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Highest voters: 49 (Chez Wombat, Joseph)

 

I didn’t expect to see this so high! I’m extremely glad though that a classic cartoon like this gets it’s due. Again, like Looney Tunes, there are various separate shows from different eras that feature Tom & Jerry (Tom & Jerry Kids included eww), but they are all under the same umbrella so are all combined here. A premise so simple – a cat trying to catch a mouse through any means necessary – seems so simple that you wouldn’t think it would’ve become one of the most timeless examples of classic animation and still look so fresh after almost eighty years. Produced by Hanna & Barbera, Tom & Jerry aired 114 shorts between 1940 and 1958 and they seven Academy awards in that time, after Metro Goldwyn Mayer closed in 1958, the series was revived and continued to be shown throughout the 1960s where it beat Looney Tunes for the highest grossing animated short films at the time, in the television era, the shorts continued to be broadcast and while only three brand new shorts were produced after 1970, it still endured popularity to this day and a number of compilation shows, spin-off movies and direct-to-DVD features have been produced. The humour for Tom & Jerry definitely came from the slapstick and screwball aspects and sheer scope of how sadistic and violent it could get, but it still succeeded and has a style where speech was very rare and classical and orchestral music was used to soundtrack every movement which still remains unique and defines the cat-and-mouse rivalry in many cartoons to this day. Another golden age classic that I’m very pleased to see in the top 10.

 

I guess I’ve never properly watched Futurama enough to get properly into it and give it high praise. I know it has a lot of fans who prefer it to the Simpsons though!

 

Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry are definitely two of the definitive old school classics and Spongebob is the perfect example of a modern classic!

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Highest votes: 49 (Klaus)

 

I'm really surprised that this beat SpongeBob, I feel like they were both very similar in being incredible for the first few seasons, but then suffering a bit from fatigue, but that always seemed more popular. Nonetheless, this is ahead of it in this countdown, and I have no qualms with that as this is another similarly excellent, surreal Nickelodeon cartoon. Originally part of a series of shorts on Oh Yeah! Cartoons from 1998 to 2001, it was picked up for it's own show and ran up until 2006, where it was, like SpongeBob, intended to end after five seasons in 2006 but was picked up again and ran from 2008 until 2013. It's future after that looked a bit...uncertain, it started adding rather strange new characters, making even stranger live action films featuring Drake from Drake & Josh and creator Butch Hartman departing Nickelodeon in 2017 (though you can still see him on YouTube x), it's future looks very uncertain but we can possibly conclude that it has been cancelled after ten seasons. The show concerned the misadventures of Timmy Turner, a young boy who is antagonised by his babysitter and neglected by his parents, acquires Fairy Godparents, the quirky, slightly dim Cosmo and the matriarchal Wanda, who can grant his every wish, whatever it may be. He often takes this for granted however, and in resolving the smallest everyday concerns, sometimes puts people or the world at risk, where he must learn a moral lesson with help of Cosmo and Wanda. The show's appeal lied for me in what was just so bizarre and over the top in it's characters and situations and it's pastel colour palette, yet there was always the odd smart one-liner or fourth wall moment that wouldn't be out of place in a realist sitcom, that always made it stand out and that was enough to carry out, just a shame it suffered from Scrappy Doo syndrome from Season 9 onwards with adding a baby and a talking dog for the fairies, but we can forget that x

omg yes iconic, what a show *.*

 

Cosmo is amazing

 

but yes just ignore the live action stuff etc (ive only seen the trailer and it upset me too much)

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Highest votes: 49 (Tombo), 48 (Liam, Doug)

 

Well, where do I start with this one? Probably the anime as that’s what’s charting here x Stemming from the hugely popular gaming series, Pokemon was originally aired in Japan, but due to the huge popularity of the games, it had to reach offshore soon, and sure enough it to this day airs in 124 different countries concurrently, it was one of the first animes that reached this level of success with Western audiences and has been credited with popularising and familiarising them around the world, I know it was certainly my first encounter with them. Like the games, it has become split into various regions and eras like Kanto, Johto, Diamond and Pearl, X&Y, Sun & Moon and various others, I honestly stopped trying to follow nor understand it a long, long time ago but it has ensured that pretty much every generation has a Pokemon era they are familiar with – mine being the original 150 of course, and kept it running for 21 seasons and 1036 episodes, alongside various films stemming merchandise, it is by far one of the most successful video game adaptations of all time. Looking at it now, it’s easy to say this show is a product of a cynical, excessively manipulative franchise with sub-par show, and truth be told, the show isn’t the best quality, as cute and wonderful as seeing the pokemon alive on the screen is, the messages are standard, characters a bit one dimensional and stories not particularly inventive. But I simply can’t hate this as the defined my childhood, it was a universal language at my school, a shared code that anyone can enjoy and seeing a world filled with all these weird and wonderful creatures and the possibilities of adventure did really thrill me when I was younger and I credit that to the show for encouraging me and probably many others to explore and learn more about the world. The show was merely a reflection of the craze, but that’s all it needed to be, and I’ll always view it with rose tinted glasses. And my God, I can recite that theme song a hundred times over, everybody now…I WILL BE THE VERY BEST, THAT NO ONE EVER WAS *.*

 

Predictable but not a bad choice for best anime. The show definitely has its charming moments and it's very watchable, I watched the first 100 episodes back when Pokemon Go first came out and it was really enjoyable. Also Team Rocket are best characters easily, Jessie and James are so easy to empathise with when you're older :D And Brock. And Bulbasaur. And well, yes, it has a lot of great characters and I'm sure it has a lot more past the Gen 1 phase that is most nostalgic for me. I think some of its charm is that its structure is so predictable, it's just really easy to watch. Not great television but if you are into Pokemon at all then it's fantastic because it's talking about a geek thing you love.

 

I've heard it's even really good in some of its later years which is really impressive for a long-running animated show. Even if it gets reinvented every now and then because of new generations for the games.

 

Futurama, FairlyOdd, and Tom & Jerry are all great. i've never really seen any spongebob don't hurt me

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Highest votes: 48 (Mack, Alex!)

 

I guess this is also aptly timed what with news of a reboot around the corner *.* Officially the highest rated Nickelodeon show is Rugrats! For a long time, this was indeed the case in the real world too until SpongeBob came along. Running from 1991 all the way to 2004 again extended by popular demand and expanded to three theatrical movie releases, Rugrats focused on the exploits of four babies who can talk and understand adults, unbeknownst to their parents, a premise that surprisingly allowed for a lot of screwball hilarity. It even expanded beyond that with All Grown Up, the special turned series as covered (much) earlier in here. You may be mistaken in thinking that this is a show made for babies if you look at the characters, but it’s anything but, it actually very smart for what it’s titular characters are and while their lives make them a relatable presence for younger viewers, the situations and hilarious misunderstandings happened entertained me well into my pre-teen years and I look back on this fondly, though gosh one of the fan theories concerning Angelica really terrifies me and I can't quite look at it the same now x There is also news recently of a live action/CGI reboot film planned for 2020 though I have…mixed feelings towards.

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Highest votes: 50 (HarryEzra)

 

1999 was really quite the gold mine for animation wasn’t it? No wonder it’s now the nostalgic year of choice in pop songs. Family Guy was another show that grew off the huge success of The Simpsons in the adult animated market, and the first of many successes for Seth MacFarlane which introduced his audacious style of humour to the world. Family Guy still lasts to this day on its seventeenth season and has become almost just like The Simpsons in just how ubiquitous itt is everywhere. Indeed they have been compared, sometimes unfavourably before, though this show relies primarily on meta cutaway gags for it’s humour in a mix of satire of popular culture and self-referential gags, though sometimes veering to extreme gross out and catchphrase based humour. It was an intriguing mix while the show was initially very popular with critics, it has attracted a variety of criticism for it’s vulgar style of humour and violent imagery and general declining quality over the years, even The Simpsons and South Park have taken the mickey out of it’s writing before. I must admit while some episodes are very funny, it is generally a bit inconsistent (see what the hell The Cleveland Show was about), though I direct so much praise to the Blue Harvest series that lampooned Star Wars, they were hilarious, and it certainly has the audacious characters and unique McFarlane style that makes it stand out enough. Perhaps third is a little bit too high for this, but I certainly have enjoyed watching it in the past so haven’t got much ill to speak of it.

 

-x-

 

Arthur vs The Simpsons ;o

Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry are huge classics and I'm so glad they're represented well here :wub: a lot of love for Rugrats too!!

 

I don't mind which wins here, both have been favourites of mine from childhood to now so a great top 2!

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Highest votes: 50 (Alex!, WhoOdyssey)

 

Quite the turn up for the books this, at least in my opinion, I know this was a very big show in my childhood but I didn’t know it was still so widely loved on here (even after the BJfest smash of the theme song *_), still I did really like this show. Incredibly still running from 1996 up until the present day, Arthur focused on the adventures of the anthropomorphic aardvark and his various friends and family. It was notable as a show for really taking less of a surrealism edge and focusing on real life issues and moral lessons even dealing with modern day issues people face like dyslexia, ASD, asthma and even cancer and they were told in an impressively non-patronising way. It was a great way to get this across to kids while at the same time, being a very fun and engaging show that kids can easily relate to. I enjoyed this a lot when I was younger and can definitely see how it keeps charming kids to this day, and what a glorious theme song to accompany it to, I hummed that so much back in the day

 

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1. The Simpsons (1989) 581

Highest votes: 50 (Mack, DalekTurret32, Klaus, Liam, Brett)

 

‘Well that was super obvious’ I hear you say, and yes I’d probably be thinking the same thing if I saw this right now, but actually until I counted Brett’s late votes, Arthur had actually won this! And this victory is still quite scrapey one at just eight points. I’m guessing it’s suffering from fatigue a bit with people as it was almost untouchable at one point and now it seems to be in constant discussion of just how bad it’s got and the fact that it’s changing things because modern viewers are supposedly ‘offended’ by its premise makes me sad. When it will stop is still pretty uncertain at this point, despite consistently declining quality, the ratings are still there and it’s still a money-making machine as it is, I’m sort of worried for it as I loved it so much back in the day, but seeing it become this is just not pretty.

 

But enough criticism, there’s a very good reason this won and continues to enchant audiences to this day: At its peak (read: first ten seasons) it was unstoppable. There really was no other show like it. Set in a traditional American town with your typical nuclear family, it seemed ever so familiar but that was where it best landed its humour. It satirised everything about modern American life, its characters unashamed caricatures (the working bumbling dad, stay at home concerned mother, troublesome youth, goody-goody ‘arty’ daughter and baby are all here plus a whole host of others) and its stories were born from many human stories as well as lampooning other aspects of pop culture, indeed very little in terms of modern and popular culture is safe from the Simpsons and it is often extremely well observed, leading for them to unwittingly predict the future – the most obvious being an episode in 2000 which predicted Donald Trump as president of the USA sixteen years earlier, they’re not mystics, but that is just a testament to the extremely spot on view of American society. Its humour is universal – slapstick, cultural references, one-liners, absurdist, it’s dabbled in all of them over its run and it has been (mainly) successful in this. It is also known for its Halloween specials which regularly spoof popular horror films and stories and its opening couch gag which has been different for every episode and will surprise with just how many ways a family can run to a couch. Homer’s catchphrase ‘D’oh’ has been incorporated in the English Language dictionary and many idioms have been incorporated into real life. It was the first truly massively successful Animated program and reinvented the wheel for Adult animation, causing a host of imitators over the years, many of whom we have covered in here. For all the criticism it gets, it’s impossible to deny its legacy and it is a well and truly worthy recipient to the crown here.

 

-x-

 

Thank you very much to all who voted, commented and read throughout this. I apologise for this being dragged out so long, it really did take quite a lot longer than I anticipated and my time schedule got a bit more full up after the summer and I just kept forgetting about it, had I not blitzed it out today, it probably would've gone out until after Christmas! :lol: I hope those of you who did take part enjoyed it and maybe even found a new show out of it, I'll certainly be checking a few of these out that I haven't as they look like I shouldn't be missing them.

 

Until whatever the next event I host is, ciao~

Good winner I suppose, if one only counts the earlier seasons. And expected of course, but these things shouldn't just be about who wins but more discussing all of the shows and discovering new ones, remembering old ones, all those sorts of things. And for that, it has been very successful, thank you Chez, it's been great revisiting the existence of a lot of these.

Thanks for running this poll Chez and presenting the results. I've never watched The Simpsons but I've watched Family Guy from the start and still enjoy it now. The Stewie/Brian centred episodes are the best ones. Out of the top 10,I also like Looney Tunes,Futurama and Tom & Jerry. I haven't seen the other ones.