from SCTV; the segments were originally shown on Hanna-Barbera's The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley), Learning to Talk Italian, Nuggets of Joy from Zorak, Zorak's Helpful Hints, and Cooking with Brak.

[Greg1]

"The whole world is about to end, and all because of a *******ed puppy!"

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14. Paranoia Agent (2004) - 24 points

Paranoia Agent is a Japanese anime television miniseries about a social phenomenon in Musashino, Tokyo caused by a juvenile serial assailant named Lil' Slugger (Shonen Bat, or Bat Boy in the original Japanese version). The plot relays between a large cast of people affected in some way by the phenomenon; usually Lil' Slugger's victims or the detectives assigned to apprehend him. As each character becomes the focus of the story, disturbing details are often revealed about their secret lives and the truth about Lil' Slugger.

During the makings of his previous three films (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Tokyo Godfathers), Paranoia Agent creator Satoshi Kon was left with an abundance of unused ideas for stories and arrangements that he felt were good but did not fit into any of his projects. Not wanting to waste the material, he decided to recycle it into a dynamic TV series in which his experimental ideas could be utilized.

Symbolism plays a vital part in the revelation of the plot, both on the episodic level and in the series overall, a better understanding of which provides more insight into the characters and the story for the original Japanese audience, but to a lesser exent for those unfamiliar with Japanese folklore and mythology. The series' ambiguous ending is a source of enthusiastic debate among fans. The title of the show also plays heavily into the series. An example of this would be the paranoia that Yuichi feels towards Ushii in Episode 2. He believes that Ushii has been running a smear campaign against him.

Satoshi Kon is famous for his use of social commentary and Paranoia Agent is no exception (e.g., baseball bat related crimes in Japan). Commentary on his views of school peer pressure, loss of identity, prevalence of cultural icons (such as Maromi, often seen as a criticism of highly marketable anime mascots such as the poring from Ragnarok Online), ambiguity of morality, nature of social and personal growth, criticism of the harsh conditions of Japanese animators, and criticism of the otaku subculture is found throughout the show. Much of the commentary can be tied to Takashi Murakami's superflat manifesto, with the views of how reality and fantasy are being blurred in postwar Japan. Kon has been critically acclaimed for making social commentary a major and effective part of his work.

[Greg1]

"Last time I was this happy, I was face down in a pizza pie, eatin' my way to freedom!"

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13. The Brak Show (2000) - 25 points

The Brak Show is one of Cartoon Network's 15-minute animated series that airs during Adult Swim. It is a spin-off of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast featuring recurring characters from that show and Cartoon Planet, both of which used stock footage from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Space Ghost and Dino-Boy. The protagonist is a Space Ghost villain named "Brak", voiced by Andy Merrill, who developed a quirky persona for the character.

The show is about Brak's suburban life with his alien mother and Cuban father. It originally started off as a parody of situation comedies, but just like its sister show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the plot dissolved over time and became increasingly bizarre. The setting is suburbia with an extra-planetary hint. A Saturn-like planet appears in the background on occasion, and many of the extras are aliens.

The Brak Show was preceded by the variety show Brak Presents The Brak Show Starring Brak, which spun two episodes. Both of the episodes aired in the US once and only once in 2000, although clips of the show could be caught after the Space Ghost Coast to Coast time slot on a few rare occasions (one episode aired in the UK on Bravo on 23 August 2006). But despite the similarities in the titles, the two Brak Shows have very little in common. Those who missed the first Brak Show can at least be tided over by Brak Presents the Brak Album Starring Brak, which features songs and segments from the original version.

In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie, which featured "This Island Earth", there was a scene in which a character named Brack was told to take over the communications device. At this point the MST3000 cast mocked him by saying "This is the Brack Show. Starring me - I'm Brack." The title of the Brak show may have been drawn from this.

[Greg1]

"Abu Dhabi, it's far away / Abu Dhabi, that's where you'll stay / Abu Dhabi, the place to be / For any kitten who's annoying me, yeah!"

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12. Garfield & Friends (1988) - 29 points

Garfield and Friends was an American animated television series based on the popular comic strip Garfield by Jim Davis. This show was originally produced by Film Roman, and ran on CBS Saturday mornings from 1988 to 1994. The show's seven seasons make it one of the longest running Saturday morning cartoons in history (most only lasted one or two seasons). Regular segments featured both Garfield and U.S. Acres, a lesser-known comic strip created by Davis. The latter was retitled Orson's Farm for foreign syndication.

When the show was originally broadcast on CBS, the episodes usually had three Quickies (30- to 45-second gags), usually two "Garfield Quickies" (the first one being played before the intro theme) and one "U.S. Acres Quickie," the latter of which was never shown in syndication. Midway through the second season, "Screaming with Binky" quickie-style segments were added. These "Screaming with Binky" segments were typically used at the halfway point of hour long blocks of Garfield and Friends (as Garfield ended each one with "We'll be right back.") to let the viewers know that unlike most Saturday morning cartoons at the time, it was not over in the usual half-hour. However, in the syndicated reruns, only one Quickie is shown per episode, and it's always at the end rather than around the shorts. The DVD sets and Boomerang reruns restore the orginial rotation. After the third season, only one "Garfield Quickie" is shown per episode.

The chief guiding force behind the show was comedy writer Mark Evanier, also known as a co-creator of Groo the Wanderer, who wrote "virtually all" of the shorts by his admission (with the exception of several shorts that were written by Sharman DiVono during the first four seasons). Because of this, the show (particularly in later seasons) had a markedly different style of humor than the previous specials or strips. Whereas the specials and strips tended to focus on more character-based humor, Garfield and Friends frequently tended to be much wackier and admittedly more sophisticated, in the vein of later cartoons such as Animaniacs or Pinky and the Brain.

Episodes were filled with puns and non sequiturs, and often lapsed into complete absurdity (such as the US Acres short "Over The Rainbow", in which Roy's quest to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow leads him instead to a Let's Make A Deal-style game show complete with Rod Roddy announcing). Running gags were frequent, throughout either single shorts (such as in the Garfield short "The Creature That Lived In The Refrigerator, Behind the Mayonnaise, Next to the Ketchup and to the Left of the Cole Slaw!", in which the name of said creature is spoken repeatedly), or entire seasons (the Klopman Diamond is mentioned in many, many episodes). US Acres characters would frequently make unexplained cameo appearances in Garfield shorts, and vice-versa. For example, the "Giant Radioactive Mutant Guppies" that Garfield and Nermal flushed down the sewer resurfaced in the US Acres quickie that immediately followed, and then one asks the others if they could maybe get on the Muppet Babies, which at that time preceded Garfield and Friends on the CBS Saturday Morning lineup. There was even some mild satire, particularly in the form of the "Buddy Bears", which spoofed such saccharine cartoons as The Get-Along Gang and Smurfs.

[Greg1]

"The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma."

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11. Spongebob Squarepants (1999) - 30 points

SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series and media franchise. It is one of Nickelodeon's "Nicktoons." Although its original network is Nickelodeon, it is broadcast across the world. It was created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg and is produced through his production company, United Plankton Pictures Inc. The series is set in the Pacific Ocean in the city of Bikini Bottom and the surrounding lagoon floor.

SpongeBob SquarePants is a sponge who lives in a pineapple, while his octopus neighbor Squidward Tentacles lives in a moai head. SpongeBob's other neighbor and best friend (on the other side of Squidward), is a pink sea star named Patrick Star, who lives under a rock. Squidward often gets annoyed when SpongeBob and Patrick bother him. SpongeBob's house-pet is a snail named Gary, whose "meow" is similar to a housecat. SpongeBob works at the Krusty Krab, a hamburger fast-food restaurant, as a fry cook with Squidward Tentacles who is a cashier. The Krusty Krab is owned by Mr. Eugene H. Krabs, commonly referred to as "Mr. Krabs". At the Krusty Krab, Spongebob makes Krabby Patties.

Sheldon J. Plankton (commonly referred to as "Plankton") is Mr. Krabs' archrival who owns a low-rank fast-food restaurant called The Chum Bucket across the street, and he spends most of his time plotting to steal the recipe for Krabs's popular Krabby Patty. Plankton's computer wife, Karen, alternately helps him in his schemes or bickers with him. Sandy Cheeks is another friend of SpongeBob. She is a squirrel that lives in an underwater dome in Bikini Bottom. She was sent there by her bosses, who are chimpanzees. Sandy has a Texan accent and is from the state itself. When not inside her tree-dome, she wears a diving suit with a globe helmet to allow her to breathe gaseous oxygen rather than drowning in the water.

SpongeBob is the only cartoon to consistently make the Top 10 list in the Nielsen ratings, and is the first "low budget" Nickelodeon cartoon, according to the network, to become extremely popular. Low-budget cartoons had not garnered as much esteem as higher-rated (and higher-budgeted) shows, such as Rugrats, although when SpongeBob aired in 1999, it had gained a significant enough viewers in the ratings to be considered popular, eventually becoming more popular than Rugrats had ever been. SpongeBob follows other Nickelodeon shows that have attracted "older" followers: The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, the Kablam! skits, Action League Now! and The Angry Beavers. Other shows have followed in this trend as well: Invader Zim and The Fairly OddParents won a similar fan base when they aired in 2001.

SpongeBob's history can be traced back to 1993 when Rocko's Modern Life first aired. One of the producers was Stephen Hillenburg, a cartoon worker/marine biologist who loved both his careers. When Rocko's Modern Life was cancelled in 1996, Hillenburg began working on SpongeBob (although sketches trace back to 1987). He teamed up with creative director Derek Drymon, who had worked on shows such as Doug, Action League Now!, and Hey Arnold!. Drymon had worked with Hillenburg on Rocko's Modern Life as well, as did many SpongeBob crew members, including writer-directors Sherm Cohen and Dan Povenmire, writer Tim Hill, voice actors Tom Kenny and Doug Lawrence (aka "Mr. Lawrence"), actor-writer Martin Olson and animation director Alan Smart. Another crew member with previous Nickelodeon cartoon experience was former Angry Beavers story editor Merriwether Williams, who worked on that show for its first few seasons and switched to SpongeBob in July 1999.

The show began airing its second season in 2000 with more high-quality animation and even more popular episodes. The first part of 2002 saw SpongeBob at its peak. The beginning of the third season produced many of classic episodes and focused on the same style and animation concepts. Unfortunately things changed late in the year. Due to rumors of a movie, there was high speculation that the show would be cancelled and that 2003/2004 would feature the last season of new episodes. Fans were devastated and online petitions were widely distributed to convince Nickelodeon to produce more episodes by showing continuing fan support. "SpongeBob Meets The Strangler/Pranks A Lot" was the last episode of this season, and aired in October 2004. It was also released on DVD at the end of 2003. Following this, the movie was released in November of that year.

A hiatus from 2003 to 2005 challenged viewer loyalty, as only about 7 new episodes were shown while the previous two-year span, from 2003-2004, aired 20. This led to the program's lowest ratings ever, causing speculation that the show might even be cancelled after the feature's release.

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie achieved over $85,000,000 in revenue in the United States, considered to be under-expectations: People assumed that the show's popularity showed something of a decline at the time of its release. The Rugrats Movie, on the other hand, earned $100,494,685 in the United States. It was around this time that the animated series which it is based on, Rugrats, was at the height of its popularity. Interestingly, that movie would also be considered Rugrats' jump the shark moment by fans, while the SpongeBob movie was actually generally well received by fans who saw it. It was announced late in 2004 that SpongeBob would be continuing with a new session due in 2005. Hillenburg, despite the rumors, did not actually leave the show but has resigned from his position as the show's executive producer (this job now belongs to Derek Drymon, with Paul Tibbitt taking over Drymon's job as creative director).

[Greg1]

Time For The Top Ten!

[Greg1]

"Cowabunga, dude!"

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10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) - 35 points

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is an American animated television series produced by Murakami-Wolf-Swenson Film Productions Inc., which premiered on December 10, 1987. It was based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters created in comic book form by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, although the property was changed considerably from the darker-toned comic in order to make it more suitable for children. The series was in syndication from 1987 to 1990; on September 8, 1990 it was moved to CBS Saturday mornings and ran as a 60-minute block until November 2, 1996. During the show's run, 193 episodes were made, the show helped launch the characters into mainstream popularity, and became one of the most popular animated series in television history. Breakfast cereals, plush toys, and all manner of products featuring the animated versions of the Turtles populated the market during the late-1980s and early 1990s, and a successful Archie Comics comic book based on the animated show instead of the original black-and-white comics was published throughout the 1990s.

The origin story in the 1987 animated series differs greatly from that of the original Mirage Studios comics, presumably to make it more appropriate for a family audience. In this version, Splinter was formerly a human being, an honorable ninja master named Hamato Yoshi. Yoshi was banished from the Foot Clan in Japan after being deceived by the seditious Oroku Saki. Exiled from the ninja clan, Hamato Yoshi moved to New York City, where he lived in the sewers. While living in the sewers with the rats as his friend, Yoshi one day found four turtles, recently bought from a pet store by an unnamed boy who accidentally dropped them in the sewer. Yoshi returned one day from his explorations around New York to find the turtles covered with a strange glowing ooze. The substance caused the turtles - most recently exposed to Yoshi - to become humanoid, while Yoshi - most recently exposed to sewer rats - became a humanoid rat, and started going by the pseudonym "Splinter". Yoshi adopts the four turtles as his sons and trains them in the art of ninjitsu. He names them after his favorite Italian renaissance artists: Leonardo da Vinci, Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (Donatello), Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael), and Michelangelo Buonarroti.

The show was renamed Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles when originally shown in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland because British censors considered the show's original title to have too violent connotations and the Irish censors usually just go along with what the British censors do. Changes have been done to reflect this, such as changing "Splinter taught them to be ninja teens" to "Splinter taught them to be fighting teens." The intro was also edited, using alternative scenes or freeze-frames in place of Michelangelo using his nunchucks. The movies and 2003 series are however now known in the UK by the international name. This led to a titular distinction between the 1987 series and the 2003 series.

[Greg1]

"The fireman is very magical. If you rub his helmet, he spits in your eye."

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9. South Park (1997) - 40 points

South Park is an American, Emmy Award-winning animated television comedy series about four fourth grade school boys who live in the small town of South Park, Colorado. The series was created and is written by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and has been distributed and aired by Comedy Central since 1997. It is mostly known for its blunt handling of current events and its pop-culture parody.

South Park began in 1992 when Trey Parker and Matt Stone, at the time being students at the University of Colorado, met in a film class and created an animated short called Jesus vs. Frosty. The crudely made film featured prototypes of the main characters of South Park, including a character resembling Cartman, but referred to as "Kenny", and an unnamed character who resembled Kyle bringing a murderous snowman to life with a magic hat.

In 1995, FOX executive Brian Graden, after seeing the film, commissioned Parker and Stone to create a second short film to send to friends as a video Christmas card. Titled Jesus vs. Santa, it resembled the style of the later series more closely, and featured a martial arts duel and subsequent truce between Jesus and Santa Claus over the true meaning of Christmas. This video was later featured in the episode "A Very Crappy Christmas" in which Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny and Mr. Hankey "save" Christmas for the town. The video was popular and was widely shared, both by duplication and over the internet. This led to talks to create a series, first with FOX, then with Comedy Central, where the series premiered on August 13, 1997. A clip of the short can be seen in the opening sequence of South Park within a billboard; Jesus vs. Frosty can also be seen on an old television.

South Park's early episodes tended to be shock value-oriented, and featured more Pythonesque humor than later episodes. Although satire had been used on the show occasionally in its early and middle years, it has become more evident around the eighth season. Such examples include Michael Jackson visiting South Park ("The Jeffersons"), the boys seeing The Passion of the Christ ("The Passion of the Jew"), blue-collar workers in South Park losing their jobs to immigrants from the future ("Goobacks"), and an episode featuring a "Paris Hilton" toy video camera ("Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset").

The pilot episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", took three months to make and was produced using construction paper and traditional cut-out animation techniques. However the version that aired was different than the original version. Current episodes duplicate the original, amateurish look using modern computer animation tools — first PowerAnimator and then Maya, which Parker and Stone have described as "building a sandcastle with a bulldozer" on the VH1 special Inside South Park. This allows for a short production schedule that enables the creators to respond quickly to current events. For instance, the December 17, 2003 episode "It's Christmas in Canada" depicts the capture of Saddam Hussein a mere three days after his capture by U.S. forces, even referring to the "spider hole" where he was found. In the case of this and the Elián González episode ("Quintuplets 2000"), the creators stopped and changed production of an episode to focus on these events. Another example is the "Trapper Keeper" episode which originally aired just eight days after the 2000 U.S. presidential election and featured a kindergarten class president election being delayed by, among other things, an undecided girl named "Flora", an obvious reference to the undecided vote-count in the state of Florida.

The show has faced numerous controversies and what many people find to be taboo subject matter, since its inception, from its use of vulgarity and obscenity to its satire of subjects such as religion and cults (such as Scientology), sexuality, and global warming. Stone and Parker are self-described "equal opportunity offenders" and episodes often lampoon all sides of a contentious issue, rather than taking a concrete position.

The fictional town of South Park is visually based on Fairplay, Colorado, located in a large valley also named South Park. The characters in the show were originally based on the personalities and demographics of Boulder, Colorado, but have evolved since the show's inception.

[Greg1]

"Ahem. Presenting the Cheese-A-Phone. Now we can communicate with various cheeses, regardless of their foreign tongue. Go ahead, Ren, say something in Limburger."

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8. The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991) - 41 points

Ren and Stimpy are the eponymous characters of two American animated television series created by Canadian animator John Kricfalusi. Ren Höek, a neurotic "asthma-hound" chihuahua, and Stimpson J. Cat (a.k.a. Stimpy), a fat, red, simpleton (but occasionally intelligent) cat, wander around in nonsensical adventures reminiscent of the Golden Age of American animation. Kricfalusi created the characters around 1979, while working for low-budget TV cartoons after moving to the United States. The characters were originally conceived as individual doodles unrelated to one another, and it was Kricfalusi's co-worker Joel Fajnor who told Kricfalusi to pair them together. A product of the children's cable network Nickelodeon, The Ren & Stimpy Show had a reputation for subversiveness. Its level of gross-out humor, often involving nasal mucus and flatulence, was surpassed only by shows such as Beavis and Butt-head or The Brothers Grunt. While primarily controversial for its grotesque imagery, the series also frequently lampooned elements of western culture, such as materialism and superstition.

Ren and Stimpy was created by John Kricfalusi and produced by his animation team Spümcø. The pilot, "Big House Blues," was finished in October 1990 and the first episode, "Stimpy's Big Day," premiered August 1991 along with Rugrats and Doug. However, Nickelodeon expressed concern about the show's grossness and violence, and routinely censored episodes. For example, in the episode Man's Best Friend George Liquor adopts Ren and Stimpy who later beat George with an oar. Nickelodeon thought this episode was too violent and banned it. The network also censored certain episodes such as "Sven Hoek", "Nurse Stimpy" and "Big House Blues." Kricfalusi was fired from his creative role in the show on September 21, 1992, and subsequently refused to continue providing the voice of Ren. Kricfalusi has said the firing was due primarily to the censoring Nickelodeon felt was required, while Nick executives and Billy West have said it was more a result of Kricfalusi repeatedly missing deadlines.

One of Kricfalusi's closest friends, Bob Camp, began writing and directing the episodes himself, and Billy West (who had also provided Ren's screams in several of the Spümcø episodes) took on Kricfalusi's role as Ren. According to his website[2], West was the original voice of Ren, on the demo tape that "sold the show". Spümcø artists then started to leave Nickelodeon. After that, the show was left without its creator, or its animators. Shortly after this occurred, a new studio (Games Animation) was formed to keep Ren & Stimpy going, but the show's popularity dwindled in its last few years, and it was ultimately cancelled. It is worth noting that the Games Animation version of the series frequently invoked God in most episodes. (Stimpy is seen saying a prayer, Ren attributes a bountiful harvest to God etc.). Sometimes characters would also use mild profanity such as "crap". These are rarities in modern children's animation, if not nonexistent.

In 2003, an adult-oriented version of the series titled Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon, featuring episodes helmed by series creator John Kricfalusi, aired briefly on TNN (later renamed Spike TV). Advertisers were "freaked out" (in Kricfalusi's own words) by some of the new show's content, particularly that of the risqué episode "Naked Beach Frenzy" (which was finished in 2003 but is unaired on American TV so far) and the show was taken off the air, partly due to the advertisers' fears, and partly due to Kricfalusi and company taking their time making new episodes. In the spring and summer 2004, Kricfalusi completed two new episodes (each an hour long), and those episodes (along with "Naked Beach Frenzy") were shown at film festivals and other such venues.

[Greg1]

"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so Brain, but if you replace the "P" with an "O", my name would be Oinky."

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7. Pinky and the Brain (1995) - 43 points

Pinky and the Brain are cartoon characters from the American animated television series Animaniacs. Later, they starred in their own spin-off animated television series called Steven Spielberg Presents Pinky and the Brain, and even later in Pinky, Elmyra, and the Brain. These latter series were produced by Steven Spielberg and Warner Bros. Animation, and aired from 1995 to 1998 on The WB Television Network, running for 65 episodes.

The two are genetically enhanced lab mice who reside in a cage in the Acme Labs research facility. Each week sees Brain come up with a new plan for the two (led by him) to take over the world, which ultimately ends in failure. In common with many other Animaniacs shorts, many episodes are in some way a parody of something else—usually a film. The cartoon's famous tagline is: "Gee, Brain, what'd you wanna do tonight?" "The same thing we do every night, Pinky — Try to take over the world!" Although they plan to conquer the earth, there isn't a lot of antagonism seen in them, and in a Christmas special Pinky even wrote to Santa that Brain had the world's best interests at heart. This is reinforced by Brain's promises that he will provide more funding for law enforcement and the like.

The Brain bears a resemblance to Orson Welles, particularly in his vocal characteristics (voiced by Maurice LaMarche). LaMarche won an Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Male Performer in an Animated Television Program Production for this role in 1998. Series producer Tom Ruegger initially based Brain on a caricature of WB animation staffer Tom Minton, a long-time cartoonist. The Welles connection comes from LaMarche, who is a big fan of the actor/director. LaMarche describes Brain's voice as "65% Orson Welles, 35% Vincent Price". Brain is highly intelligent and develops Rube Goldberg plans for global domination. His tail is bent like a staircase (which he often uses to pick the lock of the cage), and his head is large and wide, supposedly housing his abnormally large brain. He appears to be coldly unemotional and speaks in a deadpan manner. Nevertheless, Brain has a very subtle sense of humor, and has even fallen in love once, with Billie (voiced by Tress MacNeille), an intialy rather dippy girl mouse with a Queens accent (perhaps based on the Citizen Kane character Susan Alexander, in another Welles connection), Later, Billie became even more brilliant than Brain, but showed no interest in either him or the idea of planetary conquest. Intellectually, Brain sees his inevitable rise to power as beneficial to the world rather than mere megalomania.

Pinky (voiced by Rob Paulsen) is another genetically modified mouse who shares the same cage at Acme Labs but is substantially less bright. He speaks with a heavy Cockney accent (though English people familiar with genuine Cockney accents may well dispute this). He frequently says nonsensical interjections such as "narf", "zort","poit", and "troz" (the last of which Pinky started saying after noticing it was "'zort' in the mirror"). He also used "fjord" and "gnurf" on unique occasions, and "natch" in an episode set in the film noir era, as well as "hark" in an episode that was partially set in the medieval ages. Rob Paulsen won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for this role in 1999. Senior producer Tom Ruegger based Pinky on former Tiny Toon Adventures writer and director Eddie Fitzgerald (who has also worked on Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures and Ren and Stimpy) who is said to have constantly said "Narf" and "Egad" around the Tiny Toons production office. Series producer Peter Hastings described Eddie by saying, "He always greeted you like you were wearing a funny hat - and he liked it."

The viewer might consider that Brain should be frustrated by the success that could have been possible if he'd listened to or asked Pinky about the situation and/or plan, but Brain rarely shows anything more than a confused or sarcastic face and sometimes a comment, and usually near the end of the episode. The show's theme song informs us that "One is a genius, the other's insane." Taken at face value, the Brain is supposed to be a genius and Pinky is supposed to be insane. Pinky's unpredictable and startling insight versus Brain's rather more plodding and stubborn approach to "taking over the world" has led more than one fan to suggest that Pinky is, in fact, the real genius rather than Brain. Other elements suggesting Pinky's mental superiority can be noticed throughout all episodes. Watching the cartoon through this perspective makes the viewer aware of human behavior that isn't logical. One example is figures of speech which the Brain uses to give Pinky commands. Pinky carries out actions based on the literal meaning of the commands.

In an episode surrounding the origin of their receiving their intelligence, it is revealed that it was actually Pinky's idea for Brain to attempt to take over the world.

[Greg1]

"I'm tired of dating silly, immature little boys. I'd like to meet a sophisticated older guy with a special affinity for rabbits."

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6. Tiny Toon Adventures (1990) - 44 points

Tiny Toon Adventures (a.k.a. Tiny Toons) was an American animated television series created and produced as a collaborative effort between Steven Spielberg and Warner Bros. Animation. Its first season aired in 1990; the second season followed in 1991 and the third and final season aired in 1992. Tiny Toons originated as an idea by Terry Semel, then president of Warner Bros. Wishing to capitalize on the success of TV shows featuring younger versions of famous characters (such as Ultraman Kids, Muppet Babies and Flintstones Kids), Semel proposed a similar show based on Looney Tunes, where the characters were young versions of the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters. A similar idea would have introduced the new characters as the offspring of the original characters.

Warner Bros. had reinstated its animation studio following the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which featured appearances by many of its famous cartoon characters, and which had been co-produced by Spielberg's company Amblin Entertainment. The studio approached Spielberg (maker of many famous family movies, including An American Tail and The Land Before Time) to collaborate on Semel's ideas. Spielberg suggested that the new characters be spiritual, not literal, descendants of the Looney Tunes, and that the original characters make appearances as their mentors. This idea became the basis for Tiny Toon Adventures, which at first was to become a theatrical feature-length film, but was later changed to a television series format in December of 1988.

The show often contained "gross out" humor dealing with bodily functions as well as political and entertainment satire. Caricature versions of celebrities made frequent appearances, though were almost always voiced by imitators, and often appeared under parody names ("Tom Snooze" instead of Tom Cruise, "Michael Molten-Lava"/Michael Bolton, etc). The show also parodied other TV shows and cartoons of the day, including The Simpsons. A recurring parody was that of the Immature Radioactive Samurai Slugs, which poked fun at the popular cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Both tactics would later be copied by the show's successor, Animaniacs.

In order to complete 65 episodes for the first season, Warner and Amblin contracted several different animation houses to share the workload (now a common practice in modern television animation studios). These animation studios included Tokyo Movie Shinsha, Wang Film Productions, AKOM, Freelance Animators New Zealand, Encore Cartoons, StarToons, and Kennedy Cartoons. (Kennedy Cartoons left the project while working on the 37th episode of production, which became the pilot episode, "The Looney Beginning").

During production of the third season, Charlie Adler, the voice of Buster Bunny, left the show due to a conflict with the producers. At the time, Animaniacs (the follow-up to Tiny Toons) was being cast, and Adler was upset that he hadn't landed a role in the new show. Additionally, he took offense to the fact that small-role voice actors like Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche (who went on to become the voices of Pinky and the Brain) were given starring roles. Adler was replaced by John Kassir for the remainder of the show's run. Joe Alaskey, the voice of Plucky Duck, also left Tiny Toons for financial reasons, but returned when an agreement was reached with the studio.

One feature-length Tiny Toon Adventures movie was released direct-to-video in 1991, entitled Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation. Its psychotic, chainsaw-wielding villain, "Mr. Hitcher," even appeared in several other shorts, including one with Plucky remembering himself as a baby. Other features released for Tiny Toon Adventures include Spring Break Special, It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special, and Night Ghoulery. Spring Break Special was shown on FOX during primetime on March 27, 1994. Christmas Special aired on December 6, 1992.

The episode "Elephant Issues" (an educational episode meant to address the issue of peer pressure) was banned from Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network because of the episode's final short, "One Beer," which depicted Buster, Plucky, and Hamton drinking beer. Although the short was intended to illustrate the dangers of drinking, the networks believed that it delivered the wrong message to the show's primary audience, predominantly young children — according to them, the object lesson was delivered in such an exaggeratedly heavy-handed manner as to be downright sarcastic.

[Greg1]

"I'll be dead long before you were born and I'll be dead long before you'll be dead."

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5. Space Ghost Coast to Coast (1994) - 54 points

Space Ghost Coast to Coast (often abbreviated as SGC2C) is an animated spoof talk show on the cable TV channel Cartoon Network in the United States, Bravo in the UK, and Teletoon in Canada. It began in 1994. The main cast comprises Space Ghost (born Tad Ghostal), a cartoon character originally from an old Hanna Barbera cartoon called Space Ghost which ran in the 1960s and early 1980s, and Zorak and Moltar, his former enemies from that show. Space Ghost is voiced by George Lowe, while C. Martin Croker voices Zorak and Moltar. Various celebrities appear on the show as guests. They are shown on a TV screen next to Space Ghost, and unlike the characters, they are not animated.

Part of the surreal nature of the show comes from the guests' sometimes awkward and disjointed responses to Space Ghost's questions and other events around the set. This is the intentional result of the production process that was first laid out in the original (unaired) pilot episode. This episode was created by Mike Lazzo, who interspersed stock and original material with completely unrelated promotional video of Denzel Washington being interviewed about the Oscars. When the show was picked up, similar interviews were orchestrated with guests to achieve the same comedic effect.

Before any part of the episodes are written, the guests are interviewed by a writer/producer. Originally, a Space Ghost costume was worn by Andy Merrill, one which he later made famous in some Cartoon Planet intros. More often the writer/producer appears in normal dress, but may still impersonate Space Ghost's character traits and mannerisms. In many cases, the interviewee is alone in a studio, while the interviewer conducts the session over a speaker phone. In the all black room where the interview takes place, the guests are told what basic directions to look in to "talk" to Zorak, Moltar, or Space Ghost. The interviewer also rarely reveals his actual name so that the guest is forced to address him as "Space Ghost". This serves to both maintain continuity and to engender a sense of bewilderment in the guest.

After an interview is done, the writing team goes back over it, taking pieces out of context and out of order, then assembling them into the "responses" to Space Ghost and the rest of the show. The episode is written around these canned reactions and the writing talent of producers Williams Street (known as "Ghost Planet Industries," named after the fictional studio where SGC2C is supposedly taped, for most of the show's run).

Most of the show's earlier guests probably assumed they were participating in a relatively straightforward interview (albeit with an animated superhero, giant insect, and a man made of liquid magma). As the series went on, however, more and more guests became at least peripherally familiar with what was going on. Some episodes were written to accommodate playfully hostile guests who called the show's bluff, such as comedian (and writer of one SGC2C episode) Joel Hodgson's refusal to, as he put it, "Go down that road with you, pretending we're in space and all". Others had skits written for the guests to perform in outside of the normal interviews. Still others had recurring guests, familiar with the show's format. Reportedly, "Weird Al" Yankovic walked into his Coast to Coast interview with answers he prepared ahead of time, but opted not to use them.

[Greg1]

"Drown the kids and shoot the neighbours! We've got a winner!"

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4. Batman: The Animated Series (1992) - 65 points

Batman: The Animated Series is an American animated television series adaptation of the comic book series featuring the DC Comics superhero, Batman. It is widely regarded by fans as the most iconic modern representation of the Batman character and mythology, and also as the most faithful animated series based on a comic book. The dynamic visual style of the series is based on the artwork of producer Bruce Timm. Lacking an on-screen title in the opening credits, the show was originally known only as Batman (and would be referred to as such in episode recaps that summarised what had happened "previously on Batman..."), but was retroactively officially titled Batman: The Animated Series, as clarified by Warner Bros.

The original series was partially inspired by Tim Burton's 1989 blockbuster Batman film, and initially took as its theme a variation of music written by Danny Elfman for the film. (Later episodes of the series used a new theme written in a similar style by Shirley Walker.) Another strong influence was the acclaimed Superman cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios in the 1940s. The series premiered in 1992, a few months after the successful release of the second Batman movie, Batman Returns. The art style of the original animated series was also partially a reaction against the realism seen in cartoons like The Real Ghostbusters, the second series in some ways was a further extension of that rejection of realism.

Timm and Radomski designed the series by emulating the Tim Burton films' "otherworldy timelessness", incorporating "old-time" features such as black-and-white title cards, police blimps, and a "vintage" color scheme, partially inspired by the Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons of the 1940s, as well as film noir. In their constant quest to make the show darker, the producers pushed the boundaries of action cartoons: it was the first such cartoon in years to depict firearms being fired, as well as Batman actually punching and kicking the bad guys; in addition, many of the series' backgrounds were painted on black paper. The distinctive visual combination of film noir imagery and Art Deco designs with a very dark color scheme was called "Dark Deco" by the producers. First-time producers Timm and Radomski reportedly encountered resistance from studio executives, but the success of Burton's first film allowed the embryonic series to survive long enough to produce a pilot episode, "On Leather Wings", which according to Timm "got a lot of people off our backs."

Key to the series' artistic success is that it managed to redefine classic characters, paying homage to their previous portrayals while giving them new dramatic force. Villains such as Two-Face (Al Pacino was offered the role but turned it down)and the Mad Hatter, as well as heroes like Robin (who does not appear in the Burton/Joel Schumacher series until Batman Forever and is here portrayed as a college-age student), are proof of this. Also, the series gave new life to nearly forgotten characters like the Clock King. The best example of dramatic change is Mr. Freeze; Batman: TAS turned him from a clichéd mad scientist with a gimmick for cold, to a tragic figure whose frigid exterior hides a doomed love and a cold vindictive fury. Part of the tragedy is mimicked later in the plot of the live movie Batman and Robin, although much of the drama was lost with the resurrection of the pun-quipping mad scientist image. The most famous of the series' innovations is the Joker's hapless assistant, Harley Quinn, who became so popular that DC later added her to the mainstream Batman comics.

[Greg1]

"We protest you calling us "little kids". We prefer to be called "vertically-impaired pre-adults"

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3. Animaniacs (1993) - 71 points

Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs was a popular American animated television series, distributed by Warner Bros., and produced by Amblin Entertainment. The cartoon, usually referred to by the shorter title Animaniacs, first aired on FOX Kids from 1993 until 1995; the show appeared on The WB as part of its "Kids' WB!" afternoon programming block from 1995 to 1998. Like many other animated series, it has continued to appear on television through syndication long after its original airdate. Animaniacs was the second animated series produced by the collaboration of Steven Spielberg and Warner Bros. Animation during the animation renaissance of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The studio's first series, Tiny Toon Adventures, had proved to be a big hit among younger viewing audiences, and it had attracted a sizable number of adult viewers as well. Tiny Toon Adventures had drawn heavily from the classic Termite Terrace cartoons of old for inspiration, as well as plots and characterization. The modern Warner Bros. writers and animators, led by senior producer and show-runner Tom Ruegger, used the experience gained from the previous series to create brand new animated characters that were cast in the mold of Tex Avery's and Bob Clampett's creations, but were not slavish imitations.

This show focused on the adventures, or more accurately, the misadventures, of the Warner Brothers (Yakko and Wakko Warner) and the Warner Sister (Dot Warner), who claim to be the stars of some of the early Warner Bros. animated cartoons, which were so insane that the studio execs locked the films away in vaults; the characters were locked in the water tower at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. The primary cartoon (there are several other character adventures in the series) focuses on the trio "escaping" from the water tower, and running rampant on the WB lot. This is described in the show's theme song, sung by the characters. The description of the Warners is a tongue-in-cheek homage to Bosko, Warner Bros.' first cartoon character.

While the show was popular among younger viewers (the target demographic for Warner Bros.' TV cartoons), a great deal of the show's subversive humor was aimed at an adult audience. This was not the only show in the 90s to have many jokes that went over kids' heads; The Tick, which ran during the same time period, did the same. One example is the Wheel of Morality that appears at the end of some episodes. If you look closely, one of the spots on the wheel is "Bankrupt". Not only is this a parody of Wheel of Fortune (US game show), which kids might understand, but it is also a play on the phrase "morally bankrupt". (While the wheel never landed on "Bankrupt" on the show, it did once in the comic book.) In fact, one character, Minerva Mink, was soon de-emphasized as a feature character because her featured episodes were considered too sexually suggestive for the show's intended timeslot. (Many adult jokes, such as a warning to not play with Dr. Scratchansniff's "bust"--a sculpture on his desk--are signified by Yakko blowing a kiss and shouting "Good night, everybody!")

Adults responded in droves, giving the show cult-hit status and leading to one of the first Internet-based fandom cultures. During the show's prime, the Internet newsgroup alt.tv.animaniacs was an active gathering place for fans of the show (most of whom were adults) to discuss the latest antics of the Warner Brothers and the Warner Sister. The online popularity of the show did not go unnoticed by the show's producers, and several of the most active participants on the newsgroup were invited to the Warner Bros. Animation studios for a gathering in August 1995 called Animania IV (gatherings of Animaniacs fans from the net were dubbed Animanias; most of them were simply groups of friends getting together to talk and watch videotaped episodes).

Animaniacs was a very musical cartoon, with every episode featuring an original score (and in many cases, several original songs). Each group of characters had its own sub-theme in the score, and the Hip Hippos, Pinky and the Brain, the Goodfeathers (a parody of the ubiquitous That's Amore made famous by Dean Martin), Chicken Boo, and Katie Ka-Boom even had their own full theme songs. The Slappy Squirrel and Rita & Runt themes, as well as one of the two versions of the Pinky and the Brain theme, were sung by the Warners. The Animaniacs series theme song (music composed by Richard Stone, lyrics by Tom Ruegger), which has a variety of alternate endings and was primarily sung by the Warners, won an Emmy Award for best song in the series' first season.

[Greg1]

"The alien mother ship is in orbit here. If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards… checkmate.”

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2. Futurama (1999) - 79 points

Futurama is an Emmy Award-winning American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons) and David X. Cohen for the Fox Network. The series follows the adventures of a former New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J. Fry after he is cryogenically frozen at midnight, December 31, 1999, and is revived one thousand years in the future.

Futurama is set at the beginning of the 31st century, in a time filled with technological wonders. Global warming, inflexible bureaucracy, and substance abuse are a few of the subjects given a 31st century exaggeration in a world where the problems have become both more extreme and more common. In a jab at segregation, for example, the show depicts the human prejudice against mutants as being so great that the latter have been forced to live underground in the sewers. The characters' home on Earth is the city of New New York, built over the ruins of present-day New York City, referred to as "Old New York".

Mid-way through the production of the fifth season of Futurama, FOX decided to let Futurama go out of production and told the writers and animators to look for new jobs.[9] A Fox spokeswoman told website Zap2it that "Fox has decided not to order more episodes at this time, but we may do so in the future." Fox's decision to stop buying episodes of Futurama led Rough Draft Studios, the animation producers, to fire its animators. According to Ain't It Cool News, FOX did not like the show and had started giving it a secondary status, running it and dropping it sporadically. They also did not show several episodes between seasons 3 and 4. In October 2005, Comedy Central picked up the exclusive cable syndication rights to air Futurama's 72-episode run at the start of 2008, following the expiration of Adult Swim's current deal. It was cited as the largest and most expensive acquisition in the network's history.

The series developed a cult following partially due to the large number of in-jokes, most of which were aimed at "nerds". In commentary on the DVD releases, David X. Cohen points out and sometimes explains his "nerdiest joke[s]." These jokes included mathematical jokes, such as the aleph-nullplex movie theater in "Raging Bender", as well as various forms of science humor. For example, Professor Farnsworth complains that judges of a "quantum" finish "changed the outcome by measuring it" in "Luck of the Fryrish," a reference to the observer effect in quantum mechanics. Over its run, the series passed references to quantum chromodynamics (the appearance of Strong Force brand glue in "30% Iron Chef"), computer science (two large books in a closet labeled P and NP in "Put Your Head on My Shoulders"), and genetics (a mention of Bender's "robo-, or RNA" in "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles"). The show often featured subtle references to classic science fiction, most often Star Trek - many soundbytes are used in the series as homage - but also others, such as the reference to the origin of the word robot made in the existence of a robot-dominated planet named Chapek 9.

The name "Futurama" comes from an exhibit from the 1939 New York World's Fair of the same name. Designed by Norman Bel Geddes, the exhibit depicted what he imagined the world to look like in 1959.

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/1255/seymourxk6.gif

And if you didn't cry during that scene, you have no soul.

[Greg1]

And The Number One Animated Television Show Is...

[Greg1]

"Ahhhh! I just said bet your buns to the Vietnamese!"

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/3741/laverne1af8.jpg

just kidding

[Greg1]

"Dear Mr. President, There are too many states nowadays. Please eliminate three. P.S. I am not a crackpot."

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/7140/spacecoyotefy0ja4.jpg

1. The Simpsons (1989) - 104 points

The Simpsons is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Network. It is a satirical parody of the "Middle American" lifestyle epitomized by its title family, consisting of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. Set in the fictional town of Springfield, the show lampoons many aspects of the human condition, as well as American culture, society as a whole and even television itself.

The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a pitch for a series of animated shorts with James L. Brooks. Groening had been called in to pitch a series of animated shorts, and had intended to present his Life in Hell series. When he realized that animating Life in Hell would require him to rescind publication rights for his life's work, Groening decided to go in another direction. He hurriedly sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family, and named the characters after his own family. Bart was modeled after Groening's older brother, Mark, but given a different name which was chosen as an anagram of "brat."

The Simpson family first appeared in animated form as shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, with the first episode, "Good Night", airing on April 19, 1987. The family was crudely drawn, because Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators, assuming they would clean them up; instead they just traced over his drawings.

In 1989, The Simpsons was adapted into a half-hour series for the Fox network by a team of production companies, including what is now the Klasky Csupo animation house. Due to the fledgling position of the Fox network, Jim Brooks obtained an unusual contractual provision that ensured the network could not interfere with the creative process by providing show notes. Groening has been quoted as saying that his goal in creating the show was to "offer an alternative to the audience, and show them there's something else out there than the mainstream trash that they are presented as the only thing." The first full length episode shown was "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" in place of the intended first episode, "Some Enchanted Evening." The latter had to be reanimated after the creators saw the poor quality of the final animation, and was eventually shown as the final episode of the first season.

The Simpsons was an early hit for Fox, and has won several major awards. In its 1998 issue celebrating the greatest achievements in arts and entertainment of the 20th century, Time magazine named The Simpsons the century's best television series. On January 14, 2000 the Simpsons was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is the longest-running American sitcom, as well as the longest-running American animated program. The Simpsons has been influential on popular culture. Its catchphrases have been adopted into the English lexicon. The annoyed grunt "D'oh!" has entered the English dictionary. It was cited as an influence on many adult-oriented animated sitcoms of the late 1990s.

And there you have it. Discussions and debates shall be allowed here till the end of time.

[John Pannozzi]

All I have to say is....

Where's Freakazoid! and Dexter's Lab?

[Dynamite XI]

The complete list, consolidated:


The Simpsons (1989) - 104 points
Futurama (1999) - 79 points
Animaniacs (1993) - 71 points
Batman: The Animated Series (1992) - 65 points
Space Ghost Coast to Coast (1994) - 54 points
Tiny Toon Adventures (1990) - 44 points
Pinky and the Brain (1995) - 43 points
The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991) - 41 points
South Park (1997) - 40 points
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) - 35 points
Spongebob Squarepants (1999) - 30 points
Garfield & Friends (1988) - 29 points
The Brak Show (2000) - 25 points
Paranoia Agent (2004) - 24 points
Cartoon Planet (1995) - 24 points
Azumanga Daioh (2002) - 23 points
Animated Tales of the World (2001) - 23 points
Clangers (1969) - 22 points
Powerpuff Girls (1998) - 21 points
Serial Experiment Lain (1998) - 21 points
Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) - 20 points
Gargoyles (1994) - 20 points
Robot Chicken (2005) - 20 points
The Tick (1994) - 19 points
Rocky & Bullwinkle (1959) - 18 points
Family Guy (1999) - 18 points
Bagpuss (1974) - 18 points
Excel Saga (1999) - 18 points
American Dad (2005) - 17 points
Rex the Runt (1998) - 17 points
Invader Zim (2001) - 17 points
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) - 16 points
Clerks: The Animated Series (2000) - 16 points
2 Stupid Dogs (1993) - 16 points
Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends (2004) - 15 points
Kim Possible (2002) - 15 points
DuckTales (1987) - 15 points
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992) - 15 points
The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (2001) - 14 points
Rocko's Modern Life (1993) - 14 points
Cowboy Bebop (1998) - 14 points
Mighty Max (1993) - 14 points
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! (1989) - 13 points
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (1989) - 13 points
Underdog (1964) - 13 points
Superman: The Animated Series (1996) - 13 points
Justice League (2001) - 12 points
The What A Cartoon Show (1995) - 12 points
Doug (1991) - 11 points
Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990) - 11 points


I have too much free time.

[Greg1]

Here are a list of shows that were voted for, but didn't make the cut (in alphabetical order):

Arthur and the Square Knights of the Round Table
Avenger Penguins
Batman Beyond
Bob and Margaret
Brandy & Mr. Whiskers
Bump in the Night
Count Duckula
The Critic
Darkwing Duck
Dexter's Lab
Ed, Edd and Eddy
God, the Devil and Bob
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi
Inspector Gadget
Johnny Quest
Kimba the White Lion
The Magic Roundabout
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures
Muppet Babies
My Gym Partner’s a Monkey
Pocoyo
Project Geeker
Samurai Jack
Sealab 2021
Spider-man (60s)
Spider-man (90s)
Super Friends
The Tex Avery Show
Toon Heads
X-Men

[Marcus2]

"Excuse me sir, but can you direct me to the location of where I can locate some eggs for I would like to purchase them so that I can take them home with me and I can eat them today. And maybe tomorrow."

http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/8365/powerpuff20girls2001no9.jpg

19. Powerpuff Girls (1998) - 21 points

Craig McCracken, a student of California Institute of the Arts, created The Whoopass Girls in 1992 in his short film The Whoopass Girls in A Sticky Situation. Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation selected the short in 1994; McCracken submitted it to Cartoon Network while working on Dexter's Laboratory. As Cartoon Network could not keep the offending name, the girls were renamed the Powerpuff Girls. Their first appearance on Cartoon Network was the short “The Powerpuff Girls in: Meat Fuzzy Lumkins” as part of World Premiere Toons.

The Powerpuff Girls live in the fictional city of Townsville (not to be confused with Townsville in Queensland, Australia). The girls are drawn with physical traits that make them "cute". They have large eyes, and, although they are able to hear, smell, and hold, their bodies are drawn without noses, ears, fingers, or toes. The girls are very aware of that, and it is shown that they do not have fingers, and instead, their fingerless hands can pick things up at will. (In fact, in one episode where everyone swapped bodies, Buttercup, who had swapped bodies with the Professor, complained that his hand didn't work.)

They also have many superpowers like those possessed by Superman, including:

-Super-strength
-Flight
-Super-speed
-X-ray vision
-Ability to project a variety of energy blasts
-Limited invulnerability

Among their enemies include Mojo Jojo (voiced by Roger L. Jackson), A mad scientist chimp with vast intelligence, notable for his cod-Japanese accent and his overly convoluted manner of speaking, Fuzzy Lumpkins (voiced by Jim Cummings), a large, husky, furry pink hillbilly monster who loves his hunting gun (or "boomstick") and his banjo (nicknamed "Joe"), and who will shoot anything he finds trespassing "on his property", Him (Voiced by Tom Kane), a mysterious, super powerful, red-skinned, and effeminate devil creature with crab-like hands, and Princess Morbucks (voiced by Jennifer Hale), a spoiled, insecure little rich girl, whose unseen "daddy" allows her to finance various evil plots to destroy the Powerpuff Girls.

Why was this on the list? You have snubbed a great cartoon like The Fairly OddParents for The Powerpuff Girls, a fairly minor animated series. Remember when the girls beat up Rainbow the Clown? That's precisely when the show should have been looked down upon. The Powerpuff Girls makes most of the lists, but not The Fairly OddParents. At least SpongeBob made most of them. What is wrong with you people??? There is only one children's cartoon that deserves to make it higher than The Fairly OddParents and that is SpongeBob SquarePants.

[Greg1]

Hey guys, the whole "doing lists on the games forum" didn't work out. Was this fun enough to do more lists here?

[DarthGonzo]

Why was this on the list? You have snubbed a great cartoon like The Fairly OddParents for The Powerpuff Girls, a fairly minor animated series. Remember when the girls beat up Rainbow the Clown? That's precisely when the show should have been looked down upon. The Powerpuff Girls makes most of the lists, but not The Fairly OddParents. At least SpongeBob made most of them. What is wrong with you people??? There is only one children's cartoon that deserves to make it higher than The Fairly OddParents and that is SpongeBob SquarePants.

Oh please. I like Fairly Oddparents a lot too, but what your saying is just your opinion, and isn't fact. I cannot believe you'd tear PPG a new one for that Rainbow the Clown episode, while FOP is just a guilty for doing similar insensitive material. And Fairly Oddparents was never as popular as Powerpuff Girls was in it's heyday. Please don't tell me you joined just to post this silliness.

[Marcus2]

Oh please. I like Fairly Oddparents a lot too, but what your saying is just your opinion, and isn't fact. I cannot believe you'd tear PPG a new one for that Rainbow the Clown episode, while FOP is just a guilty for doing similar insensitive material. And Fairly Oddparents was never as popular as Powerpuff Girls was in it's heyday. Please don't tell me you joined just to post this silliness.
The Powerpuff Girls was never one of cable's highest-rated progams, but The Fairly OddParents IS. You really don't know what you're talking about. The Fairly OddParents was (and still is) nearly as popular as SpongeBob SquarePants is. Meanwhile, Powerpuff Girls was actually not that popular.

[DarthGonzo]

The Powerpuff Girls was never one of cable's highest-rated progams, but The Fairly OddParents IS. You really don't know what you're talking about. The Fairly OddParents was (and still is) nearly as popular as SpongeBob SquarePants is. Meanwhile, Powerpuff Girls was actually not that popular.

I guess you missed that time when PPG toys, clothes, shoes and other knick knacks were everywhere. For it's time it was one of Cartoon Network's highest rated shows, it was popular with adults, and it was highly influential. I deserves to be on this list. Maybe room could have been made for FOP but I'm not upset that it isn't there. Doesn't make me like the show any less.

And don't flame me. I have no time for that sort of thing. And Fairly Oddparents - despite it's rating - lacks one thing Spongebob does have: a very strong adult fanbase.

[Greg1]

Cool, debate!

I'll take that as a yes.

[Marcus2]

I guess you missed that time when PPG toys, clothes, shoes and other knick knacks were everywhere. For it's time it was one of Cartoon Network's highest rated shows, it was popular with adults, and it was highly influential. I deserves to be on this list. Maybe room could have been made for FOP but I'm not upset that it isn't there. Doesn't make me like the show any less.

And don't flame me. I have no time for that sort of thing. And Fairly Oddparents - despite it's rating - lacks one thing Spongebob does have: a very strong adult fanbase.

Not that many adults older than college students, unless occasionally, liked the show. And I'm sure it didn't influence anything of major importance. And I did not miss that period of time you mentioned. What a waste of time and money it was to come out with all of that media. Want a picture of reality? The movie only made barely over $11,000,000.

[Draft]

You have nothing to compare it to tho since you have no idea if a FOP movie woulda flopped

I like Fop over ppg, but i don't like how you are flamming these people

[Marcus2]

You have nothing to compare it to tho since you have no idea if a FOP movie woulda flopped

I like Fop over ppg, but i don't like how you are flamming these people

I'm sorry. What am I doing wrong?

[J. B. Warner]

I'm sorry. What am I doing wrong?

Insulting people for having opinions that differ from yours.

[Marcus2]

Insulting people for having opinions that differ from yours.

I am not trying to insult people. I am trying to speak the truth.

[DarthGonzo]

I am not trying to insult people. I am trying to speak the truth.

The truth and your opinion are two entirely seperate things. You may be "speaking the truth", but your also doing it in a nasty, biased, condensending way.

In short, your flaming!!

The deal with the movie is that it had seriously bad timing. The Powerpuff craze was long over by the time the movie was released. Do you honestly think a Fairly Oddparents movie released now, at a time when the show's biggest days are behind it, would do better than the Powerpuff Girls Movie?

It's obvious that you simply do not like the Powerpuff Girls because you've done nothing so far but attack the show.

[Greg1]

Marcus, if you want your opinions reflected in these lists, be sure to vote in them.

[Peter Paltridge]

Marcus, if you want your opinions reflected in these lists, be sure to vote in them.
I don't think Marcus was around for this one, as he just registered. Anyways, take it easy, Marc....it's only a cartoon. Remember that if this gets too out of hand, I'll be forced to use my whacking stick.

[Zorak Masaki]

How sad is it that neither the quote or the pictured scene from Family Guy has nothing to do with the griffins?

[Marcus2]

The truth and your opinion are two entirely seperate things. You may be "speaking the truth", but your also doing it in a nasty, biased, condensending way.

In short, your flaming!!

The deal with the movie is that it had seriously bad timing. The Powerpuff craze was long over by the time the movie was released. Do you honestly think a Fairly Oddparents movie released now, at a time when the show's biggest days are behind it, would do better than the Powerpuff Girls Movie?

It's obvious that you simply do not like the Powerpuff Girls because you've done nothing so far but attack the show.


Oh grow up, DarthRat. You're the one who seems more biased than me. From what I saw, you were mean to me from my first post. Powerpuff was NEVER a craze! It was never nearly as popular as Pokemon was in '99. SpongeBob's biggest days were behind it when its movie was released in '04: It only made some $85,000,000 compared to the Rugrats Movie's $100,000,000.

[Darklordavaitor]

Woah, Marcus, chill out, this is just a fun little list. A few favorites of mine didn't make the cut, but I'm not complaining(at least, not really), but I didn't know you could vote.:sweat:

[DarthGonzo]

Wait what? I posted that way back in March and he's responding to it now?

And again, for the record, Powerpuff Girls - in it's day - was much, much bigger than Fairly Oddparents ever was. How much money the Spongebob Movie made or how popular PPG was compared to Pokemon means absolutely nothing to me.

The Powerpuff Girls were everywhere: dolls, action figures, t-shirts, sneakers, balloons, underwear, blankets, DVDs (back when no other CN property stood a chance of being on DVD), games, puzzles, backpacks, you name it. I worked at a day care center at the height of the PPG craze and it was everywhere. I certainly know what I'm talking about.

PPG deserves to be on that list. No great loss not seeing FOP there.

[Marcus2]

Okay. Who reported my post?! Who deleted it?! I had every right as a U.S. citizen to post what I did. The forum rules really should change (at least a little): These censors should given an "F" by the U.S. government in toleration of freedom of speech, and are damnable by God!! :mad:

[Peter Paltridge]

True, but being a private organization we are allowed to withhold that right in the name of good manners.

No more flamebait or it's the pokey for you. Understand?

[Marcus2]

True, but being a private organization we are allowed to withhold that right in the name of good manners.

No more flamebait or it's the pokey for you. Understand?
The only reason I'll never file a legal suit against you guys is because it's waste of my time. What is the pokey?! Whatever you said, it sounds like a threat to me. And it should have been you that got the pokey (whatever it is) for threatening me. Do you want me post my original message again, Martianinvader?

[NintyScreen]

The only reason I'll never file a legal suit against you guys is because it's waste of my time. What is the pokey?! Whatever you said, it sounds like a threat to me. And it should have been you that got the pokey (whatever it is) for threatening me. Do you want me post my original message again, Martianinvader?

That would be another word for jail.

Also, threatening "the man" is a big no-no. For a bonus point, ToonZone is usually family-friendly, so that would also be a no-no.

[Steve Carras]

That would be another word for jail.

And Gumby's horse. Speakign of which, that show wasn't even mentioned!



Also, threatening "the man" is a big no-no. For a bonus point, ToonZone is usually family-friendly, so that would also be a no-no.
How true. This is getting to be a flame.
.


True, but being a private organization we are allowed to withhold that right in the name of good manners.

No more flamebait or it's the pokey for you. Understand?
Hey, I'll bet that girl with glasses (in case you replace her) in your avatar is the one and only TINA FEY!!!:)


I guess you missed that time when PPG toys, clothes, shoes and other knick knacks were everywhere. For it's time it was one of Cartoon Network's highest rated shows, it was popular with adults, and it was highly influential. I deserves to be on this list. Maybe room could have been made for FOP but I'm not upset that it isn't there. Doesn't make me like the show any less.

And don't flame me. I have no time for that sort of thing. And Fairly Oddparents - despite it's rating - lacks one thing Spongebob does have: a very strong adult fanbase.


So did a number pioneering shows from Hanna-Barbera [needs no intro], "Gumby","Beany", and too many others. And adult appeal aside, they were all ignored.

[Leviathan]

I am so incredibly, unbelieveably grateful that Scooby Doo didn't make the Top 50. If this was TV Guide or some other crap, we'd probably see it in the top 10 (but this list so much more respectable.

[Darklordavaitor]

Hate to bump this, but I've been trying time and time again to make a Top 50 cartoon list, but something always happens. I just have to give Greg1 his props for making this list work so well. He gave out detailed information about each show and everything.

And I'm not even going to compalin about Ed, Edd, n' Eddy not being on this list, but Captain Planet and Azumanga Daioh! did, among various obscure British shows.

No Naruto or Teen Titans, though.:D Glad to see not too many 14-year-old school girls got onto this.

[Totally_Insaney]

No Naruto or Teen Titans, though.:D Glad to see not too many 14-year-old school girls got onto this.Haha, yeah. :anime:

What, no Looney Tunes? =/

I also agree with Leviathan about Scooby-Doo.

[An Eskimo]

Haha, yeah. :anime:

What, no Looney Tunes? =/


My guess is that this was a list counting TV cartoons, and not theater ones. Looney Tunes, in general, is, in my opinion, the greatest cartoon series of all time, but I don't think the TV reruns really count.

[egfelixdcg]

All my favourite animated tv shows are in the list. Glad to see Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, 1987 TMNT, S mario S Show, Ducktales and Chip n' Dale RR.

[Totally_Insaney]

My guess is that this was a list counting TV cartoons, and not theater ones. Looney Tunes, in general, is, in my opinion, the greatest cartoon series of all time, but I don't think the TV reruns really count.
Oh yeah, this thread is called Top 50 Animated Television Shows. I'm an idiot. xP