Animated TV shows originating in The West — the Americas (USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, etc.), Protestant and Catholic Europe, Australia or New Zealand. Some of these entries are actually compilations of theatrical shorts assembled for broadcast; the vast majority, though, are original creations made for television.
These are frequently Dom Coms (The Simpsons, Family Guy, The Flintstones) or Adventure Series (Jonny Quest, Justice League), and generally follow the conventions and Tropes of their genre (and may exaggerate them).
Note that during the 1970s, many prime-time series both current and cancelled acquired animated versions broadcast as part of the network's Saturday morning kidvid block; The Ricky Gervais Show, based on the podcast of the same name, would be a recent example. Many of these are noted in the entries for the live-action show.
Most of the modern animated television series on this page are created, written, and acted in the West, but the actual animation is usually outsourced to Korean studios to save money (In other words, unless the idea or sources, etc. were outside of the West, a Western animation made outside of the Western world doesn't make the series/cartoon non-Western. This is only done to save money, as mentioned previously). This is after most series in the '90s were outsourced to Japan, but Korea is cheaper. In the 2010s, outsourcing grew to a broader range, expanded to Canadian, French, Australian, Filipino, and even Indian studios to name a few. Depending on the Western country, some series of them are Domestic Only Cartoons, including United States cases handed off to Texas, Georgia, or New York. Primarily, theatrical films by major studios are still animated domestically within North America.
Not to Be Confused with an animated western, although they can and do overlap.
For non-Western animation, see Anime, Asian Animation and Eastern European Animation.
Animated shows have developed their own dialect of cliches and devices; see Animation Tropes for a listing.
Feature films belong in the Animated Films index.
Western Animation Shows:
By decade
- Western Animation of the 1960s
- Western Animation of the 1970s
- Western Animation of the 1980s
- Western Animation of the 1990s
- Western Animation of the 2000s
- Western Animation of the 2010s
- Western Animation of the 2020s
By era
- History of Animation
- Early Animation
- The Silent Age of Animation
- The Golden Age of Animation
- The Dark Age of Animation
- The Renaissance Age of Animation
- The Millennium Age of Animation
By genre
