The cartoon is indeed a wonderful thing. Once mostly deemed to be the territory of a kids-only audience, the world of animation has evolved over the years so as to appeal to adults as well as children or is it just that many adults these days have the minds of children? Don't ask us, for if there's one thing that the IGN editors can claim to be, it's kids trapped in the bodies of adults. And so it goes without saying that we sure do love us some cartoons.
And in particular, television has proven to be a hugely important part of our toon-development, starting from our earliest days with the Saturday morning and after-school shows and continuing right on to today with the more mature Adult Swim offerings and the like. In fact, as we prepped for this story and looked back at our many favorite animated series from over the years, we were amazed by the diversity of the shows that we came up with.
From classic tales of cats chasing mice to the legend of a Dark Knight avenger patrolling the streets of a place called Gotham, from incompetent alien invaders to incompetent nuclear families, from stories of the future to sagas of the past, IGN's Top 100 Animated Series has it all. So put away your ink and paint for a while and have a look at this list. You might just find yourself animated by it. The success of the animated Archie Show was big, as it extended into music with The Archies hit song 'Sugar, Sugar.' This led to another Archie Comic coming to television with Josie and the Pussycats, which took pre-existing Archie Comics universe character Josie and put her into a new scenario as she formed a band - the comic book character also reflected the change, in a bit of synergy. Hanna-Barbera produced Josieand it's an amusing show for how it so specifically combined elements from the success of The Archie Show and Hanna-Barbera's own Scooby-Doo, as Josie and her friends not only played music together, but inadvertently stumbled into mysteries they would ultimately help solve. Despite only running for 16 episodes (not counting the amusing spin-off/continuation Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space), frequent repeats, the spunky characters and a great theme song kept Josie in the public consciousness for years to come, ultimately leading to an underrated film version in 2001.
Fast forward nearly 20 years and Heavy Metal 2000 came out. A feature-length animated film rather than an anthology, it followed Julie and her quest to save her sister from the evil Tyler. If Heavy Metal 2000 Movie is not working, please select a new video tab or reload the page.
One of the more popular cartoon/toy marketing machines of the Eighties was M.A.S.K., the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand (yes, command with a 'K', that's what happens when you have to make an acronym fit into your story concept). The show was a weird kind of G.I.
Joe- Transformers hybrid, but it managed to combine the best elements of those franchises while adopting few of their flaws. But what really set it apart was the namesake of the show - the super-powered masks the characters wore. The masks provided the ethnically-diverse-yet-stereotypical cast with abilities like anti-gravity, flight, and energy beams.
Matt Trakker was the ruggedly handsome, rich, charismatic lead of the show. His pimp ride was a red Chevrolet Camaro G3 that transformed into a gull-winged fighter plane. His son Scott and his friend/pet robot T-Bob provided some comic relief. And since Scott was always upgrading his expensive buddy, he provided plenty of validation for the little boys who would grow up to be today's tech geeks and robot nerds.
But one of the more notable aspects of the show was the fact that it showed a single dad taking care of his only son while fighting the forces of evil. In some ways this is the Firefly of animated series - aired out of order and then quickly discarded by a network that didn't feel it fit with their programming. Only six episodes were produced, and only two of them aired, but there was a lot of very funny material in Kevin Smith's adaptation of his own film. A rather brilliant second episode parodied that old television staple, with the characters trapped together, reminiscing on past events - only here, with only one episode having been produced, all of their memories are of that previous week's events. Before things get really hysterical and surreal. Starring the entire main cast of the Clerks films, not to mention Alec Baldwin as the Lex Luthorish Leonardo Leonardo, Clerks was able to do a lot more broad comedy and parodies than the films, with episodes evoking everything from Fast Times at Ridgemont High to the unfortunate results of a Transformer transforming with a person inside him. Like many of the shows represented on our Top 100, The Smurfs is a cartoon we here at IGN grew up with, and as such it holds a special place in our memories.
Based on a Belgian comic strip, the tiny blue-skinned Smurfs became an unstoppable media empire with this popular 1980s Hanna-Barbera animated series. The animation itself wasn't much to speak of, but the stories told over the course of its 256 episodes were kiddie cocaine to those of us who grew up in the '80s. The peaceful Smurfs, led by Papa Smurf and predominantly male (with the sole exception of Smurfette), were often chased by the evil wizard Gargamel and his cat Azrael. Watching the series as an adult, one can't help but sympathize a little bit with the Smurf-hating Gargamel - the constantly upbeat and overly saccharine attitudes of most of the Smurfs, mixed with whininess and an extreme overuse of the word 'smurf' by everyone, makes you start to root for the poor, bumbling wizard who just wants to make some nice Smurf stew.
Lots of live-action TV series have gotten cartoons over the years - Gilligan's Island, Happy Days, even The Dukes of Hazzard! - but rarely have such hand-drawn variations been so successful in conveying the spirit of their forbearers.
Running for two seasons (from 1973 to 1974) on NBC, these Star Trek half-hour adventures are seen by many fans as the lost fourth year of Captain Kirk and crew's legendary five-year mission. Featuring animation by Filmation, the show didn't typically excel visually - cartoons proved to most definitely not be the final frontier for the Enterprise. But the world of animation did offer the Star Trek writers the chance to portray things they could never do on a live-action budget at the time - from three-armed crew members to new and exciting alien worlds. Most importantly, many of the writers of the original show returned here, from D.
Fontana to Samuel A. Peeples to Gene Roddenberry himself. That fidelity to the 1960s show, plus the inclusion of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and most of the other actors (or their voices anyway), led to Star Trek: The Animated Series becoming one of the most interesting, if under-viewed, shows in all of the Trekfranchise. Although it's mostly an upbeat story with amazing action scenes, Fullmetal Alchemistscores big points for touching on many aspects of the human condition. The main characters are the Elric brothers, Ed and Al.
Ed is the famous Fullmetal Alchemist who almost lost his little brother Al in an accident that occurred when the boys tried to resurrect their dead mother using alchemy. Edward managed to contain his brother's soul in a suit of armor.
While he did manage to save his brother's life, he had to pay a great price himself. To get back what they lost, the brothers embark on a journey to find the legendary Philosopher's Stone. This story doesn't pull any punches. Right from the first few episodes we're presented with the topics of death, lost hope, and betrayal.
The real emotional engine of the series is the relationship between Ed and Al, as the two boys go through turmoil that no one of any age should have to deal with. By the end of this series you just want to give them both a hug and tell them everything will be okay.
FMA is one of those special anime that became more than a mere animated show; it was a powerful weekly drama.