GeekCastRadioToonCastTop 100

The Top 100 – Animated Series – 20-01

We have finally reached the Top Twenty!! Which of your favorites will make it in the episode and which shows will fail to appear in the countdown? Will prime time toons, classic shows, 80s nostalgia, super hero stories or comedies rule the Top 20? Toon in to find out the final 20 shows to make it into our Top 100!

Geeks:

Kevin “OptimusSolo” Thompson

Steve “Megatron” Phillips

Mike “TFG1” Blanchard

DiRT from the Pop Culture Network

UNLEASH THE TOON IN YOU!!

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Kevin "OptimusSolo"

OptimusSolo is a Cartoon Historian and even has an actual History degree to go with it. He's also an avid Toy collector boasting an over 1,000 piece Star Wars collection and nearly 400 Transformer toys. He is one of the hosts of the Powers of Grayskull series. He also has a passion for cartoon Theme Songs, Star Trek, MacGyver, Baseball, and is a major Movie Geek!

35 Comments

  1. Why is it that I can only listen to the first 30 minutes of this particular podcast?
    I’ve downloaded it manually from the site, from iTunes, and other podcatching clients.
    I don’t mean to complain . . . I just really want to listen to the remaining top 20 selections for the countdown. :)

  2. I really loved this series. I’m sad that it’s over. My vote for 80’s properties: He-man, Transformers, Real Ghostbusters, GI Joe, Thundercats, Turtles. But I think I was too old for Turtles when it came out.

    I work in accounting and thought up some ideas to make the poll more accurately reflect what you want it to reflect. I know this is long, but here goes:

    I think the biggest thing you could do to improve the poll is to have two rounds of voting. You could do that now, by resending the list you just read off to us back to the voters (maybe next year) and have them vote again. That way, they could vote for cartoons they forgot about. It could also mitigate the whole, “I voted it that high only because I was afraid it wouldn’t make the list at all (or be too low).” People would also get a feel for the list as a whole, what came in too high, or too low, and make adjustments. It sounded like each panel member would have voted differently in some cases now than they did when making the list.

    After that first round, let the panel vote N/A on cartoons they aren’t familiar with. Then take the total score of each cartoon, just like you did this time, and divide it by the # of panel members minus those who rated it N/A. Then you get a more meaningful average score for those who know the show.

    Clearly define the whole “is Anamaniacs and Tiny Toons one or two shows” question. You could make a determination on those after round 1 of voting. On the second round, people would clearly see that Anamaniacs and Tiny Toons are both voted for separately, and so the panel member could then vote for them separately also.

    As far as the whole Transformers #3 thing, having a 2nd round would help that.

    If you wanted even more data, you could go about it like this: It sounds like the variation in the poll points of view come down to how did I feel about it when it aired (Then), how do I feel about it Now, and what was its Impact on other cartoons and society as a whole.

    For example: Bob voted Looney Tunes #3, getting 98 points for the main poll. Bob then gives it an A for his enjoyment of it Then, a B for it Now, and an A for Impact. You multiply the 98 points times 100% for A and 90% for B and you get a total in each category (98,88,98), which you could also use to rank the shows. I think that would be interesting info to learn. Or instead of letter grades, they could just assign a percentage themselves for more flexibility.

    Are you using Excel for the statistics? I think all this could be accomplished pretty easily in Excel.

    Great job with this poll all around.

  3. I believe kevin used excel for the stats yes

    Really only dirt lumped Animaniacs and tiny toons together. Granted we did lump super friends as one, but given splitting them up I highly doubt any of those super friends cartoons would make the next list. Thanks for the feedback and glad you liked it. Check out everything else we do here lol

  4. I couldn’t get the iTunes version to work. It would appear as 31+ minutes long, but it seemed to play beyond the 31 min mark, but if I would stop the podcast, it would reset back to the previous mark, I suppose around 31 mins. I finally downloaded the MP3 from GCRN and adding it to my iTunes library. So for anyone still having trouble, you might try that. I couldn’t get anything else to work.

  5. Hope I’m mistaken… But I could have sworn I never once, throughout the entire List of Top 100 Animated series, heard any mention of The Venture Bros.

    In case I’m right, how did anyone miss that show!!? Its pure insanity for it to not make it on the list!

  6. Nope you are not mistaken it didn’t make our list. Not even sure if anyone outta the 20 people voted for it. However we’ll be going over the entire list tonight in the wrap up show.

  7. To each his own, but I’m with Doc Flowers about the Venture Bros. Fantastic show, much better than other Adult Swim offerings even though it shares a certain look of animation.

    It’s difficult to make a list of the Greatest shows of all time because then you have to consider their quality, their fame and also how influential they were.

    Congrats to you, fun series of podcast.

  8. thanks…. partly why Venture Bros never made it on my personal list is #1 I have never seen it. #2 I’m not a fan of any Adult Swim stuff regardless of how good it is. Just not a fan.

  9. An interesting experiment which resulted in some entertaining podcast radio.

    How successful the list can be regarded in terms of objectivity over subjectivity is evidenced by the no. 3, which unfortunately will act as an albatross around the list’s neck. Also the inclusion of decidedly mediocre shows like C.O.P.S. and Bravestarr at the expense of Care Bares and My Little Pony shows the male bias of the list.

    My top 5; Scooby Do, Flintstones, Looney Tunes, Simpsons, The Pink Panther Show

    My top 5 omissions from your list; Wacky Races, Teen Titans, Battle of the Planets, Top Cat, Charlie Brown All Stars

  10. I don’t think any of us considered Charlie Brown and the gang as those were mainly movies. But i know there were a few tv specials-series.

  11. I had no problem with anything on this list, except the #1 and 2 spots. I think the Simpsons has a lot more better episodes than Batman. I love both shows, but I think IGN got it right. The Simpsons has a bigger cultural impact and way more people would sit down and watch Simpsons over than Batman.

  12. I disagree BTAS has just as much of a cultural impact as the simpsons. If it never happened with BTAS we wouldn’t have the rest of the DCAU.

    As far as watchability for me it has to b be the right mood to watch either cartoon. However I can watch more of BTAS at one time then the simpsons.

    The Simpsons is great for background noise with me.

  13. Yea but many people dont have anything to do with super hero cartoons/comics so I may have to agree that Simpsons had the overall bigger cultural impact across the board

  14. JUST BECAUSE you don’t doesn’t mean most everyone else in the world don’t. Most people in my everyday life even not on the internet know what Batman The Animated Series is/was so there!

  15. I think Steve made some very good suggestions on how to improve the list next time around. As he said, clear up whether some shows are the same or separate: Tiny Toons and Animaniacs, for example. In my opinion, they’re clearly separate shows and deserve to be voted on separately. I don’t understand why Dirt would distinguish shows in this manner.Yes, he explained it, but it just isn’t reasonable. They’re different shows. The only time I could see this being reasonable is with Justice League/Justice League Unlimited or Super Friends where it had several names or something of that sort. But Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs, and Tiny Toons Adventures are separate shows and deserve to be voted on independently. Period. As are other shows he ignored. I can understand not knowing how to vote on some shows you aren’t familiar with, but to ignore them completely when you know of them…that perplexes me too. For instance, I’ve never seen Arthur, Pokeon, Draonball XXX, or others, but I know of them and wouldn’t exclude them. Now Magic School Bus…never heard of it and did not know it existed, so I couldn’t put it on my list. By the way, my list is at I forgot South Park, but I would definitely rank it, and I would rank it high as well.

    BTAS probably isn’t the top show of all-time. In fact, I probably have it rated too high at #2. But then, I think about the impact it has had on all of the DCAU. It set the look and the tone for pretty much every DCAU show and several of the DC animated films that have come since, and it has been almost 20 years. That in itself is saying something. And, BTAS is just an awesome show that didn’t pander to children. It isn’t as well-known in our culture as Simpson’s or even Flintstones and other shows, but that’s where other factors come in to play, which is why I definitely feel it is top 10, even top 5 worthy.

    And I agree with Optimus Solo and Katch. Battle of the Planets…was sorry to not see it on the list. You’ll see it at 96 on mine. And this is one of those shows I talked about where I would lump all of it incarnations into one show: Gatchaman, G-Force and Battle of the Planets. They’re all the same show, but slightly modified in each version: story edits, music, inclusion of characters not seen in other iterations (7-Zark-7, anyone!?). And I like Thundarr too.

    Again, I’m with Mike on the Adult Swim stuff. It’s on late so I never watch it. And frankly, it just isn’t my thing. I enjoyed a few episodes of Space Ghost C2C but never cared for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken or any of the other shows I might catch. But I’d say the audience for most of those shows is very small and compared to a lot of other shows, they just do not rank as high. But this is where maybe a separate list would make you happy. A list of just adult-animated shows or something.

  16. “JUST BECAUSE you don’t doesn’t mean most everyone else in the world don’t. Most people in my everyday life even not on the internet know what Batman The Animated Series is/was so there!”

    Your world must be very small because way more people that I know would be able to tell me what Simpsons or Flintstones or many of those are but would have absolutely no clue what Batman TAS is

  17. Just finished the show, guys! All I can say is there were a few shows that I agreed on and some I didn’t agree with. “Transformers” & “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” may not have been the best shows, but I enjoyed them a hell of a lot more that some of the others on the list. And “The Flintstones” was better than “Jem”, Mike. It just is. LoL!

    And as far as “The Simpsons” goes, I forgot to include it on my list. Honestly, that is all there is to it. If I had placed it on my list, it would have been in the Top 25 for sure, but nowhere near as high as #2. I used to watch “The Simpsons” all the time and I liked it a lot. It’s just after awhile, it stopped being funny. They started recycling jokes and situations and it lost that special magic I loved so much.

  18. Hi guys, really enjoyed the list. I still have a few problems with it though.
    Firstly, WHY IS ROCKO’S MODERN LIFE not on the list? If The Magic School Bus and Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Rocko’s Modern Life deserves a spot.
    Secondly, there should have been a bit more anime. I understand that you guys have a slight bias against Anime, but a few Anime’s are a bit better than what you guys put on the list. Again, that’s personal opinion.
    But as a positive, I love that you guys acknowledge the AWESOMENESS that was Beast Wars.

  19. I am extremely impressed at this list of the top 100. The thing about bias is that it was a collective one in regards to this list. It was going to. You asked a certain group of people what their idea was and when the results hit a bias occurred.

    You said yourselves that it was not THE list, it was your guys list based on the data collection. Other lists have come before and had their own respective ideas and bias. I am just major happy that such a mix made this particular list that had not been seen in others.

    My only wish is that the Filmation He-Man and She-Ra collective were nearer each other in the list. Considering that She-Ra can be in a sense a continuation of Filmation’s He-Man. And am suprised that Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm didn’t even make an honorable mention since it was a brief part of the since defunct Cartoon Network.

    But all in all I believe this is a brilliantly done list. And I would like to be involved in the next update.

  20. Hello, I’m a new listener! I really enjoyed 100 Animated series podcast. You guys did an AWESOME job with the list. In my opinion, Transformers, MASK, original HE MAN and Super Friends were ranked too high. LOL. However, School House Rock should have made the list at least somewhere in the 90 to 100 range. Finally, to me the top 3 slots are a toss up between The Simpsons, Batman and Looney Toons. You can argue strongly for either. Great job!!!

  21. What it seems to boil down to is that this list could very well be definitive if it really was wanted to be. Because even with a slight viewable bias, there is one realistic variety of cartoons. From the kiddie toons to the more adult toons and even anime. IGN nearly announced their bias with a bull horn. Although there were adequate choices on the IGN list, more were located on the GeekCast list.

    I truly hope that you revisit the list for an update next year. Because then, like now, will lead to an amazing list. Thanks for making a solid attempt to represent those of us unhappy with some of these lists.

  22. Okay, guys. I’m the biggest Transformers fan in the world, and even I wouldn’t put my own favorite show that high on the list. I wouldn’t even put it in the top twenty. I have to set aside my fanhood and put the show’s presentation into context. The writing was fun, but it was also nonsense.

    Transformers has almost no coherent continuity to speak of. The show is a mess. Plus, seasons 3 and 4 are just plain awful, and not just because David Wise had to truncate a five-part story into three episodes (not that we should forgive it for that!). Entire episodes were continuity errors. Characters appear and disappear throughout the show without any explanation.

    This is not a top ten show.

    Also… Spider-Man, X-Men, and He-Man are WAY too high. They should be around the 700-to-800 range.

  23. WE KNOW G1 shouldn’t be that high. honestly that was the only glaring issue I had. Well besides Family Guy and Ren & Stimpy lol Thanks for listening Neil!!!!!!!!

  24. That’s some serious hatin on 3 amazing shows on my own personal bias. But looking at it, they had proper placements on this list due to their cultural impacts at that time as well as reference in this present day. Personal hatin on the Marvel and Filmation properties aside, I am also a huge Transformers fan. Beast Wars really in my opinion should have been a little higher up than it was. But it also had to compete with other re-hashes like New Adventures of Johnny Quest, Voltron’s 3D version, etc. But even with my own personal bias I still admit that other shows were rightfully above what needed to be.

    And mike I do sympathize on the insanity that Ren and Stimpy afforded on this list.

  25. “I don’t understand why Dirt would distinguish shows in this manner.Yes, he explained it, but it just isn’t reasonable.”

    Obviously because I hate you. NYEAH!

  26. spiderman 1990’s awesome placement
    dark wing duck good placement
    futurama i think it’s too high needs to be lower 50’s
    justice league/unlimited needs to be little bit lower
    batman beyond awesome placement
    he-man and the masters of the universe 80’s one lower than the 2002 version
    scooby doo where are you too high
    gargoyles awesome placement
    G.I JOE real american hero too high
    x-men awesome placement
    tiny toon adventures too high needs to be way lower
    flintstones good spot
    south park ok spot
    animaniacs great placement
    tmnt 80’s version too high but needs to be top 30 or lower 20
    ducktales too high needs to be 30 places lower than it really should be
    looney tunes should be higher than #3 and #2
    transformers too high needs to be lower 20’s
    simpsons personally i think it should be 7 spots lower because i think there are other shows better than the simpsons
    batman the animated series epic placement i agree the best show ever

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