If you like some freakin' Ponies, you'll love...

[MochaBean]

Tokyo Godfathers is great. Very funny and heartwarming, and sentimental without being saccharine. It has some surprisingly heavy themes for an anime, but you'd expect no less from Satoshi Kon.

I really miss that guy. Along with Miyazaki, he was one of the few anime directors (in my opinion) who could create stuff with genuine emotional and philosophical depth.

[Lazy]

Paprika's pretty neat too. Haven't seen the others.

[capfalcon]

Although it was mentioned earlier as doing some pretty heavy stuff, Teen Titans is also hold the record for the only show to make me at laugh for a solid half hour.

I speak, of course, of "Episode 257-494 (a.k.a. Don't Touch That Dial)." The Titans follow their nemesis Control Freak into the TV land in order to... oh, who cares? It's a half hour of pop culture jokes and references, a battle in the land where its survival of the nerdiest.

[diribigalNeither dirigible nor dirigibal.]

I imagine Avatar (the animation) was brought up in this thread. There's a spinoff/continuation type show called The Legend of Korra coming out semi-soon.

Legend of Korra looks like it's gonna be really cool.

I'm glad Nick is getting The Legend of Korra in the fall, because only the Avatar series and have been worth my time in the past 5 years...

The first episode (as a sort of preview) is legally available to those in the US here.

[ROBOT B9I am just about to be BRILLIANT!]

I'm not sure if it's as big in the states as it is here, but if any of you want to see another hilarious cartoon that also gives pretty good life lessons, you should check out DORAEMON: EL GATO COSMICO.
The plot is pretty simple. Doraemon, the titular space-cat from THE YEAR 5000 comes to Earth to help out a young kid, Nobita and teach him lessons with his magical pouch filled with all sorts of inventions from his era.
It's a Japanese cartoon that's been running on television since 1977 and is still going strong.

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

I remember "Doraemon" quite well. Used to watch it as a kid living in Japan.

It was revamped few years ago with new animation style and new voice cast.

[ROBOT B9I am just about to be BRILLIANT!]

Heh, we still have the same voice cast from the 70's here. The new episodes are playing on Boing almost every single day.

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

On a whim, I've been looking at Hanna-Barbera. I've never been a fan of their stuff (make no mistake, they made alot of shitty cartoons), but there's no doubt that the early stuff has some charm.

One of their early hits was "Huckleberry Hound", which premiered in 1958. You may not believe it, but the show was a big hit when it came out. It was VERY popular with adults, and many newspaper articles published touted it when it aired. Hmmmm, that sounds familiar, right?

I'll admit that I like "Top Cat". The voice acting is great, especially Arnold Stang, and the character dynamics were brilliant. It was one of the early prime-time cartoons, premiering after the success of "The Flintstones".

But in spite of the nostalgia, I can't really see myself as a huge fan of the studio. Most of their stuff were either bland or just plain unwatchable. I won't fault the studio for limited animation; it's a necessary evil, but I don't think that's an excuse. There are a ton of cheapo cartoons that I love, such as Bullwinkle, Pink Panther, and a certain show about colorful ponies.

But that's just what I think. What's your opinion on the studio's outputs?

[ROBOT B9I am just about to be BRILLIANT!]

The first 3 seasons of The Flintstones are absolutely hilarious.
For some reason, I could never get into Scooby Doo or any of it's spinoffs. It just never clicked with me.
Without a doubt, HB were at its worst in the 1970's with Superfriends (THE WONDER TWINS ARGHGHGHGHGHGG ), it's countless Scooby knockoffs (the worst being Jabberjaw, a shark that sounded like Curly Howard) and it's increasingly tiny budget meaning that animation reuse was epidemic.

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

Thanks, ROBOT B9. Now I have that stupid theme song in my head. They call him jab-jab-jab-jab-jab-jab-jab Jabberjaw!

Although I think the true bottom-of-the-barrel is "Speed Buggy", about a talking dune-buggy (voiced by Mel Blanc) and a group of teenagers solving mysteries.

Click here to view video.

[ROBOT B9I am just about to be BRILLIANT!]

Oh dear God. I remember watching that when it was on Boomerang.
What kind of a creative process did HB have to get that idea?

"Hey, those Herbie The Love Bug movies are a smash hit with the kids these days. Why don't we turn Herbie into a Dune Buggy, make him talk, get Mel Blanc to do an annoying voice and have Not-Shaggy, Not-Fred and Not-Daphine solve mysteries with him?"
"GENIUS!"

[Daionus The 23rd:3]

When I was a kid, HB cartoons were among the cartoons I would only watch if there was literally nothing else on.

[Opposing FarceDon't you smile at my faceSpit on my backDo you kiss your mother with a mouth like that?]

I was a big fan of Scooby-Doo for a while as a kid, but even from a young age I could kind of see the strings and to be honest I think I only liked it because I liked anything that was nominally about mysteries.

I tried watching stuff like The Flintstones or The Flintstones in Space from time to time, 'cause as a kid I figured "hey, it's old and really famous, so it must be good," but even at the time I think I found them really dull and not funny at all, even if I wasn't thinking critically enough to actually realize as much.

[RagnarWhat's older? Unicorns, or stars?]

When I was little, my two passions in life were Sailor Moon and pretending I didn't love Sailor moon.

e: But I had like 20 hours of old cartoons on VHS tapes. Mostly Looney Tunes. I lead a charmed life.

e2: My excuse is that it's 2 in the morning. The closest I can get to being on topic is to say that I remember hating the plot to Scooby Doo. A million episodes, one plot. Several of the same lines. I don't know how I reconciled this with the way I felt about Sailor Moon, which is pretty much the same.

[ROBOT B9I am just about to be BRILLIANT!]

When I was little, my two passions in life were Sailor Moon and pretending I didn't love Sailor moon.

I grew up a little too late to catch the Sailor Moon boat so I watched Pokèmon instead. The best episode was the one where they had the Magikarp professor Quincy Q. Quackenpoker- an entire 22 minutes of a Groucho Marx impersonator being witty and doing cool things.

[AramekYour MRI results have shown total infection to now be approximately one fifth of the full mass of the tissue."So you're saying..."Your brain is about 20% tumor.]

I haven't seen the show in years, but, when I was little, my favourite episodes were the Team Rocket heavy ones. James was my favourite character (and I can do a pretty passable impersonation as well) and their antics were always way more fun. I remember an episode that didn't even have the rest of them in it. Like, Team Rocket were waiting in a town or something waiting for Ash and co to show, and while waiting, they defended the town from attack and were hailed as heroes. They hated it.

Or when we found out about James' wealthy family.
"So you're..."
"Loaded...yes."

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

Here's another Scooby-Doo knock off, "The Funky Phantom". It had a ghost of a patriot from Revolutionary War (who talks like Snagglepuss) and his cat. Nothing notable except that it was the first show Hanna-Barbera made at their facility in Sydney, Australia.

Click here to view video.

[ROBOT B9I am just about to be BRILLIANT!]

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!

[Headless Horse]

ENDUT!
HOCH HECH!

[Opposing FarceDon't you smile at my faceSpit on my backDo you kiss your mother with a mouth like that?]

Man, Scooby-Doo must have made fuckin' bank for all of the spin-offs and incredibly thinly-veiled knock-offs they made based on it. At some point it almost starts to seem like self-parody.

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

To those who grew up in the '80s/'90s, do you remember watching "Count Duckula"? It's a British show produced by Cosgrove-Hall. It aired on ITV (in UK) and Nickelodeon (in US).

I never grew up with it, but it's enjoyable from what I've seen. The layouts are great, and I just love the character designs.

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

[VoodooTikiALL the gems.]

YES!
One of my all-time favorites, very clever writing and terrific voice acting. They even parodied Fawlty Towers in one ep! My sister and I still quote it at each other.

[kefkafloyd]

Loved both Duckula and Danger Mouse, though Danger Mouse had a lot of limited animation that I never noticed as a kid, but now as an adult...

David Jason does both the voices of Danger Mouse and Duckula. Dude's got range.

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

Oh yeah, Danger Mouse is pretty cool, even with the cheap animation.

Click here to view video.

[Momar]

WHAT THE FUNK WAS THAT?!

Fixed that for you.

Click here to view video.

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

Anyone remember "Super Chicken"? It was part of "George of the Jungle", but I think this was the funniest part of the show:

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

And here's a little obscure show from the same producers that made it. "Hoppity Hooper" followed the same cliffhanger format as "Rocky and Bullwinkle". However the gags had to be toned down because the sponsors explicitly said that this show had to be aimed at children. Nontheless, it's still very funny, and the voice acting is superb. Here are the first four episodes.

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

[Headless Horse]

Looks like the genesis of the Nelvana Droopnose.

[VoodooTikiALL the gems.]

Looks like the genesis of the Nelvana Droopnose.

That is a design quirk that always freaked me out a little.

[NisslMarching bravely into a bold new pony future]

I enjoyed watching those shows, Mr. Big. I hope you'll post that Crusader Rabbit you PMed me on here too. That's not something you'd exactly recommend, but it was fascinating.

Anyway, I just checked out two anime shows that were getting a lot of hype before the season. Both won awards as manga titles last year.

Kids on the Slope/Sakamichi no Apollon brings back together the director and composer from Cowboy Bebop to tell a story of a 1960's high school student who moves to a new school in distant Kyushu and discovers the wonders of jazz. I never thought I'd want to watch high school students learning and growing together, but I'm pretty sure this is going to be the one to do it despite a few cliches. Beautifully done so far.

Click here to view video.

Legal stream on CrunchyRoll begins next week for non-subscribers.

Space Brothers/Uchuu Kyoudai tells a story of two brothers, both with a dream of going to space, the older one always bested by the younger one. Nice characters, some pretty funny bits. Apparently they will eventually get a pug into space.

Trailers and legal stream (watch ads or subscribe) on CrunchyRoll.

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

Since Nissl brought it up, I guess I'll post "Crusader Rabbit".

"Crusader" has the distinct honor of being the first cartoon made exclusively for television. Production began in 1948-49, but it didn't debut on television until August 1, 1950, on a Los Angeles TV station. Ultimately it was syndicated to over 200 stations. It was supposed to be shown on a network, but NBC decided to syndicate it to their affiliates instead.

It was created and produced by Jay Ward and Alex Anderson through their Television Arts Productions studio in Berkeley, California. Since neither men had experience in television at the time they signed with TV executive Jerry Fairbanks to represent them. The cartoons were produced with extremely low budget. There were barely any animation, relying instead on the voice tracks and beautifully drawn stills to tell the story.

Voices were Lucille Bliss as Crusader (she would later voice Smurfette and the teacher in "Invader Zim"), Vern Louden as Rags Tiger, and Roy Whaley as the narrator.

Things got a bit ugly, however. Ward and Alexander fought suit against Fairbanks over who owns the rights to the show. As it turns out Fairbanks sold it to an executive named Shull Bonsall. He owned an animation studio called TV Spots and decided to produce new episodes of "Crusader" in color through it. Bonsall intimidated Ward and Anderson into selling their studio to him, and any and all rights to the Rabbit.

Thus the color episodes were made in 1957. All the voices stayed except Lucille Bliss, who was replaced by GeGe Pearson. Here's the sad story of what Bonsall did to Lucille Bliss's career.

Alex Anderson decided he had enough of animation and went to work in advertising; he died in 2010 at the age of 90. Jay Ward, however, decided not to give up and sold a little show called "Rocky and Bullwinkle"; the rest is history.

Here are some samples

1950 SERIES
Produced by Television Arts Production
195 episodes (10 storylines serialized into cliffhangers)

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

1957 SERIES
Produced by Capitol Enterprises and TV Spots
260 episodes (13 storylines serialized into cliffhangers; it was later re-edited into 13 one-hour "movies" for TV)

Click here to view video.

[ROBOT B9I am just about to be BRILLIANT!]

Cool, I've always liked reading about animation history (I've got several biographies of Walt Disney, something about that man facinates me...)

It's not a cartoon & has nothing to do with ponies but I got to recommend that everyone watchs The Phil Silvers Show at least once in their life. (The best episode is the "Harry Speakup" one.)

[Pocketis she just gonna go booty booty]

I look at those pictures of Crusader Rabbit and all I can think of is that green rabbit that's on those stupid new Hallmark cards and has a voice like a South Park character.

[stonecutterOne-trick Pony]

Don't know where exactly this should go, so I'll post it here.

Click here to view video.

The cast from Spongebob Squarepants redub scenes from 'Casablanca', 'Singin' In the Rain', and 'The Godfather'.

Reminds me a lot of Fractured Flickers or Mad Movies.

[Daionus The 23rd:3]

Then you might also like this:

Click here to view video.

[NisslMarching bravely into a bold new pony future]

I don't *think* I've seen this. I checked out Ruby Gloom after a seeing a tweet from a father hoping it would be the methadone for his daughter's pony heroin. Pretty good, one of the best animated shows for girls I've seen. Apparently it's an adaptation from a goth-targeted clothing line, with the result being Addams family for pre-teens. Given all the jokes about death, though, I would say the audience skews a bit older than pony.

Click here to view video.

The animation is nice if occasionally stiff, the art is stylized and nicely consistent with some really cool backgrounds. The staff is having a bit of fun with the setting, and like pony there's a remarkably high level of slapstick. The main character is likable and has a good level of energy to carry the whole thing, and her cat and the crazy raven who live in the house are both entertaining. If there's a weakness to the show, it's that the other kids don't have that much to them. Misery is the depressed, luckless punching bag, and hearing a monotone "ow" out of her to finish jokes gets old pretty fast. Same with the athletic cyclops girl; I probably saw more depth perception jokes in the few episodes I watched than all of Futurama. And like virtually every kid's show, there doesn't seem to be much of a broader setting, progression, or real backstory to these characters. Still, it's a reasonably engaging watch.

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

Anyone checked out "Gravity Falls" on Disney? The first episode is on iTunes for free.

Anyway, I loved it. Even though it's on Disney the style and content is much more in-tune to Cartoon Network shows. The creator worked on "Flapjack" and it shows.

[BobinatorGreedin' ain't easy.]

I know this is a show from 2004 and all, but it's such a good show in my opinion, that I'd say it totally belongs here. Anybody remember the Duck Dodgers reboot? I honestly thought it was a really entertaining show, and probably the closest thing we'll ever get to a modern Animaniacs. (Don't even get me started on the Looney Toons Show, all that basically is is a sitcom in fursuits.) The major difference is that there's actually something resembling an antagonist, instead of the whole "This guy is douche, so let's annoy him as much as possible" thing they did in Animaniacs. Not a very competent antagonist, mind you, but still.

Oh yeah, they did an episode entirely about making fun of Samurai Jack, starting at 9:23 of this video.

Click here to view video.

With a guest role by the actual guy who made Samurai Jack. Not sure how that works.

[AramekYour MRI results have shown total infection to now be approximately one fifth of the full mass of the tissue."So you're saying..."Your brain is about 20% tumor.]

The fact they got Sir Thomas John Woodward to do the theme song, in my mind, firmly cements it as my favourite cartoon into.

[BartonFink]

The fact they got Sir Thomas John Woodward to do the theme song, in my mind, firmly cements it as my favourite cartoon into.

Not only that, but arranged by The Flaming Lips. This deserves an audio aide.

Click here to view video.

Of the various Looney Tune reboots, I thought Duck Dodgers was one of the better ones (though I haven't seen it since originally watching it when it came out).

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

Does anyone remember "Oggy and the Cockroaches"?

It's basically a modern take on chase cartoons (Tom and Jerry, Sylvester and Tweety, Herman and Katnip, etc.). Oggy is a fat blue cat who is constantly bombarded by three sadistic cockroaches, Joey, Marky, and DeeDee. It's very slapstick heavy, and all the gags are visual since none of the characters talk (except gibberish).

It's a French cartoon, but, again, no dialogues. Because no dubbing is necessary it was exported everywhere.

1st season aired in 1998 with 78 cartoons (26 half-hours). Another 78 (26 half-hours) were made for season 2 in 1999. After that it laid dormant until its revival in 2008 when additional 39 cartoons (13 half-hours) were made. It was revived again when it was announced that more episodes will be made this year for the international market.

The first season aired in USA on Fox Kids back in 1998. In 1999 they moved to Fox Family, before it became ABC Family. I also saw it in Japan on their Cartoon Network station, which also aired season 2, which never made it to the 'States.

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

I think what makes this one of the better chase cartoons is that there's no clear "good guys" vs "bad guys". Both Oggy and the cockroaches suffer as much slapstick equally, and they can be winners or losers in the end. Sometimes neither wins.