That too.
Anything the American channels have on now that’s not trying to be anime has (at least) potential. Some notable past examples of good, purely American cartoons: Angry Beavers, Freakazoid, Invader Zim, the previously mentioned Samurai Jack (a story about a samurai does not an anime make), DuckTales, Foster’s, etc. and of course, Ren and Stimpy.
When you try to American mass-produce anime, you get Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and other atrocities.
As long as it’s the original…I was terribly disappointed by the “new” version that ran on cable (was in Spike TV?) for awhile.
I’ve really grown fond of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy; one of my favorites was the one where an animated R. Lee Ermey shows up when the fighting between some elves and some dwarves gets too violent.
Scott: this type of comment is NOT appropriate in Cafe Society. You can disagree on taste in art/entertainment without dropping down to this level.
I like chocolate milk.
I’ll second (or third or fourth or whatever) Foster’s as being one of the most imaginative and funny cartoons I’ve seen in a while. Billy and Mandy, while it occasionally grosses me out (a fact that no doubt makes the show that much more attractive to my seven year old) is pretty clever, too.
Ed, Edd, and Eddy, on the other hand…jeez, that show is dumb.
Si. I like potatoes.*
I’m a lady…now we’re brother ladies!
Cheese is classic.
Foster’s Home also has my favourite ‘for the parents’ joke in any recent cartoon.
Mr Harriman is freaking out because he thinks there’s a dog in the house. Frankie’s trying to calm him down, while Bloo is scrounging through the garbage. As he heads off, Bloo looks at Harriman.
‘Yeah, man, Frankie says “relax”.’
Had me rolling until I realised I was old enough to get a joke put into the show for the parents. >_>
- Yeah, yeah, I know, that was in response to ‘I like cereal’, but I can never resist an opportunity to quote Eduardo.
Uh … Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh aren’t TRYING to be anime. They ARE anime. Just dubbed.
Now, Teen Titans … that show IS trying to be anime. And it’s damn good.
“At least the bunnies are on fire.”
My kids and I have rarely laughed as hard as we did during the Cheese episode. Particularly when they were all riding the soapbox racer down the hill. For weeks afterwards my son said “I like cereal” over and over again in the Cheese voice until we had to threaten him with bodily harm to get him to stop.
Frankie is HOT, too. Or maybe I just have a thing for Grey DeLisle’s voice.
Um, I’m pretty sure these aren’t American produced shows. Pokemon made the news while it was still in Japan as the program that induced seizures.
Marc
Honestly, I think TT manages to be good in spite of its attempts to emulate anime and not because of it. I never cared for any show that featured characters growing huge heads when angry or other silly emotives that are a part of many anime programs.
Marc
On the contrary: if it’s a bit predictable at times, in many respects it’s wonderfully surreal. C.f. the episode where they apparently realize they’re in a cartoon and some damned bizarre shit ensues. I think it’s the longest running show on CN with new episodes, though it hasn’t been the same since its makers switched to digital animation.
I do agree with everyone who’s cited Billy and Mandy and Foster’s. While the former may be an acquired taste, I can’t imagine anyone not being charmed by the latter. Nor are those shows already mentioned the only good ones that came from CN - there’s Johnny Bravo (with Donny Osmond as himself! And the most dead-on Scooby parody I’ve ever seen) and Courage the Cowardly Dog. It’s a crime neither of those are still being shown.
I’d take anything shown currently on CN over mid-nineties Nickelodean dreck. I was forced to watch enough of that for a lifetime.
Cheese is both hillarious and too utterly quotable for sanity. >_>
Last time I saw it, I was visiting my aunt and uncle, and watched it with my cousins…the three of us spent the rest of the night quoting it at eachother. I did Eduardo and Madam Foster’s lines, they did Cheese’s.
It would probably have been annoying for anyone else who’d been around. 
That she is.
(And I was glad when I read her character profile and she was in her 20s, so I was at least lusting after a cartoon girl of appropriate age for once. >_> )
Damn near all the female voice talent for CN is hot. Sadly, they all seem to be married. 
About the only CN show I can’t fathom why there’s a market for is Hi! Hi! Puffy Amyumi or whatever it’s called.
MGibson, Pochacco - Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh are not actually anime. I’ve seen real anime (Cowboy Bebop, GetBackers, Yu Yu Hakusho, Elfen Leid, etc.) and learned about others (Bleach, Naruto, RahXephon) from people who spend almost all their free time getting the stuff fansubbed straight from the land of the rising sun. Pokemon and its ilk are the result of American marketing techniques applied to the anime visual style. The key difference is that every real anime is a finite story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. After it ends, it’s done, no more episodes. The overwhelming majority of them are just 13 or 26 episodes.
By contrast, American TV shows are designed to continue for as long as they make money, with the writers coming up with new, bigger and better story arcs to draw in viewers, while the boys over in marketing design action figures, lunchboxes, etc.
Real anime is literature (not always good literature, mind you, but literature nonetheless). What you see in Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, B-Damon, and other shows designed to transfer directly to purchasable games and action figures is marketing for boys. What you see in shows like Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi, designed to transfer directly to purchasable music and dressable dolls, is marketing for girls.
Well, I guess that depends on what your definition of “anime” is Spatial. In my mind (and apparently in others’) all animated shows from Japan are anime. Some are much better than others, but they are still “anime.” Are we wrong?
Pokemon, Dragonball Z, Speed Racer, etc. are all examples of anime though they are examples of poorly done anime. Pokemon was originally shown in Japan and then imported to the United States so I don’t see how it isn’t anime.
Ah, the no true Scotsman arguement. Pokemon uses the same artistic stylings of many other anime series. It might not be very good anime but it is still anime. Not every book is a work of great literature and not every anime series is an example of great anime.
Marc
All I’m gonna say is…it just hasn’t been the same since I Am Weasel got axed and the Powerpuff Girls’ ended production.
I’m not wild about Hi Hi Puffy Amiyumi, but I’ll take it over Ed Edd and Eddy or that Camp Lazlo thing any day.
(Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends…eh, hit and miss. Though I’ll admit that the dinner date episode was the most ROTFL television moment I had in ages.)
I really dig " Courage the Cowardly Dog" .
Spatial Rift 47
That’s a rather, ah, unqiue argument. “If I think it has a plot, it’s Japanese.”
Let’s just say I don’t agree and leave it at that.
IN any case, I do actually like Code Lyoko. I despise the CG scenes, but I have to admit, there’s something amazingly entertaining about the story. It’s like the creators came up with twelve different ideas for cartoons - then squished them all into one show!
“OK, let’s have some teens dealing with annoying classmates at a boarding school.”
“Oooh-ooh! We can have them play virtual rrelaity games to spice it up!”
“Yeah, and they can fight giant monsters and talk to AI characters!”
“What about a villain. A rogue AI they can fight?”
“And then it comes out and attack s them and blows things up n’ stuff!”
“But the good AI person is there to help, so she can turn off the bad guy.”
“Yeah,and we’ll try to bring her to the real world so she can go to school with them!”
“And they have a time machine, so they can undo whatever havoc happens!”
Both: “Wooooot!!!1!!1111 Narf!”
What was the episode that consisted of some guy with big teeth reciting a poem while scaring Courage? That was so surreal and his voice was so creepy . . . or did I just dream it?