Every year around this time I share a list of my favourite Saturday morning and after school cartoons, primarily the ones that helped me preserve my sanity once school buses started collecting prisoners after summer vacation. Both lists turned out to be pretty tough to narrow down, forcing some tough omissions and even tougher decisions. But one good thing about the Internet is you always have an overabundance of paper.
So with that in mind, I thought this year I would compile a list of the shows that just barely missed the cut for whatever reason. Shows that still stick out in my memory as sources of harmless fun that drove worries about homework, chores and bullies far away. And yes, some of these I didn’t discover or enjoy until after high school or as a young adult (of course I still watch cartoons, what kind uncivilized barbarian do you think I am?).
So enjoy my list of the best of the rest. I had fun putting it together.
10. M.A.S.K. (1985-1986): The most blatantly glorified toy commercial on this list, M.A.S.K. was an attempt to mash together the two most popular toy lines at the time-The Transformers and G.I. Joe. The members of M.A.S.K (standing for Mobile Army Strategic Kommand) piloted seemingly average, everyday vehicles that could transform into machines of war. They defended the world (and most importantly, its banks) against V.E.N.O.M (Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem-I kid you not) who had transforming vehicles of their own.
I really don’t remember much about this show except how cool I thought the vehicles and concept were. But thinking on it now, of all the shows I was addicted to as a kid, M.A.S.K. was probably the most illogical, head scratcher of all of them. I mean, if you thought CAA was slow responding to a stranded mini-cooper, just think how much they’d drag feet on picking up a motorbike hiding a rocket launcher and a helicopter propeller? The absurdity of 80’s marketing.
9. The Bionic Six (1987-1989): The Six in question was a family granted incredible powers through bionics. Each member of the family, from the parents to the teenagers (who attended Albert Einstein High School), possessed powers and abilities that suited their personality, skill set and even favourite hobbies. This show embraced diversity before it became vogue to do so as the Bennett clan included African-American and Japanese-American sons in addition to the typical white nuclear family. For an 80’s cartoon, this show was socially revolutionary.
A co-operative effort between Japanese and North American animators, Bionic Six possessed its own signature aesthetic to go along with a catchy ear worm of a theme song. Each episode was thirty minutes of harmless, sci-fi/action fun where the Bennett family balanced protecting the world from the evil Dr. Scarab with the duties of raising an ethnically diverse family sometime in the future. And you thought your family reunions could get complicated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcRgO2-M9Y4
8. Looney Tunes: You knew Bugs and friends were going to show up on one of my lists eventually. I couldn’t really appreciate the Looney Tunes gang until high school when I was better equipped to appreciate the sarcasm and innuendo. Bugs soon became an inspiration for the burgeoning sense of sarcasm I was unconsciously developing at the time (which got my ass kicked on more than one occasion). To this day, I use his wisecracks as a blueprint for my own bad puns and he remains one of my personal heroes (he’s right up there with Garfield and Stitch). Many of the shows on this list wouldn’t exist if Bugs hadn’t already broken the us in.
7. Pinky And the Brain (1995-1998): Speaking of shows that wouldn’t exist without Bugs and the original Looney Tunes gang, Pinky and the Brain was spun off from the popular Animaniacs (don’t worry, you’ll see them a little later on this list). The pair of lab mice in question spent every episode scheming global conquest from their cage at Acme Labs (“What do you want to do tonight Brain?” “The same thing we do every night Pinky. Try to the over the world.”).
This show had two primary appeals; the constant play between the two mice (Brain was the prototypically dry, sardonic narcissist while Pinky was the definition of hyperactive absurdity with a heart bigger than the Grand Canyon and an I.Q. barely above zero) and the frequent jabs at pop culture. Pinky and the Brain inherited Looney Tunes gift for sight gags and it had one of the best Christmas episodes of any syndicated cartoon. Ever.
6. Wolverine and The X-Men (2009): Following an explosion that left Professor X in a coma and apparently killed Jean Grey (yes killed), a reluctant Wolverine leads a fractured group of X-Men in a a race to prevent a seemingly inevitable war between Humans and Mutants. It’s a war destined to reduce the world to a wasteland where surviving Mutants are hunted down, rounded up and caged by the twisted, horrific remains of Humanity (the explosion somehow flung Professor X into this grim future and he manages to communicate with Wolverine in the past to try to prevent it).
On the list of my 10 Favourite Saturday Morning cartoons, I confessed that I wasn’t a fan of the 90’s X-Men cartoon but really enjoyed X-Men Evolution. While I felt that Wolverine and the X-Men was everything the 90’s X-Men wasn’t (relatively smart with top notch animation), the only reason I don’t consider it as good as Evolution is because Evolution was able to build its identity and mythos over the course of four seasons while Wolverine only had one. Given more time, it could have easily become the best cartoon in X-Men lore. And now that it looks like Disney has the film rights for all of Marvel’s X characters back . . .
5. Superman The Animated Series (1996-2000): While few would put Superman’s cartoon on the same level as Batman’s animated series, Supes was able to offer a brighter alternative to the Gothic art-deco of the Dark Knight’s show. Another thing Superman was able to do that Batman couldn’t was tell bigger, more cosmic super hero stories. It was able to introduce heroes like The Flash, Green Lantern, Supergirl, Dr. Fate, the New Gods, anti heroes like Lobo and villains like Darkseid as a result. While DC’s animated universe (the success of which is largely responsible for the popularity of comic book movies today) wouldn’t have happened without Batman’s animated show, Superman’s show did the most to pave the way for the brilliant and super popular Justice League.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnQ4D7zWnwE
4. Darkwing Duck (1991-1992): Nearly an entire generation before the current boom of super hero movies and 20 years before Disney owned Marvel, there was Darkwing Duck. As a result of the Tim Burton movies and the critically acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series, Gotham’s Caped Crusader was red hot. But nearly as hot was Disney’s block of after school cartoons that included the likes of Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop, Aladdin and occasionally Gummy Bears (yes, before Disney was turning obscure comic book properties like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man into blockbusters, they were successfully turning candy into popular cartoons). In hindsight a comedic Batman parody, where the main character was a crime fighting duck protecting the city of Duckburg made perfect sense.
And it worked. Kids soon forgot that Darkwing Duck was a tongue-in-cheek copy of Batman (if they ever knew it to begin with) and the show forged its own identity. Darkwing was a master of cartoon slapstick comedy (something the animators no doubt learned on the dozen or so other shows Disney had going on at the time) and soon owned its own brand of humour, poking fun at everything from the comic book culture that inspired it to the daily trials of contemporary family life. Quite often parents were laughing right along with their kids, but for very different reasons. In no time flat, an entire generation of kids had turned the words “Let’s. Get. Dangerous” into their life mantras.
3. Animaniacs (1993-1998): When Warner Bros. announced it was rebooting this cartoon classic, 90’s kids everywhere lost their minds. Animaniacs was a once in a lifetime combination of absurdity, high brow sarcasm, low brow slapstick, subtle sexual innuendo, juvenile jokes and (somehow) informative lunacy. Featuring a brand new generation of characters, Animaniacs became the Looney Tunes for a new and hungry generation. Animaniacs was so popular it helped launch an entire network as kids and teenagers tuned in to the fledgling WB to watch the antics of the Warner Brothers (and their sister Dot) while mostly ignoring the WB’s live action shows.
There were precious few limits for Animaniacs, as evidenced by this scene where Dot slyly refuses to finger Prince. Read that sentence again slowly before you watch this clip and then remember this happened on broadcast TV. During 4 PM in the afternoon. And then there was this scene (according to legend, it was done all in one take) of Wacko reciting virtually every country on the plane in song. Kids laughed at these jokes, sometimes without even knowing why, but they always suspected it was because the show wasn’t talking down to them. To say it was a breath of fresh cartoon air would be an understatement.
Will the resurrected version, scheduled to debut sometime in 2020 (possibly on DC’s new streaming service?) re-capture the same energy? Millions of fans are hoping so.
2. Transformers Beast Wars (1996-1999): Hardcore, old school Transformer fans like myself consider the 80’s Generation One TV show (as corny and bad as it often was) to be the end all and be all of our favourite franchise. The truth is there have been around a dozen Transformers shows since then, some of them sequels to other series. In fact, shortly after the Gen One cartoon came to a close in the late 80’s, Japan created their own show that aired exclusively in the land of the Rising Sun (and was ignored by Hasbro in later years). While I mostly ignored the newer shows, there was one that caught (and held) my attention in the late 90’s. And trust me, it was against all odds.
Creatively, Beast Wars looked like a cheap rip off of the original Transformers. A handful of Maximals lead by Optimus Primal battled a group of Predacons lead by Megatron on a mysterious planet that turned out to be prehistoric Earth. The cast of characters was limited to ten, the names were childish (the Maximal rat was called. . . wait for it . . . Rattrap) and a lot of the alternate forms were yawn inspiring (seriosuly, Optimus went from transforming into a Juggernaut 18 wheeler to a gorilla?). Even though the CGI animation was cutting edge for its day (but looks antiquated by today’s standards), the show seemed to lack the scale, scope and sophistication of its predecessor (and to be honest, Generation One was only sophisticated to six year olds).
By all rights I shouldn’t have liked Beast Wars and should have dismissed it out of hand. But I was so starved for something . . . anything . . . from the Transformers franchise (there hand’t been anything for years) that I hung in there. I’m glad I did. Like its characters, this show quickly evolved and grew. It broadened its narrative scope, grew its cast of characters and made the existing ones more interesting and compelling. The quality of the storytelling was kicked up a notch and even the animation found ways to improve. By the time the third and final season wrapped, it barely resembled the show I almost ignored. To this day, some Transformer fans consider Beast Wars to be the best version of the Robots in Disguise, if not the definitive one.
1. Batman Beyond (1999-2001): Ever wonder how long Bruce Wayne could keep being Batman? Or what could possibly force him into retirement? Ever ask yourself what would he do after hanging up the cape and cowl? Or how Gotham City would fare without it’s Dark Knight protector? Batman Beyond answered those questions and a lot more. And it managed to kick some ass along the way.
Batman Beyond expanded on the Batman mythos in both satisfying and entertaining ways. Bruce Wayne would come out of retirement to reluctantly mentor Terry Mcguiness after the troubled yet defiant teenager stumbled on Bruce’s secret while searching for his missing father. Wearing a bat suit that would make Tony Stark proud, Terry reinvented the hero of Batman and became the protector of a Gotham City that was both a technological utopia and futuristic nightmare at the same time.
Batman Beyond invented an entirely new breed of villain for Terry to face (some of them tragic) while also revealing what happened to many of Batman’s old foes. Part of the joy of watching this series was keeping an eye out for Easter eggs the producers constantly hid that referred to the original Batman series or characters from the larger DC Universe. The show also offered very candid looks at what became of the original Batman’s partners and allies, many of whom didn’t live happily ever after.
Beyond also took the already popular Timm/Dini cartoonverse into a sleek, stylish future, allowing the animators to push boundaries they hadn’t tested in years. The result was a beautiful aesthetic that perfectly complimented this show’s storytelling tone. It was somehow bright and dark at the same time. Alas Batman Beyond would prove to be a victim of its success. It’s popularity combined with that of the Batman and Superman animated shows before it convinced DC and Warner Bros. to move ahead with a Justice League cartoon. And while that show arguably became the greatest super hero cartoon in modern history, it meant the end of Beyond as its animators and creative team moved to work exclusively on Justice League.
At the very least, something awesome was able to rise out of the end of something excellent.
