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Childhood TV favorites
Toonami
When I was in Elementary school I envied those kids whose family could afford cable. I always loved to watch Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Disney Channel whenever we on vacation.
Later this year there's a great possibility that I'll start having access to full-blown cable (and not just the family plan we're on right now), so though it's a decade late and watching Toonami is out of the question, and now that the three stations I used to adore have gone downhill, I'll still be able to enjoy more mature interests (Comedy Central's The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, South Park, and Futurama, and History International). 
 986  6.8  8.7 This was my all-time favorite when I was in second and third grade. I reveled in each sound effect and the Super Saiyan transformations. The Super Saiyan ascensions got a little ridiculous after a while though. And man was this series drawn out! I remember going to my grandmother's house for two weeks and watching Goku's fight with Freeza. The whole two weeks he was fighting the guy! And I never got to see the end of it! I was so PO'd.
 Gohan and Trunks were my favorites. Pumpkinate's rating:
 
109 7.7 7.8 Recently this series was put on YouTube for a limited amount of time (no doubt to get mass multitudes of people to watch the trailer for Gundam Unicorn) and so now I've fulfilled my wish of seeing the series. Except that this way was probably better, as the series can get confusing if the episodes aren't watched together. I may need to go back and watch it again even, since there's so much going on for me to be able to process it all at once.
 The Death Scythe was killer Pumpkinate's rating:
 Saturday Morning Cartoons
308 6 6.9 Jackie and Jade always seemed to get themselves into crazy adventures collecting magical items before their enemies get to them. This got a little repetitive as the formula was repeated season after season.
 Jade, Jackie Chan's niece, always knew she was the star. Pumpkinate's rating:
56 6.2 6.9 Static Shock was an interesting sort of superhero. I wouldn't mind having him merged with the primary DC universe - maybe as a member of the Teen Titans?
 Yes, the main character flies around on trash can lids and manhole covers. No, it works. Trust me. Pumpkinate's rating:
235 6.2 7.4 I loved the movies as a much younger child, so when the new series came out I was on board. At the time I wasn't able to fully appreciate its greater faithfulness to the original Mirage comics as I didn't even know the Turtles existed before the 1987 cartoon. During the winter season of 2009/2010 I watched the entire series on YouTube, which was fun. Now that Nickelodeon owns the rights to the franchise, I'm hoping they reprint the first TMNT Collected for those who missed it and put out more similarly-sized collected books for the rest of the series.
 The ninja brothers are learned in the art of sneaking around. Pumpkinate's rating:
361 6.8 7.7 I would sit through hours of Saturday morning cartoons specifically for Yu-Gi-Oh! and X-Men: Evolution. This series had a more realistic art style, back before the anime and blocky Ed, Edd, 'n' Eddy styles took over. What was unique about it is the prominence of the smaller characters - Spyke, a character exclusive to this show, is one example. I loved it, and I can remember even then I was a big Captain America fan.
 Wolverine dons his famous Berserker outfit. Pumpkinate's rating:
257 5.9 6.6 In early middle school, Yu-Gi-Oh! was THE series I loved. I collected all the good stuff: the cards, toys, shirts, and Shonen Jump from issue 1 on. Now that I've read the manga the anime's lost a lot of its hold over me. The original Japanese comic is simply top-notch, but I'm sure I could still enjoy this series for nostalgic reasons. One thing I've always found cheap about it is the animation (ie - scrolling across a still drawing of Yugi or someone rather than animating motion, which I guess there's not as much of in this series anyway).
 Mild-mannered Yugi Motou turns into the dominating and clever Yami Yugi whenever a duel comes up. Pumpkinate's rating:
PBS
296 6.1 7.1 Arthur was a pretty intelligent and engaging series. Each episode had an interesting story which wasn't something obvious that every other children's show had done.
 Arthur, Francine, and Buster are caught off guard as the look up from their food preparation to see a camera. Surprised, they smile. Pumpkinate's rating:
29 4 4.7 I liked it when the puppets were inserted inbetween the animated segments. They don't always do that on Sprout.
 In Caillou backgrounds would frequently fade to blankness around the edges. Pumpkinate's rating:
154 6.4 7.8 Mister Rogers was the quintessence of warmth. I especially enjoyed the puppet segments of the show, which featured an ongoing story. I guess I just love puppets is all.
Now that it's been canceled from PBS Kids, I see no reason why this show shouldn't be played on Sprout. Heck, I'd watch it.  If only all neighbors could be like you. Pumpkinate's rating:
12 6.8 7.7 This show was also on near the end of the PBS Kids weekday schedule. The tail writing was certainly unique.
 Sagwa's family are the prim and proper pets of the magistrate of China. Pumpkinate's rating:
755 6.7 8.1 What can I say about Sesame Street? I love the muppet monsters and I love their world. I still catch this show occasionally on PBS Kids Sprout. The only segment I don't like is Elmo's World, since it's pretty much just filler to stretch the show out to an hour's length. But then Elmo is a controversial character anyway.
 How can you not love the grungy - but friendly - Sesame Street? Pumpkinate's rating:
29 6.9 7.7 This is a high-quality kid's show. I thought it funny how the Kratt brothers could do most of an episode all inside Animal Junction. A really good quality to the program was that it taught kids about animals and the world of nature, which is something most shows didn't cover. And kids need to know certain things, like not petting a wild animal because it could get frightened and try to defend itself.
 I'm feeling childish! How about you? Pumpkinate's rating:
Miscellaneous
19 7.2 6.6 This is the earliest show I can remember being really head-over-heels for. Like Power Rangers, it was based off of a tokusats series and revolved around three kids in costumes who fought crazy enemies. It featured some fun humor.
I adored the borgs themselves...  Beetleborgs assemble! Wait, where's Ted Nugent? I guess the show will just have to go on without him... 
3 10 6.6 It wasn't long before the borgs got their costumes redone. There was even a movie about it. The show only got better, with other borgs and giant robots coming into the mix. Being the huge mecha-kaiju fan I am, I wished I could have been able to see those particular episodes, but alas! the schedule changed and they aired while I was at school at that point.
 The Beetleborgs and... Those old farts from a year ago. 
34 5.5 7.3 Some of these adventures scared the crap out of me at the time. But now I can appreciate Gumby as top-notch art.
 Even the logo was made out of clay! 
1090 6.4 6.6 Pokemon was huge while I was in early Elementary school. No one could get enough of the stuff. Then, lightning quick, it was out and anyone associated with it was totally lame. I still regard the first two generations of the video game series as classics, though I'm not interested in playing RPGs much anymore.
This show had a really good start, but one of the original writers left pretty early on and it fell into a really cliche and formulaic trap which made it unenjoyable to anyone under the age of six.  Pikachu has always felt insecure about Ash's lack of satisfaction in having just one Pokemon. 
487 6.5 7.8 This show was interesting on a sociological level alone. All the characters fit into their own exaggerated place in the society of the playground. Eventually I had seen all the shows and got tired of watching reruns. When we first got our DVD player the Recess movie was the first video we played in it.
 All of these characters fit the exact role you'd imagine just by looking at them. Pumpkinate's rating:
1289 6.5 7.4 I caught Rugrats whenever I had access to Nickelodeon, and saw a fair amount of it. It was fun, though the movies never seemed to end.
 Big fan of Godzilla as I was, my enjoyment of Reptar was sizable as well. Pumpkinate's rating:
75 5.9 6.2 The Sonic games were some of the first video games I ever played as a tot. This particular cartoon was released alongside the series listed below. It was silly and light-hearted, and the world was more surrealistic than in other installments.
 "Hey, Sonic. Hey. Buy me these novelty cow bells. Sonic. Soniiiic! Buy 'em! I can do this all day!" Pumpkinate's rating:
188 5.6 6.9 This series came out at the same time as Adventures. It was much more realistic and a lot darker. Though I preferred Adventures of to this series, it's notable for its characters and themes being used to form the Archie Comics Sonic universe, which I subscribe to.
It's a shame this show was canceled. The writer Ben Hurst is still banking on the notion that he'll be able to finish his work someday, which I fully support.  "Why don't you sit right back... And I... I may tell you a tale... A tale of three little pigs... And a BIG. BAD. WOLFFF." Pumpkinate's rating:
35 6.1 5.4 Sonic Underground took after the simply titled Sonic the Hedgehog more than The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. There were some super cool rock songs produced for this show. However, when they tried to deviate from the rock genre it drew mixed results. Jams like "We're the Sonic Underground" and "The Mobius Stomp" were awesome; "Let's Do It To It", not so much.
 Sonic jams with his brother Manic and sister Sonia. Pumpkinate's rating:
54 6.6 5.5 I caught the first episodes when this series started airing. Either there was something else on at the time that I wanted to watch or I hit the point where I was too tired Saturday mornings to watch cartoons, but I didn't catch the rest. During the summer of 2009 I caught the whole thing on YouTube. I welcome the idea of Sonic X Archives TPBs for the Archie comics series, since I only caught issue #40 of the comic and started subscribing beginning with Sonic Universe #1.
 Remind you slightly of certain other anime? Pumpkinate's rating:
28 5.7 6 It may have been a shameless knockoff of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but darn it if it wasn't an awesome one! I don't remember much about this series, but I know Jab the hammerhead shark was my favorite.
 "That's right! My eyes are more than a couple inches apart! What's it to ya!?" |
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I didn't realize they'd made that many Sonic TV shows. Crazy.
Love the comments!
It was good fun. At the moment there are nowhere near as many on your list.
Although I find the early 90's X-men series to be superior. I was not a fan of Spyke and his sleeveless shirt tucked into his underpants.
Also do feel you on the cable thing. I still don't have cable myself, and when I was a kid it was completely out of the question
Cable... For a minute there I thought we were still talking about the X-Men! =P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_%28comics%29
I guess it's too late for me to watch Toonami, at any rate. Cartoon Network and the other kiddie channels have gone downhill from what I've been able to gather.
Loved your comments, great list !