Approved Cartoons

This is a /co/ related article, which we allow because we find it interesting or we can't be bothered to delete it.

This is a list of /tg/ approved cartoons, organized loosely into genres.

Action

• The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: 80s cartoons were all just merch-driven crap... aside from 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 faithful (but still censored, though not as much as the burgers would) adaptation of the classic Franco-Belgian comics series, combining quality animation with that pulpy adventure feeling. Think Indiana Jones, but with an action reporter instead of an action archeologist. And just like the source material, the series deftly balances humor, pulp qualities and serious, often dark themes (on average at least one dead body per episode and this is still a kid-friendly show).

• Blake and Mortimer: Another Franco-Belgian comic adaptation. This time it's about the adventures of two Brits: Scottish scientist Philip Mortimer and Welsh Captain Francis Blake of MI5. Spy fiction, exotic adventures, weird science and ancient mythos - what more could you 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.

• 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 and lots of fun with 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). A band of Gargoyles (winged strong humanoids with claws that can cut steel that turn into stone during the day) 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. Stories of betrayal, romance, robots, suits of power armor, cyborgs and a fair number of magical things borrowing from a variety of sources, but most notably the works of William Shakespeare.

• Gravity Falls: 12-year-old fraternal twins Dipper and Mabel get sent to spend a summer with their shady "grunkle" Stan at his woodland tourist trap in Gravity Falls. Naturally the town is packed with more absurd supernatural shit than your average Call of Cthulhu campaign, though a good deal more noblebright (at least most of the time). In Stan's own words, the show has "a big mystery element! And a lot of humor that goes over kids' heads!" Notable for ending mostly organically at two seasons, with an only somewhat rushed finale wrapping things up before seasonal decay could ruin things.

• Invader Zim: A cult classic sci-fi series about a little green cyborg bug alien who is banished to Earth after after he almost accidentally his throneworld and tries to conquer the planet while posing as a school student along with his insane robot GIR. The only one on Earth who knows Zim is an alien is the wannabe cryptozoologist Dib Membrane. Zim's race, the Irken, are effectively kid-friendly Skaven in space and Zim is their Thanquol equivalent, which neatly explains why the Reddit generation went bananas for the show as kids. Cancelled due to the cultural whiplash from 9/11 and tonally clashing with what was already becoming the SpongeBob Channel, its pop culture impact was such that it got a series finale movie almost 20 years later, "Enter the Florpus".

• 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.

• Primal: A show by Genndy Tartovsky about a Caveman and a T. Rex trying to survive in a brutal primitive fantasy world. Features the same creativity and elegancy in simplicity as Samurai Jack, just in a radically different setting and with the benefit of a TV-MA rating.

• 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.

• 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 has 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 "Necrons imitating Tyranids" enigma, which may be a good or a bad thing.

• Wakfu: A French cartoon based on a video game which itself is the sequel to a mmorpg, is bizarrely good for its first few seasons. Also full of cheesecake and weeaboo; the Ankama execs have admitted "there are some sketches that can't leave ths studio", bless those crazy French.

• Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?: There's a good chance your local "Well, akshually" guy got at least some of the trivia from this cartoon in his youth. One improbable heist job after another, pure pulp adventure and tomb-raiding, with Squidward as a factoid-spouting AI - what's not to like?

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 glorified half hour toy commercials BtAS dared to defy convention with a dark art style (literally, they drew the animation frames on black paper), 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.

• My Life as a Teenage Robot: Another cult classic Nickelodeon cartoon starring Jenny "XJ9" Wakeman, a teenage girl who tries to have a normal teenage life despite being a robotic superhero who saves the world from kaiju and meteors. Borrows heavily from Astro Boy and 50s B-movies for its aesthetic. The show was cancelled shortly after the made for TV movie due to not being SpongeBob, but the legend lives on and Jenny reigns eternal as the Queen of /co/. A fan continuation developed with the approval of the series creator is in production.

• 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. 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): A product of those few years when Cartoon Network was trying really hard to be weeaboo, strictly inferior to the DCAU but still makes it onto the list. Mixes adapting stories from the legendary (as in "nobody remembers anything else about the team") Wolfman/Perez run with a truly bizarre original rogues' gallery, including Mad Mod (Mad Hatter knockoff who uses mind control tech to make America properly Bri'ish again), Mother Mae-Eye (the witch from Hansel and Gretel as cosmic horror), and Control Freak (Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons as a supervillain). Suffers from tonal whiplash (as if the last sentence wasn't enough of a clue), some skub comic adaptations and a few plot holes, but still remembered fondly thanks to a /b/tard named Zone a quality ensemble cast, good-enough writing and just being a fun ride in general.

• 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, then renewed for a third season to drive subscriptions for DC's exclusive streaming service.

Comedy

• Adventure Time. tl;dr: A D&D nerd gets a blank check from Cartoon Network, skub ensues. Starts off 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. Has skubtastic reputation due to its noodle art style and the writers using it as a vent for their personality problems in later seasons until they completely forgot they weren't writing for Adult Swim. Also, 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, 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 a hard-boiled detective story, an Indy-style pulp adventure and IN SPACE! - and as such can be watched even without the broader context of the series.

• Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: Williams Street dragging Hanna-Barbera into an alleyway, brutally mugging them, and rifling through their pockets for old cartoon clips. Together with its sister series Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast and Sealab 2021 (below) this is what put Adult Swim on the map for adult animation, spawning dozens of imitators and predicting the rise of the YouTube Poop years later. Can be mined for plotlines for "whodunnit" adventures in addition to just plain weirdness that can inspire greatness at the table-top.
• Futurama: Where a good chunk of the original Simpsons writing team went when The Simpsons became Zombie Simpsons. Moronic delivery boy Philip J. Fry gets frozen on New Year's Eve 1999 and wakes up in the year 3000, where he's forced to be an interplanetary delivery boy and deal with aliens, robots, his mad scientist descendant, and the show getting canceled every few years. Probably the most recognizable sci-fi parody out there, has its own RPG based on the Toon system, above all guest-starring Gary motherfucking Gygax hisself, most notably in a full TV movie where the cast gets trapped in a D&D campaign come to life. "Anyone want to play D&D for the next quadrillion years?"

• Inside Job: Rick and Morty rip-off about conspiracy theories. The main character is a chronically overworked, mildly insane genius working for a front company that secretly pulls the strings behind every crazy conspiracy theory in existence, all of which are true (but you already knew that). President getting replaced by a robot? That's the pilot. Illuminati, Lizard People and Atlanteans having blood orgies at the Bohemian Grove? Yup, it's here. Secret shadowy cabals managing the world in a way no one notices? That's just real life. Everyone is insane, paranoid and on the cusp of a mental breakdown. A nice break from just replaying Deus Ex to prepare for your next Illuminati/Conspiracy X/Unknown Armies campaign.

• Megas XLR: 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 Orkiest show ever made, the Gork to Gurren Lagann's Mork.
• SeaLab 2021: Conceptually in the same vein as Venture Bros but as a direct sequel to the straight-faced environmentalist SeaLab 2020, kind of. Episodes mostly consist of reused SeaLab 2020 stock animation or just entire scenes repurposed to parody SeaLab 2020 and 90 cartoons in general. At least one episode is a literal comedy redub of a vintage episode, and roughly a third end with everyone dying in an explosion. Basically Space Station 13 the series.

• 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 hilarious but like Austin Powers, it's hard to appreciate the comedy of it unless you've seen the source material.

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 a setting that's uniquely Asian without being weeaboo. The sequel series, Legend of Korra, is hilariously skubtastic and considered only good for Rule 34 by much of /co/, though it has its bright spots.

• 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 (Grant the rogue gets shafted as usual). 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.
• The Dragon Prince: The two sons of a dead king, an elvish assassin, and a pet toad travel across the world in hopes of reuniting the titular dragon prince with his parents and stopping all-out war between humans and elves. Seven seasons. Has tie-in RPG, Tales of Xadia, using the Cortex System

• 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. First season's "Suits", "Sucker of Souls", "Lucky 13", "Good Hunting" and especially "Beyond the Aquila Rift" and "The Secret War" are very much approved. The second season is full of shit, tho, skip it outright. Third season's entire saving grace comes in form of "Bad Travelling" and if you squint really hard, then "In Vaulted Halls Entombed" and " Swarm" (if you believe in the theory that the Eldar created the Tau) get a pass. The rest is mostly cool visuals (with acid trips) and jokes about America. Fourth season continues the trend - single saving grace in the form of How Zeke Got Religion, hard squinting at For He Can Creep, bunch of cool visuals and a metric tonne of shit. Originally intended as a successor to the legendary (and wholeheartedly approved) Heavy Metal movie but with modern creatives, which explains a lot.

• 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 as he is but a plaything of the gods.

• Pirates of Dark Water: A science-fantasy cartoon. The alien world of Mer is being devoured by an evil substance known as Dark Water. Only Ren, a young prince, can stop it by finding the lost Thirteen Treasures of Rule. His loyal crew of misfits that help in his journey are ecomancer Tula, a monkey-bird Niddler, and treasure-hungry pirate Ioz. The evil pirate lord Bloth will stop at nothing to get the treasures for himself and provides many obstacles for Ren and his crew. Standard quest for magic artifacts to stop an eldritch evil, but the creature design is where things got badass. The world of Mer was home to many creatures which can inspire a GM. There was also an official role-playing game.

• Skeleton Warriors: Knights of a science-fantasy kingdom must fight against a group of power-hungry warriors who attempted to seize ancient relics, relics that mutated them into hideous Skeleton Warriors! Had an awesome theme song.

• 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

• He-Man/She-Ra: The original 80s Sword & Sorcery cartoon and the first 30-minute toy commercial. He-Man is a cosmically-empowered barbarian hero who has to juggle his daily life as the foppish Prince Adam and his muscle-bound alter-ego to defend 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 after Reagan's FCC deregulated children's television. 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. "She-Ra" was conceived totally as a cashgrab to take advantage of the fact that "He-Man" was surprisingly popular with girls, so it's even more of a toy commercial then "He-Man" and suffers for it quality wise.
  • 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. These days very few even remember this thing even existed, with more than likely many not wanting to remember it. Easily one of (if not the) worst things in whole franchise.
  • A 2001 remake of He-Man attempted to create a more serious and focused 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 for as far as remakes are concerned it is one of the best things to come out of the franchise.
  • A 2018 "remake" called She-Ra and the Princesses of Power...exists. While it barely manages to have a better story and animation than the original, it suffers very badly from (in the showrunner's own words) "the gay agenda" and a tumblr-esque obession with cribbing from anime instead of doing its own thing.
  • The 2021/2022 "He-Man & The Masters of the Universe" show reimagines Eternia as 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 the 2017 Revelation series.
• Jana of the Jungle: Hanna-Barbera's take on the archetypical pulp character of "blond chick in fur bikini raised by natives, now having adventures in the jungle with her big cat". As such, it tackles just about every single possible scenario and accompanying archetypes from those pulps, making it a condensed way to learn the ropes with this kind of stuff. Somewhat on the short note (it was a companion show, rather than its own thing), but still good watch, prime idea-mining material, and, above all, not taking itself too seriously.
• 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.

• Lucky Luke: An animated adaptation of a classic Franco-Belgian comics, done with help of Hanna-Barbera, following adventures of titular Lucky Luke - a cowboy so fast with his gun, he can even outdraw his shadow. Just like its source material, it's humorous in style and spoofs various staples of western genre, but never becomes an outright parody. Your gunslinger PC wishes to be this cool and suave.
  • Got a new series in 2001, aptly titled The New Adventures of Lucky Luke. It was never screened to the original creator, Morris, for review and they waited until he died before releasing it, because they knew it was crap and he would cry foul.

• The Mysterious Cities of Gold: Throw into a shaker El Dorado, greedy conquistadors, dashing adventurers, an alien race of Mayan precursors... and a group of children tangled into the middle of it. Stir together, serve chilled. It's a high grade adventuring in the Latin America, easily passing modern quality standards without any issues and not struggling with any kind of typical cartoon censorship (thank God for the French). Oh, and it's a continuous plot, rather than villain-of-a-week type of deal - so you get a story of epic proportions, with equally impressive prep to to make it all work and come together, with world-building to carry it through. It's also one of the first "big" cartoons to be done in collaboration with the Japanese (Studio Pierrot), so on technicality, it's an anime. Absolute classic and if you aren't a literal zoomer, you probably saw it as a kid.
  • Got renewed in 2012 and 2016, thirty goddamn years after original premiere, for two additional seasons. To make it weirder, it picks the plot where the original, self-contained series ended, so you pretty much have to watch the whole thing to "get" it. Still worth every minute.

• Thundarr the Barbarian: Hanna-Barbera's Science Fantasy series set in the far future ruins of the United States. It's a collection of everything popular in early 80s: fantasy, post-apocalypse, buff barbarians, Chewbacca look-alikes, tits 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 to be 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. Infamous for the Cheetara Paradox: if you want to bang Cheetara you're a furfag, but if you don't you're gay. Like He-Man, it also got a darker, edgier, more serious 2011 remake that fell through because nobody watched it everyone was turned away by the tone shift Cartoon Network wanted to replace it with Lego Chima. While the 2011 version is incomplete it still a very enjoyable watch as long as you don't mind some minor pacing problems.

Unapproved, But Mineable

Any cartoons that have /tg/-worthy subject matter, but it's not like fa/tg/uys opinions really matter anyway.

• 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. So of course, CGL retconned the cartoon to be an in-universe propaganda cartoon made by the Inner Sphere, and the actual events of the show required a much larger army to accomplish than our plucky band of heroes, fighting against second-line Clan garrisons rather than the elites of the first invasion.
• Men in Black: The Series: One of numerous 90s projects to turn successful blockbusters into Saturday morning cartoons. It has a simple enough premise: Agent Kay didn't retire after the events of the first movie, so he's still Jay's partner and they work cases together. Police procedural for kids, just with aliens, superheroes and all the other weird shit the writers could get away with. Quality is all over the place (which is why it's borderline unapproved), but a good source of ideas for your Laundry Files and Delta Green campaigns.

• 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. Possibly even watched by the 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 (except somehow much worse).

• World of Quest: Think He-Man, but without any toys to sell or Twitter drama to follow. Also think: late 00s "le funny nerd stuff parody", so it's crude, formulaic to a fault and with humor that's hard to take even when drunk... but the series still crams 50 basic campaign ideas (almost all episodes are double stories) for a kitchen-sink fantasy setting without even trying to pretend it's not about mindless fun. In fact, the set-ups are so basic, you can literally pop any given episode 10 minutes prior to the game you "forgot" to prepare for your group and still get a comedic scenario for them by the time they arrive.