Favorite animated television show?

That Greg Burgas fellow has done it again, compelling me to think on one of his damn Questions of the Week. “What’s your favorite animated television show?”

Initially, I was thinking about programs I grew up with that had two or three segments, such as Rocky and Bullwinkle, which featured Fractured Fairy Tales and Mr. Peabody. A great show, BTW.

Or the various Warner Brothers packages featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the like, which among other things, were early lessons in classical music. I was a sucker for the Popeye the Sailor cartoons from Fleischer Studios, less so the later ones.

Or all of the Hanna-Barbera shows such as Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, and my favorite, Top Cat, whose close friends got to call him TC. When I was five and a half, I had an uncontrollable bloody nose and went to the hospital for two or three days. The positives were ice cream and H-B cartoons.

Animated shows that took the full half-hour were rare early on. The Flintstones (1960-1966) was the first prime-time TV animated series, a Big Deal in the day.

D’oh!

Like many people, I watched The Simpsons regularly and enthusiastically early on. I even have three or four DVD sets, but none are after season eight. It’s now on season 73; Nah, it started in 1989. Incidentally, D’oh is a sound mark registered by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The registration is similar to Darth Vader’s breathing noise and the Law and Order “Chung Chung” sound effect.

To the degree I appreciate SpongeBob SquarePants, I blame Fred Hembeck. His enthusiasm for the show in the early 2010s was infectious. I have a soundtrack that is modeled after The Who Sell Out album.

My daughter watched Peppa Pig, which I found baffling at first but grew to at least tolerate. She also watched The Loud House and Kim Possible, among others, which were OK. But Teen Titans Go got on my nerves.

On my own, I tried Bojack Horseman, Pinky and the Brain, Family Guy, Futurama, and American Dad, which were fine, but they didn’t STICK. The Boondocks I watched a bit longer.

The winners

But if I were to pick three shows, they would be:

3. King Of The Hill – I found Hank, the “straight-laced propane salesman in Arlen, Texas,” oddly relatable. At some level, though, I WAS the kid, Bobby Hill. Tom Petty voiced the character Lucky in 24 episodes.

2. Phineus and Ferb – Greg said, “the jokes are stupendous, the special episodes are a ton of fun… and the songs are just brilliant.”

1.  Gravity Falls – My daughter was singing “We’ll Meet Again,” and I wondered why. Now I know. I’ve seen every episode of the show. “Twin siblings Dipper and Mabel Pines spend the summer at their great-uncle’s tourist trap in the enigmatic Gravity Falls, Oregon.” Like Greg, I love the voice actors Jason Ritter and Kristen Schaal, and Linda Cardellini as Wendy.

Greg said Phineas and Ferb could be repetitious, but I’ve seen six episodes in a row without going crazy. Conversely, I was on a bus heading for Indiana, helping to chaperone a church group, when someone showed a half dozen episodes of Scooby Doo, Where Are You! Talk about the same plot over and over! Painful.

Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto. View all posts by Roger