The Wild Thornberrys
For years, Saturday mornings used to be TV mecca for kids, jam packed to the gills with cartoons from across the pond that used to make the week even more of an inconvenience than they usually were.
Now though, British TV is dominated by cooking shows at the beginning of the weekend, but a new bout of nostalgia got us looking back and deciding seven of our favourite cartoons from yesteryear.
Kim Possible
Perhaps the last great cartoon Disney made before the arrival of Phineas and Ferb, Kim Possible was a great combination of action, comedy and a fantastic sense of style. The show even had a theme tune sung by Christina Milian, you don’t get any more mid-noughties than that.
The crux of the show was Kim herself, who was basically a mix between Sydney Bristow of ‘Alias’ and Buffy from ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. Now how could that be anything less than awesome!
Just, whatever you do, don’t go doing an image search of her without safe search on. The internet is a dark and scary place sometimes.
The Wild Thornberrys
Nigel Thornberry alone would be enough put this show on to our list, but Darwin the chimpanzee makes it so that The Wild Thornberrys is a must for this list.
While main character Eliza might have been a touch on the annoying side (despite her ability to secretly converse with animals), it was more than balanced out by her Tim Curry voiced explorer father and her chimpanzee companion that communicate to Eliza in a wonderfully upper-crust English accent.
With an nicely off-kilter art style that has faired the show well over the years, The Wild Thornberrys was wildly successful for Nickelodeon and even got a full blown movie spin-off. In the words of Nigel himself “Smashing!”
Dexter’s Laboratory
Dexter and Dee DeeThe show that brought the talents of Seth MacFarlane to the fore, this was the first time that Cartoon Network set about making an original show instead of simply repeating old episodes of cartoons it had bought in. To say they hit gold on the first attempt is an understatement.
Funny, anarchic and weird, it was a real risk that paid off massively, giving Cartoon Network a whole new level of kudos that only and Emmy nominated show can bring. Pavuing the way for the brilliant Johnny Bravo and many more after, the long term result of Dexter’s Lab is immense.
You can read even more about why Dexter’s Lab was so great right here.
X-Men
An absolute classic on this list, this was the show that made us all so excited when it was announced that the X Men would be hitting the big screen over ten years ago. While the movies were amazing, they still didn’t have as good a theme as the TV show did.
That the show still holds up to this day in a world of realistic and gritty superheroes is a testament to the original comic’s great characters and the utter fun the cartoon had exploring the universe.
Batman – The Animated Series
The Batman
During the 1990s, Batman had a mixed time of it. Before Joel Schumacher could ruin the Dark Knight with his neon-lit catastrophe, this Saturday morning delight was a reminder of how good Batman could be when it was moody.
The show felt like a quality product too, with its distinctive noir style and brilliant productions values constantly shining through. Heck, the show even directly used the theme tune from the Tim Burton movies. That the award winning Batman videogames of the last few years have re-united the show’s cast with fantastic results just shows quite ace they were back then.
Utterly timeless, the show is far better than a kids version of Batman has any right to be and can quite happily sit next to Christopher Nolan’s recent films in the Bruce Wayne pantheon.
Animaniacs
The Steve Spielberg produced cartoon was an absolute bundle of mad energy, a real throwback to the crazed adventures of the old Looney Tunes days that also managed to have more references and spoofs than the Family Guy in every episode.
It also gave us the greatest pair of mice ever to see the airwaves too in the shape of Pinky and The Brain, who just so happened to get their own spinoff series as a result.
Duck Tales
Scrooge McDuck and his nephewsDisney Animation was struggling in the 1980s, with a real lack of either quality or quantity coming out of its animation studios. That was until they decided to change their focus from the big screen to the small one and ventured into the world of TV with Duck Tales.
Apart from having the world’s most incredibly catchy theme song (a must for any cartoon), the show was a breath of fresh air and
You can read even more about why Duck Tales was so great right here.
What were your favourite cartoons growing up? Let us know in the comments section below.