Cartoon Network is a television channel we will all have been extremely familiar with at some point in our past and hopefully present. It’s one of the best channel for children and even adults who love animated, hilarious and stunning shows. Over the years Cartoon Network has been host to a huge number of original programmes, all of which were unique and will cause extreme nostalgia when I begin to mention them!
Today we are going to take a journey through the top ten, best Cartoon Network shows of all time. Let’s begin.
10. Codename Kids Next Door
Codename: Kids Next Door is likely one of those Cartoon Network shows you never really got round to watching. First airing in 2002, KND (Kids Next Door) focuses on the adventures of five 10-year-old children who control and operate a high-tech tree house which is taller than most buildings! This show was fantastic for children because the kids in the show had only one mission, to fight against the crimes and traumas of being kids. These include fighting against homework, teenagers, flossing and Ice Cream men who only sell to Adults.
Equipped with a huge amount of advanced technology and futuristic gadgets they have no shortage of intriguing and unique ways to combat the Adults.
The five main characters are known by their numbers, with number 1 being known as “Numbuh One” etc. Numbuh One, also known as Nigel Uno, is the bald, British leader of the Kids Next Door. His own father was once the KND’s greatest agent, Numbuh Zero, and now Numbuh One spends his time devising elaborate plans for world domination that are just too cool not to try.
A total of 78 episodes aired over the course of its lifetime along with two video games and a trading card game.
9. Cow and Chicken
One of Cartoon Networks original programmes, Cow and Chicken first aired back in 1995 and continued until 2004. Cow and Chicken is best described by the song in the opening credits:
[quote]Mama had a chicken, Mama had a cow, Dad was proud, He didn’t care how. Cow. Chicken. Cow and Chicken![/quote]
Despite Cow and Chickens parents being human, we don’t need to go into detail about how they emerged with a Cow and a Chicken for children. With Cartoons it is often best to just accept them for what they are, regardless of how little sense they mean, after all they are cartoons!
The show focuses on the adventures of the two animals. Cow is a sweet but naive character while Chicken is much more cynical and blunt. Every single episode is weird, odd and extremely funny.
Other characters who appear in the show are ‘The Red Guy’ who I’m sure you will all recognise. He spends his time attempting to scam Cow and Chicken and just generally be annoying! One of my favourite characters from the show though is Cousin Boneless, a character so useless it is actually genius, the episode where he gets stuck on the roof and starts cooking from the sun is engraved in my memory as it was so fantastic.
8. Looney Tunes
Love it or hate it, you’ll know at least one character from Looney Tunes I guarantee. Looney Tunes for many is the definition of classic cartoons, featuring the most iconic characters ever created.
Looney Tunes began it’s life a long, long time before Cartoon Network even existed in 1930 and brand new episodes and films are still being created today. That’s over 80 years of cartoons and entertainment. I think the term “has stood the test of time” is a bit of an understatement when it comes to Looney Tunes.
The characters of Looney Tunes have their own specific TV Shows and feature films, all of which make up the Looney Tunes family, take a look at a few below:
- The Bugs Bunny Show
- Taz-Mania
- The Looney Tunes Show
- Baby Looney Tunes
- The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries
I’ve taken the liberty of posting a YouTube link below to the Looney Tunes theme song, it’s a tune we’ll all recognise and love!
7. Dexter’s Laboratory
Dexter’s Laboratory, a cartoon truly like no other. The show is set around a boy-genius called Dexter who has built an underground, secret Laboratory filled with the most advanced technology the world has ever seen. Despite being a genius in almost every aspect of science, Dexter struggles to keep is younger sister Dee Dee out of his secret lab and medelling with his experiments.
Despite being an extremely dim witted character, Dee Dee still manages to get around Dexters security placements to keep her out.
You may not remember but Dexter speaks with an extremely thick Russian accent despite being from an ordinary, American family. A family which has absolutely no idea about Dexters Lab and his secret work.
Check out the intro video below. I hadn’t heard the theme song in a very long time and it sent chills through my whole body with how nostalgic it felt!
6. The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
One of the fairly newer cartoons to be featured on the channel. The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy is a spin-off show from another Cartoon Network show called Grim & Evil. The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy proved much more popular than Grim & Evil.
You may remember Grim & Evil however, it featured a purple bear character which had a glass box on his head contaning an evil brain which had two eyes.
Either way, the spin-off show focused on the adventures of Billy and Mandy along with all the fun, weird and quirky stuff they can do with the Grim Reaper! After losing a game of limbo to Billy and Mandy, Grim is forced to be their best friend forever. The children use his magical abilities and supernatural powers to venture into supernatural locations or environments, such as the underworld, inhabited by an assortment of grotesque monstrous beasts.
The show’s existence is the result of a viewer poll event by way of telephone and the Internet called Cartoon Network’s Big Pick which was held from June 16 to August 25, 2000. The three final choices were The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? and Longhair and Doubledome. Out of the three, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy attained the most votes with 57%; Robot Jones came in second place at 23% while Longhair and Doubledome received 20% of the vote. The first season began airing on Cartoon Network on August 24, 2001. [Source]
5. Cramp Twins
One of the few shows on this list which doesn’t feature talking animals or supernatural occurances, the Cramp Twins is set around two twins from the Cramp family. They both share a mother with a cleaning OCD, which is truly pushed to the limits with the troubles the two twins cause! Also their father who is obsessed with Western Culture and Cowboys.
The twins are destined never to get along in the fictional town, Soap City.
Lucien is the smarter of the twins, but also considered the ‘eco-loser’. Gentle and sensitive, Lucien is frequently bullied and name-called by his brother Wayne, specifically ‘Girl Pants’. When revenge is the order of the day however, Lucien uses is superior knowledge and intelligence to get his own back.
Wayne is obsessed with junk, which he collects and hides in his room; he spends most of his time at the junkyard, owned by only friend, Dirty Joe.
Fun Fact: The voice of Wayne Cramp is Tom Kenny, the actor who voices the likes of SpongeBob SquarePants, The Ice King The Narattor of the Powerpuff Girls and many, many more.
4. Ed, Edd ‘n Eddy
Another simplistic show about three friends all with exceedingly similar names! Ed, Edd and Eddy are the three stars of the show (Duhh) and each offers something different and unique to the show.
The general premisis of the show is to aquire jawbreakers, the mother of all candy and sweets but as any adolesent teenager will tell you, money can be extremely hard to come by! So the three Ed’s regularly attempt to scam the neighbourhood out of money but inevitabley, there are problems along the way. I feel it is important to note that the jawbreakers in question are actually bigger than the boys heads…
Ed is the strong, dimwitted workhorse of the group. Edd, better known as Double D, is an inventor, neat freak, and the most intelligent of the Eds. Eddy is a greedy, ill-tempered con artist, loudmouth, and self-appointed leader of the Eds.
Jonny 2 × 4 is a loner whom his peers consider to be a nuisance; he spends most of his time with his imaginary friend, a wooden board who I’m sure you all will remember is called Plank. I don’t know what it was about plank but it really was a memorable character!
3. The Powerpuff Girls
The Powerpuff Girls was just epic in every way imaginable, it was centered around three little girls (Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup) with awesome superpowers which they use to defend the US city of ‘Townsville’.
Mojo Jojo is a Supervillain, and main antagonist in the show, he is a notorious genius chimpanzee mad scientist, whose main goal is to destroy the Powerpuff Girls, crush Townsville and eventuall take over the world. He has an extremely thick Asian accent which works really well when he says his own name “MoooooooJo JOJO!”. If you’ve seen the show before, you’ll know how that sounds!
Featuring one of the most awesome theme songs for a cartoon, Powerpuff Girls instantly tell the entire theme of the show as well as being generally awesome:
Theme lyrics:
[quote]Sugar, spice, and everything nice
These were the ingredients chosen
To create the perfect little girls
But Professor Utonium accidentally
Added an extra ingredients to the concoction–
Chemical X
Thus, The Powerpuff Girls were born
Using their ultra-super powers
Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup
Have dedicated their lives to fighting crime
And the forces of evil[/quote]
2. Courage the Cowardly Dog
Truly one of the best cartoons ever created, Courage the Cowardly Dog is set in the “Middle of Nowhere” with Courage, a pink dog who regularly saves his owners (Muriel and Eustace) from the vastest array of monsters you could ever imagine.
The show merges Science Fiction, Horror, Comedy and Drama to create a show like no other.
The opening theme song sums of the premisis of the show pretty perfectly:
[quote]”We interrupt this program to bring you… Courage the Cowardly Dog show, starring Courage, the cowardly dog! Abandoned as a pup, he was found by Muriel, who lives in the middle of Nowhere with her husband, Eustace Bagge…. But creepy stuff happens in Nowhere. It’s up to Courage to save his new home!”[/quote]
From the paranormal to the historical, Courage the Cowardly Dog has a seemingly endless supply of weird and mysterious villians all of which genuinely add to the programme.
Muriel loves Courage and is a kind, gentle, sweet, elderly and overweight Scottish woman who took Courage in when he was a puppy. She is the damsel in distress. She is also Eustace’s wife. She often carries a rolling pin that she hits Eustace with when he harasses Courage.
Eustace, is a mean, selfish, cruel and old farmer obsessed with money and his truck. He is also Muriel’s husband. He has a very negative and uptight personality; he frequently harasses Courage and calls him a “stupid dog”.
The relationships between Muriel, Eustace and Courage in themselves make for a fantastic TV show on their own because despite their conficts, they work really well together.
Some of the most memorable villans in the show, and most regular are the following:
- Katz
- Le Quack
- Di Lung
- Freaky Fred
When a Top Ten list of Courage the Cowardly Dog episodes comes around then one episode which will definitley make the list is Freaky Fred. This episode is rare in that it doesn’t feature anything super natural. The entire episode is in the form of a song as a really weird cousin with a strange obsession with cutting hair in weird ways.
Despite a fairly low number of episodes created (Only 52!) over the course of 3 years, the show is still aired on Cartoon Network today, going down in history as a fantastic series.
1. Adventure Time
Here we have it, the best ever show to be aired on Cartoon Network and for a very good reason, it is ingenious and marvelous: Adventure Time wit Finn & Jake.
The show features around two best friends Jake and Finn, Finn being a Human while Jake being a magical talking dog.
The art style of the show is like nothing else I have seen before, it is simplistic but at the same time is able to express a huge amount. The colours used are bright and vibrant and so are all the weird and wonderful places the two friends visit on their adventures. If you’ve seen Adventure Time before you’ll know what I’m talking about, watch the show in HD and you really will be amazed.
The creatures, characters and monsters the pair encounter in their travels is stunning, every character is extremely unique. Being set mainly in the Candy Kingdom majority of its residents are made of Candy, which instantly makes them prone to Candy Zombies etc.
The cast featured in the show are some of the best voice actors in the world. To name a few, Jake is voiced by John DiMaggio who is well known for voicing Bender in the Futurama series. Tom Kenny who voices the Ice King brilliantly is best known for voicing SponeBob SquarePants. The differentiation between the voices in the show and how they reflect their characters is brilliant, one of my favourite being the Lumpy Space Princess. (Oh My Glob!)
Also, I can’t mention a brilliant character such as LSP without mentioning Lemon Grab, truly a crazy character but equally hilarious. His reaction to the condition the castle was in is priceless. Advid watchers will know what I mean!
Overall Adventure Time is an all round fantastic show, it incorporates funny segments as well as teaching genuine lessons as most cartoons do. The weird world it is set in allows for an endless number of stories so is extremely deserving of its 155 episodes to date. Adventure Time is regularly shown on Cartoon Network today with new episodes on their way. The best thing about having a brilliant show is a large number of episodes to spread that enjoyment.
Let us know what your favourite cartoon network moments or series are in the comments below.