Ten Deep 04.09.09: My Personal Favorite Childhood Cartoons

Posted by Lucas Huddleston on 04.09.2009

This week, 411's Lucas Huddleston is a reflective mood, so he takes a gander at his top ten favorite cartoons from his own childhood. Everyone's invited down memory lane!

Hello, and welcome to Ten Deep: Week 26! First, let's get to comments from Week 25, which was two weeks ago, of which there was only one comment from The Former C.W.D.U., particularly in regards to my breakdown on Indiana Jones…

First and foremost, another well thought-out and presented article for the viewing pleasure of the 411 readers. I did get a chuckle out of the fact that, while addressing the individuals who took issue with your long paragraphs from last week, your response was an almost equally long paragraph - haha awesome.

I definitely agree with you about the duality or secret identity of Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. and Dr. Indiana Jones. However, I disagree with your assessment that the professor in him comes across as `mousey.` Sure, he may not imbue the enthusiastic and excited traits of a lecturer who has discovered, stolen, risked his life and fought for the possession of historical artifacts. As you said, he is not brimming with self-confidence while in the classroom, dressed in a suit. However, I think his students, namely female ones, know that there is more to him than he lets on. Case in point, the girl with ‘I love you' written on her eyelids in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Another item that we agree upon is his internal conflict of ‘what Indy wants for Indy' and ‘what Henry Sr. wants for Indy.' Coming back to his job as a university professor, I believe that he tortures his students with massive amounts work the same way his father did when he was a boy – it's the only way he know how to deal with them. And you can plainly see that Indiana does not like this since he escapes the hordes of students flooding into his office, who are complaining to him about their term papers in Last Crusade, by climbing out his window. He doesn't like that he has, essentially, become just like his father.

That's a pretty good point about the girls in his class picking up on the ‘other' side of Indy's personality, and one that I completely spaced on…as well as the point you made about Indiana being a ruthless teacher standing for Indy becoming his father, as what we're shown of Indy's father as Indy's ‘teacher', so to speak, you get the idea that he's as ruthless, too…which is where Indy gets it. Good points, there.

As you may have noticed, I was A.W.O.L last week, though I wasn't planning on it. I made a trip up to Kansas City without what work I had done on my column, and while there, the heavens closed up and pelted the place with nearly a foot of snow. Once I heard how bad it was supposed to get and not wanting to start something anew, I emailed the editor just in case I got stranded up there and got the week off. Of course, the snow was nearly gone by Monday, and all I lost was around a day of work, but better safe than sorry. I also missed last night's post, if you haven't noticed, so this column is coming at you about 24 hours late, all due to the fact that my internet service provider's computer had a problem recognizing my computer for some reason (yes, I still use *coughdialupcough*), and forbade me from logging on to the internet. I wasn't able to get it cleared up last night, or today, but when I got home from work, it was up again. So huzzah, and I apologize for the delay.

TOP TEN FAVORITE CARTOONS FROM MY CHILDHOOD

Now, I had a lot of ideas about this column, about what to do it about. Originally, I intended it to be a list of top films that make men cry…but I wasn't quite feeling it, so I scrapped that idea. Then I thought about doing another list on adaptations from writers, in particular either Stephen King or Philip K. Dick, but, again, I couldn't mentally get behind it all the way. Instead, I found myself in more of a ‘reflecting upon my life' mood this week, and thus, this list was born. I had toyed with the notion of doing a list that named something akin to a ‘mix-tape', using ten films to sum up what my life's been about, in my eyes. However, that could be more difficult than I think it is, so instead I noticed this subject in the Forums here on 411mania, so decided to use it as a tool to look back on my beloved cartoons from my childhood.

As such, this list is strictly subjective to adhere to my childhood, looking only at cartoon shows roughly produced between the period of 1981 and 1996, and listing only those that were ultimately my favorites, and even then, my favorites surely aren't the same as anyone else's favorites. So, please, don't look at this list as being any kind of ‘greatest' cartoons of that period…merely my favorites.

First, a few brief Honorable Mentions, though rest assured that there are more that deserve mention than I have listed here…

HONORABLE MENTION

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show: While I always found a bit of glee in the cheesy live-action sequences featuring Captain Lou (who was a great Mario, by the way), I really preferred this show mainly for the Legend of Zelda shows that aired on Fridays. But I liked the Mario ‘toons, as well. Hell, I even liked the cereal!

Muppet Babies: What can I say? I loved the Muppet Babies!

Thundercats: Another one that narrowly got edged out of the top ten, and one that I need to revisit sometime soon.

Transformers: I did indeed love the original series very greatly, and what young boy wouldn't? It had giant robots turning into cars. But my love affair for the Transformers never really moved beyond the first generation animated series (except for Beast Wars, which is good too)…and even then I preferred other shows a bit more.

Pinky and the Brain: Probably the one show that I really wanted to put on the list, but ultimately couldn't place it above any one of the ten I have listed as being something I liked more. But I still love this show.

10. The Pirates of Dark Water (1991-1993)



I was almost kind of wary of putting the Pirates of Dark Water animated series on this list of my own personal favorite shows from that particular genre, and pretty much for one, simple reason: I haven't seen an actual episode of The Pirates of Dark Water since the show's original airing way back in the early 1990's. For whatever reason, unlike a lot of the other shows that appear on this list, I never got around to recording episodes of the show as it aired onto VHS, though, while I can't remember the reasons as to why I didn't, if I was to take a guess I'd assume it was because 1.), the show aired a few years before I began recording all the shows I watched, and 2.), there wasn't any need for me to record the thing, seeing as how it came on Saturdays at mid-morning, and not real early in the morning during the week, nor before school let out in the afternoons. However, just because I haven't seen an actual episode of the show in over fifteen years doesn't mean that I don't REMEMBER anything about it. In fact, I remember quite a bit about the show, from the designs and looks of the many different characters, to the basic plot of the show as well as a few of the more major turn of events that happened during the shows run, such as the evil pirate captain cutting a deal with the controller of the Dark Water in order to get Ren's mystical treasures of Rule. As far as the pilot of the show is concerned, I feel as though I've seen it hundreds of times, since I had the original comic book adaptation of the series' multi-episode long pilot, and read it nigh on continuously for a period of time. Hell, I still remember that, when the show ended rather abruptly, Ren had only attained eight of the thirteen treasures of Rule.

But I'll always remember the show for one main reason, and that is that The Pirates of Dark Water stands as being perhaps the very first cartoon show that I watched not merely for the battles or for action sequences (though there was indeed quite a bit of that)…whenever the show was on television, I was glued to the screen for the narrative, the main ongoing plot of Ren and company's quest to retrieve all thirteen of the sacred treasures of Rule and save the planet of Mer from being consumed by the malevolent Dark Water. It was easily a show that captured my imagination as well as my attention, and it was a Fantasy show to boot, which made it all the more awesome in my eyes. I also remember the show as having some of the most top-notch animation to be found in the realms of cartoons series' of its day, and I'm sure that it was that high quality of animation that ended up being the death knell for the show in the end. Of course, I wouldn't have known that at the time of the show's cancellation, as it was before I knew anything about the ‘internet' or the inner workings of the television companies; just one day I sat down to watch my favorite cartoon show of that time, and…it didn't come on. And never came on again, and even as of to this day, never seeing a DVD release of the show's run, but I've never forgotten it. It's a pity too, as a truly epic story was being woven through the show, and a great, continuous story is something that is, and has been in years past, often overlooked when it comes to the design and creation of cartoons. Over the years since the show was pulled off of my television, I've often thought about The Pirates of Dark Water, and as such, the show has been able to attain a near mythic level of stature in my eyes, harnessed by a certain degree of mystique that has accumulated after years of being hidden away after my brief love affair with the show. Should it stand to reason that, if the show were to be released on DVD tomorrow, it would be proven to be much less than what I remember it as being, and that I've merely been looking at the long-lost show through the proverbial rose-colored glasses after all these long years? Undoubtedly the possibility of the show not being near as good as I remember it to be is there…but the possibility of it being just as great as I remember it is there, too. I prefer to think of it as being the latter.

9. Darkwing Duck (1991-1995)



I was almost at a crossroads with adding this show to the list, to be honest with you. Not that the show doesn't rank as being one of my all-time favorites; it does. No, I was instead more worried about whether or not I truly liked it more than the show that spawned it. Yes, for those of you that don't know, Darkwing Duck is indeed a spin-off, and a spin-off from an equally great show, at that, a show title DuckTales; in fact, this may be one of the few cases where a great show spins off into another equally great show (Cheers/Frasier comes to mind as another). Now, I adored DuckTales as a kid, and I still do to this day; however, when I began to assemble the list, one of the first shows that popped into my head as being an old, absolute childhood favorite was…Darkwing Duck, which, naturally (for me, at any rate) caused me to question why DuckTales hadn't come to mind first. As such, it was a bit of a struggle for me to decide which I liked better than the other, and in the end, Darkwing won out. The fact that the show deals with superheroes no doubt gave it that little edge.

Of course, the show doesn't just deal with superheroes…the show stands as being a bit of a spoof on comic characters such as Batman, or, probably more precisely, on classic pulp heroes such as the Sandman (with the gas-gun) or the Shadow. However, unlike some other spoofs, Darkwing Duck seemed to be a bit more affectionate and less absurdist towards that which it was lampooning, albeit in a Disney-like fashion. However, that's not to mean that the show was ever all THAT stupid or silly; in fact, the show was really quite clever and witty, never taking the intelligence of its intended younger audiences for granted, which is something to be said for the shows quality. I haven't seen the show in what seems like ages, yet it is one show that I would greatly like to revisit now that I'm a little older. I'm sure that I'd enjoy now more than I did as a kid…and that's saying something.

8. Dungeons and Dragons (1983-1986)



You know, the funny thing about this show is that, had I NOT had a few old VHS tapes of this show, I might not have remembered what the show was all about. I can remember when I was about the age of five or six, and I was beginning to enter into the throes of the ‘Turtle-mania' movement, that I had a few action figures of a few characters that I vaguely recognized, yet couldn't really remember their names; however, I did indeed know just where they came from. They came from ‘that' Dungeons and Dragons show, where the kids get on a rollercoaster and, at some point during the ride, are magically spirited away to a Fantasy land. While I didn't have any of the toys of the main characters, I could still remember ‘the guy with the magic bow and arrows', ‘the girl with the invisible cloak', and, most importantly, the bad-ass dragon (in case you're wondering, the toys that I had from the show were minor, one-shot characters, such as Strongheart, the knight in Venger's dungeon, and some evil guy that looked a lot like the main villain from the first Dragonlance book). Unfortunately, beyond a few fleeting images of the characters and the opening sequence, both of which were burned into my brain, I remembered nothing else about the show at that point in time. It had happened just too early on in my life, a time when my long-term memory was, to put it bluntly, pure crap. However, that all changed as I grew a bit older.

For you see, probably when I was around the age of ten or so (maybe younger), I went digging through our many boxes and boxes of old VHS tapes that my parents had, tapes that held many various old television shows that my parents had seemingly for no particular reason to record off of the television during the 1980's (actually, I'd assume that there was a reason for it, and that reason was the fact that the VCR was still a new commodity back then, and why not record anything and everything?). Now, I was looking for one box in particular, a box that rested at the bottom of the heap somewhere, a box with a clown on it labeled ‘Cartoon Box'. Now, I can't really recall the particular cartoon that I was searching for, and for all I know it could have been The Wuzzles or The Get-Along Gang (remember them?); however, I do indeed remember exactly what it was that I found: (you guessed it) a tape that contained a few episodes of the old Dungeons and Dragons animated series. Almost as soon as the opening credits for those few episodes sprang up on my television screen, I knew exactly what it was that I had found, and the whole experience of watching those few episodes at that point in time may have been my first touch with déjà vu, for as watched the shows, I felt as though I knew what was going to happen, like I knew exactly who the characters were (a feeling that I've received more recently by watching the DVD releases of the old He-Man cartoons). Most importantly, I remembered how much I loved the show, period. The best episode that the show ever produced was on that tape, as well, an episode where the creators of the show proved that they weren't too scared to shy away from touching on certain subjects that some shows most likely would have been wary of going near at the time; to be more specific, the episode in question dealt with the kids realizing that they were never going to be able to go back home as long as the villain Venger was around, so they hatched a plan in order to pit Venger against the dragon Tiamat, knowing that Tiamat would kill Venger. Pretty intriguing stuff to be putting in front of children in the early 1980's, I believe (but what do I know, I can't remember the early 1980's).

All in all, the show seems to have been forgotten over the years, and that's quite a shame, in my opinion. Hell, there's even a group of people that swear up and down that they remember witnessing the final episode of the series where the kids made it back home, even though such an episode never existed; in fact, the true final episode was never released or even produced (though it was written), until the DVD release a few years back, where the show was produced in a kind of radio program format (by the by, that DVD release of the entire series is a pretty snazzy package, probably one of the best sets ever released, to be honest, as far as presentation goes). But hey, that's alright. I forgot about to for a while there…but I always appreciate it when someone else can remember it as well (like in the game Baldur's Gate II, where portraits of the main characters can be found in a weapons shop). It is, after all, one of my favorites.

7. Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994-1998)



As I've said before, the character of Spider-Man stands in as being my second all-time favorite superhero, right behind Batman. The personality of Spider-Man seems to be almost the antithesis of Batman's personality; whereas Batman is dark and brooding, Spider-Man always seemed to be somewhat ‘peppy', spouting off wise-cracks and bad puns whenever given the chance. Now, like Batman, Spider-Man has had a rather long track record in the realms of animated television, and, also like Batman, I believe that, despite the near thirty or forty years of Spider-Man existing in animated form, the quintessential Spider-Man animated series was produced in the 1990's. However, I've read a lot of comments on message boards and the like since the show's end a decade ago that seem to state otherwise. Quite a few people nowadays seem to look on the show with a certain measure of disgust, disgust that's aimed at a multitude of different things concerning the show, such as the animation, or the voice-work, or the characterizations or plots. But me, I'll always look back on the show as being the greatest depiction of Spider-man ever produced, honestly…though I will admit that the show was borderline cheesy at times. But then again, so is the character of Spider-man, so it all fit perfectly.

Of course, while the show seems to be maligned now in regards to certain segments of its audience lashing out at it in retrospect through the internet, the show was, during its lifetime, as much maligned by its producers as by any nay-sayers that could exist today. The show was the victim of some fairly heavy censorship efforts back in the mid-90's, censorship at times on par with what was done to shows like He-Man in the mid-80's, which led to things like all guns being some kind of ‘ray-guns', and Spider-man not being shown actually punching somebody and making contact, all of which sometimes came across as being…well, strange. And yeah, I'll admit that the animation could be annoying at times due to the blatant and obvious use of stock footage, and even Peter Parker's voice-work, which was most often fantastic, could be borderline whiny at time…but for all those ‘negative' things (if you believe that those odds and ends should be construed as being negative) that the show did, there was dozens more fantastic things that it did superbly. All the voice-work in the show was excellent, and all the characterizations of all the characters were damn near spot-on (in particular Ed Asner as J. Jonah Jameson). The show went out of its way to endear itself to fans of the Marvel Universe by including as many villains as it could, from almost all of the A-list villains (with the exception of the Sandman, who was withheld from appearing on the show due to plans of the character appearing in a film that was being proposed around that time), to Z-grade villains like the Spot or Big Wheel. There was even crossover appeal with the X-Men from their own show, or characters such as Daredevil or the Punisher making appearances, as well. For me, I personally have always disregarded any and all detractors when it comes to this particular show, and I'd suggest that others do as well. It's easily the best Spider-man cartoon series ever produced, particularly in terms of characters and plots.

6. Conan the Adventurer (1992-1994)



It was almost seemingly by luck that I happened to stumble upon the animated Conan television series. You see, way back when I was still in grade school and actually rode the bus, I had to get up REALLY early…early for me, at any rate; the school bus that ran the route that I lived on came by the house around a quarter ‘til seven in the A.M. (school started at 8:15, which made for an hour and a half bus ride up and down winding gravel roads, negating any early naps during the trip to school), and since I've been a notoriously difficult early-riser my entire life, it was necessary for me to be up by no later than a quarter to six, so that I could get up, make my way to the couch, sit there for a while and get my bearings, eat my breakfast, take my shower, and, ultimately, get on the bus. My parents had always been ‘news' people, meaning that whatever time of the day that the news came on, they were almost seemingly obligated to watch it, especially the early morning news at six A.M. It just so happened that, one day, my dad got a ‘promotion', which led to him leaving for work about thirty-to-forty-five minutes earlier than he had been doing for much of his adult life, and on that particular day, whilst my mother was in the bathroom and my dad already having left for work, I noticed that, for once, the remote control to the television was free for my grubby little hands to clench. Looking to finally be free of the morning ‘news' (if only until my mom was done ‘doing the deed'), I quickly snatched up the controller and turned the channel to KDEB 27, the local FOX channel, which I knew ran cartoons at 6:30, and so I assumed that surely the network would have aired SOMETHING at six o'clock…and there it was. Conan the Adventurer. Conan. Warrior without fear. It's been well over a decade since I last watched the show, and I can still remember the opening theme song.

Now, I've documented in this column before my history with Robert E. Howard's barbarian hero, and though I can't recall as to whether or not I had actually read Howard's own personal works on the character at that particular time that I discovered the cartoon, I most definitely had already worked up quite a love affair with the character through the two Arnold Schwarzenegger films, as well as the various comic books that Marvel Comics had put out over the years. Needless to say that, when I discovered that an actual Conan cartoon had been airing unbeknownst to me and that my knowledge of said show's existence had been sacrificed in favor of the ‘news', I threw a fit…and, needless to say, from that point onward, my mother and I were watching Conan the Adventurer at 6 A.M. Of course, long after the show had been taken off television and as I grew older and came to be more ‘tuned' into the character of Conan, I realized just how little in common the Conan of the animated series had in relation to the character that Howard created, as pretty much the only commonality that exists between the literary figure and the animated character stood in name and appearance only. There's no Conan as a thief, a mercenary, a pirate, a king; he's far from being an ‘anti-hero'. Here, Conan has much more in common with your more basic heroic characters from the realms of animation: he's morally upright, kindly, and nearly every bit of his essence is ‘good', and the show's plot follows Conan and his heroic friends as they set out to defeat the evil Stygian wizard Wrath-Amon (based on Howard's evil Stygian wizard Thoth-Amon) before the wizard of Set finds and defeats THEM in order to gain their super-powered weapons (made of metal harbored from fallen meteorites). Also, it should be noted that, perhaps unlike most other shows on my list, the main point of conflict was actually resolved in the final episode of the series, rather than the show merely being cancelled, leaving various threads of plot and conflict dangling for eternity, which is something that I've always appreciated from that particular show.

However, even as I grew more versed in the world of Conan that Howard created and came to the realization that my beloved cartoon show held little in common with that original vision, I never came to dislike or disregard that old cartoon series. Even now, after having not seen the show in over a decade, I look back on the show with an undying fondness. Even though it might not seem that the series was all that big of a hit (to me, at least, since I rarely, if ever, hear anybody else talk about it), it was indeed popular enough it seems that it spawned a very short-lived sequel series called Conan and the Young Warriors…a series so short-lived that it only lasted 13 episodes (as compared to the 64 episodes of the original series), and perhaps a series that could owe its limited lifespan to the fact that its titular character was relegated to having a cameo every episode, kind of like the Dungeon Master. All in all, though, despite its spiritual detachedness from Howard, Conan the Adventurer remains to be one of the shows from my childhood that I look back on and remember quite well, and one that I would jump at the chance to revisit one day soon with a proper U.S. DVD release (which I hold out hope that such a release will coincide with the upcoming Conan film).

5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987-1996)



Like a lot of young kids that have been born in the modern era, there happened to be a few things that were created during my childhood that I loved so much that I just had to have anything and everything associated with said creation. Call it a fad, a trend, an obsession, whatever…but I've always believed that it's just called ‘being a fan' of something. Now, perhaps the very first thing that caught my attention that spurred me to want to be surrounded by it at all times was various Star Wars toys, as I seem to have quite a bit of those old and well-worn toys that I obviously played with to death in my possession, but I have no recollection of actually having those toys being given to me; they've always just kind of been there. The next big thing that I attached myself to was, obviously, the Masters of the Universe franchise, which I don't remember the first several dozen that I received, but I do remember bits and pieces of going to the Eldon Wal-Mart and being handed a Spikor figure, among other things. However, while I've always loved He-Man, eventually my desire to keep on buying the toys and comics and whatnot faded away…and, it just so happened, there was another massive, attention-getting franchise looming on the horizon, waiting like a coiled snake to drain my parents of all their hard-earned money. That snake was, naturally, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and it did indeed drain my parents of their cash. It did it quite well, as a matter of fact, as I'm quite sure that my TMNT stuff easily outnumbers my MOTU stuff, and quite handily at that.

Probably like a lot of other children that fell into the TMNT trap in the late 1980's, I had no prior knowledge to the dark, independent comic book written by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird from which the entire franchise was spawned. Instead, I'm quite sure that my initial experience with the Turtles came by way of the cartoon series in question that was produced in conjunction with the toyline. And what an experience it was on my young imagination. Of course, I'm quite sure that any persons that had been fans of the original cult-classic comic line absolutely HATED the cartoon series, as the cartoon series took quite a few liberties with the characters and their world, presumably in order to adhere to the younger crowd that they were about to subject to this monstrosity. Of course, such changes presumably allowed the franchise to open up to a much larger, and perhaps even more rabid, audience and fanbase than it would have otherwise. As for myself? Well, needless to say that I bought anything that the Turtles logo on it, whether it be toys, comics (only the Archie Comics line, though, which was descended straight from the cartoon), video games (damn you Konami for that first game!), coloring books, T-shirts, underwear…even the Turtles CD AND a VHS copy of the Turtles ‘backstage' for their tour to support the album (if you remember that). For a good long while there, I was a Turtle-maniac. That first TMNT live-action film still probably stands as being one of the films that I anticipated the most, as even to this day I can remember how much I salivated over watching the ‘real' Turtles in action.

However, my love affair and near fanaticism with the Turtles wasn't to last forever, nor even really all that long, to be honest, as not too long after the second live-action feature film (TMNT: The Secret of the Ooze…or mutagen, rather) was released in 1991, I became super-burned out on the Ninja Turtles and their mass media blitz that had encompassed my life for three or four years. In other words, I believe, in retrospect, that the Turtles were greatly over-exposed and pushed out in all directions far too quickly and in far too much of mass quantities, that sooner rather than later I was basically drowning in Turtles stuff, and once the ‘awesomeness' of the Turtles grew old for me, it didn't take all that long for me to move on. The last gasp for the Turtles as far as I was concerned was their third film, which I went to see in theaters essentially out of loyalty, but have never given much thought about since (I haven't even watched that particular film since the day my mother bought it for me on VHS, I believe). In fact, I was rather surprised when I was channel surfing one day in the mid-90's to discover that the Turtles' cartoon show was STILL on the air, albeit without Shredder or Krang, and with some weird alien overlord that was attempting to invade the Earth. Still, I never gave the show that much of a chance at that point in my life; the Turtles had run their course. However, just because I was eventually turned off by the Turtles and abandoned the cartoon series sometime around 1991 or 1992, that doesn't mean that I think that the show (particularly in the early days when I truly loved it) is horrible by any stretch of the imagination. It was one of the great cartoon series of the late 1980's, with great characters, great voices, and great music, and probably one of the most fun animated series' ever produced. It's also been fun in today's day and age living in this more recent sort-of ‘Turtle renaissance', as experiencing the new movie and the new animated series has caused me to feel some heavy nostalgia about the old Turtles animated series. To me, that original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon show will ALWAYS be the quintessential Turtles source.

4. X-Men (1992-1997)



As some of you might remember, way back when in the inaugural edition of Ten Deep when I put forth my list of best films based on comic books, none of the X-Men films were to be found…not even as Honorable Mentions. Of course, there were a few comments left that questioned as to why the X-Men films weren't included in my list; when I addressed those comments, I gave a rather simple answer: I've been officially burned out on all things X-related since the late 1990's. And it's true. I've probably watched the first film maybe around four or five times (but only once or twice since 2001), the second film twice, and the third film once…and I really haven't had much of a want to watch any of them again anytime soon. I'm an avid reader of comic books, and I have quite a few ongoing series' pulled for me every month…but I've only collected a handful of issues since I've gotten back into comics, all of them issues of the Astonishing X-Men line, and mostly because Warren Ellis, the present writer and one of my favorites, is telling one hell of a story on that book right now (heck, I'm not even interested in reading anything from the Uncanny X-Men line, and that particular series is currently being written by Matt Fraction, another one of my favorite comic book writers). When it comes to the X-Men, my interest has been nearly completely depleted, and it has been for a while now…and I'm not even really all that sure as to whether or not my interest in the brand will ever be completely rejuvenated. However, it wasn't always this way.

I believe I've mentioned this before, but it's worth stating again for a different purpose. There was indeed a time when I was certifiably X-crazy. You see, before a certain point in time, whenever my mother went to the Eldon Pharmacy, she'd spend maybe ten dollars on comic books for me. I'd get a little bit of this, a little bit of that…the only real constant in my younger days was Archie Comics Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and everything else ran the gamut of being maybe Superman, the Incredible Hulk, Spider-man, whatever (yes, back then, not even Conan or Batman were consistently bought by me). However, after said certain point in time, all those books that were bought for ten bucks by my mother were indeed consistent…they were Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force, the New Mutants, Generation X, Wolverine, etc. They were all X-titles, each and every one of them. And so what was that one certain point in time that changed the way I bought comics for the next five, six, or even seven years? Simple – it was the debut of this cartoon show. I can't really recall, but if my memories of my childhood in the 1980's can serve correctly, I'd assume that I had perhaps a passing knowledge of the existence of the X-Men BEFORE the cartoon series at best. I'm pretty sure that I knew who Wolverine was by his appearance, but really don't think that I knew much else about him, let alone other characters like Cyclops, Jean Grey, or even Apocalypse. However, I can damn well guarantee you that, once this show had really gotten a roll, I knew everything little thing about them, and that statement in and of itself stands as being the greatest thing about the animated X-Men series.

In the fairly broad history of animated television shows that were based on comic books, I believe that X-Men stands atop the heap as far as being exceedingly true in adapting the stories for the episodes straight from the comics is concerned. Spider-man was a great cartoon show, true, and it did indeed adapt a few storylines straight from the comics to the small screen…but not on the level that the X-Men did. Sure, those adaptations that the X-Men animated series did were fairly loosely based on the original stories, but the show was still able to get the main gist across. It was because of this show that things such as the Dark Phoenix storyline, the Phalanx storyline, or the Days of Future Past storyline was brought to my attention in my youth. It was also because of this show that my interest in what happened in comics BEFORE my time was spawned. Everything else about the show was more than solid, of course, and perhaps gave us the definitive voice for what Wolverine should probably sound like; the only real negative thing that I have to say about the show is that, towards the end, the new episodes that were being created were being churned out at such a slow and inconsistent pace that I lost interest in the show before it came to an end…though my immediate love for X-Men comics that the show molded in me continued on for a few more years. X-Men is another show that deserves to be given a second life on DVD, and for those that missed out on the show during its original run…they really missed out on the definitive X-Men on film, in my opinion. Nothing that any film studio could produce on a big budget motion picture could come close to exacting what this show accomplished with these characters.

3. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983-1985)



I've went on at length at various times during this column's run about my love for all things He-Man, so I'll keep this section somewhat brief, but suffice it to say that there have been few things that I've been fanatically devoted to from my childhood that has carried over into my adult life quite like He-Man has. Take, for example, the aforementioned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I loved the Turtles dearly as a kid, watched the television series devotedly, permanently endeared myself to the first couple of movies (and the fourth one wasn't too shabby, either), played every Turtles videogame that was released (my favorite is still Turtles in Time for the SNES), attained a plethora of the toys that was released for the franchise, had Turtles shirts, bought the damn Turtles album…the whole nine yards. I did all those things when it came to He-Man as well (though I don't recall if He-Man ever made a rock album and toured for it), yet I would indeed venture to say that at one point in my younger life my love for the Turtles, in many respects, even surpassed that of my love for He-Man. But, as I said, I did indeed eventually ‘burn' myself out on all things Turtles, and to this day the ramifications of that burning out can still be felt, as, despite my rather extensive DVD collection, the only Turtles film I own is TMNT (though I still have the other three films on VHS), and I've only felt compelled to buy the first season of the old cartoon show, and I've still yet to watch a single episode of the newer cartoon series (though that could change). My devotion to He-Man, however, was NEVER privy to such a ‘falling out' as that which I had with the Turtles. And, I might add, never will.

As I've said in the past, I can't recall the very first time that I ever came across He-Man, whether it was by the original toys, the cartoon show, or the comic books, but I DO know one thing: it seems as though throughout my entire life, there's always been He-Man, as there's not one point in my memory banks that I can't recall NOT knowing who or what He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was…it's like I came out of the womb with the knowledge of He-Man. Even still, despite my lifelong connection with the franchise and, in particular, the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe television series, I'm not so daft as to not notice the faults of that original series. During my childhood, I was subjected to zero anime, but, looking back, I can easily admit that a lot of animation coming from Japan (and even quite a bit of animation coming from the States) blew the stiff, sometimes overly-used stock footage of the original He-Man series out of the water, and other televised cartoon series of the day told, well, BETTER stories; I've even stated numerous times that I feel that the 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series bests the original series on all fronts, with the exceptions of voice-work and music (simply because the voice-work and music from the original series has reached a nearly unsurpassable height of iconic). In many respects, one could consider the original He-Man animated series to be unflappably simplistic…but that shouldn't be construed by any to mean that the show was ‘bad'. In truth, looking back on it now, it's that same simplistic formula of the He-Man cartoon that continues to endear itself to me, with its innocent nature of approaching the world as ‘everything is in black-and-white' and its universal moral messages that it pushes throughout each episode becoming more and more timeless it seems as I grow older. Even though you could single out numerous other cartoons from the same period of time and out-and-out prove to me that those respective shows were technically superior to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, I'd still remained unmoved in the opinion that He-Man was still one of the greatest cartoons to ever be created (one could even argue as to the importance of the original show in the shaping of today's animated series', as the show was born out of the ban that was lifted that had previously made the creation of shows like He-Man impossible in the States, and had it been anything other than what it was, we could have a different cartoon series landscape). Sometimes, simpler is better, and, really, don't we all wish for a return to simpler times at some point in our life? That's what He-Man stands for as far as I'm concerned: a simpler time.

2. The Tick (1994-1996)



"Destiny's powerful hand has made the bed of my future, and it's up to me to lie in it. I am destined to be a superhero. To right wrongs, and to pound two-fisted justice into the hearts of evildoers everywhere, and you don't fight destiny, no sir. And you don't eat crackers in the bed of your future, or you get all…SCRATCHY." – The Tick

When I first watched The Tick as a part of the FOX Kids Saturday morning cartoon block, I hadn't ever heard of the character, and, as such, knew absolutely nothing about nothing about what the character or his world was all about. In fact, to be quite honest with you, when I went into the debut episode of the animated series, I was expecting to be introduced to a great, serious superhero series not unlike Batman: TAS, or X-Men, a series featuring some superhero that I'd never heard of, possibly one that was created specifically for the animated series. Some time after the first season of the Tick cartoon series had completed, I would learn through Wizard Magazine that the Tick hadn't been created for television purposes, but actually was indeed a comic book character, albeit one I'd never heard of and on a rather small scale in terms of mainstream exposure; however, sometime during the course of my initial viewing of that very first episode, I realized that I was wrong about another thing concerning The Tick. I wasn't watching a great, serious animated series about superheroes that stood as being in the vein of those other shows that I loved. No, what I was watching was perhaps the greatest superhero spoof ever crafted. Hell, the opening jazzy, scatting opening theme song was testament enough to that.

To be perfectly honest with you, The Tick is probably the one show on this list that I wish could have gone on forever. In fact, I'd even venture to say that it could possibly be one of the few shows that COULD have aired for all time, and I doubt that I ever would have grown bored with it. It was just that awesome and hilarious, in my opinion. The Tick came along at that perfect time in my life, when I was in my pre-teen/early teenage years, after I had discovered things such as Spaceballs, Blazing Saddles, or This is Spinal Tap, and actually found myself tuned into to what REALLY made those films, and things in their like nature, truly hilarious…in other words, I GOT their humor for the first time in my life. The Tick exists in much of the same vein; after having watched so many superhero cartoons in my life (or after having read so many comics), it was easy to find the hilarity in everything that the Tick said or did, in his overly-naïve view on what was ‘good' or ‘evil' ("Come on, Arthur, get meta with me…")…it was much of what almost any superhero would say, except that when the Tick said it, it made me realize just how absurd it all was. For example, the above quote was an episode ending ‘moral of the story' quip that the Tick mused about, and, really, it makes me think of something that He-Man would state at the end of an episode of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, except it's more…goofy. What's more is that, after having watched the show somewhat consistently since the show went off the air via episodes that I had taped off or through the recent DVD releases of the show, The Tick stands as being one show that I've grown to love and appreciate even MORE since I've grown into adulthood, and all on the show's own merits, not merely because of fuzzy feelings of nostalgia. If this list was indeed meant to be more objective than it truly is and be something more along the lines of ‘greatest' cartoon series' of my childhood, it's a safe bet that The Tick would still be in this same spot. In fact, I'd guarantee it. Oh, and it also happens to be one of the most quotable shows in history…

"Everybody was a baby once, Arthur. Oh, sure, maybe not today, or even yesterday…but once. Babies, chum…tiny, dimpled, fleshy mirrors of our us-ness that we parents hurl into the future like leathery footballs of hope. And you've got to get a good spiral on that baby, or evil will make an interception." – The Tick

"We are superheroes, men. We don't have time to be charming. The boots of evil were made for walking. We're watching the big picture, friend. We know the score. We are a public service, not glamour boys. Not captains of industry. Keep you vulgar monkeys. We are a justice sandwich, no toppings necessary. Living rooms of America, do you catch my drift? Do…you…DIG?" – The Tick

Oh, what the hell, let's do one more…

"Well, once again, my friend, we find that science is a two-headed beast. One head is nice. It gives us aspirin and other modern conveniences. But the other head of science is bad. Oh, beware the other head of science, Arthur! IT BITES!" – The Tick

1. Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995)



Honestly, the only character that I've been more fanatical about than He-Man was, and remains to be to this day, Batman. Throughout my childhood and on into my adult life, He-Man and how I view him has largely remained the same, unchanged: he's the ultimate force for good, someone who can't be swayed in his convictions of the morally upright, and someone that will never, ever be tempted by evil, or to do things in any other way other than what is right. He was created to be a simple, straight-forward character, and he remains to BE that same simple, straight-forward character to this day. Not so with Batman. When I was a kid, I was drawn to Batman and came to love the character not by way of any deep characterizations, or even what he stood for; as a kid, I came to love Batman for one simple reason: he looked bad-ass, and he seemed to be all about scaring people. Sure, Superman is essentially a god-like character, and you'd think that when facing a man that can't be harmed in any way (save through Kryptonite, of course), who could conceivably rip a man in half with one finger, villains would be terrified of being in his presence…but they never really seemed to be. Perhaps it was due to Superman being the ‘ultimate boy-scout' or whatever, and the villains, even the low-level thugs, knew that Superman wouldn't do anything to harm them in any way, but you never really seen anybody shaking in their shoes when Superman came into the scene. But with Batman, it was something else entirely. It wasn't beyond my imagination to perceive of a situation where some low-life was running through the alleyways of Gotham City after mugging some little old lady, only to have the life scared out of them as they rounded one corner to see a section of the shadow detach itself from the rest to stand before them, long, pointed ears looking like sharp horns in the darkness, dark shadows billowing out around him in the form of a cape or shroud. The mere visual image of something like that easily captured my imaginations, and for the longest time, that was the only thing that drew me to Batman above all other superheroes. Indeed, for most of my younger life, when I bought a Batman comic book, I bought it for the visuals, to ogle the artwork. Batman was, quite simply, a visual experience for me almost exclusively.

And it is for that reason why the Batman: The Animated Series stands as being so pivotal in my life: it was due to that particular cartoon show that I came to view Batman as being the great, multi-layered character that he truly is, and not just the visually striking image that I once viewed him as being. It was through this show that I became more attuned to the human side of Batman, which was something that the Burton films, as much as I love them, never really got down all that well (in fact, no live-action Batman films got that part of the character down until Batman Begins was created). Not only that, but this show marked the first time that I also became more attuned to the human side of his villains, as well, as I came to recognize them as being more than just ‘bad guys', but as being deeper than that. Everything about this show was great, from the writing of the plots to the characterizations, and even the animation, which set the tone for all the animation to come in DC related products. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this show stands as not only being one of the greatest animated shows of all time, but as one of the all time greatest shows in television, period.

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Well, that's it for this week, and as you can see (and probably already knew), I've always loved Fantasy and Superhero related stuff more than anything else. Hope you liked the column, and see you in one week. And don't forget to bookmark 411mania if you liked this stuff...and if you didn't, hey, there's probably better stuff to be found on site, so click on everybody's columns! Thanks!