Last month I wrote a blog about my favorite Saturday morning cartoons.  Then I followed it up with a blog about my favorite weekday afternoon cartoons.  So now I’m going to conclude this little ‘series’ by talking about my favorite prime time TV cartoons!

Prime Time Animated TV Specials

When I was a kid, watching cartoons in the evening was almost unheard of.  But prime time cartoons did exist back then, but most of the first ones came out before I was born.  The Flintstones first started out as a prime time cartoon, and I certainly watched that a lot as a kid (not during prime time of course).  In fact, before The Simpsons came along, The Flintstones was the longest-running prime time cartoon.  Did you know that another one of my favorite Hanna Barbara cartoons, Top Cat, also started out in prime time?

But like I said, when I was little, about the only regular prime time show for kids was The Muppet Show.  But, especially during a holiday, if you were watching TV at night and saw the spinning “NBC Special” logo, you know you were probably in for a treat, as it was more than likely going to be a cartoon!  My favorites were always the Charlie Brown ones, like A Charlie Brown Christmas, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, heck, I even liked the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special.  It was a dire situation if you missed one of these because you knew it wouldn’t be another year before you could see it again (this was before VCRs and DVRs and stuff).

I also really liked the Garfield prime time animated specials.  Most of them won Emmys, and some of the Garfield specials were actually kind of sad or at least touching.  Good examples include the Garfield Christmas special, Garfield On the Town, and even the very first one: Here Comes Garfield.  The last Garfield prime time special: Garfield Gets a Life, came out at the same time the Saturday morning cartoon was airing, but the prime time special was much better animated.

This is a good time to talk about prime time Christmas specials, as we’re in that season right now.  It’s nice to see that even the regular stations still show them from time to time.  My favorites as a kid were the stop motion Rudolph, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and even more contemporary ones like Olive the Other Reindeer.  VeggieTales has some cool Christmas specials, too.  And finally, as a kid I remember being REALLY excited to watch Christmas Comes to Pac-Land when it was on at night.

The Simpsons

The Simpsons is probably the king of prime time cartoons.  I’m certain it’s the longest-running one.  I haven’t watched it in a LONG time (although I did watch the one where they were all LEGOs), and the show is nowhere near as good as it used to be.  But when I was in middle school and The Simpsons first came out, it was HUGE!  Everyone HAD to have a Bart Simpson T-shirt, and you can bet we were all glued to the TV when it came on at night.  Some of my favorites include the Treehouse of Horror episodes, the one where Maggie says her first word, and the one with the Mr. Sparkle subplot.  Lots of good stuff came out of The Simpsons, like the arcade game and the ride at Universal Studios.  Now they’ve kind of run The Simpsons into the ground, and I think it should be cancelled.  But, I think it would be neat if they just did animated specials every so often, like maybe a Treehouse of Horror Halloween special every year.

Futurama

This show came out when I was in college.  In fact, there was one early episode when they went to a college on Mars and one of them said that colleges were just day care centers for grown-ups, and that made me laugh.  Unlike The Simpsons, I never really thought Futurama ‘jumped the shark.’  Sure the series wasn’t quite as good when it moved to Comedy Central, but they were still pretty funny.  I always liked the episodes where they made fun of video games and cartoons.  I wish I could’ve seen the recent episode of The Simpsons where they had a Futurama crossover, but I hear it wasn’t that good.  There was another show that came out before Futurama that was made by the same folks as The Simpsons, and that was The Critic.  I watched that one a lot in high school, too.  Normally I don’t really ‘do’ raunchy adult humor, and I can’t stand other cartoons like Family Guy and South Park.  But for some reason, I felt the adult humor in The Simpsons, Futurama, and The Critic was more tastefully done.  Oh yeah, and I should give an honorable mention to King of the Hill.  It’s cool to see a cartoon based on the region that I live in Texas.

Cartoon Network

It’s hard for me to imagine evening shows on cable as prime time, but I guess they are.  I certainly have my fair share of favorites on this station.  Highlights include Dexter’s Laboratory, PowerPuff Girls, Samurai Jack, and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.  I wish that they would’ve concluded Samurai Jack properly, though.  Now we’ll never know if he defeats Aku or not.  I think it’s pretty cool that all these cartoons were done by a lot of the same people.  The Foster’s cartoon is my brother Jeff’s favorite.  Currently, there is only one new show on Cartoon Network that I like, and that’s Regular Show.  Lots of great 80’s references in it, although I don’t like the show as much as I used to.

Disney XD

I never really watched much of the Disney cable channels in recent years, mainly because they’re filled with dumb tween kid sitcoms.  But about a year or two ago I discovered a really cool show that’s like a cross between Phineas and Ferb and X-Files.  It’s called Gravity Falls, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you really should.  It’s definitely geared toward older kids, but it is very well written and the backgrounds are very detailed.  The only bad thing about Gravity Falls is that you have to sit through the commercials advertising Disney’s other dumb shows.  I wish they made more Gravity Falls products, too.  They didn’t even have anything you could buy when I went to Disney World a couple of months ago!

Nickelodeon

I don’t watch Nickelodeon much either (way too much SpongeBob), but I still have respect for them since the cable channel has been entertaining kids since I was little.  A few years ago they did have a show that I really liked, and that was Invader ZIM.  My favorite was his little robot GIR.  I think you can still find Invader ZIM products at Hot Topic.  I’m not sure if it was originally shown on prime time, but the most recent Nick cartoon I really liked was Penguins of Madagascar.  I wish they still showed that on TV.  That show was funnier than the movies!

Conclusions

And that’s all for now!  In the comments section, let me know what you think of my list, and tell me your favorite prime time cartoons!  Thanks for reading!  Later!  –Cary

Tags: Movies with Children, Television