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10. Gargoyles

Gargoyles are strong nocturnal creatures that turn to stone at night. In 994 AD, they were betrayed by the humans they once protected, resulting in the Gargoyle genocide. Goliath, the gargoyle leader, finds out that the only members of his clan still alive are cursed to sleep in stone until their castle rises above the clouds, in other words forever. He decides to have the same spell cast on him in order to kill the pain of being the last of his kind. He basically asks to be killed.

1000 years pass and a billionaire, David Xanatos, purchases their castle and has it placed on top of his skyscraper. This breaks the gargoyles' curse and awakens them in modern New York. Xanatos uses them to create a steel army in their likeness and betrays them with it. The Gargoyles defeat his army and now must find a way to survive in their new surroundings.

This definitely wasn't Goof Troop or Recess. Disney's highly underrated action cartoon didn't hold back much and wasn't always concerned with a happy sing-along ending. This dark cartoon had people saying hell and showed blood all it wanted while killing any typical Disney feeling. Sadly, they stopped releasing season sets due to it not reaching Disney's ridiculous sale expectations.



9. Sonic the Hedgehog (1994)

Robotnik, a scientist, took over a city called Mobotropolis, renaming it Robotropolis. The city's organic feel was lost to pollution and factories. Using a robotic army, he turned the cities populace into mechanical workers absent of free will. A group known as the Freedom Fighters, led by Sonic the Hedgehog (Steven Urkle), was all that stood against him.

There were a number of Sonic cartoons in the '90s, but most were too childish to hold my attention. This one had drama and character development. The stories were dark and mature, everything Sonic wasn't at the time. Its influence was so great that it changed the direction of the comic book itself.

The cartoon only lasted for 2 seasons because of poor ratings, but it still has a satisfying conclusion. You can find the entire series on DVD in one set.



8. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)

A master of ninjutsu , Hamato Yoshi, is exiled from his clan after being framed by Oroku Saki, his rival. He traveled to America and failed at any type of occupation. Forced to live in the sewers, his only friends were rats and pet turtles he found. One day, he found the turtles covered in a green ooze. This ooze caused the turtles to take on several characteristics of a human, while Yoshi began to take on characteristics of a rat. They discovered that the ooze caused them to take on characteristics of the last creature they were in contact with. Saki eventually decided to train the turtles in the art of ninjutsu. The turtles in turn decided their goal was to someday make their master human again.

Personally, I favor this origin over the comic's. In the comic book and movies, Splinter isn't Saki. Splinter is a rat that somehow had the intelligence to become a master of ninjutsu by watching his master train. I know how ridiculous the entire comic sounds, but THAT is a little too ridiculous even for me. This cartoon was what put the turtles on the map. Honestly, I can't figure out why we like it so much. There are several versions, but my favorite will always be the 5-episode story arc that started the first cartoon series.



7. Cowboy Beebop

In 2071, a spaceship crew of bounty hunters try to find bounties.

I'm not the biggest anime fan, but I am still a fan. It's usually hit or miss (pokemon) in my opinion, but the hits are some of the best cartoons I have ever seen. Take Cowboy Beebop for example. It brilliantly weaves small, episode-long story arcs with deep arcs that span throughout the entire series. Blend violence with sophisticated stories and jazz and you've got one of my favorite anime cartoons. Several will argue that their favorite is better, but hey, this is my list.



6. The Venture Brothers

What happens to an adventure family between adventures? The Venture Brothers. It's a hilarious show that goes between adventures and mostly doesn't touch on their adventures at all. They'll typically either start an episode with the family returning from an adventure or briefly mention one in an episode. Stories typically deal with breaking down or purposefully reinforcing action cartoon stereotypes with hilarious results. Cartoons have gone downhill lately and a lot of new ones suck, but this is one of the few I can still stand to watch.



5. Spider-Man (1994)

It seems like a lot of good cartoons came out of 1994. This cartoon was amazing considering the censorship fox put on its cartoons. Here's a list of the rules it faced:

- Don't mention Death or any variation of the word at all, so no killers or anyone dying.
- No realistic guns
- Spider-Man can't hit anyone with his hands
- No broken Glass
- No children in danger
- No vampires
- No fire
- No villains from potential movies
- etc

It was ridiculous. Just having an action cartoon after all of these restrictions calls for bragging rights. But not only did they pull it off, they pulled it off well. The animation was slick with the exception of some recycled scenes. In later seasons, they went on to include story arcs that spanned over several episodes, some an entire season long. No plans are set for ever releasing season sets of this cartoon. See an earlier blog entry for more details.



4. The Tick (1994)

The Tick is a cartoon parody of super heroes. It's quite possibly the funniest action cartoon ever made. It shares links with some of the other cartoons on the list:

The creator of The Tick, Ben Edlund, was roommates in college with a co-creator of The Venture Brothers, Doc Hammer. The other creator was a writer for The Tick. Ben Edlund takes on directing and writing an episode of The Venture Brothers once a year. The actor who played the live-action Tick, Patrick Warburton, plays Brock on The Venture Brothers.

Three out of four of the voice actors for the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon made up the main cast of The Tick:

Townsend Coleman -- The Tick and Michelangelo
Ron Paulson -- Arthur and Raphael
Cam Clarke -- Die Fledermaus and Leonardo



3. Transformers (1984)

Despite being one big toy advertisement, there isn't much to dislike about this cartoon. Awesome animation, badass main characters, and one of the greatest animated movies of all time. No other manifestation of Transformers could, can or ever will compare to it.



2. DC Animated Universe (Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, and Batman Beyond)

Batman was number 2 on my list, but I couldn't get over how amazing and intricate the Cadmus story arc was in Justice League Unlimited, so I'm including it all. Batman set up the ground work for it, but it was all pretty dark and moody. It was deep and had well thought out stories with great action, but it was a little much for the younger audience, so they decided to make a lighter cartoon.

Superman was light at first, but slowly became darker and darker. Apparently light doesn't sell as well, so they included Batman in a few episodes and made the tone increasingly serious. After that, ratings shot up and they decided to include more and more super hero guest stars. This inevitably led to The Justice League.

Once again, they tried a lighter tone to broaden the audience. They redid Superman and Batman's look and added Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Martian Manhunter, Flash, and Hawkgirl. The first season almost isn't worth watching because of the light tone. After the first season, they went with more serious stories and made their appearance closer to the Batman and Superman cartoons. After a couple of years, they decided to do away with the two-episode story arcs and went with one shot stories, though major story arcs stretched for seasons. They changed the name to Justice League Unlimited to include all the characters available in the DC universe.

Batman Beyond took place after Justice League Unlimited, but aired between Batman and Justice League.



1. X-Men (1992)

This was groundbreaking. No similar cartoon existed before it. The first several seasons where so well put together, I'm surprised that they pulled it off as a kids' cartoon. Themes involved a maturity level far higher than any other cartoon that aired at the time. It's hard to really put into words how good this cartoon was, with the exception of the last season. The writing and animation went downhill towards the end.