Geek Cast Radio Network's Top 100 Animated Series Countdown

My opinions on #60-41:

Happy to see Tick make the list. It wasn't the best of all time, but I thought it was an overall great show and I'm happy with it's placing here. I agree that this is the perfect place for it in a list like this. IGN's placing of it was a bit ridiculous. :P

I've only heard of and seen clips of She-Ra, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't belong on this list. At least not this high up in my opinion.

I could see how Sailor Moon would make the list. It WAS one of the most significant shows to bring anime to America AND is pretty much the quintessential Magical Girl-type show in many people's minds. I think it might stand to be placed a little lower, but I'm fine with it being on the list.

Heck, yes! Freakazoid! This DEFINITELY deserves a spot on the list. It's one of the more forgotten 90's WB cartoons, but it's arguably one of the best. I think it should probably be placed a bit higher, though.

WOOOO! Spectacular Spider-Man made the list! No complaints on this one other than it should be rated higher. ;)

I've never been incredibly fond of it, but I can see why Pink Panther deserves to be on the list. It's one of the all-time classics of animation. It might stand to be a bit higher, but I have no complaints.

I've never really watched Voltron, but I've heard of it and have watched clips. I've heard that it's a good show, but I'd probably rank some of the other choices above it.

Since Popeye is a classic, it definitely deserves a spot on this list. I do agree that it should be rated a bit higher, though.

While I could see why The Smurfs would be on the list, I probably wouldn't place it this high.

REALLY glad to see TMNT 2k3 on the list. Though I would probably put it a bit higher on the list and closer to the 80's version. I definitely agree that this show would be popular even if the 80's show never existed. It's THAT good. I also agree that it's a crying shame that IGN didn't even MENTION this show in their Top 100. You can't find any better proof than that that their list wasn't very good. You guys made a good call by placing this so high. :)

Also glad to see Masters of the Universe 200X on here. It's a very well done and well written reimagining of something from the 80's with very little story that strove mostly to sell toys. Though I would probably rank TMNT 2k3 higher and put it above the 80's MoTU. It's a shame it never got a proper ending. I hope CN treats Thundercats better. I STILL need to finish watching my complete series box set of this show. :)

I've seen a few episodes of Clone Wars. I enjoyed what I saw and have no problems with it's placing.

I could definitely see Yogi Bear making the list. I'd rank it a little bit higher, though.

No problems with Superman: The Animated Series making the list. I would rank it a tad bit higher, though.

I'd probably rank Rugrats a lot lower than PPG, TSSM, and TMNT 2k3. It's decent show, but not as good as those.

Jetsons making the list was expected. I'd probably rank it a bit lower, but I'm fine with it's placing. I will join him in loving Jetsons meet The Flintstones, though.

It's been a while since I've last watched Muppet Babies, but I remember it being a good show for it's simple premise, so I'm fine with it being on the list.

REALLY glad to see Spongebob make the list. It's one of my favorite cartoons of all time. In my opinion, it should be in at least the Top 30, though.

I've never seen MASK, but it seems like another of those 80's toyetic cartoons that doesn't deserve to be on the list and definitely doesn't deserve to be in the Top 50.

I could definitely see why King of the Hill would make the list, but I just don't care for it personally.

Overall, a much better and more worthy selection of shows than a couple of the choices from past episodes. Looking forward to more! :)
 
You realize MASK was #3 in terms of sales throughout the US and Europe in the 80s, right ?

If nothing else, it should have been a bunch higher because of it's overall impact on sales.
 
Get ready, cause this is a long one.

The Tick is a show made of awesome and win but IGN ranked it much too high. This is about right. Maybe it deserves higher but 60 seems fine.

I have no real experience with She-Ra myself but it was an important show. Maybe it should be ranked a bit lower but certainly higher than Jem.

Sailor Moon is well worthy of the top 100 though I never thought I'd hear guys talking about how much they like the theme song. It grated on my nerves personally.

Freakazoid is a silver age WB classic that absolutely should make the list. Like The Tick I might rank it higher but I agree that it should be higher than The Tick.

You guys score big points with me ranking Spectacular Spider-Man above 60s and Amazing Friends. I'd personally rank it higher than Spider-Man: The Animated Series despite my love of that show but mostly because the show was just starting to catch it's stride before it was cancelled but was good from the beginning. Spider-Man: TAS lasted longer and had some great stories but the storys in Spectacular were so perfectly woven together and the characterisations and stories were a love letter to Steve Ditko and Stan Lee's original Spider-Man comic run. It could have been a much stronger contendor for top 50 of all time and one of the best action cartoons ever made if it had only lasted a bit longer.

Pink Panther probably should be higher but I'm alright with the placement.

Voltron was a wee bit before my time and I was first introduced to it in reruns on cable and have since then grown an appreciation for the franchise and have bought some of the DVDs but honestly? This is too high other than maybe for being the first cartoon with stereo. I'm not going to beat up on Mike or anyone for saying it's "not anime" because it's so far detached from Go-Lion because of how it was adapated. It was produced like a pre-lay cartoon. What astounds me is despite that I find the acting performances to be very stiff and sometimes downright bad. I realize it was a huge success in the 80s though and I will respect that. It should therefore be one of the higher ranked 80s cartoons on the list but I'd still say this one is a bit high but not nearly as "too high" as M.A.S.K.

Popeye should be higher. I blame Mike and his Bluto hating ways. He's about as iconic as the Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry and that certainly counts for something. Those shorts are quite enjoyable today.

The Smurfs is about as high as I'd like it personally but I have to respect the staying power of the franchise. So given that maybe it should be a bit higher. I'd say it's a top 50 probably.

You scored big points for including Spectacular Spider-Man but you officially won me over by including TMNT 2003. I'm slightly disappointed that it didn't rank just a bit higher to get into the top 50 (missed it by that much) but I'm mostly just glad it's on the list. Truth be told though I've come to like it more than the original cartoon as a whole. I usually put them side by side in preference of cartoons. IGN sucks forever for not including it in the top 100 period.

Another delightful surprise for He-Man 2002. Going by your rules of longevity being a factor I'd say TMNT easily should rank higher for more than doubling the episode count even before Fast Forward. So if anything I might swap those two's spots to put TMNT 2003 squarely at 50. However when it comes to making a franchise better the crown probably goes to He-Man 2002. I never cared for any previous He-Man series but I loved this show when it was airing and am happy to have it in my DVD collection. Another big ommision on IGN's part so good on you guys.

Alright I gotta say that Gennedy's Clone Wars was by no means all campy or with a younger audience in mind. Those shorts were a big success with adults and were mostly serious business. I gave up on watching CGI The Clone Wars very early on and maybe I'm just missing out but it bored the heck out of me when I did watch it. Which I suppose is part of where the "more adult appeal" argument comes in. Even so I think He-Man 2002 and TMNT 2003 are considerably better cartoons but that might just be my own bias. I mean for action cartoons TMNT 2003 for me is possibly top 10 or 15 in quality and and my second favorite cartoon period.

Yogi Bear making the list is entirely justifed. He was always my favorite Hanna Barbera character for as long as I can remember. Maybe I'd rank it a bit higher (and I'd rank Huck higher as well but I think I've been over that) but this placement is fine. I can't believe IGN didn't rank it at all.

Alright... IGN gave Superman a bit more props and I think they were about right. I might even rank it higher than IGN did but certainly higher than it got on this list. Superman is generally criminally overlooked because it's not Batman: The Animated Series. That's somewhat understandable but as said on the podcast Batman wasn't really where the DCAU started to form, Superman: TAS is what made the DCAU more than just one Batman show and to this day is the best and last Superman animated series. It was phenominal. It shouldn't be so far behind Batman on every list. So this one was a bit low and I think plenty of you agreed with that.

Rugrats was a sensation and one I fondly remember at least for a time so I'm okay with this placement.

The Jetsons is "The Flintstones of the Future" in many senses but George and Fred themselves are rather different characters. George isn't nearly the schemer Fred was and in many ways he was the better father of the two of them. I suppose Jane and Wilma were plenty similar but Judy and Elroy made for a much different family dynamic than Pebbles. I think the two of them are plenty different enough but as mentioned in the podcast they are analogous on the level that Scooby-Doo and it's many imitators are. The Flintstones should certainly rank higher but like Superman being in the shadow of Batman in the 90s I feel the Jetsons was a great show and should be remember for the quality it had and not for being second to The Flintstones.

Muppet Babies is a show I haven't seen a full episode in decades and I wish I could. From what I remember it was a joy to watch and I'm glad it bested The Smurfs and Rugrats because IMO it was the best written of the 3 judging from both old memories and having seen some clips more recently.

Spongebob was entirely expected. I actually expected it higher but I'm not going to disagree because honestly I never cared for it. I understand it's incredibly popular and it's easily top 50 worthy but I just can't get into it.

M.A.S.K. was ranked waaaaaaaaaaaaay too high and I know you guys are going to rank Thundercats, G.I. Joe and Transformers G1 even higher but I can at least understand those rankings even if I found those 3 to be very underwhelming both when I was a kid and today. I'd like to see Beast Wars edge out G1 for highest ranked Transformers show but that's rather unlikely. Then again maybe I just need to watch some M.A.S.K. I like tranforming vehicle shows, it should be right up my alley.

King of the Hill maybe deserves a bit higher but I'm pretty okay with where it placed. IGN's list was overloaded with prime time and overnight comedies but these are the ones I feel deserve to be on the list. The Simpsons, Futurama, The Venture Bros., American Dad, Family Guy, South Park and maybe Aqua Teen Hunger Force and The Boondocks in roughly that order.

Overall, there were only a few "huh?" moments for me so the this list is looking a lot less laughable now. I just still can't believe some of the shows that made the list already and going by the list so far PPG should have been Top 50 easily.

I also want to chime in on the discussion of comparing shows to modern standards. I think it's entirely justifable to do that. The only thing you have to keep in mind is the audience the show was intended for. If you like modern day kids cartoons despite them being clearly written with kids in mind and many of us on Toon Zone do, then it's certainly fair to judge older kids cartoons by their standards. You can't fairly judge based on animation but voice acting, writing and maybe even music certainly can be judged as can overall enjoyment factor. It would probably be fairer to let a kid judge them since that's who they are made for but again, if you're young at heart than you know what to expect from a kid's cartoon. Kid's cartoons that talk down to the viewers, had badly written dialogue or stories from episode to episode regardless of popularity back in the day shouldn't be ommitted from today's standards of story telling through animation simply because they are old. If a show was good it holds up and you can certainly like shows for nostalgic reasons but when you're making a list of the top 100 cartoons of ALL TIME you have to do a better job of leaving those nostalgic memories of poorly made cartoons out of the equation and rate them by how well written, voiced and scored they actually were.

That's why I feel a lot of 80s action cartoons are not top 100 worthy. Their writing is not good by any standard. I have an appreciation for campy cartoons but there is a line between campy to make fun of itself and just plain badly written and badly acted. A lot of those shows were churned out with very little quality checking and errors were numerous. Those flaws should not simply be ignored. Sometimes they're even part of the charm of the final production. I feel it's entirely justifiable to judge old cartoons by more modern standards. There's a reason why some 90s action cartoons always rank higher than even the biggest of 80s aciton cartoons. Because they were better made and stand the test of time. That's my peace.
 
For anyone who doesn't want to sit through and listen to the Podcast, here's this week's list:

The first thing I have obligated to point out from these guys on their podcasts is they are messing up a ton of details on many of these shows. I mean calling PPG a CN launch title just made my jaw drop. The best I can figure is the era when PPG came out was either before they had CN or only when they finally started watching CN. There's other misc details they're skipping over or reporting incorrectly.

Here's some of my thoughts:

Captain N might be at a good place. It was a great series for it's time, it had an GREAT following and it really did a lot for the respective series it represented. If Kid Icarus wasn't in Captain N, I'm pretty sure that game would have been lost in time. The overall quality of this show certainly surpassed the weekday shows.

Spiderman and his Amazing Friends I think is a bit too high. When you look at its broadcast history, it was almost always brought in as filler and almost never maintained consistency in its time on broadcasts for --- lets say more then 2 months at a time. It wasn't a well supported series and it didn't do a lot for the franchise. I'm pretty sure it didn't maintain strong ratings either.

Gummi Bears is far too low in this list. IMHO its easily the series that has aged the best from the 80s bar none. There are other great series that aged very, very well, but none of them aged nearly as well as Gummi Bears. Its dialouge, its animation style, its context all make it just as enjoyable today then it was when it originally aired.

Space Ghost: Coast to Coast is hard for me to recognize as an animation since it was a really a "Talk Show" with animated characters in it. It did some interesting things and really started to create the idea of "Cool things happening at midnight" which, I believe, ultimately made way for the concept of "Midnight run". It certainly was an interesting enough series that made you want to get CN just so you could see what the series was about. More and more, however, I find myself believing Williams Street usage of characters like Space Ghost in this setting has made it harder for CN to compete in a landscape where networks are blowing off the dust of old favorites and making a new series out of it. Its made it hard to accept the idea of making a new series based around characters like Space Ghost, Birdman, Johnny Quest or possibly even Thundarr. All these series really have some potential to make some ground breaking stories, but will people be able to accept them back in a serious setting? I tend to think not. All that said, I'm unsure how I feel about it's placement. I think I'd honestly prefer it not call attention to itself by being in a list. Bottom line is its done really good and really bad things for its brand.

Johnny Quest absolutely deserves to be part of this list. If we're talking about the total impact a series had on the landscape of animation, this series should probably be in the top 50 if not much higher. This series absolutely paved the way for intense, ground breaking action in an animation. It was the first cartoon series (anywhere) to do that. This series was originally aired to cater towards a prime time slot in 1964. Thats something totally unheard of for its time. If Johnny Quest didn't push the buck as much as it did, the landscape of animation might be very different today.

Dexter's Lab - I really wasn't happy that these guys thought Dexter's Lab was a CN launch title. I'm not happy about that one bit. It's true that Dexter's Lab is one of the first series made by CN for CN, but thats not the same as a launch title. Dexter's Lab did a lot of great stuff for the network and considering the totality of it's impact it really needs to be a lot higher. It was a great series that was very fun for adults, teens and kids to watch alike. It really paved the way for a lot of what CN stood for at the time.

Death Note also deserves to be a ton higher. I'd go so far as to say it really should be top 20 if not maybe even top 15. The pure impact this series had was so phenomenal and it really pulled a lot of people into the Anime / Manga seen that, previously, could care less about it. This story was one of the most original stories I think we've ever really seen. So many things today are rehashes of one or several other concepts explored in other media. Death Note deserves massive kudos for being so different that people are now aspiring to meet and exceed IT. I was also pretty annoyed that these guys simply don't understand anime enough to realize that the series ran for as long as it was intended to run and seem to think its episode count was indicative of it being a bad series. This makes me /facepalm and rage at the same time.

Batman: Brave and the Bold - I'm not a fan of this series wholly because of the light hearted nature of the series in the face of all the other cool animation going around, especially those that involve Batman. I was frankly mad this series was even made. All that said though, I cant rightfully sit back and deny it's impact. Ultimately, I tend to think this series came along at a good time to help re-bridge Cartoon Network to what it was trying to make itself and what everyone had come to expect of it. It was even keeled enough that it mended a lot of flesh wounds on the network. As for what it did for the comic industry and the DCU franchises; I think the verdict is still out.

Danger Mouse probably came in right where it should have. It was a fun series to watch, however it never really wowed anyone enough to do anything super cool with it. I think the majority will remember it for its cool intro theme and not much else.

The Critic is probably about right. it was a great series but it was never appreciated. I think if the series made its way onto Adult Swim, things could have been very different.

Super Mario Brothers Super Show did a lot for Nintendo and I mean A LOT. Its really hard for me to consider which of the three Mario series had the most impact though. I do remember running home from school every day so I could grab a can of Chef Boyardee pasta and watch this show!

Clone Wars (2003) did some really amazing things. I honestly think, in the landscape of everything, it might be more important then the Clone Wars series. It really showed us how much story you could demonstrate by simply showing action. Anyone is anybody in the Film, Animation and Gaming industry should still be taking notes on how this series was done. It really demonstrated concepts at the pinnacle of what animation is capable of.

Johny Bravo - meh, good enough placement. It deserves some recognition but not a bunch.

Bravestar is a series I think could have been dropped off the list entirely. Its ratings were never solid, its scheduling was sketchy at best, its toy sales were minimal and it didn't do anything for the industry. I'm actually annoyed that this series made it on the list while a great series like Wolverine and the X-Men didn't.

Silver Hawks - this is probably another meh. Once again, the most memorable thing about this series is really the intro. The writers were barely taking the series seriously as they seemed to have more fun planning out sexual innuendos in cleaver ways that would get past the sensors. It's hard to justify putting a series this high on the list that's most memorable quality is the intro.

Cowboy Bebop really deserves to be a lot higher, but since we already know there's some anime prejudice going on here, I suppose its understandable why its where it is. Cowboy Bebop is another anime that really did a lot for exposing the west to anime. Because of the serious Jazz undertones in the intro as well as other western references, I think it did a ton to bridge the cultural gaps between Western and Eastern animation. I think the construction and design of Cowboy Bebop did a lot for American Animation as well. There's tons and tons of notes from Western animation studios that suggest they've gleamed a lot of techniques, methods and ideas from this series. It's total impact makes it really worthy to be a lot higher.

Fineas and Ferb - meh
 
Can you please not list out all the shows like that. That is pretty disrespectful. We will be posting them all in a visual format once our podcasts are over but it really does us an injustice here to list them all out just so others dont have to listen to our show. Just asking for some common courtesy here!

And yes there may be a few details off here and there but you obviously havent listened very closely. (Our in depth show on cartoons is called Tooncast - but in THIS show NO ONE but me know which shows are coming up next so give the guys a break since they have literally seconds to respond to each entry with NO research done whatsoever since they didn't know what would make the list)

BTW you said this is 'this week's list' but you are a week behind my friend :)

Also you make all these remarks with no discussion of the fact that some of us brought up the same points you did. Many times we have said that we think the placement of certain shows is off. I know for a fact I said that Silverhawks and Bravestarr if on the list at all should be in like the 90s. Many of your other critiques were mentioned by some of us as well. AND MIKE did not say these shows 'launched' cartoon network, I am pretty sure he clarified that they didn't launch CN but they are what helped make it popular.

I love the feedback but please don't ignore the reactions we already mentioned on the show and act like we are all in agreement with where each show places!!
 
I will say this much so far, the discussion in this thread makes me very excited about doing this list again next year. I will definitely reach out to the rabroad population to be a part of it for sure. Sorry, still processing many other comments and trying to watch multiple games going on right now, and trying to work on things over at behindthevoiceactors.com.

I promise though by tomorrow I will have a lengthy response :)
 
Sure, I'll remove them, but you could ask in a PM in the future =P

That being said, yes, I did listen to your whole show. I simply disagree on a lot of points.

With respects, if you're going to run a show and criticize IGN, you're going to have to be ready for critisim yourself, especially since you took the stance in the first episode that many of you don't care for anime.

Theres a lot of series that deserve some strong recognition because of their state side impact and ignoring them and discounting them just because you don't like the genre doesn't make for a very strong list.

We've tried to do some top series lists around here in the past (several times, probably once a year or so). I think we've found you always have to take into account the total impact weather you like the series or not, especially since you talked about that being a mandate of the list in your introductory episode.

I'm not a big fan of series such as Bugs Bunny for instance, but they will ALWAYS be in a list I play with because I completely recognize its impact around the world.



G.I. Joe Resolute: For a long time now, a lot of G.I. Joe fans were yearning for G.I. Joe series that was made FOR Adults. Heck, there's been a lot of series that fit that same bullpin. Resolute really showed us how a series like that could be done and really drummed up a lot of support for the G.I. Joe franchise. It was simply a SERIOUS nod to the fans.

Wolverine and the X-Men: from a story standpoint is easily the strongest X-Men animated series to date. Marvel made some very steady progress and improvements from series to series to series. I'd argue that Wolverine and the X-Men is a series that was designed just as much for kids as it was for adults in a similar vein to what Justice League did for DC. On the side of ratings, WatXM pulled ratings from a huge pool of demographics more so then many previous series, especially for Marvel. Heck, we know this series would still be in production today if it weren't for the whole Marvel take over by Disney. Just to demonstrate the market impact, the WatXM Thanksgiving special in 2009 put the FoxKids! Thanksgiving Special for X-Men to shame in ratings 15 years earlier and we know from the numbers that a large reason for that is because it attracted multiple demographics.

Both these series showed steady progress in the industry as a whole towards making series that hit multiple demographics.
 
First off we have said that anime is not our thing #1 because we didn't grow up on it. We don't hate it, and we respect what it has done for cartoons. It's just not our style.

Secondly what I said about Dexters PPG and Bravo was that it launched cartoon network's popularity. Yes i know I goofed on when cartoon network launched. I said 1998 when it was 1992. But I mean seriously all they showed before they started their own titles were all the old Hanna Barbera and looney tunes cartoons. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing I love those cartoon shorts.

As Optimus Solo Said the point of us doing the project in podcast form is so that people HAVE to listen to hear our opinions on the rankings. We will be making a post on our website after episode 25 is released.

To the Tonzone community at large. Please do not think this as being rude, but I'll ask ANYONE to not list out the shows in general. And I won't use PM either. If everyone would go back to the first page of the thread and see where sketch removed his list and added that it was removed on request there ya go.

I do appreciate all the feedback whether its positive or negative keep up the discussion. And shameless plug here if you want more in depth cartoon coverage our Cartoon podcast is ToonCast. Keep in mind if you listen to ToonCast from Episode 00 that this show is 2 years in the making and the earlier episodes aren't always the best audio quality.
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thanks again all
 
First I'll say that Wolvie and The X-Men was a good series it ran for at least 2 seasons. Has great voice cast and storytelling. However at the juncture we are at now on the countdown (Top 40) I don't think it is Top 40 worthy.

As far as Resolute goes to my knowledge it was to be an 11 part web series that eventually made it to TV and DVD. Yes it was awesome to see a more adult Joe cartoon, but if you read what is quoted on Wiki Warren Ellis said that he wrote too many speaking roles and Voice Actors cost money G.I. Joe Resolute Wiki

Resolute being what it is by no means is justifiable as Top 100 Worthy. May Top 200... but it doesn't really seem to be best of all time in my opnion. I did like it, but as I stated before it was geared towards a certain audience.
 
See, the problem with statement beyond the factual truth is that it really wasn't what launched the channel's popularity. Cartoon Network was doing all kinds of great things before PPG and Johnny Bravo. Dexter's Lab launched a bunch earlier but was really divided between TBS and Cartoon Network, although its true that TBS served as a launching pad for Cartoon Network. Then again, arguably, to a degree, so did Cartoon Express indirectly since CN absorbed a lot of that talent pool.

By the time PPG and Johnny Bravo were even on CN's upfronts, Cartoon Network already had a well establish Toonami block that was already running DBZ and Sailormoon. The introduction of PPG and Johnny Bravo just made CN explode. For what PPG did for CN, it deserves to be a lot higher on the list. It CERTAINLY deserves to be higher then Johny Bravo. If I am not mistaken (numbers don't seem to be readily available for this stat) PPG was CN's highest grossing series in the merchandise end to date.

Frankly, it feels like PPG only got canceled because CN wanted to try new things, not because it outlived itself. That's really a shame.



First off, dude, calm down. Really.

If you aren't going to bother with poking someone on PMs to make a request, you're the one being rude in the first place. A LOT can be resolved on the backend of things, especially without hurt feelings. Ever hear the saying "Praise in public, reprimand in private"? It's just good edicate all around in all situations. People who are following this thread are NOT generally going to go back to the first page to read edits if they are following the thread. I certainly didn't. There's no reason to expect anyone else to.

Secondly, you guys really should step back and think about this for a second: do you *REALLY* expect people in the community to listen to over 6 hours (currently) of Podcasts before they can jump into and discuss your current ratings? In communities like this one, its already hard enough getting people to read all or even several pages of thread before they respond. To pull from your guy's own stance, its like trying to click threw IGN's top 100 list and having to go one show at a time.

From what I've seen in the TZ community in the past, having a few people getting key elements of the current "issues" (Manga, Comics, DVD releases) and talking about them USUALLY elicits more people getting them and participating in the discussion after the first few do. In other words, a few people listen, more people respond, more people listen. To see this, you may consider going over to the Anime Forum and reading some talkback threads there. Thats the place you see this happening most prevently (especially around Mangas).

You guys obviously should be taking time to plug your show and thats totally respectable to do, but you should also not expect a potential audience to listen to that much programming before they can have a conversation. Its information overload and huge time sink. Frankly, its bad marketing. It's honestly worse marketing not trying to resolve things behind the scenes at that.

If you want to continue to elicit conversation about your show, you need to find a balance to where you can plug the show and elicit feedback. I'd suggest one of you guys posting your PRINTED list a few days after each show and provide some information of what happened on the show along with the postings in an attempt to get people interested. What interesting things happened during the show that really should be making people want to listen?

That being said, from what I listened to, I'm honestly sorry to say there's not enough interesting happening. Really the biggest thing I keep walking away with (and this is fair critisim, I am not trying to mean or rude) is there's a lot of shows you're really not exploring the full impact of what the show did for it's network, what it did for marketing / sales and what it brought to animation in general. These seem to be key elements of what it sounded like you guys were going for, but I am not getting a sense that these things are really being explored. The show format might be better if you changed things up NEXT WEEK and let your commentators see the list before hand and have prepared reactions. The mark of broadcast shows like this has always been preparation, preparation, preparation (See: John Stewart). Let the people talk on the show who have a prepared reaction and move on. It feels like there's a lot of time wasting trying to do a round table discussion and there's not enough being said that feels relevant, catching or even jarring.

The more recent example is Death Note. Given, once again, I know you guys aren't into Anime, but theres just all kinds of interesting information circling Death Note. Beyond it being one of the most original stories we've seen in animation history, it actually caused quiet the April Fools stir in Japan shortly after it's release. A network over there, for April Fools of 2006 started reporting similar incidents that occurred in the manga / anime as news very much in the same way H.G. Wells did over the radio as a plug for his book or Fox did as a plug for ID4. It's one of those neat facts that drove home the impact of the series. However, all I took away from your Podcast about that series is that you guys thought it was a relative failure because it "only had one season". The fact is, in anime, there are often series that have a story to tell and if it only takes one season or a slightly extended 1 season (as is the case with Death Note), they're going to tell the story and end the series. Although that doesn't occur as much in the US as it probably should, it does occur here too. G.I. Joe Resolute and Beast Machines are examples of this. Heck, even G.I. Joe Renegades fits this bullpin.

Another criticism I'd like to make in discussing this list privately with friends is, so far, this list feels pretty random too and I think that really stems from the method you guys used to try to build the list. Weighting shows from 1-100 makes it so that, as you've noted yourself already, one person voting very high for a show and no one else voting for it at all can put the show much higher on the list then it may deserve. I'm interested to see how the list turns out at the end, but at this stage in the game, it's really making it seem like there's a lot of randomness going on.

Just off the top of my head, if I were going to design a top 100 list that was to be decided between a finite number of people, I probably would have come up with a series of categories such as "Graphic Quality for it's time", "Graphic Quality compared to today", "Story quality", "Story flow", "Impact", "Reception", etc and asked everyone to rank each show 1-3, 1-5 or maybe 1-10 in each caption and tally a score based on that. I think that might be the best route to go.



First off, Wolverine and the X-Men ran one season, not two. Like I mentioned before, the series easily would have ran multiple seasons if it weren't for the fact Disney brought Marvel and wanted to wheel in all the Marvel series on other networks. Thats really a shame because it distributed some of the best writing in Marvel series to date.

Wolverine and the X-Men is absolutely top 100 worthy and probably IMHO, top 25 worthy for more then a few good reasons. First and foremost this series shows really good progression in the story telling capabilities of Marvel. Marvel has come a long way in presentation of a series since the 60's Spiderman animated series. Their style, their presentation, their story, their characters have all gone through massive improvement between each series they've done. Beyond that, this is really the first series in a number of years that really starts to catch us up to what story elements have been in the comics recently. It was a decent plug for that. Wolverine and the X-Men's story telling is simply the best X-Men animated story to date.

That being said, the 90s X-Men certainly deserves a place on the list TOO. The Uncanny X-Men (90s series) series did *A LOT* for Foxkids and for Saturday morning cartoons as a whole in the 90s. It was a bar setter, no question about it. Going back and re-watching the series though, the stories and dialog are really disjointed all over the place. It really didn't age well. Graphically its still pretty good, but I would argue it aged worse then Spiderman and his Amazing Friends with a handful of episodes being obvious exceptions.

Wolverine and the X-Men did *A LOT* of the same things for Nick Toons that The Uncanny X-Men did for Foxkids. It helped Nick Toons start to feel like a legitimate contender for a solid action block, especially in the void created by Toonami's cancellation. It was a very strong bed stone for Nick Toons and would have likely continued to be if Disney didn't pull the carpet out from under them.

As far as G.I. Joe Resolute goes, if you're going to count Clone Wars 2003 as part of your list, you really need to do the same for G.I. Joe Resolute. Both are essentially the same in its nature and did the same for the respective movies they were drumming up support for. They were both a series of shorts that premiered daily and eventually told a complete story that garnered support for their franchise and their respective upcoming movies. Moreover, both were also test products to a degree that tested animation style, potential of writers / producers / directors / artists and the potential reception of the target audiences. Both also essentially did the opposite of the traditional relationship between animation and movies. They acted as spotlights for the movie instead of trying to ride the popularity. If I am not mistaken, these are the only two series to do exactly that. Both eventually sold a ton of copies of their story as DVD releases as well.
 
You know, I remember making a top 10 of my own when IGN made their top 100 list. Here's how it turned out.

1: Looney Tunes (Sure there were low points, but this is the same placeholder responsible for "Duck Amuck", "High-Raising Hare", "Birds Anonymous", "the Great Piggy Bank Robbery", Jones's Road Runner legacy, "A Fractured Leghorn" and "Nasty Quacks", among numerous others, it's easy to forget the lesser shorts. No studio could pull off such a great range of cartoons during the golden age or in any other period, and these timeless characters deserve to be celebrated until the end of time.)
2: Batman: The Animated Series (Recreated the action cartoon so well that animators are still trying to capture that level of success today.)
3: The Simpsons (The first decade alone puts the series at a level that even a couple more decades of crap couldn't take away from it. Still the blueprint on how to make an animated sitcom today.)
4: Ed, Edd, n' Eddy (To cut it short this time, I think it's the quintessential animated comedy aimed for kids- it's not snarky for the sake of snark like Warner's cartoons from the 90's, isn't sadistic for the sake of being sadistic like Ren & Stimpy, doesn't feel like a bunch of nerds wrote in as much as they could to see what they could get away with like a lot of CN's series, and didn't overstay its welcome like SpongeBob or a couple of other series has/had. Even during the last school-based season, there was still more effort and heart put into the final product than just about anything airing during it's time)
5: The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show (This might just be the first truly great animated television series, although I will give Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw plenty of credit themselves. It's a great mix of satire and absurdest humor that still holds up over 50 years from now.)
6: The Flintstones (Simpsons created the blueprint for the modern animated sitcom, but took plenty of notes from Hanna-Barbera. Flintstones took a few different risks back in the 60's that make it still seem as endearing today as when it first hit the airwaves. I'd put it a little higher if the show didn't start to lose its edge around the time Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm were added into the cast, and really started running out of ideas shortly afrer.)
7: Neon Genesis Evangelion (Love it, hate it, don't care one way or the other for it, but I don't think many anime have been as important to defining what fans should expect in Japanese animation. Countless titles have tired adding in philosophical aspects like how NGE handled them, but most seem inferior when they attempt to.)
8: Jonny Quest (The first action-adventure cartoon, it's still a hugely engaging cartoon, arguably Hanna-Barbera's finest in general. The animation is a little crisper, and the designs prove that there was character in earlier HB cartoons.)
9: Cowboy Bebop (THE anime experience? Yeah, most likely. Few series have as much wide appeal as Bebop seems to.)
10: King of the Hill (Makes it alone for consistency. Over 250 episodes, and so few weak episodes. Not to mention that the characters are incredibly well-defined, and the writing is adult as you can get in a cartoon.)

I added some reasoning for each of my choices. Looking at it now, I'd switch a couple of these around, but I think this is a well-balanced top 10. Some bias, but that's bound to happen. If I was to expand this to a top 20, I'd probably add these 5 in, but not exactly in order:

-Dragon Ball (Has the awesome fight scenes of Z, but also cuts down on the filler and has some very fun moments in over the course of the series. I think it deserves more recognition as a good shonen series than it's continuation series gets.)
-DuckTales (I think this holds up better than any of Warner's comedy cartoons from the 90's, as well as any of Disney's own from then. It's also arguably one of the major highlights from the progressive late 80's-early 90's period. Maybe not top 5 worthy, but I wouldn't mind placing DuckTales in the top 20.)
-Futurama (Take the heart and humor of The Simpsons, give it to an eccentric cast of adults working at a delivery company rather than a family, add some clever nerd references in, and that's Futurama, a show that was able to make you laugh and tug at your heartstrings just as hard, if not harder, than Matt's first series. I personally don't see the need to put both shows in the top 10, and since Simpsons was the originator, Futurama must get the shaft. The top 20 is very fair for it, though.)
-Justice League (Takes the mythology set by Batman: TAS, Superman: TAS, and Batman Beyond, adds in a bunch of other DC heroes, and makes for one epic of a comic book series. Based on sheer content, the show deserves the love it gets.)
-Rocko's Modern Life (Perhaps the funniest cartoon aimed for children during the 90's, Rocko had a good balance between humor for children and adults. It's one of those series that holds up, with little dated references and only a handful of weak episodes to speak of.)

Just my opinion, and I'm sure not everyone will agree with me with this.
 
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