silveradept | December Days 14 - Early Morning Animation

[It's December Days time! There's no overarching theme this year, so if you have ideas of things to write about, I'm more than happy to hear them.]

Gee, Silver, what are we going to write about tonight?

The same thing we do every night, Pinky - trying to influence the world!

I am probably a bit blessed in the realms of animation, as my childhood is sufficiently situated that I get to experience classic Merrie Melodies, the revival of the animated show (sort of - they never really went away, I'm sure), and the mass popularity of anime. So a lot of everything came through at the impressionable age.

Which means when

bethany_lauren asks me what my favorite Saturday morning cartoon is, I'm half tempted to say Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, just to make everyone go "huh?" (And so I can express my annoyance at how my father pointedly pointed out the truth of the PSAs at the end of episodes about the difference between fantasy violence and real violence, as if he were concerned that I might mistake the two, being a child who liked fantastic stories on television and in books.)

Because I cycled through Saturday morning lineups with time and age. X-Men, Carmen Sandiego, getting up earlier to watch Armor Legend Samurai Troopers, or rather, Ronin Warriors, Sonic the Hedgehog (with Urkel as the voice of Sonic, before the expansion of the character rosters), Animaniacs, Batman: The Animated Series, Tiny Toon Adventures, Dexter's Lab, the Powerpuff Girls, and so on. Much of the time spent on the television was in watching what are now clearly the heralds of the return of animation to a spot at the table of being smart ways to do things for adults, with entities like My Little Pony and Steven Universe now at the forefront of the early afternoon and Saturday morning animation blocks. With the boom (and then bust) of anime imported, that meant getting to see Trigun, Evangelion, Escaflowne, R.O.D., a Gundam or two, and so forth, as well as the very lush .hack series and the equally well-animated Last Exile. And to laugh my butt off hysterically at Excel Saga.

So asking what my favorite is is among me to choose one of an entire two decades worth of quality (and eccentric) material that I experienced and absorbed. I don't really have a favorite in that sense, I've that I would return to over and over again.

What one I would recommended to someone new to the animation world and looking for something good to start with? Probably Pinky and the Brain, if for no other reason than Maurice Lamarche doing Orson Welles.