Best Cartoons

Seeing the state of cartoons these days makes me nostalgic for the old classics - many of which were made in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Tom and Jerry were wonderful (if a bit violent), and I always rooted for Wile E Coyote and his passion for Acme products - couldn't stand the smug Road Runner and lived in eternal hope that he would end up as W. E.'s Christmas dinner.
My favoutite, though, has to be the early Popeye cartoons (not the later garbage). They had so many memorable characters, like Sweet Pea, Wimpy, the Jeep and the Goons (which must have inspired Messrs Sellers, Secombe, Bentine and Milligan). Heck, even Olive Oyl was quite good looking in those days, if a little skinny. Got me wondering, what was the best cartoons ever made?

Without a doubt-got to be Scooby Doo, with Danger Mouse a very close second.

Barbapapa, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, Daffy Duck, Sylvester and Tweety Pye, Danger Mouse, The Simpsons, Herge's Adventures of Tintin, Road Runner and Wyle E. Coyote, King of the Hill, Ren and Stimpy, Beavis and Butthead and Gerald McBoing Boing to name but several.
Absolutely hate South Park. I just don't get it. And those voices are soooooooo annoying!!

Family Guy (but I just don't 'get' American Dad from the same team)
Wait 'til your Father gets home
King of the Hill
TinTin
Wacky Races
Flintstones
New Captain Scarlet
Top Cat

Well, if you're sticking to American animation then it'd have to be people like Ub Iwerks, the Fleischer brothers and Otto Messmer. their films were full of LIFE, something sadly lacking in most CGI. Look to the Canadians for some great animation too. However, you need to look to Europe for the best animators: the Zagreb studio and Brits like Bob Godfrey, Halas & Batchelor, wonderful stuff from Italian master Bruno Bozetto, oh... I could go on all day...

I was thinking more of short cartoons, rather than animation, per se, but you have opened up an interesting angle, Starfighter. From an animation point of view, Studio Ghibli takes some beating.

For animated movies studio ghibli reigns supreme. But To follow on from the o.p. I've always been a fan of Tom & Jerry, Roadrunner, Wacky races, Catch the pigeon( pretty much all the hanna Barbera cartoons) as well as danger mouse and count duckula!!
Oh yeah not forgetting Scooby doo( before that annoying scrappy!!) which I . spent many summers watching.

If you're going to include Japanese animé then as well as Studio Ghibli you have to include the Ghost in the Shell series and films (Mamoru Ishii et al) and the fantastic works of Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Millenium actress, Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika). Most animé afficionados would, however, object to these being called cartoons. If you're going to stick to the American genre I would nominate the early Betty Boop cartoons - before the Production code of 1933 had their wicked way with her (see an example at http://www.archive.org/details/bb_old_man_of_the_mountain).

MGM's Tom and Jerry (when they were produced by Fred Quimby: they started to go on the slide after Hannah and Barbera took over, eventually becoming unwatchable);

Most of Warner's Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes long running characters, but especially Bugs Bunny (by Chuck Jones/Friz Freleng/Tex Avery);

Max Fleischer's Popeye and Betty Boop (the studio also produced a beautiful but slightly boring feature of Gulliver's Travels);

Disney's Donald Duck (he's the only one with enough character to be truly funny from that stable, though Chip 'n' Dale aren't bad);

Halas and Batchelor's Foo Foo and Gogo;

Hannah/Barbera's Top Cat (easily the best of their output and genuinely funny), Flintstones and Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home (pretty sophisticated for its time and Ralph's paranoia was great: 'It's a Commie plot, Harry!'). Yogi Bear was good. I enjoyed their other cartoons as a kid but they weren't quite in the same league. Daws Butler's voicing for Snagglepuss was excellent, though ('Heavens to Murgatroyd!');

John Ryan/Gordon Murray's Captain Pugwash (great characterisation from the ever resourceful Petere Hawkins, voice of the Daleks);

Anything at all by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin! Noggin the Nog and Ivor the Engine are delightful and my personal favourites;

The earlier series of The Pink Panther Show with the PP and The Inspector (Friz Freleng, again);

Richard Williams/Steven Spielberg's Roger Rabbit (but more the animated shorts than the motion picture feature). Richard Williams is a genius: check out his animation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. He also animated the Pink Panther titles for the Blake Edwards movies and Cresta Bear for the 1970s soda commercials;

Frederic Black's beautiful The Man Who Planted Trees (why no DVD release?!);

Aardman Studios claymations, but especially Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit (absolutely note-perfect comedy and character);

Warner's Animaniacs show with the fantastic Pinky and the Brain and Wakko, Jakko and Dot (the Warner brothers and the Warner sister!). Wildly hilarious!

Matt Groenning's mighty (and mightily funny) The Simpsons;

I have space in my heart for CGI animation. I take the word 'cartoon' to imply a short, rather than a feature-length film, so I won't list the obvious candidates, much as I enjoy them. But I'd put in a word for Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet (terrific show badly let down by ITV schedulers) and Dan Dare (ripping yarns in the style of the famous Eagle comic strip, but I can't recall the producer or director). I must also give special mention to the series ReBoot, not simply for its innovation and the fact that my son loved to watch it, but also because one of its creators was one of my tutors at college. John Grace was, simply, a great bloke and he is, sadly, no longer with us.

I missed out the animated production of Star Trek, featuring most of the cast from its live action predecessor.

Even though they are feature-length pictures and not short films, I have to additionally mention: Fantastic Planet (La Planète Sauvage) by René Laloux and Roland Topor (but it's a bit sloooow), Alan Aldridge's Butterfly Ball and George Dunning's Yellow Submarine (featuring 'The Beatles').

More obscurely, does anyone remember the less-often seen series Gigantor (the Space Age Robot) and Marine Boy, both early Japanese anime concepts? Or the Canadian animation Rocket Robin Hood? They were all three around in the 1960s (Gigantor had its origins even earlier, in the late 1950s, I think).

I remember the name "Marine Boy". Did he chew "aquagum"? Can't recall much storywise.

It's a distant memory for me as well. Was the gum to provide oxygen when swimming underwater? I seem to remember that there were some similarities with the puppet show Stingray: underwater adventures with a submarine and a 'mermaid' character.

Another great cartoon from the 1970s: Bob Godfrey's Roobarb and Custard.

I feel I should mention the work of Genndy Tartakovsky - particularly for Dexter's Laboratory and his work on The Powerpuff Girls. Great little cartoons. And the Clone Wars was the only good thing to come from the Star Wars prequals

If animatics and simple rostrum work count, then there was Bleep and Booster by Tim, often serialised within children's programme Blue Peter.

Also deserving mention are Sullivan/Messmer's much revived Felix the Cat; Ward/Anderson's poorly drawn but excellently punning Rocky and Bullwinkle; Terrytoons' charming Deputy Dawg (the show also featured The Astronut, while the same company additionally produced the anti-Brit Hector Heathcote Show. Deputy Dawg also provided early employment for animator Ralph Bakshi, later [in]famous for Fritz the Cat); Fleischer's breathless and excellently animated The Adventures of Superman, Bruce Timm's more recent (and even more excellent) Batman - The Animated Series and (another modern effort) the satirical Harvey Birdman - Attorney at Law.

Ones that my kids watch and I love em too :) :

Phineas and Ferb
Avatar Legend of Aang
Ben 10
Atomic Betty
Lloyd in Space

Ones that I loved when I was younger:

Trapdoor
Count Duckula
Dungeons & Dragons
Potsworth & Co
The Smurfs
The Snorks
Chip N Dale rescue rangers
Gummi Bears (bouncing here and there and everywhere!)
Marsupilami
Timon and Pumba
Monchichis (I had a little monchichi character, when you squeezed it's shoulders you could clasp it onto things like your school bag...happy memories)

Galaxy High was another fave of mine which Lloyd in Space reminds me of. Really looked forward to Scooby Doo as they used to show like 3 episodes at a time.

I also loved Ulysees, Mysterious Cities of Gold, Thundercats and Transformers.

Also Batfink, Mighty Mouse, Hong Kong Phooey, Penelope Pitstop, Whacky Races, Stop the Pigeon.

Blimey I used to watch a lot of TV as a kid!

When did I find the time in between scooping up the dog poop from the garden, going to the shop every morning to get a pint of milk and a paper and sitting in the launderette for hours on end waiting for the washing to dry?

Can't believe my failure to include.... Hong Kong Phooey, Penelope Pitstop, Whacky Races, Stop the Pigeon. Rocky and Bullwinkle. Roobarb and Custard. And what about the Superhero that was ROGER RAMJET?

Trapdoor was amazingly cool, surreal and v funny!

< Blimey I used to watch a lot of TV as a kid! >

Yeah, me too. It probably explains a lot : )

The good thing about having kids is that it allows you to watch all the old favourites again. And catch up with the newer stuff.

Crikey: never heard of Roger Ramjet! I take it he's no relation to George Jetson?

Bob Godfrey's Roobarb and Custard had a great, dynamic style.

Several people have mentioned Tintin in their posts. The original animated series was produced by Belvision, who also produced feature films of Asterix the Gaul.

Cosgrove Hall's Danger Mouse was clever and funny. CH also produced tons of stop-motion animation of high quality, with The Fool Of The World And The Flying Ship being a creative high point.

Another stop-motion work of art was Serge Danot's The Magic Roundabout (Le Menage Enchantee), but its true greatness was only achieved with the addition of Eric Thompson's genius for mischievous narrative.

Some terrific animation came out of Eastern Europe, with Jiri Trnka (also a well-known illustrator) producing some fine work.

Mustn't forget that Bill Melendez animated Charles M Schulz's Peanuts/Charlie Brown comic strip, gaining an Emmy in the process. Vince Guaraldi provided an excellent score, which is what I most remember of it.

Roger Ramjet he's our man, hero of the something..lol loved it.

Here's some more:
Bananama
Penny Crayon
Family Ness
Superted

Speaking of Cosgrove Hall (as I was in my last post), as well as cell and stop-motion animation, they have also provided 'Flash' animations for BBC's Doctor Who: both for the internet and on DVD releases. Doctor Who - The Invasion contains a serialised story, parts of which no longer exist. CH produced fairly simple but effective animations for the missing episodes.

Along with Frederic Black and Richard Williams (also mentioned in an earlier post), Norman McLaren was another Canadian (Scottish by birth) who produced innovative animation. McLaren would draw directly onto the film to be projected. He also was a pioneer of 'pixilation', where live stills (often of human subjects) were photographed and then projected in sequence giving a slightly jerky and quite surreal sense of movement. This technique was used very much in the children's TV series Vision On in the 1960s, especially for the inserts featuring 'The Professor'. I'm pretty sure The Goodies used it a fair bit, too.

I loved the artsy film-noir style Batman cartoons that used to be on Saturday mornings about 15 yrs ago - impossibly square-jawed characters with shoulders so broad they had to go through doors sideways, all shot in moody colours, wonderful stuff

I think it was to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy!!!

"Roger Ramjet, he's our man,
Hero of the nation,
For his adventures just be sure
and stay tuned to this station"!!!

Or something like that.