DISCOVER--the twenty-five best cartoon series made for television
After the golden age of the Warners and MGM shorts of the '40's and '50's, and the Disney features of the same period, the most entertaining cartoons could be found on television, as Warners and MGM staff migrated en masse to companies like Hanna- Barbera. Cinema cartoons in the 1960s were awful, but look at the variety here. This list is in alphabetical order.
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- CreatorCharles M. SchulzStarsBill MelendezJeremy SchoenbergAngela Lee SloanEvery Saturday morning The Peanuts Gang does skits, mostly taken from newspaper strips.The first Charlie Brown cartoon for television appeared, very cautiously on the part of creative genius Charles Schulz, as the legendary A Charlie Brown Christmas. The 1960s and early '70s specials were sparingly produced and all very good, but round about the time the cartoon strip itself started getting smug and overly cute, the TV specials seriously lost the plot too. The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show saw a return to form as the skits were taken directly from the older strips, although there's no substitute for the real comic strips.
- CreatorDavid FeissStarsCharlie AdlerCandi MiloDee Bradley BakerThe program focuses on the misadventures of two unlikely yet somehow biological siblings: Cow and Chicken.Mama had a chicken, Mama had a cow. Dad was proud, he didn't care how...
- CreatorGenndy TartakovskyStarsKath SoucieJeff BennettChristine CavanaughThe misadventures of a boy genius and his annoying sister.The first smash hit for the Cartoon Network, this wonderfully silly and inspired series of shorts by Genndy Tarkovsky features a child prodigy who has somehow installed a gargantuan Kirby-esque science complex underneath the family home, but is plagued by his scatty sister and sinister nerdy rival Mandark.
- CreatorEverett PeckGabor CsupoArlene KlaskyStarsJason AlexanderGregg BergerNancy TravisA crass, womanizing duck works as a private eye with his level-headed pig sidekick, all the while raising a family as a single dad.Jason "George Costanza" Alexander voiced this deranged duck in this cruel and stupid and even occasionally funny satire. It seems to have completely vanished since its original run, at least in my neck of the woods, but it must surely be out there on the internet somewhere.
- CreatorSeth MacFarlaneDavid ZuckermanStarsAlex BorsteinSeth MacFarlaneSeth GreenIn a wacky Rhode Island town, a dysfunctional family strives to cope with everyday life as they are thrown from one crazy scenario to another.Having started life as a brazen rip-off of The Simpsons, this show finally found its own style and identity. When it's funny it will have you weeping on the floor and quoting dialogue for days. When it's not funny, you'll stop watching it for weeks.
- CreatorJack KirbyStan LeeStarsPaul FreesGerald MohrJack DeLeonFour costumed superheroes battle the world's most terrifying villains.Although obviously not up to the standard of the original Lee-Kirby comics (what could be?), this is a perfectly serviceable and entertaining recreation of some of the classic Fantastic Four storylines of that period, and in my opinion, still the best animated incarnation of the team (and vastly superior to the 1970s one, on which Kirby actually worked!).
- CreatorJoseph BarberaWilliam HannaStarsAlan ReedMel BlancJean Vander PylThe misadventures of two modern-day Stone Age families, the Flintstones and the Rubbles.Like The Simpsons thirty years later, this series developed on air, getting better and better as it went. The fifth and final season however saw a serious drop in quality of animation and inspiration, redeemed only by the arrival of the Great Gazoo.
- CreatorDavid X. CohenMatt GroeningStarsBilly WestJohn DiMaggioKatey SagalPhilip J. Fry, a pizza delivery boy, is accidentally frozen in 1999 and thawed out on New Year's Eve 2999.Never as funny as the sci-fi themed gags and episodes of The Simpsons, this series had the unenviable task of being that show's follow-up. One or two episodes are brilliant, others, meh.
- CreatorAlex TothStarsVirginia GreggTed EcclesDon MessickKing Zandor and a group of bizarre creatures protect their futuristic kingdom from creatures from other galaxies.Wall to wall action, this mid- 60's sci-fi monster-fest just started blasting away from the moment it started until the moment it ended. Who were the characters? Where did they come from? What were they doing there? Where did the creatures come from? WTF?? The show never paused to tell us...
- StarsDaws ButlerDon MessickDoug YoungThe adventures of a blue dog with a southern accent.The true star of The Huckleberry Hound Show, although I didn't know it when I was a mesmerised four year old transfixed to the screen in 1960, was the voice artist Daws Butler, who not only provided the Southern drawl of the hapless hound, but that of companion characters Yogi Bear and Mr. Jinks the cat as well. With an able assist from the also gifted Don Messick, he brought limited animation to life. Why limited? Well, Hanna and Barbera had a month to make each Tom and Jerry short, but when MGM let them go, only a week to fill a half hour slot for television. This meant more talk, less movement. Fortunately, the Hanna-Barbera cartoons were very funny.
Huckleberry Hound was a good-natured doofus who occupied a different job, and sometimes even a different time period, each week--cop, cowboy, caveman, scientist, mailman, knight in armour, there were no limitations to what he would do, or where he would go. Yogi Bear, by contrast, was a bumptious blowhard trapped in Jellystone Park, a facsimile of Yellowstone, living the good life with little buddy and conscience Boo Boo and the harassed Ranger Smith. Mr. Jinks was a hep cat who actually was a cat, with a feline fixation for pursuing the "Meeces" he "hated to pieces", Pixie and Dixie, in retreads of the Tom and Jerry plots. Massively popular back in the day, and despite a few rough edges, still good fun. - CreatorJoseph BarberaWilliam HannaStarsGeorge O'HanlonJanet WaldoMel BlancThe misadventures of a futuristic family.A futuristic version of the Flintstones based on the Jetsons family, this was a typical vision of the future from this period, all consumer-based automated luxury--flying bubble cars, jet packs, spray-on raincoats, and holidays on Mars. If only. It didn't catch on at the time, probably because the stories focused less on the fun of the future and more on stale boorish boss and put-upon minion sit-com cliches. Nevertheless, it was a difficult show to dislike, the characters were strong, it had a great retro look for today, bold artwork and design, and certain episodes were inspired. Design-wise, get a load of "Las Venus" and "Miss Solar System"...
- CreatorVan PartibleStarsJeff BennettBrenda VaccaroMae WhitmanThe misadventures of a dumb blond egomaniac who severely overestimates his own manliness and his supposed "success" with women.This absurdly vain, musclebound over-the-top idiot can't fail to raise a smile, especially as he talks like Elvis (and lives in Aron City), where he molests the female populace and endures numerous violent responses to his advances that repeatedly fail to diminish either his confidence or enthusiasm.
- CreatorDoug WildeyStarsMike RoadTim MathesonDon MessickThe Quest family and their bodyguard investigate strange phenomena and battle villains around the world.A remarkably literate and amusingly unintentionally gay adventure series revolving around the exploits of the son of a scientist and his mostly non-stereotypical (well, unpatronising, anyway) Indian best friend Hadji. While Dad drops them into trouble in exotic global locations, bodyguard Race Bannon tries to keep them out of it.
- StarsSherry AlberoniJerry DexterCathy DouglasAn up-and-coming pop-music group and its entourage get involved with strange mysteries while touring the world.Adapted from a comic-book series, this colourful concoction duplicated the successful Scooby-Doo format to an almost embarrassing degree, although this girl band that falls into various pulp and/or sci-fi adventures while touring the world enjoyed more varied exploits, even if all the bad guys were voiced by the same guy (over-employed John Stephenson). Plots were a combination of Scooby-Doo chases and watered-down Jonny Quest-style escapades, with demented comedy antics. A second season saw the same shower shot into space.
- StarsBud CollyerJackson BeckJack GrimesSuperman protects Metropolis and the world from a variety of threats while working at the Daily Planet as Clark Kent.The Mort Weisinger era of the Superman comics is brought to life by this faithful mid-'60s recreation of the strip when it was at its strongest. Sadly, the DVD release pictured on the left omits the Superboy cartoons that were bookended by the two Superman adventures and gave the original half-hours some variety. It would have been fun to see Supergirl, Kandor, and the Fortress, etc., but what's there is all good, with the aliens and monsters preferable to the cackling petty criminals. The first three in the run are particularly strong. Hopefully the Superboy cartoons will show up in due course, although why the shows had to be truncated in the first place is bizarre.
- StarsDaws ButlerDoug YoungDon MessickQuick Draw Mcgraw was a dimwitted and lanky mustang (horse) who caused much chaos in the Old West. If he could get his own six shooter out of his holster at all, he would usually shoot the wrong man. His partner, a Mexican burro name Baba Looie, was always trying to help Quick Draw as much as he could. Also on the show were cartoons featuring Snooper and Blabber, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy.Still inexplicably unavailable on DVD, this series was the funniest, most satirical, most inspired, and most accomplished (although admittedly not the most popular) of Hanna-Barbera's initial run of superior funny animal cartoons. The show consisted, like the Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear shows, of three individual cartoon series, although the animation was vastly superior to Huckleberry, and the Yogi Bear show featured very poor support. No such problem here, with Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy providing a gentle father/son duo (the father speaks like Jimmy Durante), and the wonderfully named detective duo Snooper and Blabber (a drawling New Yoik cat in a deerstalker and a half-pint mouse dressed like a cop, both in trenchcoats) bumbling through pulp fiction storylines (Blab supplies their siren vocally by leaning out of the car window). Quick Draw himself, a horse (and sheriff) working with a Mexican burro deputy called Baba Looey, managed to demolish every western cliche in the book, while occasionally laying into Zorro etc. whenever "Queekstraw" decided to become his alter-ego El Kabong. This show needs rediscovering, not burying.
- CreatorJoe RubyKen SpearsJoseph BarberaStarsDon MessickCasey KasemNicole JaffeA group of teenage friends and their Great Dane (Scooby-Doo) travel in a bright green van solving strange and hilarious mysteries, while returning from or going to a regular teenage function.Much loved and much parodied, the first series is still the best. Or am I just being nostalgic?
- StarsBarney PhillipsJanet WaldoJerry DexterNancy and Chuck find a ring in the desert in two pieces. When they are joined, Shazzan the genie appears. He will help them every time they get in trouble.A booming-voiced genie appears to aid two adventuring youngsters marooned in an Arabian Nights fantasyland every time they summon him by clicking together two ring halves in this colourful and creative adventure cartoon based on the old Hollywood swords-and-sorcery films. This they need to do frequently as they forever fall into the clutches of wicked tyrants and malevolent magicians while helping out princesses and benevolent royalty. Clever and inventive, it inspired a follow-up, The Arabian Knights, which is just as good, and worth putting up with The Banana Splits for.
- CreatorJames L. BrooksMatt GroeningSam SimonStarsDan CastellanetaNancy CartwrightHarry ShearerThe satiric adventures of a working-class family in the misfit city of Springfield.Okay, it should have been cancelled years ago, but let's not forget how important, ground-breaking, and really, really, funny it was in its prime. Although when it started it was mostly about Bart, it was head of the household Homer who gradually developed into perhaps the greatest, certainly the consistently funniest, cartoon character ever created (are the top three Homer, Cartman, and Sylvester the cat?). His glorious idiocy remains unsurpassed, even by his predecessors and pretenders. And let's face it--without Cartoon Network and The Simpsons, no South Park, no Family Guy, no nothing. Animation would have ended with Josie and the Pussycats...
- CreatorTrey ParkerMatt StoneBrian GradenStarsTrey ParkerMatt StoneIsaac HayesFollows the misadventures of four irreverent grade-schoolers in the quiet, dysfunctional town of South Park, Colorado.Spiteful, mean-spirited, and wickedly funny satirical cartoon based around four foul-mouthed little boys living in a Colorado small town. Early episodes were deliberately primitive, but advances in animation have made some later episodes quite spectacular. The show is at its best when challenging preconceptions and accepted wisdom of the day, particularly smug liberals (energy saving, the rain forest, anti-smoking hysteria, and eco-fascism have all taken a well-deserved and overdue beating), although reactionary idiots, hypocrites, bigots, and greedy opportunists get theirs too. The show is at its worst when rather desperately and pointlessly trying to shock and offend just to "get down with the kids". However, the world desperately needs South Park, just to show our descendants that we weren't ALL damned fools in the 21st century.
- CreatorAlex TothStarsDon MessickGinny TylerGary OwensThe adventures of a space superhero who can become invisible and his sidekicks.This stern-voiced, one-dimensional super-hero was the first of a small army of stern-voiced one-dimensional super-heroes from the Hanna-Barbera studios that briefly stormed Saturday morning TV in the U.S. between the Batman fad and one of the media's periodic bouts of "anti-violence" hysteria (very annoying for all us pro-violence advocates). Great fun to slob out to on the sofa, the highlight was a multi-part storyline that featured returning bad guys from earlier episodes all ganging up on our hero, with brief cameo appearances from other H-B super-types.
- CreatorStan LeeSteve DitkoStarsPaul SolesPeg DixonPaul KligmanOriginal cartoon series based on the web-slinging Marvel comic book character, Peter Parker, who, after being bit by a radioactive spider, assumes extraordinary powers.Or Spider-Man, as the rest of us call him. The dreadful third season, supervised by Ralph Bakshi of Fritz the Cat notoriety, should be avoided at all costs, but the first two seasons, and certainly the first, capture the spirit (if not the artwork) of the comic strip perfectly. Again, no substitute for the 1960s strip, but perfectly fine to zone out to. And who couldn't love that infamous theme song?
- CreatorDennis MarksStan LeeSteve DitkoStarsHans ConriedSally JulianJerry DexterSpider-Man battles crime in New York City with the help of Iceman and Firestar.One of the very few cartoons made between 1970 and 1990 worth watching. Although the "secret headquarters" nonsense in Auntie's house was pointless and stupid, the teaming of Spider-Man with Iceman and the original creation Firestar was inspired and fun, and the background music is superb. Stan Lee himself narrates some episodes, and various Marvel characters put in appearances.
- CreatorJoseph BarberaWilliam HannaStarsArnold StangMaurice GosfieldMarvin KaplanTop Cat is the leader of a group of alley cats, always trying to cheat someone.This show about six scam-happy New York alley cats hasn't been called Boss Cat since the 1960s. The title is a fantasy of the BBC, who didn't trust the public to know the difference between a TV show and a brand of now long extinct cat food. They just trimmed the title out of the opening and closing credits and inserted a card! Even the general public and the merchandisers called it Top Cat. Even the BBC now calls it Top Cat. Let's all call it Top Cat, because its name is... Top Cat.
- StarsPaul WinchellJohn StephensonDave WillockThe participants of an unusual car race compete around America.The narration, the background music, and Dick Dastardly and Muttley all encourage me to make completely inappropriate and unreasonable allowances for the lazy characterisation and lousy animation, and the desperate, pathetic attempts at stories on this series. I can't help it, I love it. Nothing, however, will make me forgive Klunk and Zilly on the Flying Machines follow-up show...
Jon is not on Facebook, but can reply to comments here, at the base of this list.
Obsessed with the popular culture of the 1960s and surrounding decades, Jon Abbott has been writing about film and TV for over thirty years in around two dozen different publications, trade, populist, and specialist. He is the author of several books, including
Irwin Allen Television Productions 1964-1970,
Stephen J. Cannell Television Productions: A History of All Series and Pilots,
The Elvis Films,
Cool TV of the 1960s: Three Shows That Changed the World,
and Strange New World: Sex Films of the 1970s.
See his Amazon author's page, and his other lists on the IMDB, all under the pre-fix DISCOVER.