5 Current Cartoons That Don’t Suck
This one is for my generation, and the generations before me. As everyone knows, the cartoons of your childhood were the greatest ever made, and today’s cartoons are just terrible. If you grew up on the Superfriends, you probably thought the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were just plain stupid. Likewise, I grew up watching Ren & Stimpy, but you couldn’t pay me to watch Flapjack. Well, speaking as a grown man who refuses to grow the hell up, here are five cartoons made for today’s kids that I still enjoy.
It’s not a ridiculous as the 60s TV series, but not as serious as The Dark Knight. Batman: The Brave and the Bold is a somewhat silly show where Batman teams up with a different superhero every week. It’s a who’s who of the DC Universe, with everyone’s favorite go-go bat person as the only constant. It’s like having a classic slice of the Silver Age, but with a few modern day characters like Jaime “Blue Beetle” Reyes and Dr. Ryan “The Atom” Choi. This is a good show if you’re looking for a bit of humor and a lot of swashbuckling adventure.
Ben 10 started off as a thinly veiled rip-off of Dial H for HERO. In reality… well, it’s a thinly veiled rip-off of Dial H for HERO that I find entertaining. The show features main character Ben Tennyson, who is in the 10th grade, and wears an alien artifact on his wrist that allows him to turn into 10 super-powered alien creatures. He’s joined by his cousin Gwen Tennyson (also in 10th grade), and former rival Kevin Levin in a quest to save the world from alien invasions, and occasionally to help non-hostile aliens. Once you get past all of the ‘10′ puns, it’s actually a pretty good show with plenty of action, drama, strong characters, and a surprising amount of emotion in some episodes.
The Secret Saturdays follows the Saturday family, the world’s leading experts on cryptozoology. Cryptozoology is the study of cryptids, or hidden mythological animals that may or may not exist. The family consists of Doc Saturday, his wife Drew Saturday, and their son Zak Saturday. They’re also joined by a few cryptids named Zon, Komodo, and Fiskerton, and sometimes Drew’s brother Doyle. This show is great for its “pulp comic” style, Jonny Quest-like adventure, rare decision to use a bi-racial family, and humor that doesn’t go over the top.
The Secret Show is more of a comedy than anything, and its humor finds the right balance at being silly, kid-friendly, and genuinely funny. It’s about an international law enforcement organization named U.Z.Z. and their top agents Victor and Anita. Anita is the overall competent English agent, and Victor (because this show was made in Britain) is the bumbling American. They’re aided by a good German mad scientist named Professor Professor (who has an evil rival named Doctor Doctor), backup agent Ray, and U.Z.Z. commander Changed Daily (who has a new name in every episode).
Here’s a show that debatably isn’t for kids at all. Total Drama Island is a cartoon that satires reality shows like Survivor, where a large group of young people are shoved into the woods, divided into teams, forced to compete in challenges, and voted off on Canadian television. Oh yes, and this show was actually made in Canada. The humor on this show really rides the border on what’s appropriate to air on Cartoon Network prior to Adult Swim. Things can get pretty crude pretty quickly. This is a show I expect the Junior High set might enjoy more than the younger audiences. Its second season, Total Drama Action, is currently airing on Teletoon in Canada, and will hit American airwaves this summer.
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I knew Jaime showed up on “Brave and The Bold”, Ryan!Atom is there too? Now I have to check that out, I love that DC is still embracing legacy characters in some regards.