Continuing with the cartoon conundrums, here is part two of my cartoon countdown. This time I'm looking at the cartoons that I still like watching to this day. Make sure to check out my previous list if you haven't yet, and tune in next week for another all-new issue of C.C.C, as I examine the best worst movies ever!
Top Ten [Enduring] Cartoons
I watched a lot of TV as a kid, and most of
what constituted my viewing was cartoons. Over the years, some shows have come
and gone, but there is a handful that I still enjoy watching today as much as I
did back in the day. It was tough, but I picked the ten cartoons I like the
most, that have been part of my life from childhood to now.
Criteria:
show must have had moderate to huge success either in its heyday and/or
present, and be a cartoon I watched or would have watched as a kid and would
still watch (or still do) today. This
list does not include any ANIME, since it is cited by many (including Sheldon
Cooper) as NOT A CARTOON.
Honourable
mentions: South Park and The Simpsons. These two shows are huge staples of pop culture, and
my friends were always talking about them all throughout school, but they
simply aren’t cartoons I enjoyed as a kid, and neither are something I’d seek
out to watch today. With so many cartoons to pick from, this was very hard to
narrow down. Some other cartoons worth mentioning that I used to watch and
still do on occasion that are excellent: Dexter’s
Laboratory, Flintstones, Woody Woodpecker, G.I. Joe.
10. Fly Tales
Just
squeezing its way through to number ten is Fly
Tales, and you may be thinking, wasn’t this number one on the list of best
cartoon’s from my childhood? Well, when I made that list, that’s how I felt
about it. Since making that list, I have been re-watching numerous cartoons
from that list on YouTube. Fly Tales is
one of them, and I have re-discovered the brilliance behind it. The show’s
simple yet addictive format has lasted through my childhood and into what I
guess will be considered my adult years (though I don’t feel much like an adult
discussing all these cartoons aimed at children, but never mind that). I’ve talked
at length about this one already, time to move on to the other cartoons I still
love watching.
9. The Transformers
This
eighties cartoon has possibly the coolest concept of all the cartoons on this
list. I guess the live-action TV show equivalent of this epic series was Power Rangers—another childhood classic.
Nothing can beat the kickass battles the Autobots waged against the Decepticons.
A race of alien robots capable of transforming into other mechanical forms
(usually vehicles or weapons), they were transported from their home planet
Cybertron to earth, where they would battle for resources to help them return
home. The good guys (Autobots) are led by Optimus Prime, and the baddies
(Decepticons) are commanded by Megatron. Once on earth, they transform into
various cars and trucks. Megatron even has the ability to transform into a gun,
which can be wielded by the high ranking Decepticon, Starscream. He wants to
one day overthrow Megatron’s rule and become leader of the Decepticons, and is
just one of many excellent robotic characters. This series ran for a long time,
and even had an animated feature film that came out between season 2 and 3. I
always loved the Dinobots, just because it combined two childhood passions:
dinosaurs, and giant fighting robots. Even though it lacks the sophistication I
once thought it had, Transformers
never gets old. I could watch giant robots battle each other all day long. Younger
audiences may prefer the newer TV series like Transformers: Prime, or the live-action Michael Bay films, but a
true Transformers fan knows it
doesn’t get better than the original series.
8. Futurama
For
most TV viewers, The Simpsons is
superior to Futurama, both of which
were created by Matt Groening for the FOX network. By default I developed a
preference for Futurama as a kid,
because I tuned in to Teletoon first and foremost, which began airing reruns on
weeknights. In 1999, pizza delivery boy Fry accidentally gets cryogenically
frozen, eventually awakening in the 31st century: a strange and
hilarious world of flying cars, alien beings, and robots with attitudes. The
series ran from 1999 to 2003 before being cancelled, but was brought back via
straight-to-video films, and eventually new episodes were created when Comedy
Central acquired the series. Though it remained entertaining as the seasons
went on, I prefer the earlier seasons. Numerous side characters make the laughs
and gags side splittingly hilarious, from the Professor and his crazy experiments
to Zoidberg, an alien crustacean with many quirks, including an awesome voice.
But one character in particular steals the show, and that is Bender, one of
those robots with attitudes I mentioned earlier. Bender drinks, smokes, swears,
and is a riot. The show is a combination of many types of humour, which makes
it diverse, though not always consistently funny. However, it has plenty to
offer because of this variety. One of the running gags I like best is the heads
of deceased famous people and historic figures are kept alive in jars, such as
President Richard Nixon and X-Files
star David Duchovny. Futurama managed
to find a terrific combination of elements, which made for an excellent
animated sitcom.
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles (1987 TV series)
While
Transformers might have the coolest
concept, the creativity behind TMNT
far exceeds robots fighting each other. Here, we get turtles. But they’re not
just run of the mill pond turtles you can get from a pet store. Well ok, they
are at first. But then they get dropped into some radioactive sludge, and it
turns them into anthropomorphic mutant turtles. Due to their age, you could
call them teenage mutant turtles. But to top it all off, they were trained by
Master Splinter, a ninja master. So really, they’re teenage, they’re mutant,
they’re ninjas, and they’re turtles. And did I mention Master Splinter is
something of a mutant himself? An anthropomorphic rat, actually, but he isn’t a
teenager. He’s more of an Elder Mutant Ninja Rat. I guess that title doesn’t
quite have the same ring to it. The origins of these ninja creatures varies,
but in this incarnation, Splinter is the former martial arts instructor Hamato
Yoshi, who was transformed into a mutant half rat half man by a mysterious pink
liquid mutagen. This is also what caused the turtles to mutate into half human,
half turtle hybrids. Their arch nemesis is Splinter’s former rival, Oroku Saki,
who goes by the name of Shredder. He has steel wrist blades, and is mostly
concealed in silver armour. Working for Shredder is a host of other mutants and
a pink alien blob called Krang. The show doesn’t take itself too seriously
(“You may call me...The Shredder!” “A kitchen utensil?!”) which I think is
important when your title is as outrageous as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This show is a classic; the theme
song is extremely catchy, the humour, action, and emotion are all in perfect
balance, and as I mentioned, the creativity in each episode and plot arch is
great. You’ve probably seen the characters in some form—whether one of the live
action films or many TV series—but to truly appreciate this show, you have to
go back to the beginning and watch the original series, it’s surely the best.
6. Untalkative Bunny
The
whole theme of non-speaking characters in cartoon shorts seemed to pop up all
over Teletoon, and practically all of them are Teletoon originals. Fly Tales and Doodlez were great, but none nailed the silent character in a
cartoon short as perfectly as Untalkative
Bunny. Definitely a for-all-ages show, it follows the misadventures of
Bunny. While Dood from Doodlez laughs
and Fly of Fly Tales mumbles
gibberish, Bunny is completely silent. He does everything through physical
motion and facial expressions. This puts a lot of pressure on the animation
being perfect, because without much dialogue, the show becomes largely visual.
The animation is smooth and the colours are bright. Occasionally, human
characters speak to Bunny, but their faces are never shown, so no one is
actually ever seen speaking in the entire series. Each episode, like the other
non-speaking cartoons from Teletoon, is only five minutes long. Bunny has some
friends who also are mute. His reliable friend Squirrel often helps him out,
and Emu, who appears less frequently, is a grumpy fellow who sometimes instigates
a problem. It’s never clear if Bunny is male or female—I think he’s a
cross-dressing male rabbit myself, but it doesn’t matter. Bunny has so many
adventures they range from educational to crazy: meeting with a therapist,
encountering a loving pink creature in a park, getting a hair piece, harassed
by a talking clam, dreams he is a fly, poses as a sloth at a zoo, and the list
goes on (seriously, look up the episodes on Wikipedia, there are so many weird
ones it’s ridiculous). My all-time favourite is the one where Emu accidently
floods Bunny’s apartment and he temporarily becomes a faux-fish, swimming about
his submerged loft which now is like an underwater reef. Socks are eels,
carrots are schools of fish, and a bowl of spaghetti is a jellyfish. The creativity
behind this one episode is staggering. I always wanted to flood my own house as
a kid to try this—hell, I still want to! Untalkative
Bunny is surely among the best Canadian cartoons ever, and is funny no
matter what language you speak or how old you are.
5. Johnny Bravo
Up
to this point in the list, I feel like the ordering hasn’t been that important.
Comparing TMNT to Transformers is like comparing a
cheeseburger to a hamburger: they’re both delicious and there isn’t a major
factor that puts one ahead of the other. I see it as a major division between
1-5 and 5-10. I would say 5-10 are all good and not in a real particular order, but they’re
definitely not as awesome as 1-5. I would consider the top five in this list
the definitive cartoons I watch today. Starting off the five best ever is the
most charismatic ladies-man in all of cartoon history—in fact, this is one of
the best Cartoon Network original series ever. Johnny Bravo lives with his
momma in Aron City, but don’t let that fool you, he’s quite the stud. Even
though it seems like women can’t stay away from him at first, it becomes clear that
he lacks the competence (and sometimes luck) when it comes to winning over the
ladies. Johnny’s voice is comparable to Elvis Presley’s, and the ratio of his
arm diameter to his leg diameter is probably four to one (what I’m getting at
is he has the body of young bodybuilding Arnold Schwarzenegger). With black
tinted sunglasses that he never removes and perfect hair even Ron Burgundy
would envy, it seems women would love Johnny. He certainly loves them, but over
the course of the series, a whole host of situations prevent Johnny from
getting the girl in the end. One of his main obstacles in everyday life is the
little girl from next door, Little Suzy. Johnny encounters many other
entertaining characters besides Little Suzy throughout the series, which ran
from 1997 to 2004, and he went on lots of hilarious adventures. One of the best
was when Mr. Bravo encountered Mystery Inc. from Scooby-Doo. Many of the
writers and directors who worked on this now cult classic TV show went on to
greater fame—most notably writer Seth MacFarlane would create Family Guy, American Dad, and The
Cleveland Show. Johnny Bravo is
as funny now as it was when I was just a kid. I would get up at six a.m. every
Saturday morning to catch re-runs. With constant pokes at pop culture and tons
of quotable dialogue (most famously his “Whoa Momma!” catchphrase), Johnny Bravo has the dual appeal of both
a classic slapstick comedy and a modern social commentary.
4. Ed, Edd n Eddy
Now
for a Cartoon Network series even better than Johnny Bravo. I first discovered this show when on vacation way
back at the age of five. Being from Canada and a family lacking the funds to
subscribe to premium cable channels, I never was able to watch Cartoon Network
as a child. Only when on vacation at the end of the nineties did I get a small
window of opportunity to glimpse the brilliance of this American channel. Most
of the shows were over my head at that time, but one cartoon proved to be so
hilarious I went out of my way just to watch it for the entire two weeks of
vacation. It wouldn’t be until quite a few years later that Teletoon would
begin re-running it on Saturday mornings. I relished this period of childhood,
but it wasn’t long before Teletoon removed it from their line up. By the time I
found a DVD cartoon collection featuring some of the episodes, my youth had
passed, and Ed, Edd and Eddy had
become nothing more than a distant memory. So the question loomed: would it be
as funny now as it was when I was young? The answer is a resounding yes: this
show is absolutely hilarious. It follows three friends who live in a suburban cul-de-sac
along with many other neighbourhood kids. There’s Ed, a tall, dimwitted fellow,
Edd, an awkward genius, also referred to as Double D, and Eddy, the
business-minded leader of the trio. The adventures vary from episode to
episode, but their ultimate goal is to obtain the most delicious treat known to
child kind: jaw breakers. This series ran for eleven years, and for good
reason. It is one of the most reliably funny cartoons I’ve ever seen. The
animation is unique, the colours are bright and outrageous, and the voice
acting is great. What really stands out is the brand of humour: a potent mix of
slapstick, wry wit, and searing sarcasm, all delivered by each of the
characters. Ed, Edd n Eddy is an
absolute must see for cartoon lovers.
3. Family Guy
Seth
MacFarlane first brought his brand of humour to television in a big way at the
turn of the century with FOX’s hit series Family
Guy. It follows The Griffin’s, an all American Rhode Island family with
more than a few quirks. To quote their diabolical baby Stewie, “We’re an unusual
family.” There’s fat father/husband Peter, attractive red head mother/wife
Lois, awkward teenager Chris, the family punching bag Meg, talking dog Brian,
and of course baby Stewie, whose hatred for his mother is nearly outweighed by
his attraction to the same sex. An outrageous cartoon aimed at adults, I have
been watching Family Guy since 2003:
just a year after it was cancelled for the first time. Teletoon aired season
one and two re-runs late at night, and with a TV in my room, there was no one
to stop me from watching this show, which was mostly way over my head in terms
of the comedy. However, as I got older and began clueing in to the pop culture
references and adult humour, it became funnier and funnier, eventually becoming
one of my favourite cartoons. Much like Futurama,
I prefer the older episodes of Family Guy
over the newer ones. Although it was a disappointment to see the show absent
for so long (it was cancelled not once but twice), I think it helped that FOX
cancelled Family Guy the second time,
because it brought aboard new writers, and gave the old writers a chance to take
a break and think up some better jokes. Then, when Family Guy returned, it returned with a new creative spark and
became funnier than ever. Many people dismiss this series as a Simpson’s copycat, and parents often
criticize the mature content. I have to disagree with these opinions entirely.
The show and its creators are clever enough to frequently reference these
claims and poke fun at them, and what kind of bad show can be cancelled twice,
but also be brought back twice and continue to be a staple of pop culture?
While it may not be as funny as it once was, Family Guy still remains one of the better modern cartoons left on
TV.
2. Super Friends
The
cheesiest series ever to come from Hannah-Barbera, this super powered team of
superheroes dominated the Saturday morning landscape for most of the seventies.
It ran for many years under many titles, and with a various cast of characters.
The series I am most familiar with is The
All-New Super Friends Hour, from 1977. The best way I can explain the
show’s premise and characters is via the show’s introduction, voiced by the
greatest and most enthusiastic narrator ever. “Gathered together from the cosmic reaches of the universe, here in this
great hall of justice, comes the most powerful forces of good ever assembled!
Superman! Batman and Robin! Wonder woman! Aqua Man! And the Wonder Twins Zan
and Jayna, with their space monkey, Gleek! Dedicated to truth, justice, and
peace, for all mankind! These are, the Super Friends!!!” No other Saturday
morning cartoon can compare to the excitement this one instilled with the youth
of the time. As someone who was born way after this show aired, I found out
about it thanks to Teletoon Retro. The reason I love this show is not because
of the excitement, but because of the laughs and general entertainment it
brings. The All-New Super Friends Hour is
divided into four parts. The first part follows Superman teaming up with
another one of the heroes to fight a villain—usually an absurd one. The second
part features only the Wonder Twins, who always help out kids and teenagers who
get into sticky situations. The third and longest segment of an episode has all
of the Super Friends facing off against a more powerful enemy, and the fourth part
follows one of the regular team members being joined by a guest star, such as
Green Lantern, The Atom, or Samurai. In between the show’s segments are mini
games for viewers, such as simplistic word puzzles, idiotic magic tricks, and
extremely obvious safety tips. What is usually the most hilarious aspect of the
show are the Super Friends’ methods of defeating evil. Wonder Woman’s magic
lasso never fails to wrap up a villain, instantly rendering them helpless. Aqua
Man’s ability to summon sea life always gets him out of a pickle. Nothing is
funnier, however, than the Wonder Twins bringing their power rings together to
activate their Wonder Twin powers. Zan can only change into water in one of the
three states. For some reason he usually becomes an ice bucket. If not that, he
almost always becomes water, which the space monkey Gleek scoops up in a bucket
to carry him—this is literally the monkey’s only skill. Jayna can become any
animal, but usually becomes an eagle so she can carry Gleek (who’s carrying Zan)
and fly them to the people in danger. Because they are the newest team members,
they aren’t that experienced, and often screw up. Once, Jayna accidently turned
into a tiny garden snake rather than a giant python and the villain escaped.
This show is an absolute riot, and I’ve said enough about it, just go and find
a cheap copy of one of the seasons on DVD, or check out Teletoon Retro for
re-runs.
1. Looney Tunes
If
you are reading this, then I don’t need to explain the essence of Looney Tunes. If you don’t know what the
Looney Tunes are all about, then you
surely must be from another planet, or have a mental illness. Looney Tunes is so classic and so
important that they aren’t even technically classified as cartoons. The
official description is “animated comedy short films”. With a rich history and
lasting impact on pop culture, Looney
Tunes first began way back in the 1930’s. It was at first produced in black
and white, in correspondence with Merrie
Melodies, which was alternately made in colour. After 1943, both series
were produced in colour, and eventually became nearly identical. Both made use
of Warner Bros. characters—many of which would go on to become cultural icons. Undoubtedly
the most famous is Bugs Bunny, who has been in more cartoons than any cartoon
character ever. Looney Tunes shorts only
played in theaters at the beginning of feature films up until the 1950’s. As
television began to take over during this time, the animated shorts started
playing on TV in various formats. This made it even more popular, but many of
the cartoons had to be edited, due to their often mature content and the fact
that children would be watching the cartoons the most. Even though many of the
earlier shorts were never aired (mainly due to extreme racial stereotype that
were common during that period), the ones that did still had some racy,
extreme, and even questionable material. But that’s what makes them awesome!
What other cartoon will show you characters smoking, drinking, shooting each
other in the face, falling off cliffs, and sometimes just beating the crap out
of everyone in sight? The intention was never to offend anyone, it was to
entertain. The Looney Tunes have been
around for many decades, and newer shows utilizing these old characters have
come and gone. None have been anywhere as successful or memorable as the
untouchable original animated shorts from the early 30’s to late 60’s. In the
70’s there were many television specials which mixed old footage with new footage
of various Looney Tunes characters,
such as Bugs Bunny’s 1001 Rabbit Tales
and The Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny
Movie. Most of these were nowhere near as great as the original episodes,
and seeing the old footage mixed in with the new only made me want to see the
old ones in their entirety again. There have been a few films featuring Looney Tunes characters, such as Space Jam, which mixed live action
basketball excitement (including Michael Jordan as himself) and prominent figures
ranging from Bugs and Daffy to Tweety and The Tasmanian Devil. It may have been
entertaining to little kids (I thought it was great when I was a child) but it
fails to be anywhere as funny or classic as anything that came before it.
Another somewhat less disappointing film attempt was Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Even though director Joe Dante is a
huge Looney Tunes fan and clearly had
a handle on the characters, it still wasn’t a satisfying film. I’ve come to
accept that no one and nothing will be able to rekindle the laughs and charm of
the original Looney Tunes, and I’m
alright with that, as long as I always have the original cartoons to fall back
on—Sylvester trying to devour Tweety, Elmer Fudd trying to shoot Bugs Bunny
between the eyes, or my personal favourite, Wile E. Coyote creating elaborate
traps to try and catch the Roadrunner. Whether I’m feeling sick and want to
watch something to take my mind off it, depressed and need to be cheered up, or
just want some guaranteed quality entertainment, I look no further than Looney Tunes.
Transformers image from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/TransformersGeneration1?from=Main.TransformersGeneration1
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles image from http://www.watchcartoononline.com/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-episode-170-get-shredder
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