Cartoon thread!

[Snow]

I haven't seen a thread here specifically for cartoons, so I figured I'd make one! I think it's safe to say most of us are familiar with cartoons and have watched at least one at some point in our lives. And my questions for you are the following (you don't have to answer them all!)

* What has your experience with cartoons been like?
* What cartoons did you grow up watching?
* What are your favourite cartoons?

I'm happy to answer my own questions to start off this thread:

What has your experience with cartoons been like?

I spent a significant portion of my childhood watching a number of cartoons on networks like Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Boomerang. I used to watch all of these on a service called Foxtel (Foxtel is basically cable television in Australia). I was watching cartoons fairly regularly from 2004 through to about 2010. As I started to frequent the Internet more often, I began to stray away from cartoons on the television and find other entertainment like Let's Plays, random skit videos, and other random stuff on YouTube. But I've never completely stopped watching cartoons and I still watch them semi-regularly to this day.

What cartoons did you grow up watching?

I grew up watching quite a fair bit! I mostly remembering enjoying watching cartoons like SpongeBob SquarePants, CatDog, Cow & Chicken, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Invader Zim, Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, Chowder, The Fairly OddParents, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Camp Lazlo, and The Marvellous Misadventures of Flapjack.

What are your favourite cartoons?

A fair amount of my favourite cartoons are ones I saw after I had transitioned to using the Internet as my main source of entertainment, but some of my favourites are also the classics I remember seeing on TV in the 2000s. I'd say my favourite cartoons are, in no particular order; SpongeBob, Steven Universe, Amphibia, Regular Show, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Droners, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, and Courage the Cowardly Dog.

I'm curious to hear other's thoughts on this topic!

[starbreaker]

I was a kid in the 1980s, so most of the cartoons I watched as a kid were either old Warner Bros/Hanna-Barbera shorts or infomercials for shitty toys (Masters of the Universe, Transformers, etc.). Also, Speed Racer, Voltron, and Robotech -- anime butchered for North American TV syndication by scrubbing out violence, most nudity, and any hints of Japanese culture. My little brother had gotten into the Disney Afternoon shit, stuff like Ducktales and TaleSpin, so I was exposed to it as well (we only had 2 TVs, and the one my brother and I had to share was a little B&W job).

As a teenager I started seeing real anime on cable TV: stuff like Akira, Dominion: Tank Police and Vampire Hunter D. I had also seen the Heavy Metal animated anthology film from 1980.

I still watch animated stuff today; I just finished watching Blue Eye Samurai (which is fuckin' badass), and I'm hoping for more Love, Death, and Robots, since that's the spiritual successor of Heavy Metal. I wouldn't mind another season of Godzilla: Singular Point, too. And I liked the original Castlevania animation on Netflix. Warren Ellis might be an asshole, but the man can write.

But never any Disney shit if I can help it. (There's nothing wrong with Disney that can't be fixed with antitrust enforcement and/or kinetic bombardment.)

[jori]

omg, okay! so cartoons have been a special interest of mine ever since childhood. i'm 20 now and i'm still obsessed which i think is a great thing!

my favorite of all time is hey arnold which has been my longest special interest to date. i used to name all my accounts after helga pataki (for example, my statuscafe and my old site). it's very cozy and simple which i enjoy.

lore-based cartoons are all the rage right now (or are they? i haven't been keeping up...) my favorites are amphibia, steven universe and she-ra (2018). however i am critical of all of these; all three have dramatic high and low points. i also watched some of the owl house because it was super popular, but (and don't hate me for this) it wasn't really my speed, although i love the raeda ship.

however, i greatly prefer episodic cartoons! why? i don't know, really. probably because i prefer the singular installments and shorter storylines? in any case, some i really love are sam and max (my other favorite of all time!), the looney tunes show, animaniacs (i prefer the original run), smiling friends, bob's burgers, invader zim and phineas and ferb.

i also love my little pony: friendship is magic but never finished it :^( i got about a third of the way through s5 before i dropped it in middle school... a goal of mine is to 100% the franchise one day.

some shows i gotta watch are (and yes, i know, why havent i watched these yet?) adventure time, avatar: the last airbender, rocko's modern life, bojack horseman and over the garden wall. i don't really seek out lore-based shows too often because for me they're a higher commitment activity, so that's why these popular ones are unwatched.

okay, i'll stop rambling now! if anyone could give me recs i would appreciate it so much! ^_^

[shevek]

* What has your experience with cartoons been like?

I watched some as a kid, but more as an adult There's simply more of an overview now, more available, and I am not bound to TV times.

* What cartoons did you grow up watching?

As a kid, I just watched whatever was on - Disney's Recess, The Angry Beavers, Oggy and the Cockroaches, Pokemon and Digimon, Kim Possible, Fairly Oddparents, and Spongebob. Later as a teen I also watched Phineas and Ferb, and I still do when I'm sick because it's my comfort show, together with Kim Possible. I've actually rewatched most of Spongebob (Season 1 to 7 if I remember correctly) in my fun routine with my girlfriend called "Spongebob Sunday" this year.

Self-added question: What cartoons have you watched recently/the past few years?

I've watched Bobs Burgers, but I think stopped in Season 4 or so because I felt the show lose its charme and I became a bit bored with the plot.
I watched and liked Daria, and I am kind of waiting for a good reboot! It was announced ages ago..
I really loved Bojack Horseman and can only recommend it, same with the new She-Ra and Adventure Time and Adventure Time: Distant Lands, all of which I finished this year.
I also used to watch Steven Universe, but stopped at Season 3 because the episodes felt like constant filler to me, with nothing happening.

I am currently 2 episodes away from finishing Fionna & Cake, but I am less pleased with it. I have read some good arguments as to why the things I dislike about it are there, and I get that, but I am still not happy about it.
I am currently 5 episodes into Over The Garden Wall, and so far it felt to me like a waste of time and I likely won't continue with it.

* What are your favourite cartoons?

To summarize it, I think Bojack Horseman, Adventure Time and Phineas & Ferb. Bojack Horseman pulled off something amazing about its narrative of mental health and life, and anyone who has seen Adventure Time and especially Distant Lands + Fionna & Cake probably gets what I mean when I say their story around the Ice King was intense to see unfold.

@jori I think Adventure Time might be easier for you then, because it is less lore-based than others. There is indeed an overall lore and in later seasons, some arcs span multiple episodes, but the large majority of episodes are very self-contained and don't carry over much, if anything, into the next one. I'd say especially in the first few seasons, you can get away with skipping episodes or watching them out of order (except the last of the season). The good thing also is that the episodes are fairly short (11 minutes), so viewers can fit an episode in every now and then. They don't expect you to remember super much, either, as someone who keeps forgetting characters from a few episodes ago all the time. That keeps the energy you have to invest into it low.

[Bede]

I spent a lot of my childhood watching cartoons (mainly on Cartoon Network, as well as my Grandma's VHS collection), and it's still one of my special interests to this day! I watched stuff like Steven Universe, Spongebob, Fairly OddParents, Chowder, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Adventure Time, and the like.

Eventually, when I entered my tweens, I got more into watching anime online (which itself is just a Japanese cartoon). I'd always watched Pokemon and Sonic X, but I got into some magical girl anime at this time, such as Tokyo Mew Mew and Shugo Chara, as well as some slice-of-life pieces like Lucky Star.

Nowadays, I'm still keeping up with cartoons I love! Multiple cartoons serve as special interests for me. My current fixation is the 2023 Fionna and Cake! But I also really love LEGO Monkie Kid (a character from which serves as my website's namesake and my icon on here; check out my friend's site about the show if you wanna learn about it because it is SO GOOD!!!) and The Owl House.

I have a LENGTHY list of cartoon recommendations, including anime and animated movies. These aren't necessarily my favorites (because personal taste plays into that way more), but the cartoons that I have watched that I feel are the highest quality.

Series:

• LEGO Monkie Kid
• The Owl House
• Steven Universe (including Future)
• Bojack Horseman
• Serial Experiments Lain
• Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
• Over the Garden Wall
• Gravity Falls
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica
• Tuca & Bertie
• Basically all Adventure Time media

Movies:

• Whisper of the Heart (or basically anything by Ghibli, honestly, but this is my favorite)
• The LEGO Batman Movie (the best Batman movie, no I'm not kidding)
• Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva
• Doukyusei
• Coraline
• Nimona
• Perfect Blue
• The Spiderverse movies

[MrsMoe]

- What has your experience with cartoons been like?

Animation itself is one of my biggest special interests so naturally, I watched a lot of cartoons. The first cartoon I ever actively kept up with and engaged in the fandom for was MLP. Then, around 2014, I started getting caught up in the modern cartoon renaissance that was going on with stuff like SU or Gravity Falls. To this day, I still watch and try to keep up with whatever cartoon people are freaking out over (....which is sad cause there really isn't a lot rn).

My taste in cartoons is nearly the opposite of @jori's. I tend to prefer story-based cartoons and I find it really hard to get engaged with formulaic ones these days (unless the humor and vibes REALLY grab me, like Invader Zim or Courage the Cowardly Dog).

- What cartoons did you grow up watching?

I watched a LOT of cartoons growing up, but my main favorites were Spongebob, Fairly Oddparents, Recess, Kim Possible, Phineas and Ferb, and The Emperor's New School (dear lord, does anyone other than me remember that)?

- What are your favourite cartoons?

This is gonna be a long list, but...

- Bojack Horseman
- ATLA
- Moral Orel
- Arcane
- Steven Universe
- OTGW
- Gravity Falls
- Batman: TAS
- Infinity Train
- The Owl House
- Samurai Jack
- Invader Zim
- Courage the Cowardly Dog

[zawieja]

My taste in cartoons is nearly the opposite of @jori's. I tend to prefer story-based cartoons and I find it really hard to get engaged with formulaic ones these days (unless the humor and vibes REALLY grab me, like Invader Zim or Courage the Cowardly Dog).

Same honestly    although I love it the most when the cartoon feels episodic, but ends up having a bigger overarching plot. That's the good stuff.

Anyway, I've been obsessed with animation in general ever since I was little and since I was internet savvy even as a 10 year old, I managed to watch tons of stuff, so I'm not gonna list even a quarter of them here. My favorite as a kid were Pokemon, Moomins, Animals of Farthing Wood and some Easter European cartoons that I had on VHS, later on when we got a cable TV I liked some cartoon network and the such. I was a big fan of Danny Phantom, Teen Titans and ATLA. Then I had no cable TV again but Digimon were running on whatever was available so I got obsessed with Digimon obviously...

From "typical" modern cartoons, I'm a huge fan of Gravity Falls especially, but I like other shows like Over the Garden Wall, The Owl House, Hilda, and I liked the first season of Infinity Train a lot.

While not technically cartoons, I liked animated movies from Irish Cartoon Saloon studio sooo much it's insane. Wolfwalkers are one of my favorite animated pieces ever. And Chinese animated movie called The Legend of Hei too, I think these deserve to be much more popular so I might as well use this place to promote them xD

So! I just love cartoons I guess! And animation as a whole! Great medium.

[itspencilz]

I feel like Gravity Falls is always my go-to answer when someone asks me this question, but I've seen all the episodes so many times I'm gonna change it up and mention some others I really liked:

• Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
• Daria
• Aaaahh! Real Monsters
• Codename: Kids Next Door
• Hey Arnold

It's been awhile since I watched some of these and/or I only watched them through once before, I should probably check them out again.