Intelligent Recent Cartoons

Rick & Morty?

I don't know, you should have gone with Cartoons you enjoyed because saying that you want only intelligent ones is up to debate. For example, Phineas and Ferb must have been dumbed down in translation because I always and still am seeing it as a kid show that I couldn't enjoy.

I have a liking for Rick and Morty. I didn't care much for its initial advertisement before it debuted. But I got hooked when I decided 'why not'.

Another I enjoy is Venture Brothers. They take their time with production but it has a good end result. It kinda makes fun of the 60's and 70's cartoons while having its own integrity.

For an early 90's cartoon, The Maxx was cool. It was heavy on psychology for the plot. And only for one season. Short and sweet.

The lack of Adventure Time here is a sin.

It's brimming with underlying jokes, dark themes, and complex humor. I'd probably consider it the best Western made cartoon since Thundercats.

The Misadventures of Flapjack and Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends were also both really great. Too many people never gave them a shot.

It's taken waaaay too long for a Greg Weisman show to get mentioned in a thread about smart cartoons that have been made after the 90's.

First, I'd like to fanboy gush over Spectacular Spider-Man. It's mostly lighthearted fun, I like the way they handled character relationships, and Peter Parker/Spider-Man was portrayed as more than someone who spewed jokes or moped around about everything. He tried to live up to his responsibilities and look after people in his life. The smart/mature moments that stick out to me include the end of the first arc with The Lizard, Electro trying to adapt to life with his new suit after getting in an accident, Sandman getting the "big score" he wanted, the payoff of the "Gangland" episode, and a long-term plot twist I felt was on-par with the one from KOTOR and picked up even more clues than the show itself pointed out the second time I watched it. If only it lasted more than two seasons...



Second, is Young Justice (and its second season, Young Justice: Invasion). It's a show about the teen sidekicks in the DC Universe forming their own superhero team. It's a smart with a long-term story plotted out, has clever solutions to fights that involve more than just punching bad guys, and there's an emphasis on character relationships. I felt there were a few missteps in season 2, but overall, I enjoyed the whole thing. If you're intimidated from watching it because you're not familiar with the DC universe, don't be. It felt like it was written as if it's someone's first experience with DC, tells viewers everything they need to know, and acts as a good "who's who?" to a large amount of characters. The show is currently on Netflix and there's hope/speculation that it'll get a third season if enough people watch it.

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I'd also like to mention Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the CGI one). I feel this series redeems the whole prequel era of Star Wars. It has its ups and downs, the movie that acted as the premiere was terrible, and first season was kinda weak, but when it gets good, it's really, really good and features a lot of my favorite Star Wars moments. Ashoka Tano went from being one of my least favorite characters to one of the best, the Clone Troopers are great and the episodes focusing on them tend to be my favorite, and Anakin Skywalker is fleshed out in a way the prequel movies never got to and I had an easier time believing he could turn to the dark side and become Darth Vader. All the finished episodes are available Netflix and blu-ray/DVD (including the sixth season of unaired episodes), but there's also some unfinished episodes available in unfinished/rough cut form on the Star Wars website.



I'm also surprised no one's mentioned Gravity Falls. The show focuses on a pair of twins spending summer with their great-uncle, "Grunkle Stan," who runs a tourist trap in a small town. It's a comedic kid-friendly horror/mystery show from Disney with enough of a punch/darkness towards villains and situations to feel like a threat, raise stakes, and make older audiences go "whoa, that's messed up." This is also the show the "Lammy Lammy dance" song I asked XombieMike to sing on the BCB is from. There's an over-arching mystery to the show that fans solved in advance by finding clues and it had a definite ending, and for these reasons alone I would recommend against googling or discussing the show until you finishing watching it since spoilers are easy to come across. It's not on Netflix, but both seasons are available digitally on Amazon.

Other shows I've watched and I feel qualify as smart/mature, but don't feel like typing up paragraphs on right now:
-Bojack Horseman (Netflix exclusive)
-Star Wars: Clone Wars (The original series of 2D shorts from Genndy Tartakovsky). It is available on youtube and Lucasfilm is not taking any action towards pulling it down.
-Justice League and Justice League: Unlimited
-Avatar: The Last Airbender
-Avatar: The Legend of Korra
-Green Lantern: The Animated Series

Well, the original post was kinda vague and Jeff mentioned he was looking for stuff from after the 90's, but I don't see why older and finished shows that aren't currently airing should be excluded. Sometimes there's older shows that have been overlooked. There's also how the term "recent" can mean different things to different people; sometimes it means "within a year", and once I once took a media studies course where it meant "anything in the last 50 years."

Speaking of which, I feel Freakazoid has been criminally overlooked by modern audiences and it's more relevant now than it was when it first aired. It's like the character was Deadpool before Deadpool became what he is today.



There's also Batman: The Animated Series. Lots of people view it as a precursor to the whole idea of smart western cartoons that don't talk down to kids (even though there's a handful of episodes that aren't that great and are actually kinda dumb). I don't think any of the shows mentioned so far would've been possible without it.

I have watched very few cartoons within the last several years but one that has really grabbed my attention is Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir. It's a bit formulaic but it's corny in a good way and I really like it. I just need to be patient and wait for more episodes to get their English dubs (the show has been broadcasted in several languages, including Korean and French).

Thanks for the suggestion, it's cute. a great take on the "magical girl" genre. but yes it is very formulaic and very out of order lol they put the origin story as the last 2 episodes of the first season.