C.C.C. Issue #10: Top Ten Cartoons (Part 1)
Welcome back, readers, this marks my tenth issue already! I tried to do a list of my top ten favourite cartoons, but as it developed, it grew increasingly complicated as more and more cartoons came to mind. What I ended up doing was dividing the list in half, thus creating the top ten cartoons I loved as a kid, and the top ten I still love watching to this day. For this week's list, I'm looking at cartoons from my youth, so expect the nostalgia meter to be turned up to eleven. Enjoy, and check in next week for part 2!
Top Ten Cartoons [from
my youth]
Of all the numerous
cartoons I watched throughout my youth, these ten proved to be among the most
important to me, through various ages, and even though I no longer watch them,
these shows stir up the nostalgia like no others, and it feels like I just
watched them yesterday.
Criteria: Must have been
a cartoon I watched frequently for multiple years of my childhood, and is a
show that I find nostalgic, but not necessarily something I would still watch
today. This list does not include
any ANIME, since it is cited by many (including Sheldon Cooper) as NOT A
CARTOON.
Honourable Mentions: as it turns out, so many, that it warrants
creating a whole other list.
This cartoon premiered on
Teletoon when I was in grade five, and I instantly became enamored with it. For
the next year, it was my favourite show on TV. The plot follows six friends who
hang out in a giant mall somewhere in Canada. They make a pact to get jobs at
the mall so they can continue hanging out there together, and through the
process, adopt new friend Caitlin, who works at The Big Squeeze—a lemon shaped
lemonade stand, which is the least prestigious job available. The other five
friends are: Jonsey—a womanizer who is fired from his new job every episode—Nikki—something
of a rebel who works at a clothing store she would never shop at herself —Wyatt—a
coffee addicted, soulful, musical guy—Jen—an athletic and responsible young
woman who talked the others into getting jobs—and Jude, a chill dude, who would
probably fit in well with the cast of Clerks.
Throughout the series, some of the characters get different jobs and romances
spark between them and others, who are introduced as supporting characters as
the series progresses. Essentially an animated, Canadian, teenage version of Friends, this sitcom had a lot of appeal
when it first premiered, and I loved watching these guys hang out and cause
mayhem. Sometimes, it was just as entertaining when the group was merely
hanging out and talking. As the series wore on and I got older, it began going
downhill and lost that funny yet sensitive essence that had attracted me in the
first place. Even though I wouldn’t watch the show today—it was cancelled in
2010—the first, and to a lesser extent, second seasons, still stir nostalgia
for me. The music and voice acting are great, the characters are well
developed, and it has a distinct visual style.
9. Rugrats
This nickelodeon series ran for
many years on YTV—a kid’s channel that I always felt was inferior to Teletoon,
but still occasionally worth checking out. One of the few shows I always
enjoyed tuning into was this unconventional series that ran for nine seasons
and even spawned a film franchise. It follows four babies—Tommy, Chuckie, Phil,
and Lil—who go on various adventures, which their parents never seem to be
aware of. Angelica, Tommy’s slightly older cousin, often antagonizes the babies
and conflicts with their adventures. Even though it was about infants, I found
the show enjoyable throughout Elementary School. Sometimes the juvenile humour
reached unbearable points, particularly in regards to the twins Phil and Lil,
who are obsessed with everything disgusting, from eating bugs to general baby
grossness such as boogers and full diapers. The babies are all able to
communicate with one another, as well as other infants and cousin Angelica, but
the adults never can understand them. It brings to mind Stewie from Family Guy and how it seems none of his
family (except Brian) can understand him. Perhaps Seth MacFarlane borrowed this
concept from Rugrats. Forget about
the stupid spinoff series that followed the same characters, only all grown up
and attending high school. The series was called All Grown Up! and paled in comparison to the original Rugrats.
8. SpongeBob SquarePants
If Rugrats is unconventional, then I don’t even know what word describes
SpongeBob. This is one of the most
popular cartoons on this list, but I will describe it for those of you
unfamiliar with it. As the title suggests, the main character is SpongeBob
SquarePants, a yellow sponge who wears pants (as well as shoes and a tie), and
lives in a pineapple under the sea in an area called Bikini Bottom. He works at
the local restaurant called The Crusty Crab, run by his boss, Mr. Crabs. There,
he makes Crabby Patties alongside co-worker and neighbour, Squidward. When not
at work, SpongeBob typically goes on fun, often zany adventures with his friend
Patrick the Starfish, Sandy, and underwater dwelling Squirrel, and many other
outrageous characters. This show was so popular when I was a kid, that everyone
I knew had seen at least one episode. It took me awhile to get into it, but by
grade 4 I regularly tuned in to SpongeBob
after school. Some of the humour is genuinely hilarious, even to this day. I
also can’t help noticing that there is a restaurant called The Crusty Crab in a
location called Bikini Bottom...but I digress.
7. Scooby-Doo
Scooby himself has become one of Hannah Barbera’s most recognizable characters. You may be wondering which Scooby-Doo cartoon I’m referring to, as there have been multiple incarnations since the original series’ initial run beginning in 1969. I am referring to two series. Every kid, at some point in their childhood it seems, got up super early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. When I got up, it was always Johnny Bravo, a couple other episodes of various shows, and then What’s New Scooby-Doo? at seven thirty. While I ate my dinner during school days, it was always Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! at five thirty. I enjoyed both series, but the original is obviously superior, because it is just so classic and, for its time, was quite original. It follows a group of friends investigating mysteries—typically paranormal in nature—and driving around in their hippy van The Mystery Machine, always encountering faux ghosts, monsters, and other villains. Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy make up Mystery Inc., accompanied by their talking Great Dane, Scooby-Doo. There were other side characters introduced as the show evolved, including Scrappy-Doo, and my favourite, Scooby’s incompetent cousin, Scooby-Dum. Some of the many spinoffs and reinventions of the series over the years include The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which were hour long episodes with special guest stars, and The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, featuring the character Vincent Van Ghoul, voiced by Vincent Price who inspired the character. There were also lots of movies that aired regularly on Saturday nights, ranging from Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf (1988), which followed Shaggy and Scooby in a drag race with famous Hollywood monsters, to Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase (2001), which saw Scooby and the gang get sucked into a video game based on them. I may have liked Scooby as a kid, but nowadays I really don’t enjoy it. Perhaps it’s because I’ve watched it for so many years, but even as a kid, I found Scooby’s inability to say words properly and not all starting with R’s annoying. As for the series I watched the most as a kid, What’s New Scooby-Doo?, it’s even less amusing now than the original series. This is quite likely because I re-watched every episode multiple times. My favourites were always the ones featuring a giant sea monster and a giant dinosaur. Although the shows don’t resonate with my older self, Scooby-Doo has proved to be an enduring cartoon for many generations, and still entertains the hell out of kids to this day.
6. Kid Paddle
Kid Paddle was a Teletoon original, and it was hilarious. Kid is a
typical ten year old kid who has all his priorities straight. He loves video
games, hates his sister, and always gets into trouble with his friends, Big
Bang and Horace. Big Bang is something of a child genius (makes me think of
Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory)
and Horace is smart too, but in his own way. I suspect that I loved this show
because I could relate to it so easily, but thinking back on it, the writing
was witty and the numerous jokes were delivered at a rapid fire rate. I can
even recall some of the dialogue to this day (Horace once said, “You know the
old saying: practice makes perfume!”). Even the transitions were creative and
well animated, ranging from the screen shattering like a window to scissors
cutting up the frame. One of my favourite episodes involved Kid and his friends
accidently discovering a password on their computer by dumping a container of
(tacks, marbles? I can’t recall it’s been a long time) on the keyboard. They
end up forgetting the password, and at the end of the episode, Horace attempts
to re-discover it by dropping whatever they had dropped before repeatedly on
the keyboard, hoping for the same result again.
I wish the show was available on DVD or on YouTube, but unfortunately
the episodes on YouTube are all in French, and I haven’t come across any DVD
releases. Kid Paddle may be a relic
from my childhood, but it isn’t something I have forgotten about.
5. Spider-Man (1967 TV
series)
Before Teletoon Retro began
running this series, standard Teletoon showed it weeknights at 6:30. I loved
watching Spider-Man kicking butt every day, battling all kinds of cool
villains—from Rhino to Doctor Octopus—and the episodes had two parts, so it was
like a two for one deal, getting to see Spidey take out two baddies in one half
hour. Years later I re-watched this once Teletoon Retro began showing it, and
was hugely disappointed. Apparently as a kid, I failed to notice the gross
amount of stock footage used in every episode. Seriously, I think there are
only about a dozen different angles/poses of Spider-Man doing his web slinging,
and they are all used repeatedly in every single episode. The animation itself
can feel quite cheap; the characters often move slow or very little at all, and
I already addressed the recycled footage. To be fair, this cartoon was produced
in 1967, and was the first incarnation of the Spider-Man comics. They also had
a tight budget, so had to make do. Some episodes did attempt to switch up the
formula; one time Spider-Man fought a gigantic robot monster that devoured
metal, and Peter Parker journeyed to Florida to battle The Lizard in the
swamps. And who can forget the now classic theme song? Spider-Man may have flaws, but as a kid, they didn’t stop me from
loving it.
4. The Weekenders
3. Doodlez
Have you seen Duck Amuck, that Looney Tunes episode where Daffy Duck is antagonized by the
animator, who creates all these crazy situations for him to deal with? If you
have, imagine that, only instead of Daffy, it’s a little black and white sketch
of a cartoon kid. Now imagine a show where every episode has that basic
premise. Sounds awesome, right? Well, Doodlez
is awesome indeed. It follows Dood, a little cartoon guy with a big problem:
Hand—the animator’s hand, to be exact. Hand is armed with his pencil, eraser,
and imagination. Once in awhile he might help out, but typically Hand is what
prompts the madness for the episode. Each episode is only a couple minutes
long, so the pace is crazy fast, and it was typically shown in between longer
shows in twos or threes. The plots in these shorts always have the creativity to
the max. Dood does everything from meet a clone of himself, to turn into a
werewolf, go to space and back, and fetching a lollipop from the belly of a
beast. There are occasionally side characters that appear, such as Doodette,
his love interest, and Martini Moose. I can hear you saying; wait, back up,
what? Martini Moose? Every once in
awhile, a Moose appears in an episode. He is always holding a martini glass,
and usually is in a bubble bath. Nowadays, I find it hilarious that I never
questioned this absurd side character when I watched as a child. There is no
dialogue in Doodlez, so almost all
the humour is based on physical comedy. Many Doodlez episodes are on YouTube, and I highly recommend you check
them out. They are quite comical cartoon snippets that don’t take much of your
time. Unless you start a Doodlez
marathon, which is known to happen...
2. What’s with Andy?
This Teletoon original series
comes in at a very close second. It follows Andy Larkin, a high school kid from
East Gackle, who happens to be the world’s greatest prankster. After the brief
but memorable intro song, the story gets underway very quickly, usually
involving one of Andy’s elaborate practical jokes backfiring in some way.
Always there to lend a hand is his sidekick and best friend Danny—one of many
entertaining (and often sarcastic) side characters. There is his super annoying
sister Jen (annoying, that is, depending on your perspective and gender), his
lazy yet lovable dog Spank, and many of his fellow classmates, including the
two biggest jerks in school, resident bullies Lik and Leech, who are reminiscent
of Beavis and Butthead both in appearance and language, and Andy’s naive crush,
Lori Mackney. Andy has the ability to freeze the world around him, turning
everything but him to monochrome and allowing him to talk directly to the
audience. You may think this constant breaking of the fourth wall would get old
real fast, but it’s actually one of the funniest running gags in the show. Besides
hearing what Andy has to say, we also get to see his thoughts, which are
rendered through black and white sketches. Much like Kid Paddle, the scene transitions are quite amusing, involving the
little Andy from his imagination doing everything from swimming away from a
shark to parachuting down the screen. As a kid, I found this show hilarious,
even when the intro and many of the voices were changed for the second and
third seasons, but once the show was removed from the Teletoon lineup, there
was never anywhere I could watch it. Just recently, some brilliant soul
uploaded tons of the episodes to YouTube, allowing me to re-live part of my
youth. I expected the show to pale in comparison to how I felt about it in
grade school, but surprisingly enough, it still holds up quite well. Some of
the jokes I’m sure went over my head as a kid, and I can now see where much of
my inspiration came from as far as my early writing goes. What’s with Andy? is a gem not just among Canadian cartoons, but is
an all-time classic.
1. Fly Tales
The most enduring of the
cartoons from my childhood is surely this Canadian animated series, which
follows the misadventures of...a common house fly. The fly is ball shaped,
wears orange shoes, and makes many hilarious faces, typically involving his
eyes changing size and colour. In the rapid paced opening titles set to catchy,
thumping music, the fly is born in a garbage can from an egg (apparently
skipping the maggot larval stage) and flies away. Each episode is only five
minutes long, so the pacing is quite quick, and it was often shown in between
longer cartoons rather than as its own half hour program—although it occasionally
ran for a full half hour. The fly mumbles (I think he speaks in French), but
just like in Doodlez, dialogue is not
important. Anyone from any country who speaks any language can appreciate the
universal humour in Fly Tales. Each
episode sees the fly getting into new situations, and some of them are quite
creative and original. One of my favourites is when he gets trapped in a
gumball machine, encountering giant rolling quarters, a shifting maze of
colourful sweet gumballs, and other insects that have become trapped.
Unfortunately, I don’t know of any channel that airs reruns of this brilliant
show, but you can watch many episodes on YouTube. Even though I love this
cartoon dearly, it just isn’t as funny or entertaining as I found it on those
Saturday mornings on which I got up long before dawn to watch. Perhaps it’s
just be a bunch of oddball shorts and nowhere near as classic as Looney Tunes, but Fly Tales is unique and entertaining nonetheless, and a classic in
its own right.Fly Tales image from http://amigodan.deviantart.com/art/Fly-Tales-281058955, What's With Andy? image from http://andyonline.org/, The Weekenders image from
http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/the-weekenders/images/514927/title/weekenders-photo, Scooby-Doo image from http://popcultureandamericanchildhood.com, and 6teen image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:6teen_promo.png
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