#Top cats cartoon network tv

What a wonderful kind of day it has been, thanks to 21 seasons (and counting!) of America’s favorite aardvark. (One of the essential joys of animation is the wide age range it can appeal to, from very young children to geeky adults-and often, the best stuff does both.)

And their protagonists range, too: from adventurous adolescent boys and cynical teenage girls to washed-up fiftysomethings and bored office workers. Their animation styles range from quick-turnaround cutouts to lavish, evocative landscapes.

Some are joke-heavy others are operatic, nearly silent odysseys.

Several of the shows we’ve featured do borrow from Japanese anime in style and tone hand-drawn Korean animation has also been the industry standard for shows developed in America since the 70s.īeyond that criteria, our final picks run the gamut. Our final list includes only shows developed in the English language-partly to keep its size manageable, and partly because Japanese anime is often altered, dumbed-down, or just poorly translated for overseas audiences (as are other popular cartoons in other languages). We are in a moment replete with animated gems-but these are the 30 best of all, the shows that have reached the greatest heights since The Simpsons debuted 30 seasons ago. Even the stuff ostensibly meant for children has gotten vastly more refined, moving light years ahead of the cheesy glorified toy commercials and lame slapstick of earlier eras. Studios under the auspices of MTV, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney, and now even Netflix have offered opportunities to a wide range of voices and styles. Thanks to The Simpsons, social satire, psychological depth, the horror of adulthood, and the frustrations of intimacy all became fair game for animators. Perhaps its greatest legacy, then, is that since The Simpsons debuted, English-language animation has grown by leaps and bounds, using freedom offered by the medium to craft increasingly sophisticated series. Though The Simpsons has soldiered on for nearly three decades, its current incarnation-which launches its 30th season September 30-bears only a cursory resemblance to the show at its creative peak (Seasons 2 through 8 or 10, depending on who you ask). (The best Simpsons bits somehow manage to be all of those things at the very same time.) Most of all, though, the show proved what televised animation was capable of-that it could be cosmopolitan and subversive and topical, that it was the perfect canvas for everything from deeply felt character work and incisive commentary to brilliantly dumb jokes. Then came The Simpsons, which revolutionized television in innumerable well-documented ways. theatrical shorts, were packaged as entertainment for kids when they started airing on TV, despite all those knowing winks from Bugs Bunny and the social commentary sandwiched into each segment’s inventive visual gags. ( The Flintstones may be a cultural touchstone, but it makes for a terrible viewing experience.) Even the best stuff often couldn’t escape the taint associated with the genre Looney Tunes, the classic Warner Bros. Disney’s work was art televised animation was broad, cheaply produced, and mostly aimed at an indifferent, younger audience.

#Top cats cartoon network tv

The painterly style of Walt Disney’s feature films introduced animation to generations of viewers-but for decades, the cartoons that aired on American TV were a lot dumber and sloppier than their big-screen counterparts.