Your favorite Western Animated series (and why?)

The Venture Brothers. The characters and the humor carry this baby straight to the top of my list. The episode that best exemplifies why I love this show so much is probably Self-Medication:

Former boy adventurer and failure super-scientist Dr. Rusty Venture interrupts his butterfly-themed archenemy's attempt to murder him by pointing out that he's late for his therapy session, which forces the nemesis to let him go as per the rules of his supervillain union.

Dr. Venture attends a group therapy session for grown up boy adventurers with a junkie Jonny Quest, schizophrenic Astro Boy, obese and jobless Robin Ersatz, and The Hardy Boys (who may have killed their own father), but a made-up snake kills their therapist in the middle of a trust exercise, leading the group first to a strip club, and then to a retired Dr. Zin in their fruitless efforts to uncover the killer.

Meanwhile, Dr. Venture's sons have gone to see not-The Return of the King with their bodyguard, an ex-supervillain and reformed pedophile named Sergeant Hatred, but keep getting into arguments with the guys in the row in front of them: their archenemy's henchmen, still in full butterfly-themed costume, who have the night off due to their attack being cancelled by the therapy session. Hatred eventually has a panic attack upon learning that not-Legolas is an eternally 13-year old androgenite and flees to the restroom, where he discovers that he's run out of the experimental drug the CIA gave him to help suppress his pedophilia, so he rushes home for more, to discover that he's completely out.

The boys catch a ride home with the henchmen, who lament that the boys walked out before the credits were over, to find that Hatred has locked himself in the panic room after getting drunk and having all his calls ignored by his ex-wife. In the midst of a mental breakdown, Hatred tells the boys to go hide where he can't see them so they'll be safe when he comes out and takes the family plane to Thailand, but the boys manage to trick him into coming out so the henchmen can shoot him full of tranquilizer darts instead.

Finally, once everything has settled down, it turns out that the henchmen dropped the snake through the air vents of the therapist's office on their way to the theater so Dr. Venture couldn't get out of their attack next week.

And all of this makes complete sense if you've been watching the show for a while. This show's devotion to continuity is simply astounding.

Also, the creators gave a shout out to this very site in the season 4 commentaries, so on the off-chance you two are reading this, thank you so, so much for this show, and all of your anal care and attention to it, and I totally think the Dark Mistress should still be called the Doctor Girlfriend like it originally was.

edited 19th Jul '12 3:15:37 AM by Wryte

If I'm in a serious mood, Batman The Animated Series.

If I'm in a silly mood, either The Simpsons or Futurama.

I'd like to add 4 more shows, Duckman, Rocko's Modern Life, Dave The Barbarian and Animal Crackers

edited 19th Jul '12 8:52:54 PM by truteal

Avatar The Last Airbender sin duda (Although Korra is starting to rival that position,and if Book 2 manages to be up the ante,...it will be better for sure)

Teen Titans. My favorite stories are always ones that can handle a wide variety of tones and genres while maintaining a consistent feel, and Teen Titans had that in spades. Likable, well-developed characters getting into over-the-top action scenes, heartbreaking character studies, and wacky, borderline surreal comedy: what's not to love?

I also gotta give props for the visual creativity put into each episode. Unlike a lot of other cartoons, they took full advantage of the fact that they were animated, filling episodes with visual gags and hyper-stylized sequences that would never work in live-action.

I'm rather fond of Phineas And Ferb, mainly because when I was younger, I was sick of watching cartoons with the main characters acting like morons or jerks. There isn't really much of this in this series (especially from the mains), and I've come to like the characters, humour style, songs, etc.

In terms of modern shows, Adventure Time With Finn And Jake, because it is wonderfully strange and strangely wonderful. As for older stuff, I adored Angry Beavers and Courage The Cowardly Dog, particularly because my fondness for MST3K allowed me an "in" on some of the more out-there B-movie jokes.

Clerks animated. It just hits so many sweet spots.

@Odd1 Yes, the Geodude line was an actual line in the show

I'm going to add some honorable mentions:

• Edd, Ed, and Eddy
• Pepper Ann
• Recess
• My Little Pony; Friendship is Magic
• Sonic X

Sonic X is an anime.

I really need to rewatch the show and keep on the lookout for that line

edited 26th Jul '12 11:21:52 AM by 0dd1

Sonic X was made in japan.

it also sucked.

I totally thought that Sonic X was an American commissioned show. I mean yes, it's anime styled, but wasn't it actually an American based show?

Maybe not. I'll go look it up.

Nope, it was Japan-made and conceived, I believe.

Oh come now, it was mostly just average, not that bad.

I think it might be TRON: Uprising. I mean, have you guys seen this show? It's amazing!

Season one was horrid. 2 was better but pretty much ruined by Chris. 3 was actually not that bad.

While I still hold that Freds Head is my favourite, Gravity Falls is easily my second favourite and pretty close to overtaking Freds Head. The characters are fun and interesting, the show is really funny, and the animation is just gorgeous. Also, the theme song is beautiful.

I was always fond of Eek The Cat as a kid, but looking back on it now, I appreciate it even more just noticing all sorts of jokes and references I didn't get when I was younger. And the entire show is just mind-numbingly bizarre in a good way, and I don't think there will ever be another cartoon like it.

I have a bunch of favorites right now. Avatar/Korra, Young Justice, MLP:Fi M, Gravity Falls, TRON Uprising, Motorcity, Adventure Time and Regular show, I could go on, but these are the ones currently airing that I like. But, as you can tell from my icon, my most favorite is Thunder Cats. I know it doesn't have the best writing, but I like it for the risks it takes. It does things I don't see often in other shows.

I like that Lion-O isn't simply the Chosen One, he's also a king and has to actually learn how to be an effective leader. I like the dynamic between him and Tygra and how they're such good foils to each other. I like that he doesn't hook up with the female lead too, and has to learn to deal with rejection. I also really liked Lion-O's interactions with Pumyra, since she really tested his leadership.

It also helps that the designs and animation looks really good at times, which makes up for some of the lackluster fight scenes.

Sonic X is a Japanese anime, but it was saved somewhat by higher ratings in the West, granting it another season (kinda ironic how much the American dub butchered it). It was also animated by TMS, who admitedly have been making exported animation for hundreds of western shows.

X is pretty much on par with the other Sonic cartoons really, while it diverses somewhat from the games, it concept isn't bad in it's own right and it does have some good points, it's just ruined by rather half hearted execution and it's tendency to forget it's even about Sonic.

As far as older shows go, my favorites are Batman The Animated Series, Hey Arnold, Sponge Bob Square Pants, and Codename Kids Next Door.

Batman is a bit of a cliche choice, but it is a really good show. It can be cheesy at times, but it definitely makes up for it in its art direction and characterization.

Of all the children's shows I've seen, I would say that Hey Arnold has the best written I found myself really getting into this show's characters, short of Arnold himself. That's no small feat, too, since I tend to loathe slice of life works.

SpongeBob gets a pass for how incredibly funny it was during its second and third seasons. I like the first and fourth seasons as well, but I recognize that they can't hold a candle to what was sandwiched in between.

I won't lie, Kids Next Door is the oddball among these, since it's not generally seen as one of the all-time greats. However, when I look at this show, I think to myself, "If this gave its audience anything more that it wanted, it would probably be on Adult Swim instead." That, and the show had some surprisingly creative world-building.

Of shows that are currently in their first run, I would say that Gravity Falls is my favorite, followed by Friendship is Magic and Regular Show. Also, while I haven't seen that much of Green Lantern or Korra (four and two episodes, respectively), I really like what I've seen so far.

edited 27th Jul '12 12:56:25 PM by BaronofBarons