Western Animation Recommendations

K, I recommend Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja. It's a 2-D animated show that aired on Disney XD during the early 2010s about this high school kid who is secretly a heroic ninja. Ben Schwartz, who also voiced Dewey from DuckTales (2017), stars as the main character. It's a pretty fun show. A lot of the focus is on the friendship between the main character and his best friend. Currently streaming on Disney+.

Edited by antenna_ears on Oct 15th 2020 at 7:59:53 AM

really sorry for the late reply, but cool! I'll watch it over Thanksgiving break. I know the creator of Invader Zim is the character designer for that show.

I don't know what type of cartoons you watch, but here's a list of my favorite cartoons from each year starting at 2000-2020 (based on year they started airing)

2000 - x-men evolution

2001 - invader zim, justice league, samurai jack

2002 - the adventures of jimmy neutron, codename kids next door, he-man and the masters of the universe, kim possible

2003 - teen titans, tmnt, spiderman the new animated series, code lyoko, my life as a teenage robot, xiaolin showdown

2004 - danny phantom, the batman, fosters home for imaginary friends, justice league unlimited

2005 - avatar the last airbender, american dragon jake long, ben 10

2007 - total drama island, chowder, el tigre, phineas and ferb, transformers animated

2008 - batman the brave and the bold, marvelous misadventures of flapjack, spectacular spiderman, star wars the clone wars

2009 - iron man armored adventures, wolverine and the x-men

2010 - adventure time, avengers earth's mightiest heroes, generator rex, g.i. joe renegades, regular show, scooby doo mystery incorporated, sym bionic titan, transformers prime, young justice

2011 - the amazing world of gumball, thundercats, bob's burgers, green lantern tas

2012 - the legend of korra, gravity falls, tmnt, randy cunningham 9th grade ninja, dreamworks dragons

2013 - steven universe, rick and morty, beware the batman

2014 - bojack horseman, over the garden wall, star wars rebels

2015 - star vs the forces of evil, we bare bears

2016 - trollhunters, milo murphy's law

2017 - castlevania, ducktales, ok ko let's be heroes, rapunzel's tangled adventures

2018 - 3 below, she-ra and the princesses of power, devilman crybaby, the dragon prince

2019 - infinity train, amphibia, carmen sandiego, harley quinn, mao mao: heroes of pure heart, primal, the last kids on earth

2020 - the owl house, wizards: tales of arcadia, close enough, glitch techs, kipo and the age of wonderbeasts, star trek lower decks

You haven't checked out Hilda? It's a Netflix original and I assume you have a subscription based on your list. Imaginative, light, and bubbly, I suggest checking it out.

Edited by ChicoTheParakeet on Nov 28th 2020 at 7:51:02 AM

Space Ghost Coast to Coast is quite good, It's an animated talk show parody about the title character interviewing different celebrities only to be often interrupted by his assistants Zorak and Moltar.

x5 I'd also like to recommend Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters in addition to the other recommendations. Good mix between comedy and drama, character development for most of the cast, good (though not great) animation. It feels like a traditional kid-friendly superhero action cartoon that we don't seem to get these days.

I feel like promoting some more obscure Canadian cartoons I watched recently. And yes, I have mostly been watching Canadian stuff these days, because I have been shockingly ignorant to my own country's cartoons for too long and find that a lot of them are actually quite enjoyable and competently/passionately made (or at least, completely harmless "it's not my thing, but the kids will probably like it" shows).

My Goldfish is Evil is a Montreal-produced cartoon (very obscure circle even by Canadian cartoon standards) with a very weird premise that I think is competently executed, has some very good animation, and is overall a solid well-made show with some very enjoyable characters. It's basically a better-done Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain or a less cynically cruel Kid vs. Kat^note yes, I'm aware of how the show is apparently less "mean-spirited" in its second season, but still.. The only thing I dislike about it is the theme song.

Get Ed is a really fun action-driven All-CGI Cartoon with solid writing and characters, as well as a great overarching story element surrounding the mystery of the main character's origins. And for Grojband and Total Drama fans, it's got what I feel are some underrated roles from Lyon Smith (Corey Riffin) and Megan Fahlenbock (Gwen).

I also highly recommend Cupcake & Dino: General Services. It's a load of fun and actually kinda cute and heartwarming, with plenty of lovable characters. Heck, the New York Times called it one of the best TV shows of 2018 (and I think it was the only kids' cartoon to make the list). Proof. Also, for Nickelodeon watchers, it's from the guy who made Ollie's Pack, which I'm like one of the only 5 people on the Internet who likes and thinks is a good series (to me, it's a fun, cute, and charming show with great animation and a lot of heart).

Also, as someone fed up with the swarms of mediocre cartoon reviewers that plague the Internet and get all the attention and adoration they don't deserve, I highly recommend The Wacky Delhi and Benzies Johnson. Their reviews and analyses are actually well-constructed, mature, and intelligent, making them feel like real critics of children's media and not just whiny entitled manchildren.

EDIT: Shoot! For got to mention Toon Talk Weekly as another cartoon reviewer I actually like and consider competent and intelligent. They’re a podcast rather than a Youtube show, but you should be able to find their stuff with a simple google search. Sadly, a lot of it has been lost since the hosts no longer do the series, but what I could find, I really liked.

Edited by MagnusForce on Mar 9th 2021 at 11:50:11 AM

I highly recommend Wakfu, it has such a creative setting and characters. And the Villain of Season 1 is friggin' AMAZING.

You can look at 30's cartoons if you don't want "tumblr trash". That's all I can think of

pfft, you assume I haven't already watched the catalog from that era.

Since the post is thumped i can assume "tumblr trash" is anything with largely diverse cast.

Yes

Man.

I would really recommend Buddy Thunderstruck on Netflix. It's really good.

I'm back, and if you've been following this thread for a while, you probably know what that means.... Time for me to shill Canadian shows! (*bored clapping*)

Let's start with some shows that literally nobody brings up on the subject of Teletoon shows:

Bolts & Blip, which is incidentally from the creator of Get Ed I mentioned prior (although he sadly died before the show came out), is a fun sci-fi action/buddy comedy (as in ACTUAL buddy comedy, not the "interchangeable idiots" trope) about robots, Gladiator Games, friendship, and an evil conspiracy to take over the Moon. It's mainly episodic with a small overarching story that gets a while to get going, and it also has excellent CGI animation and some good humor. If you're looking for a Saturday-morning style cartoon that's just plain fun, it might be worth checking out.

Blazing Dragons, an INCREDIBLY funny show from Nelvana (aka the GOAT in the Canadian animation industry) and created by Terry Jones (yes, THAT Terry Jones). It's honestly one of the funniest cartoons I've seen in a while, and can be pretty much summed up as Monty Python and the Holy Grail as filtered through Dragon Tales (but less educational and cutesy, more witty and irreverent). If you like 90s cartoons, especially of the comedic variety, you might like this one. Just know ahead of time that Season 2 does a big retool to the show's style with results that can really only be judged by yourself.

In the realm of adult animation, I've previously mentioned Life's a Zoo on this thread, so if you liked that show you might also like What It's Like Being Alone and Producing Parker. The former is a surreal Black Comedy like The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy or Invader Zim but in claymation, while the latter is a female-oriented Work Com that's kinda like an animated 30 Rock but with a talk show instead of a sketch show, a lot more nipple exposure ('cause Canadian Values Dissonance), and a talking dog. IMDb shockingly rates PP only 3.4/10, but I personally found it very entertaining. Then again, the clowns who do the site's "reviews" rate Allen Gregory 4.2/10, so what do they know? And fun fact about WILBA: the creator is the director of Rampage (2018).

Also, y'all should watch Detentionaire. It's been recommended here before, but it really is that fucking awesome. I got to watch it a few months ago, and it's now my all-time favorite Nelvana/Teletoon/Canadian cartoon and one of my all-time favorite cartoons in general.

Now I wait for the "CaNaDa bAD" people to show up and get all pissy at me, although I imagine some of you are already tired of me inundating this thread with "lol Canada" shows. Ironically, I used to be one of those people who based their knowledge of the country's medium on Johnny Test and My Life Me, but exposure to now sadly forgotten classics like Nelvana's many Animated Adaptations (especially Babar, Franklin and Jacob Two-Two) and vaster knowledge of obscure shows like many of the ones I've mentioned have given me a change of heart. Heck, Canadian animation even got me to pay attention to Preschool Shows after years of ignoring them for no valid reason.

I would recommend Legend Quest on Netflix. An adaptation of the Mexican series Las Leyendas, it's a great fantasy series drawing from not only Mesoamerican mythology, but tales from all over the world.

There are two seasons on Netflix, and for my money, the first has a better story and a nicer animation style, though the second (called Legend Quest - Masters of Myth) isn't that bad.

Edited by Captain1312 on Sep 14th 2021 at 12:34:38 PM

I've been looking for Western animated series that focus primarily on Humongous Mecha— whether they're in the Super Robot Genre or the Real Robot Genre is largely irrelevant. More specifically I'm looking for series where the mechas in question are piloted or otherwise human-controlled, so no Transformers shows, please.

If you're wondering, I've already watched Exo-Squad, Sym-Bionic Titan, and Gen:Lock. Are there any recommendations besides those?

Megas XLR, perhaps?

No, I want something that takes itself seriously.

There is the Voltron franchise.

Does that really count as Western Animation, though?

It does. The original series is the only one that relied on Stock Footage from GoLion, all other works afterwards were fully original

I cannot recommend Generator Rex enough.

Imagine Ben 10 + Evangelion + Parasyte + the good parts of Steven Universe.

It's not exclusively mecha, but there's definitely elements of the genre.

Edited by LilyLopunny on Nov 24th 2021 at 8:46:04 AM

If you can distance it from the original movie, Spirit: Riding Free is a spectacular show in its own right.

There's great Character Development, long-term story-arc writing, genuine and unabashed drama and wholesomeness that are not hijacked by stupid ill-timed moments of comedy, lively CGI animation, and the art style design is realistic, grounded, and not sore on the eyes.

Oh, and the voice acting is spectacular too.

Indeed, the only thing weighing it down is its connection to the original film, but that's quite mitigated by the fact that the good horse riders in this series treat their horses as family, rather than as work animals.

Oh, and one more actual major criticism would be that the show has a tendency to use Insane Troll Logic and (often cliche) misunderstandings to have the kids get in trouble with their parents and other adult authority figures.