Top 10 Cartoons of the Last Decade

Cartoons are a wonderful medium. They have no special effects budget and anything can happen in them. During the 90's thanks to shows like the Simpsons and King of the Hill, viewers finally accepted that animation does not have to equal for kids. Over the last decade there have been lots of fantastic cartoon shows airing and here is a list of the best shows of the 00's. To qualify, the show had to premiere in or after the year 2000, and had to be made for American television. There is enough great anime that came out in the last ten years that it deserves it's own top ten list. So without further adieu, here is my top ten cartoon shows of the last ten years.

10) Jackie Chan Adventures. You would think a show called the Jackie Chan Adventures would be pretty self explanatory, or well really bad. Jackie may be a phenomenal stunt man and actor, but does any of that make for a good cartoon show for kids? Well maybe the stunts. So what do they do? They add magic, adventure, and world traveling. Jackie (voiced by Jackie Chan) is an archaeologist, martial artist, and ends up becomes a government agent. Each season focused on a huge hunt for various magical items, animals, or gates. This show was great because it had a great adventure feel, fantastic villains and heroes.

9) Static Shock. In the late 90s there started a surge of super hero cartoons. We got Batman, Superman, and the X-Men, this decade moved onto adding such great series as Justice League and the Spectacular Spider-Man. But Static Shock had something none of those series had, it created and featured a nearly unknown character. Similar to Spider-Man it starred a teenage hero who had a wise crack for everything. But Static also represented a more modern era. Starring Virgil Hawkins, after getting forced into a gang situation thanks to some people he went to school with, Virgil and everyone else there is hit with a weird chemical that changes them forever. Virgil gains electric powers and becomes the super hero Static. The series follows Static as he develops into a better hero and person. It really is the Spider-Man of the 2000's and was very well done.

8) Duck Dodgers. The Looney Toons have been synonymous with high quality cartoons for decades. Duck Dodgers took the concept of an old Daffy Duck cartoon featuring Daffy as Duck Edgar Dumas Dumas Aloysius Dodgers, a dashing but inept space hero who along side his sidekick, Eager Young Cadet (Porky Pig) were the Duck Dodgers of the 24th and a half century! This was spin offed into an ongoing series in 2003. What made this series great was how it worked various worlds and formats into each episode. There was an episode set on a 70's cop movie world, another that was a spoof of Godzilla movies, and one that featured the Green Lantern Corps. It was how easily it mixed genres and inserted it's cast into the new worlds that put Duck Dodgers on the top ten list.

7) Invader Zim. We've seen it before, evil alien from another world comes to destroy Earth. But never have we seen an alien invader so inept with the most adorable and stupid side kick ever. This is the story of Invader Zim, an alien sent by the all mighty Tallest (to get rank in their race you need to be tall) to conquer Earth. So of course he ends up going to elementary school and is accepted as a weird green little boy except by one child who sees through his horrible disguise, Dib. But the children find Dib more insane and ignore him like the good sheep they are, never thinking for themselves. Which in a way is what the whole show is about. People are very stupid and don't think for themselves, and then hilarity ensues, because let's face it, Gir is one of the funniest characters ever made. Nickelodeon picked up this series to try and compete with Adult Swim, then never got any other shows to go with it, so it bounced around time slots and was mistreated until it was eventually canceled. Now you can buy shirts of Zim and Gir at Hot Topic, irony huh? If this hilarious show was given the respect it deserved we may still have new episodes coming out today, sadly we do not.

6) Metalocalypse. Since Cartoon Network started doing Adult Swim they have found a lot of success in the fifteen minute comedy. These usually involve random things happening and are considered by many to just be good entertainment while inebriated. Metalocalypse does have random things happen, but there is an internal logic to how everything works out. The main characters of the show are Deathklok, the biggest and most popular band in the world, they also happen to be a metal band. Creator Brandon Small (of Home Movies fame) has made a series that pushed the bounds of what can be done in fifteen minutes, and built a world and a mythos for the humor to happen in. Also he has created some of the best metal songs that have come out in the last decade. It's a bit sad when one of the best metal bands to come out in the 2000's are all animated, but they have released two albums and gone on tour with bands like Mastodon and Chimera. Metalocalypse and Deathklok has created more then just a great animated series, they have create a cultural force.

5) Chowder. How do you explain a show like Chowder? The basic premise is Chowder is learning to become a great cook from his mentor Mung Daal. But there is so much more to this series. Everything screams creativity, the food items are original, colorful, and sometimes speak. Each character has a completely unique design that lets you pick out who they are right away, even Chowder and Panini (who has a huge crush on Chowder) look different even though they are both the same rabbit/bear/biped species. The show is just off the wall and brilliant. Unlike some shows that are off the wall, Chowder keeps an internal logic while keeping you guessing what will come next. Also even though it is a kid's show, it has tons of references and jokes for adults while neither talking down to kids nor dirtying the show up. It is the perfect mix that is sadly missing from most animation.

4) Samurai Jack. An great samurai (never actually named though he uses the name Jack after the second episode) is trained to defeat an ancient evil named Aku who was first defeated by Jack's father but has returned. Upon Aku's return, he banishes Jack into the future. There Jack fights Aku's minions and tries to find a way home. The animation is stunning, they take a very obvious method of removing the black outline on figures so they mix right into the background. The sheer creativity of the areas Jack ventures into are phenomenal. There is an episode where Jack fights a ninja in all black, and Jack dons a pure white ninja costume and blends into the light. What follows is a beautiful contrast as black and white clash as they run through the black and white back ground. Samurai Jack is a fun high octane adventure that looks gorgeous and it only lacking a proper conclusion is all that keeps it from being in the top three cartoons of the 2000's.

3) The Boondocks. Take the angriest and most politically aware African American child (Huey) pair him up with the most media saturated of brothers (Riley) add a now very wealthy grandfather (Robert Freeman) and you have the main cast of the Boondocks. This series takes no prisoners just like the comic strip it originated from. It looks at the world, especially the world of the modern African American and yells obscenities at all the things wrong with it. It makes great points about society while also being hilarious. It's kind of like South Park, but with class.

2) Avatar: The Last Airbender. Avatar is an amazing series. It is set in a fantasy world where some people have a special ability to control an element (earth, fire, water, and air), these people are called benders. Every generation there is a single person who is able to control all the elements called the Avatar. The series is about the current Avatar awakened from a 100 years of living frozen in ice and trying to save the world from the fire nation who are working to conquer everything. The series takes some of the best bits of anime and tells an epic story of a small group of kids working to save the world. Nickelodeon allowed the series to have a proper ending after the third season. It was a great series and along with Sponge Bob, helped revitalize Nickelodeon.

1) The Venture Brothers. What can be said about this series? It started off as a spoof of Johnny Quest and then it outgrew that concept an episode or two later. The series follows failed scientist and former boy adventurer, Dr. Rusty Venture and his two sons, Hank and Dean Venture, who are both equally inept and easily attract death. Alongside the Venture family is Brock Samson who is pure bad ass man incarnate with a blond mullet. The Ventures and Brock deal with costumed super villains who are more sad then scary, pulp characters, and much more. The whole series is a mash up of every geek influence that has existed and has built a huge back story and rich world of colorful characters who support the series. Every last character who appears seems to have a rich history and if they recur they actually develop and grow. This is the ideal cartoon and personally my favorite show that has appeared in the last decade.