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Approved Television

2022-05-12T19:58:35Z

2001:569:FC7C:7600:78C0:BEB:294E:31CB: /* Comedy */

This a collection of /tg/-approved live-action television. Cartoons and animated series have been moved to [[Approved cartoons]].

==Action/Adventure==
*'''Airwolf''': A good-hearted mercenary pilot, his ground crew and their stolen super-advanced attack helicopter on their weekly mission for the CI... the Firm, having dog-fights, infiltrating secret bases and doing a whole lot of secret operations all across the world. If you ever wanted 80s techno-thriller in a format usable for tabletops, look no further. Series ''still'' has some impressive air acrobatics, especially given it was made for pocket change and using dolled-up civilian chopper.

*'''MacGyver''': A wisecracking lanky guy that hates guns and solves issues at hand with his smarts and whatever random object he can get - how this can work out in the gung-ho 80s? Turns out: better than anyone expected. There is good chance you never saw a single episode of it, yet know the character, premise and the theme music, that's how big splash this series made. Aside the adventures that range from pretty mundane through espionage and capers to outright crazy (dream world episodes and ghost stories included), there is also a big source of creative traps and even more creative use of random shit to overcome them. Don't be afraid of the number of seasons, since the series is done entirely in episodic format, so you can plug in any given episode and still get everything.
**'''MacGyver: Moderna''': It exists. [[skub|It's pretty contentious]], to put that very mildly. Think of it more like an action comedy spoof of the original concept, set in modern world and focusing predominately on the wisecrack rather than smarts part of the character. NOT to be confused with MacGruber, an actual parody from SNL skids that eventually got its film and then series.

*'''Tales of the Gold Monkey''': There was once an era where everyone tried to ride on the popularity of ''Riders of the Lost Ark''. Some made cheap copy-cats, others borrowed the pulpy, adventure formula and run with it. This is how this series came to life. Meet Jake Cutter, an American former military, and now cargo pilot who gets himself tangled in 1938 into pile-up of espionage intrigue, war preparations and random (mis)adventures around the tropical island of Bora Gora. Pulp galore, with all characters being a step away from a walking cliche, but that "one step" is what makes them distinct and fun to watch. Unlike other listed in this category, ''Tales'' has more or less continuous plot, but in turn lasts only 22 episodes of a single season.
**'''Archer: Danger Island''' is a season-long, self-contained spoof of the series, and can be watched on its own right, for far, far crazier take on the material, along with more "gamey" structure, suitable for a tabletop campaign without editing much.

*'''Zorro''': A Disney-made late 50s series still shot in black-and-white that's responsible both for the lasting perception of the eponymous character and for setting in stone what even a "modern" swashbuckling should be like. Notable for sticking to the material from the countless novels and short stories, but also being one of the last productions to hire actual fencing champs for duel scenes, rather than doing good ol' block-block-block-lunge "fights". Endless source of episodic plots for dashing rogues and brave adventurers. Despite its age, still perfectly watchable, which speaks for itself.
**'''Zorro: The 90s Cheese''': A 1990 successful bid to revive the popularity of the character. While being constantly compared with the 50s classic, it still carries on its own right, delivering a blend of original plots and various nods to the source material. Along, of course, with early 90s cheese and gonzo. If you are thinking about the movie starring Banderas - it owes its existence to this series.

==Comedy==
*'''Blackadder''': A historical comedy about the descendants of the Blackadder family, all named Edmund and all played by Rowan Atkinson (equally well-known for his sketch-comedy character, Mr. Bean), with each season taking place in a different period of British history, starting in the Middle Ages and ending with the First World War. Very British yet goofy in its tone and sense of humour with plenty of in-jokes for the historians, and plenty more for those who aren't. While the first season is considered to be mediocre by pretty much everyone (despite having BRIAN BLESSED in it as Edmund I's father), the writing improves in season two and keeps getting better, with season four's finale being a a masterclass in writing [[noblebright|humour]] without sacrificing [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH3-Gt7mgyM grimdark]. If you ever wondered what kind of jokes would fit either of the Warhammers, look no further. Indeed, so well does Blackadder fit the 40k universe, he helped inspire [[Ciaphas Cain]] and someone else [https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4648258/1/Blackadder-40K-Tales-from-the-Black-Millennium| put the man himself there].

*'''Danger 5''': A modern Australian spoof of WW2 spy fiction from the 60s, telling a story of international team of Allied spies on their mission to kill Hitler and stop him from conquering the world. Has that perfect balance between being campy and self-aware, without becoming self-indulgent or over-the-top about it. It also does pulp better than whole bunch of more "serious" media, so highly recommended if you are planning to run some ''Hollow Earth Expedition'' or similar.

*'''Hero Corp''': A French comedy series about poking fun out of superheroes and cape stuff in general. However, rather than being some sort of obnoxious parody, it's simply a humorous take on the material, while having an assembly cast of interesting characters and balancing between self-awarness and plot-related humour. You probably know it already from the "Low Power Supers" webm that gets routinely posted in filename threads.

*'''Ghosts''': Specifically, the BBC original. Alison, a girl next door, inherits a haunted manor house in the countryside. After a near-death experience, she starts seeing dead people, but rather than freak out she and her husband just roll with it. Hijinks ensue. On the whole, it's a good ensemble comedy with really well-defined and well-written characters, and an established, fixed setting that allows for comedic situations while still limiting the powers of the ghost characters. If you ever need plot hooks that involve ghosts or just general modern paranormal stuff, look no further, especially as this one takes the piss out of the whole concept.

*'''Mystery Science Theater 3000:''' A bunch of Minnesotans with robot puppets riff on terrible movies. Achieved legendary cult classic status after being canceled (since it confused and angered the norms and behind the scenes shenanigans) and spawned the venerable [http://www.rifftrax.com Rifftrax]. Has come back from the dead on Netflix. Netflix version has some pros and cons, for example they seem to try and talk more often but in doing so their jokes became pretty lackluster, but with such a long break and with 10 ep seasons almost every movie is a hit (well, hit for this kind of show that is).

*'''[[Red Dwarf]]''': The other [[Doctor Who|long-running British cult sci-fi show]]. Follows the story of the remaining crew of the Red Dwarf, more specifically, a low-ranking technician who was accidentally frozen in time for 3 million years and is now the last living crew member, and possibly, [[Grimdark|the last living human]].

==Crime==

*'''Breaking Bad''' The story of a high-school chemistry teacher succumbing to cancer turned meth maker and his junkie ex-student sidekick. A premise made special by its excellent writing that won Bryan Cranston and the creative team 10d100 Emmys for portraying Mr. Rodger's gradual slide into a paranoid drug kingpin without any sign of seasonal decay. This is how you RP, people! Take note.
**'''Better Call Saul''' A solid spin-off series of the above. Well written, well acted, and pretty good at showing how the American legal system works. Most importantly, if you ever wondered what it takes to be a good Face, Jimmy is one of the prime examples to observe.

*'''Columbo''' Oldschool detective series without action, the investigation instead being an intellectual challenge. The protagonist, even though he is a Lieutenant of the Las Angeles Police Department, doesn't have a gun and is actually afraid of shooting. He has a wife who is only mentioned and never seen, because it's a running gag to not show her at all. The whole show's construction is unique in the way that the viewer can see the crime itself first, and then Columbo's investigation of it as he figures out how to catch the criminal. And the most famous gimmick being that Columbo acts like a complete moron, to throw people off.

*'''Glina''' ["Cop"] Amazingly good Polish neo-noir series. While it starts slow, after initial few episodes it turns into a modern masterpiece of crime series. Very oldschool in style, with a wide range of different cases, juicy dialogues (or at least juicy translation) and great performances. If you ever wanted to run or play an investigation game, accept no substitute for inspiration or direct rip-off.

*'''Mindhunter''' A series dedicated to the history of criminal profiling, rather than typical case-to-case procedural. Instead of being a material to rip-off cases from, it's still invaluable source of ideas and hooks, precisely due to it subject matter: motive that goes beyond "greedy" and "insane", while still keeping things simple. If you are routinely running investigation-heavy games, this show can definitely help to sort things out and step up your game.

*'''True Detective''' First season, anyway. Southern gothic meets modern investigation meets a whole plot reference to [[Yog-Sothothery|The King in Yellow]]. Very dark and climactic series, with solid performances and a bunch of ideas how to pull a modern "investigator" type of game Call of Cthulhu struggles so badly to market.

*'''Twin Peaks''' A somewhat [[skub]]worthy entry, given [[Dune#The_Movies|David Lynch's involvement]], but a worthwhile watch, nonetheless. What starts off as a fairly cheesy whodunnit about the murder of the local homecoming queen soon reveals itself to be something more in line with paranormal surrealist horror. If you're not sure how to make your [[Call of Cthulhu]] game walk the line between the supernatural and the mundane, then this is your guide. Watch seasons one & two, then the film, and then season 3 for maximum authenticity.

*'''The Wire''' Everybody else recommends it, so why not us? Grimdark crime drama about drug dealing in Baltimore. If you want a good primer on how to do [[Grimdark]] well, this is a fairly good place to start.

==Fantasy==
*'''Beforeigners''': He's an old cop with a drug problem. She's a Norse shieldmaiden straight out of the academy. Together, they fight crime! A Norwegian series dealing with involuntary time travel, written as a police procedural. Borderline comedy series, spoofing variety of time travel cliches, while treating itself serious enough to not turn into a shallow parody.

*'''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]:''' The story of an average teenage girl who deals with all the average teenage girl things such as school, boyfriends and, eventually, college and adult life. She's also the chosen one, whose duty it is to defend the earth from demons, monsters, vampires, and whatever other nasty shit's out there. At times, the show is pretty cheesy (especially season one), at times it crosses into grimderp (like season 6), but all-in-all, it's a well-written urban fantasy show that redefined what television could be at the time it came out, and your [[World of Darkness|OWoD]] campaign will thank you for taking inspiration. Theme song simply rocks. Has its own RPG running under [[Unisystem]].
**'''Angel:''' Buffy's edgy, noir-inspired brother. Slightly darker tone with a similar style of story-telling. Like most spin-offs it's not quite as good as it's predecessor, and you can't really watch it without the original, but if you loved Buffy, but wanted a more urban flavour, this is where you go, when season four starts.

*'''Carnivale:''' A group of depression era carnies are caught up in a Manichean struggle between the forces of light and darkness. One of HBO's first experiments with high concept, high budget fantasy. Died ignominiously after two seasons due to scripting problems, audience apathy, and [[grimdark]] overload; but paved the way for those who would follow.

*'''[[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones]]:''' [[George R. R. Martin|GRRM]]'s pet project finally made it to the small screen. Combines the epic swords and sorcery of high fantasy with the nihilistic hopelessness of quasi-medieval life. Thanks to Martin's <s>amazing</s> <s>horrible</s> [[skub]]tastic writing and HBO's massive budget, this show has gone a long way towards making fantasy "respectable". It's known for containing gratuitous amounts of sex and violence even by the standards of the source material, and got progressively chunkier after the show writers made some [[C.S. Goto|questionable characterization calls]] and also ran out of Martin's books to cannibalise, but it's not like you'll find any other fantasy show on TV that was as well-funded as this one.

*'''Hercules: The Legendary Journeys:''' Concentrated nostalgia from back in the days when fantasy shows were relegated to [[Friday]] night time slots where they couldn't harm the general public. If you're a neckbeard in your thirties, this show probably had something to do with it. It operated on a knowingly anachronistic premise and has fun with it. Kind of embarrassing by today's standards, but it pioneered everything from CGI monsters to filming in New Zealand. Resulted in its much more famous spin-off series...
**<nowiki></nowiki>'''Xena: Warrior Princess:''' Before you knew her as an uppity Cylon or an insane Roman housewife, Lucy Lawless was ''the'' leather clad, god slaying, Amazon OG. If you're a neckbeard in your thirties (or a ca/tg/irl who liked Gabrielle a ''little'' too much), you probably fapped to it. The cultural cachet of this show is so great that even underage B& that never could have seen it will recognize the character.

*'''Masters of Horror''': An anthology resembling more a collection of short films than your typical TV series. Each story is directed by some legend in horror business, and by general rule those fantasy-themed stories are better than the sci-fi ones. Special mention goes to "Deer Woman", "Cigarette Burns" and "Fair Haired Child". '''Warning!''' Certain episodes require hefty dose of brain bleach to forget what you've just saw (not kidding), while other are more black comedy than actual horror.

*'''Pierścień i róża''' ["The Rose and the Ring"]: An adaptation of a fantastical novel by William Makepeace Thackeray... done by Poles... as a musical comedy miniseries... in the 80s. Despite sounding like a recipe for a disaster, it's a solid watch, with vibrant, well-defined characters and multi-layered plot distilled enough for kids to still follow, but also poking fun out of variety of fantasy and fairy tale cliches and, well, [[promotions|fanservice galore]]. If you ever needed an inspiration for a tongue-in-cheek, but not completely crazy game, look no further. Important note! While there is a film version, it's just an abridged variant of the series, so it's best ignored.

*'''西遊記 (Saiyuki, or "Monkey" if you're a filthy gaijin)''': A 1978 Japanese adaptation of Journey to the West. While this is far from being the best adaptation, it is probably one of the most widely known outside of Asia (with the exception of Dragonball), thanks in part to the BBC buying the rights and producing a cheesy and hilarious dub for it. This is probably from where your [[Weeaboo]] GM got his most insane ideas.

*'''[[The Witcher|Witcher]]''': A shoe-string budget fantasy series (still one of the most expensive productions in native Poland) about - well, who else - [[Geralt of Rivia|Geralt the Witcher]], made by Poles in 2001. The quality of episodes varies greatly, while the special effects aged like milk, but it's still a fun ride to take. This is how fantasy became for a while mainstream in Poland. Absolutely '''great''' music, which can be repurposed as a background for combat-heavy games. If you happen to get a DVD release and not just bootleg from TV, then the cinematography will be gorgeous too. Also, warning - the show was marketed abroad under "Hexer" title, as the term "Witcher" wasn't coined yet.
**'''The Witcher: America''': Netflix' own take on the now bestselling book series. Tries to be Game of Thrones, but focuses on a handful of main characters instead of the massive ensemble cast that GoT had. Has problems communicating own chronology and just like Hexer, quality of episodes varies wildly, but overall, it's fun, with Henry Cavill being surprisingly good, able to pull off the manly, yet emotionally stunted vibe. Also, lots of [[promotions|tits]].

*'''Wizards and Warriors''': A short-lived fantasy series from early 80s, mostly memorable due to being so heavily borrowing ideas and imaginery from early [[Dungeons and Dragons]] it almost ended with a lawsuit. Amazingly tacky, but still mineable in case of running old-school D&D games. And remember - those costumes won an Emmy. For real.

==Historical==
*'''Arthur of the Britons''': The 1970s Arthurian legend series, mostly famous for giving it a "muh realism" makeover - but without making it drab, boring or covered in mud. While it removes all of the magical and fantastical elements (along with good chunk of characters you might attribute to king Arthur), it's still first and foremost an action-packed swashbuckling adventure with lots of swordplay and court intrigues. While [[Pendragon]] doesn't share the aesthetics, it sure as hell takes the premise of this series. Being British, it's also very short.

*'''Black Sails''': A prequel to Treasure Island mixed with historical pirates of the 1700s and the history of the pirate republic of Nassau. Features a ridiculously awesome soundtrack. Starts off good but a little rough, but then comes into its own in season 2. Obviously good stuff for a pirate-themed game, but a lot of the subplots is flashed out enough to work for other settings as well.

*'''Czarne Chmury''' ["Dark Clouds", or literally, "Black Clouds"]: It's the 1660s and even in hard-earned peace dark clouds are gathering over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The freshly sovereign Prussia is already plotting with Brandenburg against the Commonwealth. A young, daring colonel of the Prussian Dragoons switches sides and goes on a mission to the Polish capital to inform about the plot against the Polish crown. One of the most quintessential swashbuckling series ever made, with the added bonus of unique, rarely used setting: late 17th century PLC and slowly, but surely rising Prussia. Easily accessible on Youtube with multilingual subtitles, with only 10 episodes.

*'''Deadwood''': Another HBO series, focusing on the settlement of Deadwood and its development from mining camp to frontier town. The attempts to make the town and its world come alive are glorious. Excellent performances across the board, with the standout being Al "Fuck That Cocksucking Motherfucker" Swearengen. GMs looking for how wild and lawless frontiers can become platforms for adventurers should check this out, and steal as many subplots as you can for your [[Deadlands]] game.

*'''I, Claudius''': A BBC miniseries based on the book of the same name from 1976. While dated, both in historical accuracy and production values, it's still one of the most accurate depictions of Ancient Rome in television. Also known for fanservice to rival most modern shows, and for a rare appearance of '''BRIAN BLESSED''' ''without a beard.''

*'''Marco Polo''': A Netflix exclusive series, Marco Polo follows the famous Italian merchant while he tries to survive in the court of Kublai Khan, the grandson of [[Genghis motherfucking Khan]]. While not historically accurate it is certainly very entertaining with war, political intrigue, and [[Slaanesh|concubines out the ass.]] Also [[Mongols]]. If anything, the character One-Hundred eyes makes the show worth the watch because of how badass he is. Seriously; a Daoist monk that Kublai blinded with a spitting cobra because he wouldn't teach his martial art to his generals. [[Awesome|And he can still kick ass while blind]].

*'''Robin of Sherwood''': You probably know the title song from it without even knowing the show. Unlike the countless attempts to make Robin Hood-themed TV series, this one is actually good. Really, really fucking good. In fact, it's so influential, pretty much every single future incarnation of Robin Hood is looking at this series for inspiration and rip-off (not to mention the entire string of copy-cats in the late 80s and early 90s riding on its popularity), while Errol Flynn swashbuckling and romancing got reduced to parodies and spoofs. Has three seasons, but as a Britbong production, that means only 26 episodes in total.

*'''Rome:''' It's HBO so the tits and ultraviolence spigot is still wide open, but this one actually does some good world building and political intrigue on the side. There is a good chance every Romaboo you know came from watching this show. Just don't try to use it as a point of reference for historical campaigns.

*'''Spartacus: Blood and Sand''' A faithful historical narrative about the third servile war and the various social pressures that precipita... phhht no I'm kidding it's wall to wall tits and ultraviolence. Despite being a relentlessly silly 300 wanna-be that had no business ever being green lit it actually managed to be a treasure trove of feels and [[awesome]], due in large part to unusually solid writing and some heroic performances by actors like John Hannah, Lucy Lawless, Craig Parker, and Peter Mensah.

*'''三国 (Three Kingdoms 2010):''' Widely regarded as the best (for the west at least. In its native country its a [[skub|different story...]]) and most accessible version of China's most famous story (essentially their Iliad). Almost a hundred hours long, epic scope, tons of actors, and legions of extras (you can buy them by the bushel over there). Almost worth it for Chen Jianbin's [http://youtu.be/l8e4LBSscVo?t=35m8s gloriously dickish Cao Cao] alone, but there's plenty of other reasons to stick around. The entire thing is available on youtube and elsewhere because CCTV could not give two shits about licensing it outside of the country.
** There is also '''三国演义 (Romance of the Three Kingdoms)''' from 1994, just as readily available. For what it's worth, it is considered the superior adaptation of the two and also has (slightly) less episodes to go through.

*'''Vikings''': History's bid to gain at least a fraction of GoT audience, while also catering to reenactors, historical witzs and just about general audience, since, duh, vikings. Very well-researched and tightly written, the show comes with very high initial quality. Unfortunately, it also suffers greatly from seasonal rot after first 2 seasons and utterly pointless continuation at this point, so be warned about highly visible drop of quality with each season.

==Sci Fi==
*'''[[Babylon 5]]''': It's the future, after humanity narrowly escaped extermination in a war with the Minbari (bone headed guys who are like the Eldar with the dickishness dialed down to mostly manageable levels) it sets up a space station in neutral territory to act as a center of diplomacy to try to avert another war which gradually gets embroiled in an ancient conflict between two powerful alien civilizations. While most TV Science Fiction in the day was "this week's adventure" Babylon 5 set out to tell a grand story and (mostly) succeeded. The first space sci-fi to use CGI instead of motion control photography, so it hasn't aged that well visually.

*'''Battlestar Galactica''': In a galaxy far, far away humanity is engaged in a war with a legion of cybernetic assholes called Cylons. In a total dick move the genocidal toasters feign a peace offering and decimate the human fleet, except for a a few starships which manage to escape. Organizing under the protection of the titular Battlestar-class ''Galactica'' this ragtag refugee fleet, assuming they are the only survivors, attempts to escape to the fabled planet called [[Earth]].
**<nowiki></nowiki>Comes in two flavors: Original 1970s (Cheesetastic, but hilarious if you're into that sort of thing) and Immediate-Post-9/11-Reboot ([[Grimdark]], and actually pretty good). Both recommended, but other than initial premise, the two are '''wildly''' different. Be aware going in that the modern version has a reputation for producing an especially terrible ending for the show(even more so in some circles then even Lost!).

*'''Dark''': German time travel sci-fi available on Netflix. One of the very best examples of a closed time loop, all thanks to the "plan your plot ahead of filming" approach. So it manages to maintain a coherent story throughout three seasons. With typical German efficiency, everything shown is important and plot relevant, and every thread and question is tied up and answered at the end. You may want to take notes to keep track of everything - it gets very complicated. You may also take notes on how and why to plan the structure of your campaign.

*'''[[Doctor Who]]''': The adventures of the universe's saddest time traveling bro. Absolutely ancient in canon and out (the show predates Star Trek by three years). Cheesy special effects, but it's got heart and (usually) good writing. It's bigger on the inside.
**'''Torchwood''': [[Grimderp|"Grimdark"]] spin-off of the above. Mostly just comes off as stupid, though. Notable for being the most popular (and least terrible) spin-off of the RTD era. Also notable is the [[Harkness Test|sheer amount of aliens Captain Jack fucks]]. Skip to season 3 if you want the better half of this show's run.

*'''The Expanse''': A Syfy adaptation of the novel series. Tensions are building between Earth, Mars and the Asteroid Belt when <s>[[Samus|Phazon]]</s> an unknown alien element gets discovered and throws everything out of wack. It's pretty [[grimdark]] and political, notable as one of the hardest sci-fi shows ever put on screen. The depictions of space travel are scrupulously realistic (except for the alien weirdness). The source novels were written by the assistants of [[George R. R. Martin]], so the Expanse is basically the best-case outcome for the "Game of Thrones IN SPACE" premise.

*'''Farscape''': Muppets in spaaaace! This show, produced by the Jim Henson company, is dark. Even media in self-professed [[grimdark]] settings rarely put their main characters through this much torment. You wouldn't think it when it starts out, the first half of the first season being notoriously cheesy, but the cheese you wade through at the start belies an intense series as every major military organization in the galaxy targets our hero for torture, [[rape|mindrape]], and death. Few stories to date put their heroes through such a gauntlet, but the audience follows John Crichton's journey from all-American hero to notorious interstellar terrorist from start to finish, rooting for him the entire way.

*'''[[Firefly]]:''' [[Traveller]] except about post-bellum Confederates '''IN SPAAAAAACE'''. Like most of the Whedonverse praising it on /tg/ will unleash a category 5 [[skub]]storm.

*'''For All Mankind''': Made by Ronald D. Moore (DS9, NeoBSG), For All Mankind takes place in a [[Alternate History|world where the Soviets got to the moon first kicking the space race into overdrive]]. If you like NASA and things with a hopeful tone, this is the show for you. You are free to skip first half of first season after watching the opening, as literally nothing happens.

*'''[[Star Wars:The Mandalorian|The Mandalorian]]''': Take Star Wars blender, throw in ''Lone Wolf and Cub'' scenario and copious amount of spaghetti western, put on high speed and you've got this show. Decent action sequences and making good use out of own universe. Plot is very "gamey" in structure, adding extra use for /tg/ purposes. See the actual article for details.

*'''The Prisoner''': A 60s classic sadly fallen into obscurity, it tells us the story of an unnamed British spy that gets kidnapped by a secret organization after resigning for motives unknown. He is moved to a place only known as "The Village", a sort of idylic place inhabited by old and brainwashed special agents of many nationalities, where noone can escape. Incredibly ambitious for its time, it tackles themes such as identity and duty, while also making the protagonist fight with his wit and smarts his captors, while at the same time they keep him trapped in The Village. If you haven't heard about it, don't worry, you've probably heard about it because it has been parodied in The Simpsons once (twice if you include Rover!).

*'''seaQuest DSV''': Basically Star Trek but on a submarine and staring that guy from Jaws. Like Star Trek, it ran for three seasons. Also like Star Trek, it was technically cancelled after every season. Unlike Star Trek, comes with distinctively different flavour each season: first one is almost science fantasy, second is strictly sci-fi and bordering on cyberpunk, third is military sci-fi.

*'''Spellbinder''': A two-season series, or rather two thinly connected standalone series dealing with parallel worlds. Each "season" can be seen as separate story, as they only share one character (an ''extremely'' compelling villainess) and the general concept of alternative universe(s). Despite being made for kids, it's very much watchable even two decades later - think "Sliders", but good and with plot. It also comes with few pretty interesting settings with some rich world-building. A third season has been in development hell since 1998.

*'''[[Star Trek]]''': It's Star Trek. If you<s> were born some time in the last half century you probably heard of it</s>'re not a drooling mongoloid you've heard of it.

*'''Stargate:''' At first there was a Roland Emmerich movie based around the Ancient Astronaut theory and finding a Big Ring in Egypt which can take you to another world, which was an adequate science-fiction action romp. Even so, it did well enough to get a Television series in Stargate SG-1. It changed a few things about from the movie (usually for the better) and had a rocky first season (for the worse), but after that it became one of the better science fiction series. Plenty of action, excellent characters performed by excellent actors, memorable humor and succeeds both as an episode-to-episode series as well as with long continuity arcs. The last two seasons with the Ori are ass, though; watch at your own risk.

*'''The X-Files''': All possible and imaginable conspiracy theories about aliens mixed together for the show that redefined how to even make a sci-fi themed series. Plus monster of the week plots thrown in for a good measure. The show balances between being serious, self-aware, camp and horror. Following adventures of two FBI agents, both working in a sub-division dealing with "paranormal" cases, treated by rest of the Bureau as a dead-end in the career. Even if you don't have time to watch all episodes, you can pick up at any given moment and still catch up on the go with the arc story. (ProTip for new viewers: The show worked best in the stand-alone episodes. ''Most'' of the "arc" episodes are actually fairly dull and uninspired, while the arc itself is infamous for being fake and going nowhere. This is even more apparent with the attempts at reviving the series.)

==Game Shows==
*'''La Piste De Xapatan (The Xapatan Trail)''': A French game show from the '92 under a premise that's straight from a cheap pulp. Each episode, seven dudes have to cross a trail through a jungle, with various obstacles on their way and puzzles to solve, to get their hands of a sacred idol for "professor Gregory". Meanwhile a single chick is in a cave system looking for all the idols hidden in it. What's left of the male team eventually reaches the cave, figures out which idol is the correct one based on the solved puzzles and they haul it to the nearby train stop, where professor Gregory is waiting to exchange the idol for money. All done on a timer, since the train with Gregory departs, leaving the remains of the group with nothing and "stuck". Due to variety of the obstacles, it feels almost like a procedurally generated module and can be mined for loads of ideas for random encounters and how to structure your adventuring one-shots.

==Unapproved But Minable==

*'''Lexx''': A truly bizarre science-fantasy show that is infamous for being [[promotions|overly-horny]], cheesy and REEEEEEALLY fuckin' weird. There are some very strange, yet creative and unique, ideas here most of which were unfortunately too big for its small budget. This show's got everything from very phallic living ships, [[The God-Emperor of Mankind|magical, inter-dimensional and ever-living space emperors]] and [[/d/|people eating the feces of the previously mentioned living ships for sustenance]], as well a lot of potential plot hooks that could easily be reappropriated, and some really cool character concepts that are just begging to be done properly. If you want to create a setting that just feels alien and weird, then there's no better place to steal from.

==References==
[http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/25647700/ One of many threads.]
[[Category:Approved Media]]

Approved Cartoons

2022-05-12T19:53:51Z

2001:569:FC7C:7600:78C0:BEB:294E:31CB: /* Comedy */

{{/co/}}
This is a list of [[/tg/]] '''approved [[/co/|cartoons]]''', organized loosely into genres. This list was only recently split from the [[Approved Television|television page,]] so feel free to contribute; try to keep to the formatting used in the [[Approved anime|anime page,]] and fix any deviations (episode counts, related games) that you can.

== Action ==
*'''The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers''': 80s cartoons were all just merch-driven crap... aside this gem. Amazingly high quality show, which is still perfectly watchable today (unlike pretty much anything else from the 80s). Mostly famous for combining space exploration, western and alien invasion, without falling into camp. Oh, and killing characters left and right. Think about it as a prototype Exosquad. Also, kick-ass music.

*'''The Adventures of Tintin''': A ''very'' faithful adaptation of classic Franco-Belgian comics series, combining quality animation, great source material and the pulpy adventure feeling. Think Indiana Jones, but with a reporter instead of an action archeologist. And just like the source material, the series swiftly balances humor, pulp qualities and serious, often dark themes (there is on average at least one dead body per episode and this is still a kid-friendly show).

*'''Blake and Mortimer''': Another adaptation of Franco-Belgian comics series. This time it's about adventures of duo of Brits: Scottish scientist Philip Mortimer and Welsh Captain Francis Blake of MI5. Spy fiction, exotic adventures, weird science and ancient mythos - what else to expect from what started as a pulp magazine? If you ever plan to run ''[[Hollow Earth Expedition]]'', this is one of the best possible inspirations.

*'''Cybersix''': What was originally an adult-oriented Argentinian cyberpunk comics about Nazi escaped experiment fighting for her life was bizarrely adapted into children-oriented animated series. Probably due to how easily it is to mistake it for capeshit, despite not being even close to it. Worth watching due to sheer crazyness of the content alone. Not to be confused with '''Bionic Six''', an obscure 80s cartoon about a ridiculously diverse family of science adventurers who have all been turned into super-powered cyborgs and use their new powers to battle a mad scientist.

*'''Exosquad''': The European Front of World War II '''IN SPACE''' with Mechs and Power Armor. It is well plotted and can get incredibly dark for what is supposed to be a kids show with a very high body count, policies of extermination through starvation and genocide. Even so it suffered from having a small budget and a few sub par designs.

*'''Gargoyles''': Disney's serious response to Batman: TAS (as opposed to Disney's satirical response to Batman: TAS of Darkwing Duck, which was pretty damn good itself if a bit more conventionally cartoony). Some [[Gargoyle]]s (a race of winged strong humanoid creatures that turn into stone during the day, rather than mere architectural adornments) live in Scotland the middle ages fighting Vikings, get betrayed, frozen in stone and are re-awakened in modern New York by a businessman who could give Tzeentch lessons in plotting played by William Riker. That is just the beginning, as there are also stories of betrayal, robots, suits of [[power armor]], cyborgs and a fair number of magical things borrowing from a variety of mythological sources, but most notably the works of William Shakespeare.

*'''Gravity Falls''': 12-year-old boy-and-girl twins, Dipper and Mabel, are sent to spend a summer with their shady great-uncle ("Grunkle") Stan in the titular town of Gravity Falls. It's a Disney cartoon, so the tone is solidly [[Noblebright]], but some of the supernatural stuff is surprisingly [[Grimdark]] for a kids' show. Notable for ending organically at two seasons, preventing any seasonal decay. In Stan's own words, the show has "a big mystery element! And a lot of humor that goes over kids' heads!"

*'''Highlander: The Animated Series''': Yes, you are reading this right. It exists. It's kid-friendly. And it's one of the best things that ever happened to this franchise, even if it's not saying much. The crazy post-apo setting alone makes it worth watching.

*'''The Legend of Calamity Jane''': A too-good-to-last 90s cult classic. Probably the best "serious" animated western. Since it wasn't exactly made with kids in mind, it provides a lot of mature content. Which is the main reason why moral watchdogs killed it after just 13 episodes.

*'''Motorcity:''' Corporate overlord Mark Hamill has built an apple brand hive city on top of post apocalyptic Detroit and rules it with an iron fist while a band of renegades fights him from the Detroit Underhive with high tech muscle-cars. Similar to Megas XLR in a lot of ways, including being screwed over by the Network Execs.

*'''Nanook's Great Hunt''': A French-Canadian co-production, telling a story of a young Inuit boy on his self-declared quest to hunt down a mythical Great Bear which brought famine to his people. All in the backdrop of early 20th century and modernity slowly pushing even into the frozen fringes of the world. Borderline fantasy, since as long as things are viewed from Inuit perspective, everything is explained by magical thinking. Worth watching even for the setting and lore alone.

*'''Night Hood''': Yet another French-Canadian co-production, this time about "the exploits of Arsène Lupin" (which is the actual title of the series everywhere outside Anglosphere), escape artist, gentleman thief and rogue extraordinaire. Very stylish, very classy, full of heist jobs and pulp feeling to it all. There is also a whole lot of lore picked up from original books by Maurice Leblanc.

*'''Roughnecks: [[Starship Troopers]] Chronicles''': Take the best parts of the book and film and none of the crap. One of the early CGI shows (and it shows) cut short due to budget (as in just short of the ending).

*'''[[Samurai Jack]]:''' A wandering samurai lost in the future kicks ass and saves lives in his quest to get home. Elegance in simplicity. Amazing animation. [[Kaldor Draigo]] ''wishes'' he could be this cool. Finally got a conclusion on Adult Swim after years in limbo and the tragic death of Mako, the villain Aku's VA.

* '''Star Wars The Clone Wars:''' Not to be confused with the other one from 2005. A TV series that started out bad and gradually got better, while also injecting gradually enough grimdark to make some question how this show was for kids. Include the awesomeness that is the Clone Troopers and their incredibly talented VA, who was starred in several of the shows on this list, great character development all over the board and smart ass one-liners. Really just did a fantastic job with the lore and expanding the universe. It is advised to skim through the first two seasons, as the series was still trying to figure out what it wants to be. Then again, maybe don’t, since the first two do have some important plot points for later, but you have been warned.

*'''Todd McFarlane's Spawn''': Imagine a world where animated series aren't related with kids and "animated" doesn't mean "low quality". That's the world from which Spawn was accidentally teleported from. Dark as fuck, it plays anti-hero dial so high you seriously wonder if the guy can even quality as a hero at all. Worth even for the imagery alone. It gave us Keith David as the man himself (bless his sexy, deep voice).

*'''[[War Planets]]/Shadow Raiders''': Forgotten third show from Mainframe in the 90s, alongside Reboot and Beast Wars. Four alien races that have been screwing each other over for thousands of years because they need the resources of each other's worlds have to put aside their difference in the face of a common foe -- a "Beast Planet" that devours entire worlds and their civilisations whole, overwhelming its prey first with armies of mindless drones. Very intense, very good characters, plenty of action. The Beast Planet is kind of a "[[Necron]]s imitating [[Tyranid]]s" enigma, which may be a good or a bad thing.

*'''[[Wakfu]]'''

* '''Where on Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego?''': There is a good chance your local "Well, akshually" guy got in at least some of the trivia from this cartoon in his youth. Besides, it's one improbable heist job after another, along with random collection of pure adventuring and tomb-raiding, so what not to like.
** '''Carmen Santiego''': Netflix' nostalgia-driven cash grab, but from purely "scenarios for heists in exotic backdrop" standpoint it works just fine. Just keep in mind this was a low budget series.

== Capeshit ==
*'''Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes''': A [[Marvel Comics]] animated series about the titular Avengers. Unlike the later Avengers Assemble show, it relies primarily on the comics for it's inspiration rather than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Also unlike the later Avengers show, it's actually good. Does a good job at balancing "monster of the week" episodes with a couple of running plot arcs across two seasons.

*'''Batman: The Animated Series:''' In a time when most cartoons were still [[My Little Pony|glorified half hour toy commercials]] BtAS dared to defy convention with a dark art style, darker themes, and characters you actually gave a shit about. This show was so iconic that a lot of the stuff you ''think'' was from the comic book (Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze's wife Nora, Bruce being Best Friends with Harvey Dent before turning into TwoFace, and more recently, the Phantasm) actually started here. The show also gave us an incredibly well-rounded view of Bruce Wayne beyond his brooding demeanor, with episodes highlighting his philanthropic nature and genuine care for Gotham's people, even the no-name thugs that he's able to rehabilitate. This should be mandatory viewing for people making Batman films... unfortunately, [[DC Comics]] isn't that smart.
*'''Batman: Beyond:''' Sequel to the above series about a future Gotham where Bruce Wayne is a cranky old man who had to give up being Batman due to heart problems, in which a teenager is reluctantly accepted as a replacement Batman, using cyber-armor that is basically the batsuit sans cape but with rocket boots. Aside being a worthy contender for best animated Batman, it's also a great mine for cyberpunk ideas and storylines.

*'''The Justice League''' & '''The Justice League: Unlimited:''' More of the same cape stuff. These times with Superman & Batman are: Wonder Woman (WONDER WOMAN!), The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Hawk Girl, and The Flash. Includes an amazing story arc involving Project Cadmus, mature story themes and jokes, and the amazingness that is The Question.

*'''Spider-Man: The Animated Series:''' One of the series that were Marvel's attempt to challenge the DC Animated Universe, most of which (Batman TAS, Batman Beyond, Superman TAS, Justice League) are already mentioned here. Whilst hindered by an absolutely '''insane''' chief executive who labeled ludicrous restrictions on the show (for example, Spidey was never allowed to be shown punching people), it had an amazingly creative writing team who managed to miraculously pull off a decent cartoon despite her. Drawing heavily from the 90s and late 80s comic, it had season-long story arcs, actual character development, and plenty of fantastical action sequences. It's not as good as BtAS due to a lesser budget and the aforementioned restrictions, but it is generally considered the absolute best of the Spidey cartoons, saving perhaps maybe the Spectacular Spider-Man from the early 2000s.

*'''Spider-Man 1966:''' One of several series of "motion comics" that Marvel put out in the 1960s, including ones for the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man and [[Thor]]. Limited animation, but the visuals and the plots are so batshit insane that it's worth watching just for laughs. A legendary fountain of memes just about everywhere on the Internet.

*'''Superman: The Animated Series:''' About the same quality of writing as the latest episodes of B:tAS (Bad, don't listen to the fanboys). This features 'the' seminal, if less popular, superhero: Superman from the planet Krypton. Made largely by the same crew as the above Batman, this series is another of the so christened 'Timmverse' that ended with ''Justice League''.

*''' Teen Titans''' (2003): Unlike the erratic shittiness that is Go! this series is pretty good, but barely makes it onto this list. It stars a group of DC characters no one usually knew about until this show (unless you read the comics). It had mostly good character development and it had the Half-Demon awesomeness that is Raven. However, it's bogged down by bipolar tone (keeps shifting between goofy humor and serious drama, albeit not as badly as [[Hellsing]] Ultimate), a shitty character that dares to name herself after [[Holy Terra]], and some bullshit plot devices. Hilariously, there is a villain that is literally a combination of a Neckbeard and a 4chan board full of skub. He also happens to be the monster responsible for Go!'s existence. When Control Freak dies, he's gonna be Trigon's torture buddy for the rest of eternity for such a sin.

*'''[[Transformers]]''': Near-legendary multi-series franchise dating back to the mid-80s, all of which revolve, in some way, around giant alien robots fighting a war that has been raging for millions of years without end. Different series have different aspects, so pick carefully.

*'''[[X-Men]]: The Animated Series:''' One of the sister shows to the aforementioned SMtAS, and generally regarded of the best of them. Takes all of Spidey's creativity and faithfulness to the comics, lifts some of the restrictions, but also piles on an extra serving of ham and cheese. The story goes the voice actors were Shakespearean theatre trainees and couldn't quite get the hang of toning it down. Still, if you like voluptuous Southern belles suplexing giant robots whilst their hot African weather witch partner rants like an angry goddess, you've come to the right show.

*'''Young Justice''': A DC animated show wherein Batman recruits the sidekicks and super-powered relatives of various heroes to serve as a black ops team for the Justice League. In spite of starring a bunch of teenagers, everyone still gets decent character development when the show isn't trying to be Dawson's Creek with superpowers. Unfortunately canceled because the execs felt it wasn't toyetic enough. Recently renewed for a third season to drive subscriptions for DC's exclusive streaming service.

== Comedy ==
*'''[[Adventure Time]]'''. tl;dr: A kids cartoon made by a DnD nerd. Starts off [[Chaotic Stupid|random is funny]], and never really gives up on that, but slowly reveals itself to be set in a Grimdark post-apocalyptic fantasy world inhabited by mutants and whatever remains of Earth's original animal population. The main character is one of the few humans left alive. Had a lot of potential but was ruined by talentless noodle animation and excessively grimderp "real world problems" writing. Written to be accessible to both adults and kids, so oldfags can watch the earlier episodes with their hellspawn, should they wish. Also, [[PROMOTIONS|you want to fuck the vampire.]]

*'''Archer:''' Think "Arrested Development" meets James Bond. It's an adventure comedy about an alcoholic man-child, who just so happens to be the world's most dangerous secret agent, and his equally deranged co-workers which include, but are not limited to; a sex addict accountant, a sadistic pyromaniac ditz, a bare-knuckle boxing Human Resource manager, a sassy black woman with abnormally large hands, the main-character's narcissistic mother, and a mad nazi scientist. Hilarious, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHAHEhhJisk ultra quotable], and great source material for secret agent role-playing. Later seasons (''Dreamland'', ''Danger Island'' and ''1999'') are all self-contained genre spoofs, respectively being a hard-boiled detective story, an Indy-style pulp adventure and a military sci-fi IN SPACE! - and as such can be watched even without the broader context of the series.

*'''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law:''' More of Adult Swim dragging Hanna-Barbera into an alleyway, brutally mugging them, and rifling through their pockets for old cartoon clips. If you were to script a show based on a Pheonix Wright rip-off with the same manic energy of Sealab 2021 and the failing-into-success of Archer, you'd likely hit close to HB:AAL. Can be mined for plotlines for "whodunnit" adventures in addition to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeRTo8MuTrw just plain weirdness] that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y11lxG8WM9M can inspire greatness] at the table-top.

*'''Megas XLR:''' [[Tau|I DIG GIANT ROBOTS. YOU DIG GIANT ROBOTS. CHICKS DIG GIANT ROBOTS.]] That's all you really need to know. Big robots and funny shit. It's also the [[Ork|Orkiest]] show ever made, the Gork to [[Approved anime|Gurren Lagann's]] Mork.

*'''Rick and Morty:''' /tg/: the series. A comedy about an alcoholic mad scientist's adventures with his wimpy grandson. Has a instantly recognizable blend of fart humor and soul-crushing Nietzschean/Lovecraftian philosophy. Manages to pack a good amount of emotional punches with enough fun adventures and sci-fi/pop culture references to keep even the most stoic entertained. The third season is forever [[skub]] after the showrunner decided to replace the original writers with an all female team; speculated reasons range from [[SJW|"muh diversity"]] to [[Troll|"because I felt like it"]] but everyone agrees that it's just not the same. [[Reddit]] loves this series for the lolrandom bullshit and ebin pop culture references, so mention it on 4chan at your own peril, but it's still got some neato ideas for [[Genius: The Transgression]] campaigns.

*'''The Venture Bros.''' An absurd parody of Jonny Quest, 60's animated shows, comic books, and pretty much every action franchise ever. Episodes primarily theme around failure (so great for 4chan) and absurd comedy. Can be [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D8aBP-JOZsU hilarious] but like Austin Powers, it's hard to appreciate the comedy of it unless you've seen the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonny_Quest source material].

*'''SeaLab 2021''': Conceptually in the same vein as Venture Bros but as a direct sequel to the straight-faced SeaLab 2020. At least one episode is a literal comedy redub of a vintage episode. Roughly a third of the episodes end with everyone dying in an explosion.

*'''The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack''': One of the two decent cartoons that got kids through the dreaded 'CN Real' era. The show follows the eponymous (mis)adventures of Flapjack, a young boy dreaming of one day becoming an adventurer, joined by his "candyholic" friend and dubious mentor "captain" Knuckles and his adoptive mother Bubby the talking whale. While the concept seems innocuous enough the show is set in a pastiche world of 17th, 18th and 19th century nautical tropes and features as much creepy shit as the show creator could get past the network and still be kid-friendly.

== Fantasy ==
*'''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''': Considered by many to be the gold standard for animated shows in the 00'es and one of the best Western-made narrative shows. It has garnered many a fan for their funny characters, deep story lines, character development and Asian-but-not-[[weeaboo]] flavor. The sequel series, Legend of Korra, is rather [[skub]]tastic and regarded as only good for [[Rule 34]] by much of /co/ and /aco/ (right down to be in their sticky).

*'''[[Castlevania]]''': A Netflix animated-series about the old Castlevania games of yore, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse to be precise. Follows the exploits of Trevor Belmont, who tries to live up to the legacy of his family and travels the grimdark land of Transsylvania in classic Castlevania fashion. To keep the whip cracking and dagger throwing from growing stale, he is accompanied by Dracula's son Alucard and the mage Sypha on his quest to exterminate the forces of evil. The show is beautifully animated, overall very well written and just an absolute joyride from front to back. Fans of the original games will feel especially jerked off, as the creators have gone to great lenghts to be as close to the source material as possible (discounting the exclusion of Grant from the hero's posse), like recreating the exact attacks of enemies and remixing the original music. A second show is in the making which will cover the exploits of Trevor's descendant Richter Belmont and his lady love Maria Renard, set during the French Revolution.

*'''[[Conan the Adventurer]]''': A very solid cartoon from the early 90s based off of, what else? [[Conan the Barbarian]]. Probably best known for its rocking opening theme (WARRIOR WITHOUT FEAR!), but it's very mineable for [[Dungeons & Dragons]] and has a lot of actual novel lore scattered through the kid-friendly stuff.

*'''Delta State''': All Psyker Party: The Series. Four flat-mates are trying to both figure out their life after suffering from amnesia and in the same time prevent the invasion of body-stealing Rifters [[Warp|from another dimension]]. While it sounds like nothing in particular, it packs a punch and easily hooks you up with interesting universe and very relatable characters - the series was a successful attempt to deliver something like seinen for Western animation, so it's not for kids, but also avoids all the pitfalls of your typical "adult animation".

*'''[[D%26D_Cartoon|Dungeons & Dragons]]''': An absolute classic, worth watching even for the sake of the status alone. While the series still shows a lot of potential, most of it was wasted on too short episodes made on shoe-string budget. Being partially entangled into the [[Satanic Panic]] didn't help either. Still, worth watching. Just bring beer and friends. And a notepad for oldschool ideas. Sadly never got a proper canon ending. Is ''incredibly'' popular in Brazil, too.

*'''Jumanji''': Like a lot of successful and semi-successful films, Jumanji ended up with a follow-up cartoon. Pretty much what you'd want to see if Alan had stayed in Jumanji and Peter and Judy went on adventures with him. While the art style is (intentionally) weird, the episodes are amazingly mineable for campaigns and world-building ideas. Also featured many references to other works, but with a fun twist.

*'''Love, Death & Robots''': An animated anthology series that's all over the place, from comedy to cosmic horror and from pure skub for easy clickbait to genuinely good content, but remains very minable. Shorts "[[Tyranids|Suits]]", "[[Vampire|Sucker of Souls]]", "[[Machine_Spirit|Lucky 13]]", "[[Kitsune|Good Hunting]]" and especially "[[Warp|Beyond the Aquila Rift]]" and "[[Delta_Green|The Secret War]]" are very much approved. The second season is full of shit, tho.

*'''The New Adventures of Ocean Girl''': An Australian animated series, predominately aimed at teenage girls, but coming in a package with a complex world full of original races. Good world-building and bunch of interesting plot hooks and easy-to-reuse plot twists.

*'''Omer and the Starchild''': A French animated series. A truly rich world-building mixed with a lot of New Age imagery and unexpectedly dark story for a kids show. The series follows adventures of Dan, the titular Starchild, in his quest to free "Twelve Wizards" and unite them against the evil Morkhan.

*'''Papyrus''': An animated adaptation of Franco-Belgian comics. An epic tale of a young fisherman tangled into the conflict between Egyptian gods, tasked with the mission of freeing Horus and putting end to the reign of Seth... regardless if Papyrus himself wants to or not being a plaything of gods.

*'''W.I.T.C.H.''': So you want magical girl warriors, but you dislike anime? Here is the answer then, as it delivers exactly that, with all the possible plot bits and the general feel without, well, being a Chinese cartoon. Plus neat urban fantasy and teen characters that feel like teens (early 00s teens, that is).

== Old Stuff & Remakes ==
*'''[[Masters of the Universe|He-Man/She-Ra]]:''' The original 80s [[Sword & Sorcery]] cartoons of choice, He-Man is about a cosmically-empowered [[barbarian]] hero who has to juggle his daily life as the foppish Prince Adam and his muscle-bound alter-ego whilst defending Castle Greyskull from the forces of Skeletor, an evil wizard who seeks to claim the castle and the cosmic powers it holds to rule the universe. Made to sell every single crazy toy the designers could come up with. It's 80s fucking bullshit to the extreme, but if you can embrace the cheese and get past the memetically limited animation, it's actually good, clean, turn-your-brain-off fun, with plenty of ideas to mine for a more S&S or old-school [[Science Fantasy]] setting. "She-Ra" is literally "He-Man for girls", with Prince Adam's twin sister Adora using the twin to He-Man's sword of power to turn into a super-powered [[Amazon]] warrior, leading a resistance on the magical world of Etheria against the Horde, an invading army of space monsters and robots.
** An early 90s remake tried to rebrand He-Man (since it was also one of the forerunners of "cartoons as toy commercials" in the 80s) and failed flat. Mostly forgotten, since it dropped everything unique about the setting, replacing it with generic science fiction.
** A 2001 remake of He-Man attempted to create a more serious, focused, action-orientated and generally less goofy take on the show. It worked, but sadly it died after two seasons due to a lack of an audience. Dig it up and enjoy it if you can.
** A 2018 "remake" called She-Ra and the Princesses of Power...exists. Whilst it ''technically'' has a better plot and animation than its predecessor, it is also much more rooted in post-2010s culture memes, so view at your own risk.
*** Success of the above led to the 2021 "continuation" of the 2001 version, "Masters of the Universe: Revelation", done to <s>maintain copyrights and licensing agreement</s>{{BLAM}} refresh the format and shakes things up. Infamous for the writers pulling shit like ''killing He-Man off in the first episode'' to make Teela the star (promptly setting off flame wars between the oldschool fans who wanted a faithful adaptation, the new fans who could swing either way, and the [[SJW|idiots declaring all criticism was misogyny]]) then resurrecting He-Man only to kill him ''again'' in the fifth episode [[#Footnotes|1]]; they also turned Teela into an utter wanker who flips out over not knowing Adam was He-Man (something that she wasn't entitled to know about at all, particularly considering he was under orders ''not'' to tell anyone about it), blaming her friend for dying without telling her this secret ''after her friend fucking died to save her'' (she does this in front of his still-grieving parents, mind) before refusing to save the universe pretty much out of spite. Needless to say, this is fully disapproved of by us.. Unlike rest of the list, fully disapproved.
** The 2021/2022 "He-Man & The Masters of the Universe" show. Reimagines Eternia as [[Science Fantasy|an advanced technological world whose magical past is being brought back]]. Despite a rather weird animation style and some borderline [[SJW]] choices (replacing Ram-Man with a female counterpart, most notable), largely considered to ''not'' be as shit as Revelation.
* '''Jonny Quest:''' '''''The''''' adventure series from Hanna-Barbera, notable originally for being first "realistic" cartoon to be made and having amounts of violence and brutality - for a show ostentiably aimed at very young kids - that makes moral watchdogs twitch to this day. For those same reasons, it is also never-ending source of pulp ideas and weird science plots. Even if you never saw it, there is a high chance you can recognise the characters and hum the main theme, regardless of nationality. Comes in three distinctive flavours, all three very much approved:
** The original series from the 60s, titled simply ''Jonny Quest''.
** 80s revival series, ''The New Adventures of Jonny Quest'', which came with animation bump, updated the setting and made if far more kid-friendly, without losing the adventuring vibe
** 90s Cartoon Network sponsored remake, ''Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures'', which finally realised the series mostly watched by teen boys could benefit from having a teen-aged main character.

* '''Thundarr the Barbarian:''' Hanna-Barbera's [[Science Fantasy]] series set in the far future of post-apoc ruins of the United States. It's a collection of everything popular in early 80s: fantasy, post-apo, buff barbarians, Chewbacca look-alikes, <s>tits</s> princesses, light sabers and cheese. Copious amounts of cheese. If you ever wanted to run pulp megadungeon, look no further for inspiration. Aged far better than most 80s cartoons, since it wasn't intended as being a 20 minute long toy commercial.

*'''[[Thundercats]]:''' Regarded by /tg/ as "Dangerously [[Furry]]: the Cartoon". A [[Science Fantasy]] series revolving around a group of survivors from the destroyed world of Thundera crashlanding on the apocalyptic ruins of a far-future Earth and trying to rebuild their civilization, whilst battling mutants, monsters, magic and the ancient [[mummy]]-[[lich]]-thing called "Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living". Essentally He-Man, but more focus on action than on goofy comedy. Like He-Man, it also got a darker, edgier, more serious 2011 remake that fell through because <s>nobody watched it</s> <s>everyone was turned away by the tone shift</s> [[Derp|Cartoon Network wanted to replace it with Lego Ninjago]].
** Then it had yet another - an unapproved - remake with even worse reception, the late 2010s "Thundercats Roar", which doubles down on just about everything awful in cartoons that had been pioneered by Teen Titans GO! (in fact, they did a crossover with TTG! purely for the "Teen Titans" to shill the Roar cartoon, which went down like a lead balloon). It aired early 2020 and only lasted one season. Given that COVID would force kids to stay at home, and thus have easy access to television, [[Fail|that is quite the accomplishment]].

== Unapproved, But Mineable ==
This is the place where anything that has /tg/-worthy subject matter without really fitting into the above categories or general endorsement by fa/tg/uys should go. Or not, because who cares about a fa/tg/uy's opinions. Please note that 1d4chan takes no responsibility for any [[cancer]], [[fail]]-induced [[HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhnnnnnnngggggg-|heart attacks]], or [[rage|homicidal rage]] that viewing these may cause.

*'''[[BattleTech]]:''' Yes, BattleTech had a cartoon series. It talks about a Adam Steiner and the 1st Somerset Strikers. It wasn't that good. Its production value was lacklustre and being forced into the animation age ghetto did not help. Its notable for its early use of transiting between traditional cel-animation and computer-generated imaging. While not godawful it was at best a slightly above average Saturday morning cartoon that's inappropriate to it's subject manner. What's even more notable is that the show exists in the BattleTech universe. You read that right, this cartoon that depicts BattleTech actually exists in the BattleTech universe. Can give inspiration on how the actions of a party can be distorted or changed to fit a different narrative. Also attracts much [[rage]] from fans of [[The Clans]] because the series is based around Inner Sphere protagonists, and thus the Clans are shown as a bunch of lunatics who just randomly showed up and invaded one day.

*'''Hazbin Hotel:''' Cartoon Network-tier [[Slaanesh|Slaaneshii stuff]], man. A grimdark musical dramedy about the princess of hell (who acts like a typical Disney princess) and her girlfriend opening a hotel where demons are reformed in the hope that they will be able to checkout into Heaven, so that Hell won't be forced to go through regular population purges anymore. Their first test subject is a drug addicted spider demon porn star. A mysterious and extremely powerful demon known as Alastor (A.K.A.: The Radio Demon), who is convinced that demons are irredeemable so their plan is impossible, offers to help so that he can enjoy watching them fail. Pretty good for character ideas if you want to make a demon or demon-like entity that isn't another cliché Always Chaotic Evil stereotype.
**'''Helluva Boss:''' a spin-off of Hazbin Hotel. A low ranking demon manages to steal access to the mortal world from a powerful demon lord (who lets him keep it in exchange for sexual favours), and forms a company where damned souls pay for the assassination of the humans who wronged them in life. More comedy focused than Hazbin Hotel.

*'''Hilda:''' Based on a series of comics and books of the same name, this Netflix series focuses on the eponymous Hilda, a young and blue-haired girl who is absolutely fascinated by the natural world and lives (at first) with her mother in a cabin in the woods before moving to a quaint and rather comfy-looking town and making some friends her own age (while still hanging out with a tiny two-inch tall elf and her pet deerfox Twig). The series is rather cute overall with some heavy touches of creepiness spread throughout. Recently got a second season released and rumors of a third being in the works.

*'''Regular Show:''' A weird show that appeared on Cartoon Network with a really crappy final season. Still, quirky characters, more than a few /tg/ worthy references, and a few decent jokes with lol random stuff all over the place make it decent enough if you need something to play while you paint that Gaunt Swarm.

*'''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]] AKA Sonic SatAM''': A animated adaption of Sonic the Hedgehog. Well regarded by fans as something of a cult classic. Do be warned it is full of 90's cheese, it was a Saturday morning cartoon meant to make money off of a cartoon character after all. One special note is Jim Cummings in one of the scarier depictions of Dr. Robotnik. Also features one of the better depictions of nature vs industrialization, less green Aesop and more freedom from slavery (most of the time). Mineable for concepts and a good villain. [[Chris-chan|Possibly even watched by the]] [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|God-Emperor of Mankind.]] The Archie comic is also of note since it does technically continue the story, though do be warned of Ken Penders. He is considered the Matt Ward of the Sonic Fandom.

*'''Steven Universe''': A fairly average show with some surprisingly interesting world-building. Thousands of years ago, a caste-based race of mineral-based "Crystal Gems" with holographic bodies dominated the galaxy. A small band of Gems refused to let this continue, rebelling against their masters and shattering their empire at great cost to both sides. Now, a small cadre of Gems remains on the planet Earth, protecting humanity from the monsters their civil war left behind and raising the rebel leader's "son". [[Fail|Unfortunately, he's kind of a fuckup,]] and he's going to have to learn how to use his powers fast because the Gem empire is coming back for round two. Incredibly mineable for campaign and adventure ideas, when it decides to stop being hollow slice of life and gets its ass in gear. Warning: prolonged viewing <s>may</s> will cause [[Sanity|SAN loss.]]
** The fandom for this one is... mostly okay. While it's pretty chill overall, it's got its share of froth-mouthed SJWs (infamous for trying to drive an artist to suicide over drawing a fat character thin) and psychotic "You don't like [Character] x [Character]! DIE, SCUM!" shippers. Stay the fuck out of the Tumblrtards/Twitterati's way, and you'll be good.

*'''Tigtone:''' Similar to Adventure Time but even more insane and a lot more bloody. The surreal adventures of a murderhobo named Tigtone who is obsessed with completing quests, writing about his quests in his journal, and shouting his own name. Takes place in a world that runs on a mixture of video game and dream logic. Has a unique animation style created with realistic paintings brought to life with motion capture to look deliberately uncanny like a poorly animated video game but also strangely beautiful.

== Footnotes ==
# This was made even worse by the way the promotional materials heavily implied that He-Man would have a major role in the show, with the toylines, trailers, and the director himself swearing blind that He-Man would be the focus of the series, then having him appear in flashbacks and his brief resurrection ''only''. Essentially meaning that we got ''Waiting for <s>Godot</s> He-Man'' as opposed to actual fucking He-Man, with him being relegated to a background figure at best and a source of cheap angst/emotional tension for the characters at worst.
[[Category:Approved Media]]

Approved Cartoons

2022-05-12T19:44:14Z

2001:569:FC7C:7600:78C0:BEB:294E:31CB: /* Comedy */

{{/co/}}
This is a list of [[/tg/]] '''approved [[/co/|cartoons]]''', organized loosely into genres. This list was only recently split from the [[Approved Television|television page,]] so feel free to contribute; try to keep to the formatting used in the [[Approved anime|anime page,]] and fix any deviations (episode counts, related games) that you can.

== Action ==
*'''The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers''': 80s cartoons were all just merch-driven crap... aside this gem. Amazingly high quality show, which is still perfectly watchable today (unlike pretty much anything else from the 80s). Mostly famous for combining space exploration, western and alien invasion, without falling into camp. Oh, and killing characters left and right. Think about it as a prototype Exosquad. Also, kick-ass music.

*'''The Adventures of Tintin''': A ''very'' faithful adaptation of classic Franco-Belgian comics series, combining quality animation, great source material and the pulpy adventure feeling. Think Indiana Jones, but with a reporter instead of an action archeologist. And just like the source material, the series swiftly balances humor, pulp qualities and serious, often dark themes (there is on average at least one dead body per episode and this is still a kid-friendly show).

*'''Blake and Mortimer''': Another adaptation of Franco-Belgian comics series. This time it's about adventures of duo of Brits: Scottish scientist Philip Mortimer and Welsh Captain Francis Blake of MI5. Spy fiction, exotic adventures, weird science and ancient mythos - what else to expect from what started as a pulp magazine? If you ever plan to run ''[[Hollow Earth Expedition]]'', this is one of the best possible inspirations.

*'''Cybersix''': What was originally an adult-oriented Argentinian cyberpunk comics about Nazi escaped experiment fighting for her life was bizarrely adapted into children-oriented animated series. Probably due to how easily it is to mistake it for capeshit, despite not being even close to it. Worth watching due to sheer crazyness of the content alone. Not to be confused with '''Bionic Six''', an obscure 80s cartoon about a ridiculously diverse family of science adventurers who have all been turned into super-powered cyborgs and use their new powers to battle a mad scientist.

*'''Exosquad''': The European Front of World War II '''IN SPACE''' with Mechs and Power Armor. It is well plotted and can get incredibly dark for what is supposed to be a kids show with a very high body count, policies of extermination through starvation and genocide. Even so it suffered from having a small budget and a few sub par designs.

*'''Gargoyles''': Disney's serious response to Batman: TAS (as opposed to Disney's satirical response to Batman: TAS of Darkwing Duck, which was pretty damn good itself if a bit more conventionally cartoony). Some [[Gargoyle]]s (a race of winged strong humanoid creatures that turn into stone during the day, rather than mere architectural adornments) live in Scotland the middle ages fighting Vikings, get betrayed, frozen in stone and are re-awakened in modern New York by a businessman who could give Tzeentch lessons in plotting played by William Riker. That is just the beginning, as there are also stories of betrayal, robots, suits of [[power armor]], cyborgs and a fair number of magical things borrowing from a variety of mythological sources, but most notably the works of William Shakespeare.

*'''Gravity Falls''': 12-year-old boy-and-girl twins, Dipper and Mabel, are sent to spend a summer with their shady great-uncle ("Grunkle") Stan in the titular town of Gravity Falls. It's a Disney cartoon, so the tone is solidly [[Noblebright]], but some of the supernatural stuff is surprisingly [[Grimdark]] for a kids' show. Notable for ending organically at two seasons, preventing any seasonal decay. In Stan's own words, the show has "a big mystery element! And a lot of humor that goes over kids' heads!"

*'''Highlander: The Animated Series''': Yes, you are reading this right. It exists. It's kid-friendly. And it's one of the best things that ever happened to this franchise, even if it's not saying much. The crazy post-apo setting alone makes it worth watching.

*'''The Legend of Calamity Jane''': A too-good-to-last 90s cult classic. Probably the best "serious" animated western. Since it wasn't exactly made with kids in mind, it provides a lot of mature content. Which is the main reason why moral watchdogs killed it after just 13 episodes.

*'''Motorcity:''' Corporate overlord Mark Hamill has built an apple brand hive city on top of post apocalyptic Detroit and rules it with an iron fist while a band of renegades fights him from the Detroit Underhive with high tech muscle-cars. Similar to Megas XLR in a lot of ways, including being screwed over by the Network Execs.

*'''Nanook's Great Hunt''': A French-Canadian co-production, telling a story of a young Inuit boy on his self-declared quest to hunt down a mythical Great Bear which brought famine to his people. All in the backdrop of early 20th century and modernity slowly pushing even into the frozen fringes of the world. Borderline fantasy, since as long as things are viewed from Inuit perspective, everything is explained by magical thinking. Worth watching even for the setting and lore alone.

*'''Night Hood''': Yet another French-Canadian co-production, this time about "the exploits of Arsène Lupin" (which is the actual title of the series everywhere outside Anglosphere), escape artist, gentleman thief and rogue extraordinaire. Very stylish, very classy, full of heist jobs and pulp feeling to it all. There is also a whole lot of lore picked up from original books by Maurice Leblanc.

*'''Roughnecks: [[Starship Troopers]] Chronicles''': Take the best parts of the book and film and none of the crap. One of the early CGI shows (and it shows) cut short due to budget (as in just short of the ending).

*'''[[Samurai Jack]]:''' A wandering samurai lost in the future kicks ass and saves lives in his quest to get home. Elegance in simplicity. Amazing animation. [[Kaldor Draigo]] ''wishes'' he could be this cool. Finally got a conclusion on Adult Swim after years in limbo and the tragic death of Mako, the villain Aku's VA.

* '''Star Wars The Clone Wars:''' Not to be confused with the other one from 2005. A TV series that started out bad and gradually got better, while also injecting gradually enough grimdark to make some question how this show was for kids. Include the awesomeness that is the Clone Troopers and their incredibly talented VA, who was starred in several of the shows on this list, great character development all over the board and smart ass one-liners. Really just did a fantastic job with the lore and expanding the universe. It is advised to skim through the first two seasons, as the series was still trying to figure out what it wants to be. Then again, maybe don’t, since the first two do have some important plot points for later, but you have been warned.

*'''Todd McFarlane's Spawn''': Imagine a world where animated series aren't related with kids and "animated" doesn't mean "low quality". That's the world from which Spawn was accidentally teleported from. Dark as fuck, it plays anti-hero dial so high you seriously wonder if the guy can even quality as a hero at all. Worth even for the imagery alone. It gave us Keith David as the man himself (bless his sexy, deep voice).

*'''[[War Planets]]/Shadow Raiders''': Forgotten third show from Mainframe in the 90s, alongside Reboot and Beast Wars. Four alien races that have been screwing each other over for thousands of years because they need the resources of each other's worlds have to put aside their difference in the face of a common foe -- a "Beast Planet" that devours entire worlds and their civilisations whole, overwhelming its prey first with armies of mindless drones. Very intense, very good characters, plenty of action. The Beast Planet is kind of a "[[Necron]]s imitating [[Tyranid]]s" enigma, which may be a good or a bad thing.

*'''[[Wakfu]]'''

* '''Where on Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego?''': There is a good chance your local "Well, akshually" guy got in at least some of the trivia from this cartoon in his youth. Besides, it's one improbable heist job after another, along with random collection of pure adventuring and tomb-raiding, so what not to like.
** '''Carmen Santiego''': Netflix' nostalgia-driven cash grab, but from purely "scenarios for heists in exotic backdrop" standpoint it works just fine. Just keep in mind this was a low budget series.

== Capeshit ==
*'''Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes''': A [[Marvel Comics]] animated series about the titular Avengers. Unlike the later Avengers Assemble show, it relies primarily on the comics for it's inspiration rather than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Also unlike the later Avengers show, it's actually good. Does a good job at balancing "monster of the week" episodes with a couple of running plot arcs across two seasons.

*'''Batman: The Animated Series:''' In a time when most cartoons were still [[My Little Pony|glorified half hour toy commercials]] BtAS dared to defy convention with a dark art style, darker themes, and characters you actually gave a shit about. This show was so iconic that a lot of the stuff you ''think'' was from the comic book (Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze's wife Nora, Bruce being Best Friends with Harvey Dent before turning into TwoFace, and more recently, the Phantasm) actually started here. The show also gave us an incredibly well-rounded view of Bruce Wayne beyond his brooding demeanor, with episodes highlighting his philanthropic nature and genuine care for Gotham's people, even the no-name thugs that he's able to rehabilitate. This should be mandatory viewing for people making Batman films... unfortunately, [[DC Comics]] isn't that smart.
*'''Batman: Beyond:''' Sequel to the above series about a future Gotham where Bruce Wayne is a cranky old man who had to give up being Batman due to heart problems, in which a teenager is reluctantly accepted as a replacement Batman, using cyber-armor that is basically the batsuit sans cape but with rocket boots. Aside being a worthy contender for best animated Batman, it's also a great mine for cyberpunk ideas and storylines.

*'''The Justice League''' & '''The Justice League: Unlimited:''' More of the same cape stuff. These times with Superman & Batman are: Wonder Woman (WONDER WOMAN!), The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Hawk Girl, and The Flash. Includes an amazing story arc involving Project Cadmus, mature story themes and jokes, and the amazingness that is The Question.

*'''Spider-Man: The Animated Series:''' One of the series that were Marvel's attempt to challenge the DC Animated Universe, most of which (Batman TAS, Batman Beyond, Superman TAS, Justice League) are already mentioned here. Whilst hindered by an absolutely '''insane''' chief executive who labeled ludicrous restrictions on the show (for example, Spidey was never allowed to be shown punching people), it had an amazingly creative writing team who managed to miraculously pull off a decent cartoon despite her. Drawing heavily from the 90s and late 80s comic, it had season-long story arcs, actual character development, and plenty of fantastical action sequences. It's not as good as BtAS due to a lesser budget and the aforementioned restrictions, but it is generally considered the absolute best of the Spidey cartoons, saving perhaps maybe the Spectacular Spider-Man from the early 2000s.

*'''Spider-Man 1966:''' One of several series of "motion comics" that Marvel put out in the 1960s, including ones for the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man and [[Thor]]. Limited animation, but the visuals and the plots are so batshit insane that it's worth watching just for laughs. A legendary fountain of memes just about everywhere on the Internet.

*'''Superman: The Animated Series:''' About the same quality of writing as the latest episodes of B:tAS (Bad, don't listen to the fanboys). This features 'the' seminal, if less popular, superhero: Superman from the planet Krypton. Made largely by the same crew as the above Batman, this series is another of the so christened 'Timmverse' that ended with ''Justice League''.

*''' Teen Titans''' (2003): Unlike the erratic shittiness that is Go! this series is pretty good, but barely makes it onto this list. It stars a group of DC characters no one usually knew about until this show (unless you read the comics). It had mostly good character development and it had the Half-Demon awesomeness that is Raven. However, it's bogged down by bipolar tone (keeps shifting between goofy humor and serious drama, albeit not as badly as [[Hellsing]] Ultimate), a shitty character that dares to name herself after [[Holy Terra]], and some bullshit plot devices. Hilariously, there is a villain that is literally a combination of a Neckbeard and a 4chan board full of skub. He also happens to be the monster responsible for Go!'s existence. When Control Freak dies, he's gonna be Trigon's torture buddy for the rest of eternity for such a sin.

*'''[[Transformers]]''': Near-legendary multi-series franchise dating back to the mid-80s, all of which revolve, in some way, around giant alien robots fighting a war that has been raging for millions of years without end. Different series have different aspects, so pick carefully.

*'''[[X-Men]]: The Animated Series:''' One of the sister shows to the aforementioned SMtAS, and generally regarded of the best of them. Takes all of Spidey's creativity and faithfulness to the comics, lifts some of the restrictions, but also piles on an extra serving of ham and cheese. The story goes the voice actors were Shakespearean theatre trainees and couldn't quite get the hang of toning it down. Still, if you like voluptuous Southern belles suplexing giant robots whilst their hot African weather witch partner rants like an angry goddess, you've come to the right show.

*'''Young Justice''': A DC animated show wherein Batman recruits the sidekicks and super-powered relatives of various heroes to serve as a black ops team for the Justice League. In spite of starring a bunch of teenagers, everyone still gets decent character development when the show isn't trying to be Dawson's Creek with superpowers. Unfortunately canceled because the execs felt it wasn't toyetic enough. Recently renewed for a third season to drive subscriptions for DC's exclusive streaming service.

== Comedy ==
*'''[[Adventure Time]]'''. tl;dr: A kids cartoon made by a DnD nerd. Starts off [[Chaotic Stupid|random is funny]], and never really gives up on that, but slowly reveals itself to be set in a Grimdark post-apocalyptic fantasy world inhabited by mutants and whatever remains of Earth's original animal population. The main character is one of the few humans left alive. Had a lot of potential but was ruined by talentless noodle animation and excessively grimderp "real world problems" writing. Written to be accessible to both adults and kids, so oldfags can watch the earlier episodes with their hellspawn, should they wish. Also, [[PROMOTIONS|you want to fuck the vampire.]]

*'''Archer:''' Think "Arrested Development" meets James Bond. It's an adventure comedy about an alcoholic man-child, who just so happens to be the world's most dangerous secret agent, and his equally deranged co-workers which include, but are not limited to; a sex addict accountant, a sadistic pyromaniac ditz, a bare-knuckle boxing Human Resource manager, a sassy black woman with abnormally large hands, the main-character's narcissistic mother, and a mad nazi scientist. Hilarious, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHAHEhhJisk ultra quotable], and great source material for secret agent role-playing. Later seasons (''Dreamland'', ''Danger Island'' and ''1999'') are all self-contained genre spoofs, respectively being a hard-boiled detective story, an Indy-style pulp adventure and a military sci-fi IN SPACE! - and as such can be watched even without the broader context of the series.

*'''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law:''' More of Adult Swim dragging Hanna-Barbera into an alleyway, brutally mugging them, and rifling through their pockets for old cartoon clips. If you were to script a show based on a Pheonix Wright rip-off with the same manic energy of Sealab 2021 and the failing-into-success of Archer, you'd likely hit close to HB:AAL. Can be mined for plotlines for "whodunnit" adventures in addition to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeRTo8MuTrw just plain weirdness] that can inspire greatness at the table-top.

*'''Megas XLR:''' [[Tau|I DIG GIANT ROBOTS. YOU DIG GIANT ROBOTS. CHICKS DIG GIANT ROBOTS.]] That's all you really need to know. Big robots and funny shit. It's also the [[Ork|Orkiest]] show ever made, the Gork to [[Approved anime|Gurren Lagann's]] Mork.

*'''Rick and Morty:''' /tg/: the series. A comedy about an alcoholic mad scientist's adventures with his wimpy grandson. Has a instantly recognizable blend of fart humor and soul-crushing Nietzschean/Lovecraftian philosophy. Manages to pack a good amount of emotional punches with enough fun adventures and sci-fi/pop culture references to keep even the most stoic entertained. The third season is forever [[skub]] after the showrunner decided to replace the original writers with an all female team; speculated reasons range from [[SJW|"muh diversity"]] to [[Troll|"because I felt like it"]] but everyone agrees that it's just not the same. [[Reddit]] loves this series for the lolrandom bullshit and ebin pop culture references, so mention it on 4chan at your own peril, but it's still got some neato ideas for [[Genius: The Transgression]] campaigns.

*'''The Venture Bros.''' An absurd parody of Jonny Quest, 60's animated shows, comic books, and pretty much every action franchise ever. Episodes primarily theme around failure (so great for 4chan) and absurd comedy. Can be [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D8aBP-JOZsU hilarious] but like Austin Powers, it's hard to appreciate the comedy of it unless you've seen the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonny_Quest source material].

*'''SeaLab 2021''': Conceptually in the same vein as Venture Bros but as a direct sequel to the straight-faced SeaLab 2020. At least one episode is a literal comedy redub of a vintage episode. Roughly a third of the episodes end with everyone dying in an explosion.

*'''The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack''': One of the two decent cartoons that got kids through the dreaded 'CN Real' era. The show follows the eponymous (mis)adventures of Flapjack, a young boy dreaming of one day becoming an adventurer, joined by his "candyholic" friend and dubious mentor "captain" Knuckles and his adoptive mother Bubby the talking whale. While the concept seems innocuous enough the show is set in a pastiche world of 17th, 18th and 19th century nautical tropes and features as much creepy shit as the show creator could get past the network and still be kid-friendly.

== Fantasy ==
*'''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''': Considered by many to be the gold standard for animated shows in the 00'es and one of the best Western-made narrative shows. It has garnered many a fan for their funny characters, deep story lines, character development and Asian-but-not-[[weeaboo]] flavor. The sequel series, Legend of Korra, is rather [[skub]]tastic and regarded as only good for [[Rule 34]] by much of /co/ and /aco/ (right down to be in their sticky).

*'''[[Castlevania]]''': A Netflix animated-series about the old Castlevania games of yore, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse to be precise. Follows the exploits of Trevor Belmont, who tries to live up to the legacy of his family and travels the grimdark land of Transsylvania in classic Castlevania fashion. To keep the whip cracking and dagger throwing from growing stale, he is accompanied by Dracula's son Alucard and the mage Sypha on his quest to exterminate the forces of evil. The show is beautifully animated, overall very well written and just an absolute joyride from front to back. Fans of the original games will feel especially jerked off, as the creators have gone to great lenghts to be as close to the source material as possible (discounting the exclusion of Grant from the hero's posse), like recreating the exact attacks of enemies and remixing the original music. A second show is in the making which will cover the exploits of Trevor's descendant Richter Belmont and his lady love Maria Renard, set during the French Revolution.

*'''[[Conan the Adventurer]]''': A very solid cartoon from the early 90s based off of, what else? [[Conan the Barbarian]]. Probably best known for its rocking opening theme (WARRIOR WITHOUT FEAR!), but it's very mineable for [[Dungeons & Dragons]] and has a lot of actual novel lore scattered through the kid-friendly stuff.

*'''Delta State''': All Psyker Party: The Series. Four flat-mates are trying to both figure out their life after suffering from amnesia and in the same time prevent the invasion of body-stealing Rifters [[Warp|from another dimension]]. While it sounds like nothing in particular, it packs a punch and easily hooks you up with interesting universe and very relatable characters - the series was a successful attempt to deliver something like seinen for Western animation, so it's not for kids, but also avoids all the pitfalls of your typical "adult animation".

*'''[[D%26D_Cartoon|Dungeons & Dragons]]''': An absolute classic, worth watching even for the sake of the status alone. While the series still shows a lot of potential, most of it was wasted on too short episodes made on shoe-string budget. Being partially entangled into the [[Satanic Panic]] didn't help either. Still, worth watching. Just bring beer and friends. And a notepad for oldschool ideas. Sadly never got a proper canon ending. Is ''incredibly'' popular in Brazil, too.

*'''Jumanji''': Like a lot of successful and semi-successful films, Jumanji ended up with a follow-up cartoon. Pretty much what you'd want to see if Alan had stayed in Jumanji and Peter and Judy went on adventures with him. While the art style is (intentionally) weird, the episodes are amazingly mineable for campaigns and world-building ideas. Also featured many references to other works, but with a fun twist.

*'''Love, Death & Robots''': An animated anthology series that's all over the place, from comedy to cosmic horror and from pure skub for easy clickbait to genuinely good content, but remains very minable. Shorts "[[Tyranids|Suits]]", "[[Vampire|Sucker of Souls]]", "[[Machine_Spirit|Lucky 13]]", "[[Kitsune|Good Hunting]]" and especially "[[Warp|Beyond the Aquila Rift]]" and "[[Delta_Green|The Secret War]]" are very much approved. The second season is full of shit, tho.

*'''The New Adventures of Ocean Girl''': An Australian animated series, predominately aimed at teenage girls, but coming in a package with a complex world full of original races. Good world-building and bunch of interesting plot hooks and easy-to-reuse plot twists.

*'''Omer and the Starchild''': A French animated series. A truly rich world-building mixed with a lot of New Age imagery and unexpectedly dark story for a kids show. The series follows adventures of Dan, the titular Starchild, in his quest to free "Twelve Wizards" and unite them against the evil Morkhan.

*'''Papyrus''': An animated adaptation of Franco-Belgian comics. An epic tale of a young fisherman tangled into the conflict between Egyptian gods, tasked with the mission of freeing Horus and putting end to the reign of Seth... regardless if Papyrus himself wants to or not being a plaything of gods.

*'''W.I.T.C.H.''': So you want magical girl warriors, but you dislike anime? Here is the answer then, as it delivers exactly that, with all the possible plot bits and the general feel without, well, being a Chinese cartoon. Plus neat urban fantasy and teen characters that feel like teens (early 00s teens, that is).

== Old Stuff & Remakes ==
*'''[[Masters of the Universe|He-Man/She-Ra]]:''' The original 80s [[Sword & Sorcery]] cartoons of choice, He-Man is about a cosmically-empowered [[barbarian]] hero who has to juggle his daily life as the foppish Prince Adam and his muscle-bound alter-ego whilst defending Castle Greyskull from the forces of Skeletor, an evil wizard who seeks to claim the castle and the cosmic powers it holds to rule the universe. Made to sell every single crazy toy the designers could come up with. It's 80s fucking bullshit to the extreme, but if you can embrace the cheese and get past the memetically limited animation, it's actually good, clean, turn-your-brain-off fun, with plenty of ideas to mine for a more S&S or old-school [[Science Fantasy]] setting. "She-Ra" is literally "He-Man for girls", with Prince Adam's twin sister Adora using the twin to He-Man's sword of power to turn into a super-powered [[Amazon]] warrior, leading a resistance on the magical world of Etheria against the Horde, an invading army of space monsters and robots.
** An early 90s remake tried to rebrand He-Man (since it was also one of the forerunners of "cartoons as toy commercials" in the 80s) and failed flat. Mostly forgotten, since it dropped everything unique about the setting, replacing it with generic science fiction.
** A 2001 remake of He-Man attempted to create a more serious, focused, action-orientated and generally less goofy take on the show. It worked, but sadly it died after two seasons due to a lack of an audience. Dig it up and enjoy it if you can.
** A 2018 "remake" called She-Ra and the Princesses of Power...exists. Whilst it ''technically'' has a better plot and animation than its predecessor, it is also much more rooted in post-2010s culture memes, so view at your own risk.
*** Success of the above led to the 2021 "continuation" of the 2001 version, "Masters of the Universe: Revelation", done to <s>maintain copyrights and licensing agreement</s>{{BLAM}} refresh the format and shakes things up. Infamous for the writers pulling shit like ''killing He-Man off in the first episode'' to make Teela the star (promptly setting off flame wars between the oldschool fans who wanted a faithful adaptation, the new fans who could swing either way, and the [[SJW|idiots declaring all criticism was misogyny]]) then resurrecting He-Man only to kill him ''again'' in the fifth episode [[#Footnotes|1]]; they also turned Teela into an utter wanker who flips out over not knowing Adam was He-Man (something that she wasn't entitled to know about at all, particularly considering he was under orders ''not'' to tell anyone about it), blaming her friend for dying without telling her this secret ''after her friend fucking died to save her'' (she does this in front of his still-grieving parents, mind) before refusing to save the universe pretty much out of spite. Needless to say, this is fully disapproved of by us.. Unlike rest of the list, fully disapproved.
** The 2021/2022 "He-Man & The Masters of the Universe" show. Reimagines Eternia as [[Science Fantasy|an advanced technological world whose magical past is being brought back]]. Despite a rather weird animation style and some borderline [[SJW]] choices (replacing Ram-Man with a female counterpart, most notable), largely considered to ''not'' be as shit as Revelation.
* '''Jonny Quest:''' '''''The''''' adventure series from Hanna-Barbera, notable originally for being first "realistic" cartoon to be made and having amounts of violence and brutality - for a show ostentiably aimed at very young kids - that makes moral watchdogs twitch to this day. For those same reasons, it is also never-ending source of pulp ideas and weird science plots. Even if you never saw it, there is a high chance you can recognise the characters and hum the main theme, regardless of nationality. Comes in three distinctive flavours, all three very much approved:
** The original series from the 60s, titled simply ''Jonny Quest''.
** 80s revival series, ''The New Adventures of Jonny Quest'', which came with animation bump, updated the setting and made if far more kid-friendly, without losing the adventuring vibe
** 90s Cartoon Network sponsored remake, ''Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures'', which finally realised the series mostly watched by teen boys could benefit from having a teen-aged main character.

* '''Thundarr the Barbarian:''' Hanna-Barbera's [[Science Fantasy]] series set in the far future of post-apoc ruins of the United States. It's a collection of everything popular in early 80s: fantasy, post-apo, buff barbarians, Chewbacca look-alikes, <s>tits</s> princesses, light sabers and cheese. Copious amounts of cheese. If you ever wanted to run pulp megadungeon, look no further for inspiration. Aged far better than most 80s cartoons, since it wasn't intended as being a 20 minute long toy commercial.

*'''[[Thundercats]]:''' Regarded by /tg/ as "Dangerously [[Furry]]: the Cartoon". A [[Science Fantasy]] series revolving around a group of survivors from the destroyed world of Thundera crashlanding on the apocalyptic ruins of a far-future Earth and trying to rebuild their civilization, whilst battling mutants, monsters, magic and the ancient [[mummy]]-[[lich]]-thing called "Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living". Essentally He-Man, but more focus on action than on goofy comedy. Like He-Man, it also got a darker, edgier, more serious 2011 remake that fell through because <s>nobody watched it</s> <s>everyone was turned away by the tone shift</s> [[Derp|Cartoon Network wanted to replace it with Lego Ninjago]].
** Then it had yet another - an unapproved - remake with even worse reception, the late 2010s "Thundercats Roar", which doubles down on just about everything awful in cartoons that had been pioneered by Teen Titans GO! (in fact, they did a crossover with TTG! purely for the "Teen Titans" to shill the Roar cartoon, which went down like a lead balloon). It aired early 2020 and only lasted one season. Given that COVID would force kids to stay at home, and thus have easy access to television, [[Fail|that is quite the accomplishment]].

== Unapproved, But Mineable ==
This is the place where anything that has /tg/-worthy subject matter without really fitting into the above categories or general endorsement by fa/tg/uys should go. Or not, because who cares about a fa/tg/uy's opinions. Please note that 1d4chan takes no responsibility for any [[cancer]], [[fail]]-induced [[HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhnnnnnnngggggg-|heart attacks]], or [[rage|homicidal rage]] that viewing these may cause.

*'''[[BattleTech]]:''' Yes, BattleTech had a cartoon series. It talks about a Adam Steiner and the 1st Somerset Strikers. It wasn't that good. Its production value was lacklustre and being forced into the animation age ghetto did not help. Its notable for its early use of transiting between traditional cel-animation and computer-generated imaging. While not godawful it was at best a slightly above average Saturday morning cartoon that's inappropriate to it's subject manner. What's even more notable is that the show exists in the BattleTech universe. You read that right, this cartoon that depicts BattleTech actually exists in the BattleTech universe. Can give inspiration on how the actions of a party can be distorted or changed to fit a different narrative. Also attracts much [[rage]] from fans of [[The Clans]] because the series is based around Inner Sphere protagonists, and thus the Clans are shown as a bunch of lunatics who just randomly showed up and invaded one day.

*'''Hazbin Hotel:''' Cartoon Network-tier [[Slaanesh|Slaaneshii stuff]], man. A grimdark musical dramedy about the princess of hell (who acts like a typical Disney princess) and her girlfriend opening a hotel where demons are reformed in the hope that they will be able to checkout into Heaven, so that Hell won't be forced to go through regular population purges anymore. Their first test subject is a drug addicted spider demon porn star. A mysterious and extremely powerful demon known as Alastor (A.K.A.: The Radio Demon), who is convinced that demons are irredeemable so their plan is impossible, offers to help so that he can enjoy watching them fail. Pretty good for character ideas if you want to make a demon or demon-like entity that isn't another cliché Always Chaotic Evil stereotype.
**'''Helluva Boss:''' a spin-off of Hazbin Hotel. A low ranking demon manages to steal access to the mortal world from a powerful demon lord (who lets him keep it in exchange for sexual favours), and forms a company where damned souls pay for the assassination of the humans who wronged them in life. More comedy focused than Hazbin Hotel.

*'''Hilda:''' Based on a series of comics and books of the same name, this Netflix series focuses on the eponymous Hilda, a young and blue-haired girl who is absolutely fascinated by the natural world and lives (at first) with her mother in a cabin in the woods before moving to a quaint and rather comfy-looking town and making some friends her own age (while still hanging out with a tiny two-inch tall elf and her pet deerfox Twig). The series is rather cute overall with some heavy touches of creepiness spread throughout. Recently got a second season released and rumors of a third being in the works.

*'''Regular Show:''' A weird show that appeared on Cartoon Network with a really crappy final season. Still, quirky characters, more than a few /tg/ worthy references, and a few decent jokes with lol random stuff all over the place make it decent enough if you need something to play while you paint that Gaunt Swarm.

*'''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]] AKA Sonic SatAM''': A animated adaption of Sonic the Hedgehog. Well regarded by fans as something of a cult classic. Do be warned it is full of 90's cheese, it was a Saturday morning cartoon meant to make money off of a cartoon character after all. One special note is Jim Cummings in one of the scarier depictions of Dr. Robotnik. Also features one of the better depictions of nature vs industrialization, less green Aesop and more freedom from slavery (most of the time). Mineable for concepts and a good villain. [[Chris-chan|Possibly even watched by the]] [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|God-Emperor of Mankind.]] The Archie comic is also of note since it does technically continue the story, though do be warned of Ken Penders. He is considered the Matt Ward of the Sonic Fandom.

*'''Steven Universe''': A fairly average show with some surprisingly interesting world-building. Thousands of years ago, a caste-based race of mineral-based "Crystal Gems" with holographic bodies dominated the galaxy. A small band of Gems refused to let this continue, rebelling against their masters and shattering their empire at great cost to both sides. Now, a small cadre of Gems remains on the planet Earth, protecting humanity from the monsters their civil war left behind and raising the rebel leader's "son". [[Fail|Unfortunately, he's kind of a fuckup,]] and he's going to have to learn how to use his powers fast because the Gem empire is coming back for round two. Incredibly mineable for campaign and adventure ideas, when it decides to stop being hollow slice of life and gets its ass in gear. Warning: prolonged viewing <s>may</s> will cause [[Sanity|SAN loss.]]
** The fandom for this one is... mostly okay. While it's pretty chill overall, it's got its share of froth-mouthed SJWs (infamous for trying to drive an artist to suicide over drawing a fat character thin) and psychotic "You don't like [Character] x [Character]! DIE, SCUM!" shippers. Stay the fuck out of the Tumblrtards/Twitterati's way, and you'll be good.

*'''Tigtone:''' Similar to Adventure Time but even more insane and a lot more bloody. The surreal adventures of a murderhobo named Tigtone who is obsessed with completing quests, writing about his quests in his journal, and shouting his own name. Takes place in a world that runs on a mixture of video game and dream logic. Has a unique animation style created with realistic paintings brought to life with motion capture to look deliberately uncanny like a poorly animated video game but also strangely beautiful.

== Footnotes ==
# This was made even worse by the way the promotional materials heavily implied that He-Man would have a major role in the show, with the toylines, trailers, and the director himself swearing blind that He-Man would be the focus of the series, then having him appear in flashbacks and his brief resurrection ''only''. Essentially meaning that we got ''Waiting for <s>Godot</s> He-Man'' as opposed to actual fucking He-Man, with him being relegated to a background figure at best and a source of cheap angst/emotional tension for the characters at worst.
[[Category:Approved Media]]

Approved Cartoons

2022-05-12T19:43:32Z

2001:569:FC7C:7600:78C0:BEB:294E:31CB: /* Comedy */

{{/co/}}
This is a list of [[/tg/]] '''approved [[/co/|cartoons]]''', organized loosely into genres. This list was only recently split from the [[Approved Television|television page,]] so feel free to contribute; try to keep to the formatting used in the [[Approved anime|anime page,]] and fix any deviations (episode counts, related games) that you can.

== Action ==
*'''The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers''': 80s cartoons were all just merch-driven crap... aside this gem. Amazingly high quality show, which is still perfectly watchable today (unlike pretty much anything else from the 80s). Mostly famous for combining space exploration, western and alien invasion, without falling into camp. Oh, and killing characters left and right. Think about it as a prototype Exosquad. Also, kick-ass music.

*'''The Adventures of Tintin''': A ''very'' faithful adaptation of classic Franco-Belgian comics series, combining quality animation, great source material and the pulpy adventure feeling. Think Indiana Jones, but with a reporter instead of an action archeologist. And just like the source material, the series swiftly balances humor, pulp qualities and serious, often dark themes (there is on average at least one dead body per episode and this is still a kid-friendly show).

*'''Blake and Mortimer''': Another adaptation of Franco-Belgian comics series. This time it's about adventures of duo of Brits: Scottish scientist Philip Mortimer and Welsh Captain Francis Blake of MI5. Spy fiction, exotic adventures, weird science and ancient mythos - what else to expect from what started as a pulp magazine? If you ever plan to run ''[[Hollow Earth Expedition]]'', this is one of the best possible inspirations.

*'''Cybersix''': What was originally an adult-oriented Argentinian cyberpunk comics about Nazi escaped experiment fighting for her life was bizarrely adapted into children-oriented animated series. Probably due to how easily it is to mistake it for capeshit, despite not being even close to it. Worth watching due to sheer crazyness of the content alone. Not to be confused with '''Bionic Six''', an obscure 80s cartoon about a ridiculously diverse family of science adventurers who have all been turned into super-powered cyborgs and use their new powers to battle a mad scientist.

*'''Exosquad''': The European Front of World War II '''IN SPACE''' with Mechs and Power Armor. It is well plotted and can get incredibly dark for what is supposed to be a kids show with a very high body count, policies of extermination through starvation and genocide. Even so it suffered from having a small budget and a few sub par designs.

*'''Gargoyles''': Disney's serious response to Batman: TAS (as opposed to Disney's satirical response to Batman: TAS of Darkwing Duck, which was pretty damn good itself if a bit more conventionally cartoony). Some [[Gargoyle]]s (a race of winged strong humanoid creatures that turn into stone during the day, rather than mere architectural adornments) live in Scotland the middle ages fighting Vikings, get betrayed, frozen in stone and are re-awakened in modern New York by a businessman who could give Tzeentch lessons in plotting played by William Riker. That is just the beginning, as there are also stories of betrayal, robots, suits of [[power armor]], cyborgs and a fair number of magical things borrowing from a variety of mythological sources, but most notably the works of William Shakespeare.

*'''Gravity Falls''': 12-year-old boy-and-girl twins, Dipper and Mabel, are sent to spend a summer with their shady great-uncle ("Grunkle") Stan in the titular town of Gravity Falls. It's a Disney cartoon, so the tone is solidly [[Noblebright]], but some of the supernatural stuff is surprisingly [[Grimdark]] for a kids' show. Notable for ending organically at two seasons, preventing any seasonal decay. In Stan's own words, the show has "a big mystery element! And a lot of humor that goes over kids' heads!"

*'''Highlander: The Animated Series''': Yes, you are reading this right. It exists. It's kid-friendly. And it's one of the best things that ever happened to this franchise, even if it's not saying much. The crazy post-apo setting alone makes it worth watching.

*'''The Legend of Calamity Jane''': A too-good-to-last 90s cult classic. Probably the best "serious" animated western. Since it wasn't exactly made with kids in mind, it provides a lot of mature content. Which is the main reason why moral watchdogs killed it after just 13 episodes.

*'''Motorcity:''' Corporate overlord Mark Hamill has built an apple brand hive city on top of post apocalyptic Detroit and rules it with an iron fist while a band of renegades fights him from the Detroit Underhive with high tech muscle-cars. Similar to Megas XLR in a lot of ways, including being screwed over by the Network Execs.

*'''Nanook's Great Hunt''': A French-Canadian co-production, telling a story of a young Inuit boy on his self-declared quest to hunt down a mythical Great Bear which brought famine to his people. All in the backdrop of early 20th century and modernity slowly pushing even into the frozen fringes of the world. Borderline fantasy, since as long as things are viewed from Inuit perspective, everything is explained by magical thinking. Worth watching even for the setting and lore alone.

*'''Night Hood''': Yet another French-Canadian co-production, this time about "the exploits of Arsène Lupin" (which is the actual title of the series everywhere outside Anglosphere), escape artist, gentleman thief and rogue extraordinaire. Very stylish, very classy, full of heist jobs and pulp feeling to it all. There is also a whole lot of lore picked up from original books by Maurice Leblanc.

*'''Roughnecks: [[Starship Troopers]] Chronicles''': Take the best parts of the book and film and none of the crap. One of the early CGI shows (and it shows) cut short due to budget (as in just short of the ending).

*'''[[Samurai Jack]]:''' A wandering samurai lost in the future kicks ass and saves lives in his quest to get home. Elegance in simplicity. Amazing animation. [[Kaldor Draigo]] ''wishes'' he could be this cool. Finally got a conclusion on Adult Swim after years in limbo and the tragic death of Mako, the villain Aku's VA.

* '''Star Wars The Clone Wars:''' Not to be confused with the other one from 2005. A TV series that started out bad and gradually got better, while also injecting gradually enough grimdark to make some question how this show was for kids. Include the awesomeness that is the Clone Troopers and their incredibly talented VA, who was starred in several of the shows on this list, great character development all over the board and smart ass one-liners. Really just did a fantastic job with the lore and expanding the universe. It is advised to skim through the first two seasons, as the series was still trying to figure out what it wants to be. Then again, maybe don’t, since the first two do have some important plot points for later, but you have been warned.

*'''Todd McFarlane's Spawn''': Imagine a world where animated series aren't related with kids and "animated" doesn't mean "low quality". That's the world from which Spawn was accidentally teleported from. Dark as fuck, it plays anti-hero dial so high you seriously wonder if the guy can even quality as a hero at all. Worth even for the imagery alone. It gave us Keith David as the man himself (bless his sexy, deep voice).

*'''[[War Planets]]/Shadow Raiders''': Forgotten third show from Mainframe in the 90s, alongside Reboot and Beast Wars. Four alien races that have been screwing each other over for thousands of years because they need the resources of each other's worlds have to put aside their difference in the face of a common foe -- a "Beast Planet" that devours entire worlds and their civilisations whole, overwhelming its prey first with armies of mindless drones. Very intense, very good characters, plenty of action. The Beast Planet is kind of a "[[Necron]]s imitating [[Tyranid]]s" enigma, which may be a good or a bad thing.

*'''[[Wakfu]]'''

* '''Where on Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego?''': There is a good chance your local "Well, akshually" guy got in at least some of the trivia from this cartoon in his youth. Besides, it's one improbable heist job after another, along with random collection of pure adventuring and tomb-raiding, so what not to like.
** '''Carmen Santiego''': Netflix' nostalgia-driven cash grab, but from purely "scenarios for heists in exotic backdrop" standpoint it works just fine. Just keep in mind this was a low budget series.

== Capeshit ==
*'''Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes''': A [[Marvel Comics]] animated series about the titular Avengers. Unlike the later Avengers Assemble show, it relies primarily on the comics for it's inspiration rather than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Also unlike the later Avengers show, it's actually good. Does a good job at balancing "monster of the week" episodes with a couple of running plot arcs across two seasons.

*'''Batman: The Animated Series:''' In a time when most cartoons were still [[My Little Pony|glorified half hour toy commercials]] BtAS dared to defy convention with a dark art style, darker themes, and characters you actually gave a shit about. This show was so iconic that a lot of the stuff you ''think'' was from the comic book (Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze's wife Nora, Bruce being Best Friends with Harvey Dent before turning into TwoFace, and more recently, the Phantasm) actually started here. The show also gave us an incredibly well-rounded view of Bruce Wayne beyond his brooding demeanor, with episodes highlighting his philanthropic nature and genuine care for Gotham's people, even the no-name thugs that he's able to rehabilitate. This should be mandatory viewing for people making Batman films... unfortunately, [[DC Comics]] isn't that smart.
*'''Batman: Beyond:''' Sequel to the above series about a future Gotham where Bruce Wayne is a cranky old man who had to give up being Batman due to heart problems, in which a teenager is reluctantly accepted as a replacement Batman, using cyber-armor that is basically the batsuit sans cape but with rocket boots. Aside being a worthy contender for best animated Batman, it's also a great mine for cyberpunk ideas and storylines.

*'''The Justice League''' & '''The Justice League: Unlimited:''' More of the same cape stuff. These times with Superman & Batman are: Wonder Woman (WONDER WOMAN!), The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Hawk Girl, and The Flash. Includes an amazing story arc involving Project Cadmus, mature story themes and jokes, and the amazingness that is The Question.

*'''Spider-Man: The Animated Series:''' One of the series that were Marvel's attempt to challenge the DC Animated Universe, most of which (Batman TAS, Batman Beyond, Superman TAS, Justice League) are already mentioned here. Whilst hindered by an absolutely '''insane''' chief executive who labeled ludicrous restrictions on the show (for example, Spidey was never allowed to be shown punching people), it had an amazingly creative writing team who managed to miraculously pull off a decent cartoon despite her. Drawing heavily from the 90s and late 80s comic, it had season-long story arcs, actual character development, and plenty of fantastical action sequences. It's not as good as BtAS due to a lesser budget and the aforementioned restrictions, but it is generally considered the absolute best of the Spidey cartoons, saving perhaps maybe the Spectacular Spider-Man from the early 2000s.

*'''Spider-Man 1966:''' One of several series of "motion comics" that Marvel put out in the 1960s, including ones for the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man and [[Thor]]. Limited animation, but the visuals and the plots are so batshit insane that it's worth watching just for laughs. A legendary fountain of memes just about everywhere on the Internet.

*'''Superman: The Animated Series:''' About the same quality of writing as the latest episodes of B:tAS (Bad, don't listen to the fanboys). This features 'the' seminal, if less popular, superhero: Superman from the planet Krypton. Made largely by the same crew as the above Batman, this series is another of the so christened 'Timmverse' that ended with ''Justice League''.

*''' Teen Titans''' (2003): Unlike the erratic shittiness that is Go! this series is pretty good, but barely makes it onto this list. It stars a group of DC characters no one usually knew about until this show (unless you read the comics). It had mostly good character development and it had the Half-Demon awesomeness that is Raven. However, it's bogged down by bipolar tone (keeps shifting between goofy humor and serious drama, albeit not as badly as [[Hellsing]] Ultimate), a shitty character that dares to name herself after [[Holy Terra]], and some bullshit plot devices. Hilariously, there is a villain that is literally a combination of a Neckbeard and a 4chan board full of skub. He also happens to be the monster responsible for Go!'s existence. When Control Freak dies, he's gonna be Trigon's torture buddy for the rest of eternity for such a sin.

*'''[[Transformers]]''': Near-legendary multi-series franchise dating back to the mid-80s, all of which revolve, in some way, around giant alien robots fighting a war that has been raging for millions of years without end. Different series have different aspects, so pick carefully.

*'''[[X-Men]]: The Animated Series:''' One of the sister shows to the aforementioned SMtAS, and generally regarded of the best of them. Takes all of Spidey's creativity and faithfulness to the comics, lifts some of the restrictions, but also piles on an extra serving of ham and cheese. The story goes the voice actors were Shakespearean theatre trainees and couldn't quite get the hang of toning it down. Still, if you like voluptuous Southern belles suplexing giant robots whilst their hot African weather witch partner rants like an angry goddess, you've come to the right show.

*'''Young Justice''': A DC animated show wherein Batman recruits the sidekicks and super-powered relatives of various heroes to serve as a black ops team for the Justice League. In spite of starring a bunch of teenagers, everyone still gets decent character development when the show isn't trying to be Dawson's Creek with superpowers. Unfortunately canceled because the execs felt it wasn't toyetic enough. Recently renewed for a third season to drive subscriptions for DC's exclusive streaming service.

== Comedy ==
*'''[[Adventure Time]]'''. tl;dr: A kids cartoon made by a DnD nerd. Starts off [[Chaotic Stupid|random is funny]], and never really gives up on that, but slowly reveals itself to be set in a Grimdark post-apocalyptic fantasy world inhabited by mutants and whatever remains of Earth's original animal population. The main character is one of the few humans left alive. Had a lot of potential but was ruined by talentless noodle animation and excessively grimderp "real world problems" writing. Written to be accessible to both adults and kids, so oldfags can watch the earlier episodes with their hellspawn, should they wish. Also, [[PROMOTIONS|you want to fuck the vampire.]]

*'''Archer:''' Think "Arrested Development" meets James Bond. It's an adventure comedy about an alcoholic man-child, who just so happens to be the world's most dangerous secret agent, and his equally deranged co-workers which include, but are not limited to; a sex addict accountant, a sadistic pyromaniac ditz, a bare-knuckle boxing Human Resource manager, a sassy black woman with abnormally large hands, the main-character's narcissistic mother, and a mad nazi scientist. Hilarious, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHAHEhhJisk ultra quotable], and great source material for secret agent role-playing. Later seasons (''Dreamland'', ''Danger Island'' and ''1999'') are all self-contained genre spoofs, respectively being a hard-boiled detective story, an Indy-style pulp adventure and a military sci-fi IN SPACE! - and as such can be watched even without the broader context of the series.

*'''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law:''' More of Adult Swim dragging Hanna-Barbera into an alleyway, brutally mugging them, and rifling through their pockets for old cartoon clips. If you were to script a show based on a Pheonix Wright rip-off with the same manic energy of Sealab 2021 and the failing-into-success of Archer, you'd likely hit close to HB:AAL. Can be mined for plotlines for "whodunnit" adventures in addition to [just plain weirdness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeRTo8MuTrw) that can inspire greatness at the table-top.

*'''Megas XLR:''' [[Tau|I DIG GIANT ROBOTS. YOU DIG GIANT ROBOTS. CHICKS DIG GIANT ROBOTS.]] That's all you really need to know. Big robots and funny shit. It's also the [[Ork|Orkiest]] show ever made, the Gork to [[Approved anime|Gurren Lagann's]] Mork.

*'''Rick and Morty:''' /tg/: the series. A comedy about an alcoholic mad scientist's adventures with his wimpy grandson. Has a instantly recognizable blend of fart humor and soul-crushing Nietzschean/Lovecraftian philosophy. Manages to pack a good amount of emotional punches with enough fun adventures and sci-fi/pop culture references to keep even the most stoic entertained. The third season is forever [[skub]] after the showrunner decided to replace the original writers with an all female team; speculated reasons range from [[SJW|"muh diversity"]] to [[Troll|"because I felt like it"]] but everyone agrees that it's just not the same. [[Reddit]] loves this series for the lolrandom bullshit and ebin pop culture references, so mention it on 4chan at your own peril, but it's still got some neato ideas for [[Genius: The Transgression]] campaigns.

*'''The Venture Bros.''' An absurd parody of Jonny Quest, 60's animated shows, comic books, and pretty much every action franchise ever. Episodes primarily theme around failure (so great for 4chan) and absurd comedy. Can be [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D8aBP-JOZsU hilarious] but like Austin Powers, it's hard to appreciate the comedy of it unless you've seen the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonny_Quest source material].

*'''SeaLab 2021''': Conceptually in the same vein as Venture Bros but as a direct sequel to the straight-faced SeaLab 2020. At least one episode is a literal comedy redub of a vintage episode. Roughly a third of the episodes end with everyone dying in an explosion.

*'''The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack''': One of the two decent cartoons that got kids through the dreaded 'CN Real' era. The show follows the eponymous (mis)adventures of Flapjack, a young boy dreaming of one day becoming an adventurer, joined by his "candyholic" friend and dubious mentor "captain" Knuckles and his adoptive mother Bubby the talking whale. While the concept seems innocuous enough the show is set in a pastiche world of 17th, 18th and 19th century nautical tropes and features as much creepy shit as the show creator could get past the network and still be kid-friendly.

== Fantasy ==
*'''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''': Considered by many to be the gold standard for animated shows in the 00'es and one of the best Western-made narrative shows. It has garnered many a fan for their funny characters, deep story lines, character development and Asian-but-not-[[weeaboo]] flavor. The sequel series, Legend of Korra, is rather [[skub]]tastic and regarded as only good for [[Rule 34]] by much of /co/ and /aco/ (right down to be in their sticky).

*'''[[Castlevania]]''': A Netflix animated-series about the old Castlevania games of yore, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse to be precise. Follows the exploits of Trevor Belmont, who tries to live up to the legacy of his family and travels the grimdark land of Transsylvania in classic Castlevania fashion. To keep the whip cracking and dagger throwing from growing stale, he is accompanied by Dracula's son Alucard and the mage Sypha on his quest to exterminate the forces of evil. The show is beautifully animated, overall very well written and just an absolute joyride from front to back. Fans of the original games will feel especially jerked off, as the creators have gone to great lenghts to be as close to the source material as possible (discounting the exclusion of Grant from the hero's posse), like recreating the exact attacks of enemies and remixing the original music. A second show is in the making which will cover the exploits of Trevor's descendant Richter Belmont and his lady love Maria Renard, set during the French Revolution.

*'''[[Conan the Adventurer]]''': A very solid cartoon from the early 90s based off of, what else? [[Conan the Barbarian]]. Probably best known for its rocking opening theme (WARRIOR WITHOUT FEAR!), but it's very mineable for [[Dungeons & Dragons]] and has a lot of actual novel lore scattered through the kid-friendly stuff.

*'''Delta State''': All Psyker Party: The Series. Four flat-mates are trying to both figure out their life after suffering from amnesia and in the same time prevent the invasion of body-stealing Rifters [[Warp|from another dimension]]. While it sounds like nothing in particular, it packs a punch and easily hooks you up with interesting universe and very relatable characters - the series was a successful attempt to deliver something like seinen for Western animation, so it's not for kids, but also avoids all the pitfalls of your typical "adult animation".

*'''[[D%26D_Cartoon|Dungeons & Dragons]]''': An absolute classic, worth watching even for the sake of the status alone. While the series still shows a lot of potential, most of it was wasted on too short episodes made on shoe-string budget. Being partially entangled into the [[Satanic Panic]] didn't help either. Still, worth watching. Just bring beer and friends. And a notepad for oldschool ideas. Sadly never got a proper canon ending. Is ''incredibly'' popular in Brazil, too.

*'''Jumanji''': Like a lot of successful and semi-successful films, Jumanji ended up with a follow-up cartoon. Pretty much what you'd want to see if Alan had stayed in Jumanji and Peter and Judy went on adventures with him. While the art style is (intentionally) weird, the episodes are amazingly mineable for campaigns and world-building ideas. Also featured many references to other works, but with a fun twist.

*'''Love, Death & Robots''': An animated anthology series that's all over the place, from comedy to cosmic horror and from pure skub for easy clickbait to genuinely good content, but remains very minable. Shorts "[[Tyranids|Suits]]", "[[Vampire|Sucker of Souls]]", "[[Machine_Spirit|Lucky 13]]", "[[Kitsune|Good Hunting]]" and especially "[[Warp|Beyond the Aquila Rift]]" and "[[Delta_Green|The Secret War]]" are very much approved. The second season is full of shit, tho.

*'''The New Adventures of Ocean Girl''': An Australian animated series, predominately aimed at teenage girls, but coming in a package with a complex world full of original races. Good world-building and bunch of interesting plot hooks and easy-to-reuse plot twists.

*'''Omer and the Starchild''': A French animated series. A truly rich world-building mixed with a lot of New Age imagery and unexpectedly dark story for a kids show. The series follows adventures of Dan, the titular Starchild, in his quest to free "Twelve Wizards" and unite them against the evil Morkhan.

*'''Papyrus''': An animated adaptation of Franco-Belgian comics. An epic tale of a young fisherman tangled into the conflict between Egyptian gods, tasked with the mission of freeing Horus and putting end to the reign of Seth... regardless if Papyrus himself wants to or not being a plaything of gods.

*'''W.I.T.C.H.''': So you want magical girl warriors, but you dislike anime? Here is the answer then, as it delivers exactly that, with all the possible plot bits and the general feel without, well, being a Chinese cartoon. Plus neat urban fantasy and teen characters that feel like teens (early 00s teens, that is).

== Old Stuff & Remakes ==
*'''[[Masters of the Universe|He-Man/She-Ra]]:''' The original 80s [[Sword & Sorcery]] cartoons of choice, He-Man is about a cosmically-empowered [[barbarian]] hero who has to juggle his daily life as the foppish Prince Adam and his muscle-bound alter-ego whilst defending Castle Greyskull from the forces of Skeletor, an evil wizard who seeks to claim the castle and the cosmic powers it holds to rule the universe. Made to sell every single crazy toy the designers could come up with. It's 80s fucking bullshit to the extreme, but if you can embrace the cheese and get past the memetically limited animation, it's actually good, clean, turn-your-brain-off fun, with plenty of ideas to mine for a more S&S or old-school [[Science Fantasy]] setting. "She-Ra" is literally "He-Man for girls", with Prince Adam's twin sister Adora using the twin to He-Man's sword of power to turn into a super-powered [[Amazon]] warrior, leading a resistance on the magical world of Etheria against the Horde, an invading army of space monsters and robots.
** An early 90s remake tried to rebrand He-Man (since it was also one of the forerunners of "cartoons as toy commercials" in the 80s) and failed flat. Mostly forgotten, since it dropped everything unique about the setting, replacing it with generic science fiction.
** A 2001 remake of He-Man attempted to create a more serious, focused, action-orientated and generally less goofy take on the show. It worked, but sadly it died after two seasons due to a lack of an audience. Dig it up and enjoy it if you can.
** A 2018 "remake" called She-Ra and the Princesses of Power...exists. Whilst it ''technically'' has a better plot and animation than its predecessor, it is also much more rooted in post-2010s culture memes, so view at your own risk.
*** Success of the above led to the 2021 "continuation" of the 2001 version, "Masters of the Universe: Revelation", done to <s>maintain copyrights and licensing agreement</s>{{BLAM}} refresh the format and shakes things up. Infamous for the writers pulling shit like ''killing He-Man off in the first episode'' to make Teela the star (promptly setting off flame wars between the oldschool fans who wanted a faithful adaptation, the new fans who could swing either way, and the [[SJW|idiots declaring all criticism was misogyny]]) then resurrecting He-Man only to kill him ''again'' in the fifth episode [[#Footnotes|1]]; they also turned Teela into an utter wanker who flips out over not knowing Adam was He-Man (something that she wasn't entitled to know about at all, particularly considering he was under orders ''not'' to tell anyone about it), blaming her friend for dying without telling her this secret ''after her friend fucking died to save her'' (she does this in front of his still-grieving parents, mind) before refusing to save the universe pretty much out of spite. Needless to say, this is fully disapproved of by us.. Unlike rest of the list, fully disapproved.
** The 2021/2022 "He-Man & The Masters of the Universe" show. Reimagines Eternia as [[Science Fantasy|an advanced technological world whose magical past is being brought back]]. Despite a rather weird animation style and some borderline [[SJW]] choices (replacing Ram-Man with a female counterpart, most notable), largely considered to ''not'' be as shit as Revelation.
* '''Jonny Quest:''' '''''The''''' adventure series from Hanna-Barbera, notable originally for being first "realistic" cartoon to be made and having amounts of violence and brutality - for a show ostentiably aimed at very young kids - that makes moral watchdogs twitch to this day. For those same reasons, it is also never-ending source of pulp ideas and weird science plots. Even if you never saw it, there is a high chance you can recognise the characters and hum the main theme, regardless of nationality. Comes in three distinctive flavours, all three very much approved:
** The original series from the 60s, titled simply ''Jonny Quest''.
** 80s revival series, ''The New Adventures of Jonny Quest'', which came with animation bump, updated the setting and made if far more kid-friendly, without losing the adventuring vibe
** 90s Cartoon Network sponsored remake, ''Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures'', which finally realised the series mostly watched by teen boys could benefit from having a teen-aged main character.

* '''Thundarr the Barbarian:''' Hanna-Barbera's [[Science Fantasy]] series set in the far future of post-apoc ruins of the United States. It's a collection of everything popular in early 80s: fantasy, post-apo, buff barbarians, Chewbacca look-alikes, <s>tits</s> princesses, light sabers and cheese. Copious amounts of cheese. If you ever wanted to run pulp megadungeon, look no further for inspiration. Aged far better than most 80s cartoons, since it wasn't intended as being a 20 minute long toy commercial.

*'''[[Thundercats]]:''' Regarded by /tg/ as "Dangerously [[Furry]]: the Cartoon". A [[Science Fantasy]] series revolving around a group of survivors from the destroyed world of Thundera crashlanding on the apocalyptic ruins of a far-future Earth and trying to rebuild their civilization, whilst battling mutants, monsters, magic and the ancient [[mummy]]-[[lich]]-thing called "Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living". Essentally He-Man, but more focus on action than on goofy comedy. Like He-Man, it also got a darker, edgier, more serious 2011 remake that fell through because <s>nobody watched it</s> <s>everyone was turned away by the tone shift</s> [[Derp|Cartoon Network wanted to replace it with Lego Ninjago]].
** Then it had yet another - an unapproved - remake with even worse reception, the late 2010s "Thundercats Roar", which doubles down on just about everything awful in cartoons that had been pioneered by Teen Titans GO! (in fact, they did a crossover with TTG! purely for the "Teen Titans" to shill the Roar cartoon, which went down like a lead balloon). It aired early 2020 and only lasted one season. Given that COVID would force kids to stay at home, and thus have easy access to television, [[Fail|that is quite the accomplishment]].

== Unapproved, But Mineable ==
This is the place where anything that has /tg/-worthy subject matter without really fitting into the above categories or general endorsement by fa/tg/uys should go. Or not, because who cares about a fa/tg/uy's opinions. Please note that 1d4chan takes no responsibility for any [[cancer]], [[fail]]-induced [[HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhnnnnnnngggggg-|heart attacks]], or [[rage|homicidal rage]] that viewing these may cause.

*'''[[BattleTech]]:''' Yes, BattleTech had a cartoon series. It talks about a Adam Steiner and the 1st Somerset Strikers. It wasn't that good. Its production value was lacklustre and being forced into the animation age ghetto did not help. Its notable for its early use of transiting between traditional cel-animation and computer-generated imaging. While not godawful it was at best a slightly above average Saturday morning cartoon that's inappropriate to it's subject manner. What's even more notable is that the show exists in the BattleTech universe. You read that right, this cartoon that depicts BattleTech actually exists in the BattleTech universe. Can give inspiration on how the actions of a party can be distorted or changed to fit a different narrative. Also attracts much [[rage]] from fans of [[The Clans]] because the series is based around Inner Sphere protagonists, and thus the Clans are shown as a bunch of lunatics who just randomly showed up and invaded one day.

*'''Hazbin Hotel:''' Cartoon Network-tier [[Slaanesh|Slaaneshii stuff]], man. A grimdark musical dramedy about the princess of hell (who acts like a typical Disney princess) and her girlfriend opening a hotel where demons are reformed in the hope that they will be able to checkout into Heaven, so that Hell won't be forced to go through regular population purges anymore. Their first test subject is a drug addicted spider demon porn star. A mysterious and extremely powerful demon known as Alastor (A.K.A.: The Radio Demon), who is convinced that demons are irredeemable so their plan is impossible, offers to help so that he can enjoy watching them fail. Pretty good for character ideas if you want to make a demon or demon-like entity that isn't another cliché Always Chaotic Evil stereotype.
**'''Helluva Boss:''' a spin-off of Hazbin Hotel. A low ranking demon manages to steal access to the mortal world from a powerful demon lord (who lets him keep it in exchange for sexual favours), and forms a company where damned souls pay for the assassination of the humans who wronged them in life. More comedy focused than Hazbin Hotel.

*'''Hilda:''' Based on a series of comics and books of the same name, this Netflix series focuses on the eponymous Hilda, a young and blue-haired girl who is absolutely fascinated by the natural world and lives (at first) with her mother in a cabin in the woods before moving to a quaint and rather comfy-looking town and making some friends her own age (while still hanging out with a tiny two-inch tall elf and her pet deerfox Twig). The series is rather cute overall with some heavy touches of creepiness spread throughout. Recently got a second season released and rumors of a third being in the works.

*'''Regular Show:''' A weird show that appeared on Cartoon Network with a really crappy final season. Still, quirky characters, more than a few /tg/ worthy references, and a few decent jokes with lol random stuff all over the place make it decent enough if you need something to play while you paint that Gaunt Swarm.

*'''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]] AKA Sonic SatAM''': A animated adaption of Sonic the Hedgehog. Well regarded by fans as something of a cult classic. Do be warned it is full of 90's cheese, it was a Saturday morning cartoon meant to make money off of a cartoon character after all. One special note is Jim Cummings in one of the scarier depictions of Dr. Robotnik. Also features one of the better depictions of nature vs industrialization, less green Aesop and more freedom from slavery (most of the time). Mineable for concepts and a good villain. [[Chris-chan|Possibly even watched by the]] [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|God-Emperor of Mankind.]] The Archie comic is also of note since it does technically continue the story, though do be warned of Ken Penders. He is considered the Matt Ward of the Sonic Fandom.

*'''Steven Universe''': A fairly average show with some surprisingly interesting world-building. Thousands of years ago, a caste-based race of mineral-based "Crystal Gems" with holographic bodies dominated the galaxy. A small band of Gems refused to let this continue, rebelling against their masters and shattering their empire at great cost to both sides. Now, a small cadre of Gems remains on the planet Earth, protecting humanity from the monsters their civil war left behind and raising the rebel leader's "son". [[Fail|Unfortunately, he's kind of a fuckup,]] and he's going to have to learn how to use his powers fast because the Gem empire is coming back for round two. Incredibly mineable for campaign and adventure ideas, when it decides to stop being hollow slice of life and gets its ass in gear. Warning: prolonged viewing <s>may</s> will cause [[Sanity|SAN loss.]]
** The fandom for this one is... mostly okay. While it's pretty chill overall, it's got its share of froth-mouthed SJWs (infamous for trying to drive an artist to suicide over drawing a fat character thin) and psychotic "You don't like [Character] x [Character]! DIE, SCUM!" shippers. Stay the fuck out of the Tumblrtards/Twitterati's way, and you'll be good.

*'''Tigtone:''' Similar to Adventure Time but even more insane and a lot more bloody. The surreal adventures of a murderhobo named Tigtone who is obsessed with completing quests, writing about his quests in his journal, and shouting his own name. Takes place in a world that runs on a mixture of video game and dream logic. Has a unique animation style created with realistic paintings brought to life with motion capture to look deliberately uncanny like a poorly animated video game but also strangely beautiful.

== Footnotes ==
# This was made even worse by the way the promotional materials heavily implied that He-Man would have a major role in the show, with the toylines, trailers, and the director himself swearing blind that He-Man would be the focus of the series, then having him appear in flashbacks and his brief resurrection ''only''. Essentially meaning that we got ''Waiting for <s>Godot</s> He-Man'' as opposed to actual fucking He-Man, with him being relegated to a background figure at best and a source of cheap angst/emotional tension for the characters at worst.
[[Category:Approved Media]]