Saturday morning cartoons were once a staple of American television, but by the year 2000 they had all but disappeared. Of course, the Internet never forgets. Case in point: Cartoon Network Video -- a free, searchable, ad-supported service that provides hundreds of full-length episodes of classic shows like Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Johnny Bravo, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and The Powerpuff Girls, as well as current offerings and scads of shorter material. Too recent for you? Then give Kids WB Video a whirl -- it does the same thing with the same interface, but for older programs like Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Smurfs, Scooby-Doo, Thundercats, and the original Space Ghost. If you're in the mood to learn (and don't mind some live-action), PBS Kids Video has educational fare such as Arthur, Wishbone, and Zoom. And don't forget about Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, The Magic Schoolbus and Schoolhouse Rock! Now if only we had some Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs...
posted by Rhaomi on Sep 22, 2009 - 160 comments

The complete and until today unaired pilot of South Park for Comedy Central, with an additional creator's commentary track. About 90% was recut into the first episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe," but with a few slightly altered scenes and characters. After gaining underground popularity with two shorts that you've all probably seen already at this point, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were contracted by Comedy Central to produce a full pilot episode for a potential show based on the shorts. This pilot episode is what would ultimately lead to a series that is now 12 years old, spans over 180 episodes, and is one of the most successful shows in the history of cable television both in ratings and revenue. The pilot is also the only episode in the series that, like the original shorts, uses stop-motion animation of paper cutouts instead of computer software.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Aug 14, 2009 - 24 comments

Bolek i Lolek and Reksio are both Polish cartoons with little dialogue and similiar animation style. Both cartoons originated in the 60s (during the Communist era in Poland), and were extremely popular for decades. Due to their general lack of vocalization (except for Bolek i Lolek's later seasons), both cartoons were easy to bring to other markets. Famously, Bolek i Lolek was one of the cartoons broadcast on Iranian television after the 1979 revolution. [more inside]
posted by Askiba on Aug 2, 2009 - 11 comments

Since the mid 1990s, Don Hertzfeldt has been making animated shorts by hand. To date, his 8 primary films have an apprioximate runtime of 75 minutes, and in total have won 117 awards, all shot on 16 or 35 milimeter film. (There is another 8 minutes or so that was part of the Animation Show (previously).) His recent films have been shot on the same camera rig that recorded It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966), as he noted in a 2007 interview (part of a Scene Unseen Podcast (direct link to the MP3)). Hertzfeltd is currently two thirds of the way through his most ambitious project to date, a trilogy of films which have been called "the closest thing on film yet to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey." (Video links inside) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on May 15, 2009 - 31 comments

Like iScribble and Oekaki before it, DoInk.com is a place for people to create collaborative artwork online. The difference? It's for animation. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi on Apr 20, 2009 - 2 comments

Invasion of the Big Robots! Say what you will about the decline of Garfield, but he had his brighter moments, like the time he woke up in the wrong cartoon and had to fight the big robots. Garfield and Friends writer Mark Evanier tells the story behind this budget-busting episode. [Previously] [more inside]
posted by Servo5678 on Jan 29, 2009 - 3 comments

While Adult Swim is generally regarded as the pioneer of irreverent short-form animation -- especially for 'toons that reimagine past hits -- it wasn't always the king. In fact, the late-night programming block arguably found its birth in a series of short toons and interstitials that ran in the heyday of its daytime alter ego, the venerable Cartoon Network. The brainchild of C.N. Creative Director Michael Ouweleen and Hanna-Barbera chief Fred Seibert, these cartoons reinterpreted the network's properties through stock footage, indie music, and original animation in a wide variety of styles, as well as introducing prototypes of characters that would become some of the most famous in the history of American animation. (warning: monster post inside) [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi on Dec 30, 2008 - 80 comments

Relive some of your favorite Seinfeld moments in animated form through Seinimation! Animated by Eric Yahnker, Seinimation is a series of 11 short animated films based on some of Seinfeld's most memorable scenes. My personal favorites are The Big Race, Seinfeld-noir and George & The Whale. The rest of them are inside... [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on Dec 10, 2008 - 12 comments

Toons at War [more inside]
posted by anastasiav on Dec 9, 2008 - 5 comments

YouTubing this clip of Smedley serving Chilly Willy a tall stack of pancakes [More butter? More butter! More syrup? More syrup! Nice? Very nice!] led me to Chilly's Video Den at Chilly Willy's Sub-Arctic World. [Warning: Comic Sans font and a whole cold-butt-load of .wmv's] [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Nov 7, 2008 - 12 comments

Public television viewers from the seventies may remember being hectored and freaked out by anti-pollution animations. Three of the more catchy and memorable Willie Wimple cartoons (don't kill trees, don't litter, don't pollute the water, lyrics) that scared us away from a lifetime of casual littering were actually directed by Academy Award winning animator Abe Levitow -- also co-director of The Phantom Tollbooth (intro, time song) and director of Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol (full movie, songs: we're despicable, all alone in the world) -- as one of his final projects.
posted by jessamyn on Oct 6, 2008 - 22 comments

Branded in the 80's: Peel Here From the obvious to the obscure to the downright frightening, Peel Here documents the collectible stickers of the 80's and related ephemera.
posted by 1f2frfbf on Jun 26, 2008 - 42 comments

Enjoy 10 variously attributed^* vintage Monkey Cartoons and more courtesy STWALLSKULL and BOOM!
Also available for your viewing pleasure, an itemized list with embeddable links: [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Apr 12, 2008 - 3 comments

I'm not a big fan of youtube posts. But without youtube, these two favorites of mine would be lost to obscurity. One from Seymour Kneitel, "La Petite Parade". The other is a Tex Avery, "Symphony in Slang". [more inside]
posted by ObscureReferenceMan on Feb 2, 2008 - 10 comments

The Katzenjammer Kids* are 110 years old this month, the world's longest running comic. Watch 1918's Policy & Pie (pt. 2), rare animation by creator Rudolph Dirks who lost the strip to William Randolph Hearst in a court case. The strip was taken over by Harold H. Knerr, but Dirks retained rights to the characters and produced a rival cartoon under The Captain & the Kids for Pulitzer papers for several decades. Five artists followed Dirks and Knerr creating the strip for Hearst.
posted by madamjujujive on Dec 27, 2007 - 14 comments

Sometimes called "The Ed Wood of Animation", director Sam Singer had an interesting career. He was responsible for some of the most godawful cartoons ever produced, and through his work on 1975's Tubby the Tuba, was present at the birth of Pixar. [more inside]
posted by maryh on Nov 16, 2007 - 43 comments

Evil Bee (embedded QT) is a gorgeous & interesting animated short about a worker bee in a factory who rebels; bonus points for awesome soundtrack by menomena.
posted by jonson on Nov 8, 2007 - 35 comments

The Donald Duck animated short film anthology. Donald Duck's family tree. More Donald Duck family trees. Donald, Donald, Donald. Quack, Quack, Quack.
posted by Effigy2000 on Sep 28, 2007 - 30 comments

Friday Fun Time: Fight sequences are always fun to watch, but even more fun, I've learned, when they're animated. There are some great fights with some great characters like stick figures, monks and even fuzz-ball heads. Even the classic animator vs animation fights are pretty good (volume 1,2).

Look Ma! No YouTube links (thanks to aniBoom and MyTunes)
posted by FeldBum on Sep 7, 2007 - 7 comments

The New Yorker now has animated cartoons. Animating by Ring Tales.
posted by nickyskye on Aug 17, 2007 - 31 comments

The author of this site takes screen-shots from long-pan scenes of classic animation and puts them together to re-create the original larger background images. Much cooler than it sounds, honest. [via MeFi's own kokogiak, sort of]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken on Aug 10, 2007 - 47 comments

1, 2, 3,4, 5,6,7, 8, 9,10, 11,12! Classic Sesame Street taught us Counting and other important stuff.
posted by louche mustachio on Jun 15, 2007 - 50 comments

Wicked Crispy is the personal site of artist & animator Jeff Victor, who draws Star Wars characters (among other things) in adorable bobblehead style. Found via Drawn.
posted by jonson on Jun 7, 2007 - 6 comments

Selected Cartoon Introductions from the 1980s [YouTube]
posted by BeerFilter on Apr 29, 2007 - 69 comments

Get lost in the fabulous labyrinth of Coconino World, a mammoth French site with thousands of images from illustrators, graphic artists, and cartoonists ranging from the classics to the contemporary. Some personal favorites: the generous selection of graphics from Simplicissimus, the celebrated German satire magazine published weekly from 1896-1944. James Swinerton's Canyon Kiddies. George Herriman's Krazy Kat. -more-
posted by madamjujujive on Apr 15, 2007 - 9 comments

There is a bear in the woods. Some people say he is adorabley blotto. Some people say he is a ponderous Pooh. Still others say he is as cute as a bug's bottom. Since nobody really knows for sure, isn't smart to be smarter than the average bear? If there is a bear? YouTubery Ahoy
posted by maryh on Mar 10, 2007 - 17 comments

Somewhere deep inside a fractal.... Bizarre, nonlogical, glitchy cartoons that are "not ashamed of coming out of a computer." Satire? Or serious attempt to point animators away from "cushioned, balletic movements" and traditional stories, and towards "an aesthetic which adopts the native idiosyncrasies and flaws of the software in which it was born"? (Note: the 'PLEASE DO NOT WATCH THESE CARTOONS IF YOU SUFFER FROM PHOTOSENSITIVE EPILEPSY' applies mainly to the flashing intros, forward through the first 25 seconds in each cartoon and there's other stuff.) [via]
posted by mediareport on Mar 1, 2007 - 22 comments

Robert "Bobe" Cannon's 1951 Oscar-winning animated short "Gerald McBoing Boing" (u2b), is an early example of a modernist animation style (previously) experimented by UPA studios in an attempt to counteract the mounting realism of Disney cartoons. (The 2005 series it inspired is currently re-running on Boomerang.)

On another note entirely, Theodor "Seuss" Geisel's character Gerald is considered one of a number of celebrities with autism.
posted by progosk on Feb 24, 2007 - 43 comments

Adventure Time is an awesome animated short by Pendleton Ward, who also has a site with some cartoons, animation, comics, and a blog.
posted by dobbs on Feb 8, 2007 - 20 comments

Aniboom bills itself as "the home of animation," a place to discover new up & coming artists online. Towards that end, they've sponsored a $50,000 competition for the best animation across five categories. The field has been narrowed to 25 finalists, and all 25 entries are online for viewing/voting here.
posted by jonson on Jan 22, 2007 - 11 comments

The 50 Greatest Cartoons Ever: the List - including links to the full-length videos of the corresponding toons on YouTube and Google, etc. Based on a twelve year-old-vote by the animation industry, which explains why there are no appearances by Cartman, Bart, or Fry.
posted by tsarfan on Dec 21, 2006 - 71 comments

The last of the great animation directors has died. Joe Barbera was half of the Hanna-Barbera duo that created the Oscar-winning Tom and Jerry cartoons for MGM. When that studio closed, they learned how to do cartoons for television on a much smaller budget, and gave us so many memorable characters. Mark Evanier worked for Barbera, and is sharing his memories on his always excellent blog.
posted by evilcolonel on Dec 18, 2006 - 77 comments

Friz-Freleng-For-All About thirty blogs paid tribute this past Monday to the renowned animator, keeper of pigs, tweety-bird-hungry cats and panthers, and model for the roughest, toughest hombre that ever locked horns with a rabbit. Happy 100th birthday, Friz!
posted by LinusMines on Aug 23, 2006 - 5 comments

Japanese animation from 1933. A bizarre Max Fleischer-inspired 11-minute cartoon about some critters from traditional Japanese folklore, complete with a soundtrack of traditional Japanese music. [youtubefilter]
posted by a louis wain cat on Jul 24, 2006 - 12 comments

The Do-It-Yourself Cartoon Kit - a 1961 instructional clip from 85-year old master animator Bob Godfrey, also known for such classic works as Instant Sex, Henry's Cat, and Roobarb. (alert: some links to YouTube)
posted by madamjujujive on Jul 11, 2006 - 7 comments

Always Help a Bird (1965); Sleeping Beauty (1959); Rooty Toot Toot (1952); and even more modern design cartoon and animation treasures from author Amid Amidi's blog Cartoon Modern. Look for the book to be out in August.
posted by soiled cowboy on May 8, 2006 - 11 comments

Advanced Animation by Preston Blair, "the best 'how to' book on cartoon animation ever published." Blair, a Disney and MGM animator, put the book together in 1947 to illustrate the various basic principles of animation, only to have the book pulled from shelves after the rights to use some of the characters were revoked. Animation historian Jerry Beck has been hunting for a first edition of Blair's landmark book for many years. He finally found a copy and is sharing high-quality scans on the Animation Archive. (Archive previously linked in this thread; discovered via this thread.)
posted by soiled cowboy on May 7, 2006 - 11 comments

I Like Pandas (flash), by Spümcø animator Jessica Borutski, from the Nicktoons Animation Festival (flash again), which is currently accepting submissions. Music by Plone. Not that Plone.
posted by ulotrichous on May 6, 2006 - 25 comments

Real-life recreation of The Simpsons opening. (YouTube link)
posted by Robot Johnny on Mar 4, 2006 - 80 comments

John Kricfalusi GHOFB -- "I make cartoons and play in a band. I like playing in a band because it's actually fun and no one tells you to be lousy on purpose."
posted by LinusMines on Feb 19, 2006 - 30 comments

Dec. 9, 1965: "Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?" [Realmedia] [More inside]
posted by ScottMorris on Dec 9, 2005 - 29 comments

Froghat Studios The illustration, animation, and design of Chris Appelhans. Don't miss his comic, Frank and Frank, or the Superman animated short.
posted by BuddhaInABucket on Nov 29, 2005 - 10 comments

Felix the Cat set the standard for animated character design with his rubber-limbs and blackface, predating Mickey by nearly a decade. Since he doesn't get nearly the exposure of Mickey, we're lucky there's sites that make at least a sampling of his cartoons freely available.
posted by ScottMorris on Nov 16, 2005 - 21 comments

Hey, kids, let's watch a cartoon! May I present The Ship That Never Came In by Kim Deitch, comix genius. It's a piece with his magnum opus Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Both, as Time magazine's comix critic Andrew Arnold notes, focuses on Ted Mishkin, a talented animator whose gifts can never quite overcome his curse. His curse is Waldo, a mischievous cat who walks on his hind legs. Waldo may be a delusion or he may be real, but only Ted can see him. Wotta concept!  More inside ? Fuckin' A !
posted by y2karl on Oct 15, 2005 - 15 comments

How Bob the Tomato got squashed by Barney the Dinosaur
Phil Vischer, creator of those Veggie-Tales cartoons gives a reflective account of why he did not become "The Christian Disney". So why did Big Idea Productions fail while other "Holy Cultural Warriors" are thriving? (Maybe this guy was too sincerely Christian?)
A shorter version of this Tale from "Christianity Today" magazine here.
via the spiritual center of animation on the web: Cartoon Brew
posted by wendell on Apr 30, 2005 - 21 comments

Spongebob is pointed at as causing moral decay today. But the idea of blaming animated characters for societal ills is nothing new. The 1934 Production Code changed the scantily-clad Betty Boop into a wholesome girl. Racial stereotyping dominated cartoons of the 1940s. The Flintstones even shilled for Winston cigarettes. Should cartoon characters reflect the morals of cartoon watchers?
posted by u.n. owen on Jan 28, 2005 - 30 comments

MGM animator Irv Spence's cartoon diary for 1944. A cartoon of the day's happenings for every day in 1944 -- reprinted daily thoughout 2005. "These images are scanned from xeroxes an incalculable number of generations removed from the originals. Apparently, no amount of shoddy reproduction can suck the life out of these drawings..."
posted by Robot Johnny on Jan 12, 2005 - 6 comments

The Warner Bros. Cartoons Filmography And Title Card Gallery has more title cards and coloured rings than you can shake a carrot at. A great resource that goes hand-in-hand with this and this for all your Looney Tunes-related research.
posted by Robot Johnny on Nov 29, 2004 - 10 comments

Go Team Venture! The official Venture Bros. website is now up (though slightly incomplete). While you're waiting, download Brock's workout song, read interviews with the creators or make your own Super Secret Agent license.
posted by drezdn on Nov 4, 2004 - 20 comments

Toon Tracker: Home of the Lost Cartoons
posted by anastasiav on Dec 12, 2003 - 8 comments