Cartoon series

What cartoon series do you watch and recommend to the rest of us?

Here's a few of the ones I watch:

Invader Zim

Invader Zim, branded as Invader ZIM, is an Emmy-winning American animated television series that was produced by and subsequently aired on Nickelodeon.[1] The series is centered around an alien invader named Zim from the planet Irk who is attempting to conquer and/or destroy a dark and satirical version of the Earth. Zim's schemes are usually foiled by his own stupidity or by his arch-nemesis, Dib, a paranormal enthusiast who goes to skool with Zim and seems to be obsessed with saving the Earth. He is one of the few characters who is aware of Zim's true identity, as the rest of humanity is either too unintelligent or apathetic to notice.




Clone High

Clone High was a hilarious and original television show that aired on MTV for one year. The show had a story like no other show, a high school that had a population of clones of famous historical figures, the main characters being Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, and Mahatma Gandhi with supporting characters such as Cleopatra and John F. Kennedy. The school was set up and run by a government agency known as The Secret Board of Shadowy Figures.





The Venture Brothers

The warped misadventures of a former boy genius turned washed-up, middle-aged mad scientist Dr. Rusty Venture; his moronic teenage sons; their maniac bodyguard; and the Doctor's arch-nemeses, incompetent super villain The Monarch and his masculine paramour, Dr. Girlfriend.





The Ren & Stimpy Show

The Ren and Stimpy Show is an American/Canadian animated television series created by Canadian animator John Kricfalusi.[1] The series follows the adventures of the eponymous characters: Ren Höek, a neurotic "asthma-hound" chihuahua, and Stimpson J. Cat, — a simpleminded manx cat. They wander around in nonsensical adventures in a style reminiscent of the Golden Age of American animation.[2]

A series that first aired on MTV then made a transition to the children's cable network Nickelodeon channel in 1991 on Sunday mornings, and continued with new episodes into the mid-nineties. The Show was often telecast on MTV as well. The Ren and Stimpy Show had a reputation for subversive humor. The controversy mostly stemmed from imagery and cartoon violence.[2]. This cartoon effort rocked the animation world by pushing TV animation to new, borderline-tasteless areas.





Family Guy

Created by 25-year-old wunderkind Seth MacFarlane, the weekly, half-hour cartoon series Family Guy shamelessly -- and hilariously -- exploited the nothing sacred, anything goes TV animation field fostered by such earlier trailblazers as The Simpsons and South Park. Set in Quahog, a suburb of Providence, RI, the series' main characters were the Griffin family: dad Peter, an impulsive fathead who worked at a local toy factory and who turned "dysfunctional parenting" into an art form; mom Lois, a frustrated social climber who bore the humiliation heaped upon her by her family in quiet desperation; 16-year old daughter Meg, as high-strung and neurotic as they came; 13-year-old son Chris, whose oafish slothfulness gave other slackers a bad name; and little Stewie, a sinister-looking one-year-old infant with an erudite vocabulary, the mind of a serial killer, and the ambitions of Genghis Khan. By contrast, the family's talking, martini-imbibing dog, Brian, was a monument to well-adjusted normalcy. The Griffins' neighbors included whiny, self-loathing Cleveland, paraplegic police officer Joe Swanson, and sex-obsessed Glen Quagmire.





American Dad

Stan Smith, who works for the CIA and is constantly on the alert for terrorist activity. Stan will go to extremes to protect his beloved America from harm; as evidenced by the terror-alert color code on his fridge, and his frequent knee-jerk reaction of shooting holes in the toaster whenever the toast pops up. In addition to Stan's wife and teenage children, the Smith household has two rather unconventional members. There's Roger, the sarcastic space alien who rescued Stan from Area 51 who deeply resents the fact that he's not allowed to leave the house, and therefore, has been reduced to drinking wine and smoking cigarettes, and Klaus, a lascivious, German-speaking goldfish; the result of a CIA experiment gone seriously wrong where the CIA tried to give a fish a German man's brain. Stan's son is a dorky teenager who tries to be cool. His wife has had a past life of sex and drugs.





The Simpsons

The Simpson family first appeared in 1988 in small animated vignettes on The Tracey Ullman Show. Creator Matt Groening and producer James L. Brooks turned the idea into a full half-hour show, which premiered on the Fox network in December of 1989. The Simpsons was a hit from the start and has remained one of the most popular television shows in history (as well as the longest-running prime-time cartoon). The show's weekly cornucopia of guest stars has included the likes of Ringo Starr, Christina Ricci and Stephen Hawking, among many others. Simpson family members include father Homer, a beer-loving safety inspector from the local nuclear power plant; Marge, the sensible mom with a blue beehive hairstyle; Bart, the mischievous fourth-grader whose pride in being an "underachiever" was, at first, controversial; Lisa, the second-grader whose achievements and smarts go largely unnoticed; and Maggie, the speechless, pacifier-loving infant.





Futurama

Futurama is an animated American sitcom created by Matt Groening, and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox network. The series follows the adventures of a former New York pizza delivery boy, Philip J. Fry, after he is cryogenically frozen seconds before the start of the year 2000, and thawed out on New Year's Eve 2999.





Southpark

South Park's early episodes tended to be shock value-oriented and featured more slapstick-style humor than later episodes. Although satire had been used on the show occasionally earlier on, it became more prevalent in later episodes. Episodes have parodied Michael Jackson ("The Jeffersons"), Paris Hilton ("Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset"), and The Passion of the Christ ("The Passion of the Jew"), as well as addressed serious political issues such as terrorism ("Cartoon Wars"), American immigration policy ("Goobacks"), gay marriage ("Follow That Egg!"), and the Terri Schiavo case ("Best Friends Forever").

Controversies over South Park have occurred numerous times. The show depicts what many people find to be taboo subject matter, from its use of vulgarity ("It Hits the Fan") to its satire of subjects such as religion and cults (such as "All About Mormons", "Bloody Mary", "Red Hot Catholic Love", Fantastic Easter Special", and "Trapped in the Closet"), sexuality ("The Death Camp of Tolerance"), Drugs ("My Future Self n' Me", "Up the Down Steroid"), and global warming ("Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow"). Stone and Parker are self-described "equal opportunity offenders" and episodes often lampoon all sides of a contentious issue, rather than taking a concrete position. Usually the boys and/or the other characters reconcile on the events of the episode and realize that they can take an important lesson from it, they often include the phrase "You know what, I've learned something today...".