Top 10 Cartoon Series of All Time

10. Tom & Jerry

Best Episode: Episode 13: The Zoot Cat

This one holds a deep place in my heart. My favorite childhood stuffed animal was a Jerry. The first book I remember my mom giving me was a big, hardcover coffee table book about the show. The mashups of action and classical music are still unique and entertaining to this day.

9. The Flintstones

Best Episode: Season 1, Episode 25: In the Dough

If anyone ever asks you what the first cartoon marketed to adults was, the answer is The Flintstones. They were sponsored by a tobacco company, and regularly appeared in cigarette commercials, which you can still find on YouTube. What made the cartoon truly great were all of the “old fashioned” gadgets that were made up by the dinosaurs, and they’d always zoom in on the dinosaur and he’d go “You think your job stinks” and there’d be a trombone sound in the background. A simple formula, but comic gold.

8. Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Best Episode: Season 4, Episode 6: Party All the Time

This is probably pound for pound the least famous, and least popular cartoon on the list, but it has a devout cult following. It takes place in New Jersey, where three Detectives (though the show has pretty much abandoned that angle) are living as roommates. Of course, the main characters are Frylock, a floating box of french fries, Master Shake, a five foot tall milkshake, and Meatwad, a small ball of meat that can transform into an igloo and hot dog shape. For me, what makes it great is its originality, and the outlandish nature of the plots and casts of characters. My favorite character is definitely Carl, who’s deadpan voice and misanthropic nature lend itself to some classic lines (“I put two and two together and decided you’re pissing me off.”) Not to mention his love of sleezy women and 80s Metal (such as Foreigner). Plus the show has had some fantastic guest stars, namely Andrew W.K. and Danzig.

7. Family Guy

Best Episode: Season 2, Episode 14: Let’s Go to the Hop

Okay, let’s make this clear. I don’t find this show funny at all anymore, and most of this information and commentary will be me talking shit. Like The Flintstones, it relies heavily on a formula, namely setting up disconnected flashbacks often based around puns or “the last time we...”. One of the things that made it unique in the beginning were the musical numbers, but I think the show is relying on those too much now, too. Don’t get me wrong. Prom Night Dumpster Baby is fucking funny as Hell. But after watching a few episodes the formula of story telling can be tiring. That aside, there are some points that are just chest burstingly hilarious, such as any moment where Adam West is doing anything, which earn it a spot on the list.

6. Fairly OddParents

Best Episode: Season 2, Episode 22: Cosmo Con / Wanda’s Day Off!

I’ll give you a clue. Spongebob Squarepants is not on this list. And the reason is that Fairly OddParents is so much funnier, but lacks the cutesy pajama pants at Target, etc. The cartoon subscribes to the Shrek formula, which is content that children of a range of ages can enjoy, as well as references that adults can laugh at, too. Recently they’ve added new characters and the show has started to go off, but if I’m surfing the channel I’ll always stop on this show. The show has a dynamite cast of supporting characters, including Ben Stein as the business-all-the-time Pixies, and Kris Kirpatrick as Chip Skylark, the famous boy-band superstar who’s always singing about teeth and dental hygiene. Adam West is also featured in this show as Catman, who is just ridiculous.

5. South Park

Best Episode: Season 5, Episode 1: Scott Tenorman Must Die

Johnny Cash Syndrome. That’s South Park in three words. Yes, the Scott Tenormen episode will make you pee your pants. Yes, they’ve had some classic episodes. But, South Park is really hit or miss, which has unfortunately limited its ceiling. And lately the show has basically just begun parodying whatever is in the news and adding crude jokes to go along with the story. The episodes that parodied Family Guy truly were genius, and the first few seasons are classic, but I feel like it’s taken a huge step down in the past few years, which is too bad.

4. Rugrats

Best Episode: Season 1, Episode 11: Touchdown Tommy

Another classic Nickelodeon show. The best episode: the Super Bowl one where one of the babies gets a bottle of chocolate milk, and they all start fighting over it, and the action in the pen mimics the action in the Super Bowl, with the play-by-play from the game being broadcast over the babies struggle to keep their bottle. I know that in the end they started to add characters and the show generally became shitty, but in general the characters were well developed, including the parents. It always struck me odd that Tommy was such a MacGuyver-esque genius, yet his father Stu, a toy inventor, couldn’t invent his way out of a wet paper bag.

3. Futurama

Best Episode: Season 2, Episode 4: Fry and the Slurm Factory

This was cancelled way before it’s prime. Similar to Arrested Development, Futurama was brilliant but couldn’t muster the ratings and revenue to keep it on TV. In the wake of its demise almost every episode has become a classic. Like the Flintstones and the Jetsons before it, Futurama got mileage out of taking modern inconveniences and putting them in a different time. Add in the space travel, stream of minor characters that filled different niches, and really I could watch this show all day.

2. Rocko’s Modern Life

Best Episode: Season 1, Episode 6: Trash-O-Madness

The third Nickelodeon cartoon on this list, and far and away the best. I watch these episodes even today, as a 21 year old, and can’t believe this was every marketed to children. So many of the jokes and concepts were really over my head as a kid, but the cartoon was done so well that I didn’t even notice, and still loved the show. It contained a lot of commentary on modern society, especially consumerism, and the animation seemed to be bad on purpose. In fact, the cartoon contained no parallel lines. The writing was chocked full of double entendres and sexual innuendos, and I recently read that a lot of the jokes have been edited in rebroadcast, which is a shame.

1. The Simpsons

Best Episode: All of Season 8

You can’t beat The Simpsons. It might not be the original, but after 20+ years it’s still going strong, and has dozens of classic episodes that even casual fans can recount years later. The Simpsons are to cartoons and television in general as The Beatles are to rock ‘n roll. I don’t care who you are, you know there are at least five episodes you love. And the fact that some of those might come from Season 8, Season 10, Season 13 is more impressive than people realize. People knock The Simpsons for “not being funny for years”, which I disagree with in general, though I can admit there is a time, roughly around Season 14 that the writing generally declines. That being said, The Simpsons still turned out 13 seasons of absolutely amazing episodes. Hundreds of great guest stars, every plot twist imaginable and then some, and catch phrases and characters that never grow old. The Simpsons is plain and simple a powerhouse. Most of the cartoons on this list that came after The Simpsons started stole/borrowed ideas, concepts, techniques, or plots from them. I could write for pages on the brilliance of The Simpsons and their timeless genius, but I’ll keep myself from rambling.