Series that pleasantly surprised you

Z

Ziggy Stardust

New member
Have you ever sat down to watch a cartoon, only to have your expectations surpassed? I know I have.

I remember when I was a kid, and Gargoyles first aired. Back then, I didn't really bother watching it. Growing up, I looked at it, and thought it was nothing more than Disney's answer to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Batman. Fast forward to last year, and I found a lot of people on different forums reminscing about the show after the Nostalgia Critic reviewed it. Wanting to see if the praise was justified, I checked out a few episodes for myself.

Right off the bat, I'll admit that "Awakening" didn't really grab me until after Goliath and the others were permanently turned to stone, and the story skips ahead a millenium to introduce Xanatos. After seeing what a manipulative mastermind he was, I was immeadiately reminded of Benjamin Linus from Lost, and surprised to find that a cartoon, on the Disney channel, no less could have such a deep and complicated story. It would've gone way over my head if I had seen it as a kid, and I'm glad that I discovered it now so I can enjoy it.
 
The PBS show Jakers! always managed to do the PBS kids show routine (episodes about pet death, first crush, playing fair, etc) in a surprisingly not soul-less manner (like most of the other PBS shows now).

The main reason I watched the show was for the traditional Irish music, of which I am a fan. It had an excellent score.

I keep reading about it has, like, all these right wing, conservative overtones and hidden messages, although I couldn't find them.
 
Dinosaur King and Mew Mew Power.:sweat: I thought both looked terrible, but I thought both were good. Although, with the second, I watched an episode recently and only thought it was "okay". It didn't seem as good as it was when it first aired.:shrug:
 
Batman: Brave and the Bold.

The first episode was underwhelming; it seemed like it didn't know whether it wanted to be wacky and campy, or if it wanted to be somewhat serious. Diedrich Bader's Batman also threw me for a loop: if this was going in the other direction as B:TAS, then why is he doing a Kevin Conroy impersonation?

Fortunately they chose wacky and campy. "Legends of the Dark Mite", a damn near brilliant episode, clinched it for me. And, amazingly, Bader has settled into the role rather nicely. I'd even say *gasp* he's as good as Conroy.
 
Jimmy Two-Shoes: I was bored one day and decided to tune into a two-hour marathon of this. I was expecting it to be a "meh" show and turn it off after the first half hour. I liked it so much I watched the whole marathon.
 
Batman Brave and the Bold and Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue. The animation for both shows can throw you off a bit, but as I continued on with them both, they turned out to be very good.
 
Storm Hawks. It looked like just another generic action show, and the fact that it looked really similar to the underwhelming Dragon Booster didn't help matters. But once I sat down and watched several episodes, it turned out to be a good show. A really good show, actually. The storylines are fun, the characters engaging. I just wish they were able to wrap up the storyline and that CN didn't cancel it before the second season could air in the US.
 
I'll come out and say Penguins of Madagascar. Considering that I wasn't the biggest fan of the Madagascar movies when they came out, the fact that I liked the stories and the character in the show a lot better.
 
Word Girl and Martha Speaks are the most recent one. I saw their designs and initially passed it off as generic edutainment, but I started watching when my sister refused to come to dinner, and I really got into them. They're both hilarious and clever for a PBS show, and WG has some of my new favorite villains. I can't get enough of Nocan the Contrarian and Chuck the Evil Sandwich-Making Guy.

I also thought the original preview for Flapjack was quite underwhelming, and was not going to give it a chance when it debuted. I especially hated how washed out and dull the backgrounds looked. However, when it finally did debut, I kept the channel on since it was directly after Chowder and the writing seemed like a huge throwback to the old Cartoon cartoons. Became a huge fan of that show since.
 
The Secret Saturdays- I thought it would just be a rip-off of Ben 10 to clamp onto the action show bandwagon. But pleaslently noticed its own originailty and I've come to love the show as to say praising the writers.
 
At first glance, I thought "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" was going to be just another disposable lightweight kiddie show...until I learned that it was created by Craig "Powerpuff Girls" McCracken. Then I sat down and watched a few episodes and discovered it was probably the cleverest thing Cartoon Network had done in a long time.

When I first heard of "American Dad", I thought it was going to be terrible. I'm not sure why; I think it was because all the "Family Guy" fans were saying it'd be terrible, and the post-Super Bowl pilot was almost unanimously panned by folks on the No Homers Club. I even kind of forced myself to not like the first few Season 1 episodes I saw, so I wouldn't get attached to the show if it got axed. But then I started looking at it unbiased, and discovered that it's about a hundred times funnier than "Family Guy" could ever have hoped to be.
 
Chowder.
I didn't really expect to like it, it was just kind of: "Ehhh, maybe I'll watch."
At the time, I didn't really watch much of CN, not many shows caught my attention there.
I was pleasantly surprised,
I had been entertained by a cartoon for the first time in a while.
The art also has a distinct appealing style, which I like.

The same goes for Flapjack, and it's gotten better since the beginning of its run.

The Secret Saturdays.
"Oh. Cryptids. Interesting."
I never thought that it would be capable of whirling the audience through so many plot twists.

The Spectacular Spider-Man
"Another Spider-Man cartoon? Hm."
I only started to watch this because my friend kept nagging me.
So I did. I was hooked from the very first episode.
The action scenes are simply amazing.
 
Duckman - I was sure that I was going to hate this series when it was being previewed because it's another animated series that turns human characters into anthropomorphic animals and because the title character was a single father, but I watched the premiere anyway, and found the series to be quite clever and well written and the characters (especially Cornfed) to be likable and relatable, despite the rudeness and mean spiritedness of the shows' story lines.

To update that story, Duckman is one of my all time favorite cartoons now. I even own the entire series on DVD.
 
I agree with Flapjack. I never had any interestin it, and while I have not seen a ton of episodes, the few I have left an good impression.

Another cartoon that really surprised me was "Transformers: Animated". I dismissed it as a super childish version of transformers with the overly stylized designs. I assumed it was transformers for people with short attention spans. All flash, no substance. Boy was I wrong! I recently watched the first season on dvd and not only is the style working perfectly, the animation is solid, and the writing is really good. They use foreshadowing effectively, they are able to maintain a theme with each episode, they clearly plotted out grand story arcs for the season, the dialog is witty and creative, there is character growth, and even some tender emotional moments with some sophistication and gravity. It is quickly turning into on of my favorite toons of the '00's.
 
I'm surprised that I was actually able to sit through whole shorts of Angela Anaconda.

The Simpsons surprises me with how long it can manage to stay on the air and still have new seasons produced to this day.

I was surprised that TMNT 2003 could actually draw me back into the franchise after ditching it in 1993 for Power Rangers.
 
Batman Beyond: I remember when I first saw news about a new Batman series in a artical in Wizard magazine. When I saw a picture of a skinny Batman with red wing cape I was pissed. I was even more displeased when I heard the story a new teen Batman in the future with Bruce as a mentor. Then it premiered and I was hell bent on ripping into it but I watched it and was blown away. Its probraly my favorite DCAU series well maybe except for Batman: TAS.

Avatar the Last Airbender: I dont watch Nick so I didn't even know about this show for awhile. I pretty much avoided the show tell it ended. Dont know why maybe because the fanbase saying its the best thing ever or because my best friend wouldn't keep bugging me about it. But I watched it when I had nothing better to do and I got hooked. The epic storyline the buitiful artwork the heart warming characters. Avatar was a bright spot in a time when it came to action cartroons there wasn't really much to be pleased with.

The Spectacular Spider-Man: I was kinda disintrested in the character at the time the last two animated shows failed to pull me in the comic wasn't doing anything for me either at the time Didn't like the artstyle and I still consider it to be a massive weak point. But after a couple of episode the writing was so strong I saw past it. The show has alot of great depth to it I sadly dont see that much in shows anymore. This show really remined me why I like Spider-man and his cast of characters that surround him.

Teen Titans: I was never that big of a fan of TT comic books in fact the only character I knew anything about on there was Robin. Also the fact that it wasn't part of the DCAU so I was fully in the I dont care mode. But I watched it anyway to see what this Robin was like and I enjoyed it. Not the deepest show in the world but so kiddy that I cant watch it. Also loved this version of Starfire.

Digimon: When Fox Kids showed a promo for it I thought it was just a ripoff of Pokemon but I prefered this show over Pokemon. First off outside of Kids and monsters the two shows really dont have anything in common. That and the animation looked better then Pokemon'ss and the Digimon looked alot more cooler then Pokemon.
 
The Secret Saturdays: I thought it looked weird but one afternoon, I watched it and it has quickly become my favorite show.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: During Book 1 I saw a commercial for an episode which I thought made it look stupid. ("You took the map! Now we're never going to get to the North Pole to see Santa" was what I thought I heard.;)) However during Book 2, Toph made the show interesting to me and started watching during Ba Sing Se and got hooked.
 
When I first heard about Chowder, it was my friend describing it to me, and he made it sound like it was the stupidest thing ever. A while later, I saw it while flippin' through the channels, and thought "Oh hey, it's that really dumb show!" But I ended up finding it hilarious.
 
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