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Buzz Lightyear of Star Command
IMDb; Toonarific; TV Tome

Reruns on Toon Disney.
Follows the video Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (IMDb; Movie Tome). This show is very very funny and cool. Um, what to say? Buzz, Booster, Mira, and XR are Space Rangers and fight Evil Emperor Zurg and other villains. It's funny. There's adventure. There's... a rocket called 42. There's Little Green Men. Whattaya want? It's cool! I don't know what to say about it, but I really like this show, okay? And... eh, I guess we kinda like Mira. But then, we have a bit of a thing for Nicole Sullivan anyway, don't we? Speaking of voice talent, the whole damn cast is pretty cool, familiar from other things. Especially Patrick Warburton as Buzz and Stephen Furst as Booster.

Cartoon Planet, TBS/Cartoon Network
IMDb; Toonarific; TV.com; Wikipedia

Reruns on Cartoon Network, Sundays at 5:30am.
This was created after Space Ghost: Coast to Coast (cartoons 1) became a big hit. It featured Space Ghost and Zorak, but instead of Moltar, the third guy on the show was Brak, who's really stupid in an incredibly hilarious and endearing way. You've gotta love Brak! This show was totally insane and crazy and hilarious and cool and I miss it and if I had me a destructo ray I'd use it on whoever cancelled this show. There is no way to describe this show, you just have to watch it to understand it, and even that probably won't help much. With understanding it. But who cares? It's so damn much fun!

Clerks, ABC
IMDb; Toonarific; TV Tome

This show was based on the live-action movie of the same name (IMDb; Movie Tome). In fact the original actors provided the voices, and it was of course made by writer/director Kevin Smith. Only 2 episodes ever aired on ABC, but Comedy Central reruns them, and anyway, you can get all of them on DVD. Which is just one of many reasons I wish I had or could afford a DVD player. Anyway, the movie and the series are about these clerks named Dante and Randal. Dante's a kind of serious guy who wants to do his job. Randal's sort of this smart-aleck slacker who doesn't take his job or much of anything else seriously, and tends to get Dante into trouble. The other two major characters are Jay and Silent Bob. Anyway, it's an extremely funny show, oh yes, very very funny and stuff. I dunno what else to say, except that Kevin Smith has made several other live-action movies with Jay & Silent Bob....

Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, Comedy Central
IMDb; Toonarific; TV Tome

This was a really good show, but I never saw as much of it as I should have. Or something. But it really was very clever. And it spawned the whole creative style of "squiggle-vision" animation. Anyway, comedian Jonathan Katz played Dr. Katz, who was... um, a therapist, or whatever. And he was divorced I guess and had an adult son who lived with him, named Benny, played by H. Jon Benjamin. He had a receptionist named Laura who was kind of rude and lazy and not real interested in her job, or anything. But she was cool. I liked her. They were all funny. He also had a couple friends he talked to at a bar sometimes, named Stan and Julie. Julie was the bartender. Um, and each week there'd be different celebrities, mainly comedians and some actors, who visited Dr. Katz in his professional capacity. They were generally pretty funny, too. One of my favorites was Emo Philips. Anyway, it was really a very cool show and I wish they'd rerun it sometime....

The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Cartoon Network, Sundays 11:30am
Cartoon Network; IMDb; TELETOON; Toonarific; TV.com; Voice Chasers; Wikipedia

Juniper Lee is an 11-year-old Chinese-American girl with magic powers (mostly super strength, though she has access to magical items and so forth), who lives in Orchid Bay City (which is supposed to be something like San Francisco). Her destiny is to serve as the world's Te Xuan Ze (Protector), as her family has done for generations before her. She needs to maintain the balance between the hidden magical world, and humanity. Mostly this seems to mean kicking alot of monster butt. Anyway, most people can't see or hear magical creatures, and June is forbidden to tell anyone about what she does. So even her friends think she's weird, as she often appears to be talking to herself, and also doesn't get to do alot of normal things, like spending time with her friends. This bugs her alot. She doesn't seem to see how amazing her job is, she totally plays it off all sarcastic-like.

On the other hand, her little brother Ray Ray thinks it's totally cool, and he's always tagging along and getting into trouble. June also has a pug dog named Monroe, who she and Ray Ray can understand when he talks (in a Scottish accent), though everyone else just hears barking. He's been a companion to generations of Protectors, so he knows alot about the magical world, but he's pretty grumpy and doesn't really seem to want anything other than to be left alone. Another person from whom June can seek advice is her grandmother, Jasmine (who June and Ray Ray call Ah-Mah), who was Protector before her. People who don't know about magic and June's involvement with it include her older brother, Dennis; her best friend, Jody; another friend named Ophelia (who, as she seems sort of goth, I automatically like); a friend named Roger, who tries to be cool but is mostly just annoying; and another friend named Marcus (on whom June has a crush).

I'm rather enjoying the series, because it's funnier and more smartly written than alot of cartoons aimed at this age group. It has some simple jokes, though even something as tired as "why are you hitting yourself?" seems relatively fresh and amusing here. More importantly, alot of the jokes and references characters make are more mature (read: clever), and some will probably go over the heads of alot of the kids watching the show. There's also alot of sarcasm, which, again, is pulled off alot better than sarcasm often is on kids' shows like this. In fact, better than in alot of any kind of shows. ...Before I watched it, I feared it'd be too much like American Dragon: Jake Long (a similarly themed cartoon which I only marginally enjoy, see cartoons 6), but it's actually rather more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (one of my favorite shows of all times), to an extent. I really think this cartoon could appeal to lots of people, of any age.

South Park, Comedy Central, Wednesdays 10pm
IMDb; TV Tome

Also reruns frequently on Comedy Central.
I don't always like this show. Sometimes I think it sucks, but other times it's bloody brilliant. Anyway, there are four young boys who for a few seasons are in 3rd grade, and in later seasons are in 4th grade. Stan and Kyle are just these guys, you know? But Cartman is pure evil, and the funniest one of them. And Kenny's funny, even though you can't really make out anything he says. He dies every episode, except in later seasons where he's already dead and was replaced by Butters (a very easily manipulated nice guy/loser who's really messed up). Except then after awhile the other guys fired Butters and replaced him with Tweek (who's a total spazz because his parents make him drink so much coffee). Then Butters became Professor Chaos, a supervillain. Oh, but eventually Kenny came back. Anyway, as for adults... there's Chef (played by Isaac Hayes), who works at the school and is a friend of the children; he's probably the only really sane, intelligent adult in town. All the parents are way screwed up and moronic, as are the teachers and pretty much everyone in town. In fact, the whole show is really stupid and disgusting and horrible and no one should watch it. Except that it's often too funny for words and maybe sometimes even has a kind of social message buried in there somewhere. But mainly it's disgusting and disturbing and just plain wrong. So watch it!
See also the movie South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (IMDb; Movie Tome)

Teen Titans, Cartoon Network
Absolute Anime; Cartoon Network; IMDb; Toonami UK; Toonarific; TV.com; Wikipedia; YTV

It doesn't seem to be related to other recent DC cartoons (Batman, Superman, Justice League, etc.) Which is kind of good in a way; being a stand-alone series means it can do its own thing without worrying about anything that's been established by those series. Of course, it's also more... well, cartoony (and very much anime-influenced), than those shows. Which isn't a bad thing, either. It gives it a chance to be a fun show, not too serious, more silly. Still, the early plots are sometimes a bit cliched, if generally entertaining enough. But it gets better as the series progresses. There are some very serious storylines that develop....

Anyway, the show's about this group of teenage superheroes who live together in a T-shaped tower. They include the leader, Robin, who is supposed to be Batman's sidekick, though I doubt we'll ever see Batman in this series at all. But Robin's the only character I'm really familiar with in the show. There are also Starfire and Raven (both of whom we like), plus Beast Boy and Cyborg. Of course the heroes battle different villains each week, but the pilot introduced the mysterious Slade as the major recurring villain.

Robin gets pretty obsessed with stopping him, while Slade would like to turn Robin to his side. Later, a character named Terra is introduced. Beast Boy has a crush on her, and she's eventually invited to join the Titans. However, it turns out she's working for Slade. Eventually Slade and Terra are both defeated, but things sometimes happen to make it seem Slade may return. And indeed he does, as part of a storyline about Raven's destiny, which involves the end of the world....

Dunno what else to say right now, except that the theme song is performed by popular J-pop duo Puffy AmiYumi, which I think is pretty cool... Some weeks they sing it in English, some weeks in (mostly) Japanese. And as a special service to any of you out there who, like me, always found it a bit unfair that every Titan except Cyborg gets a number at the end of the theme song ("one, two, three, four, go!"), let me share this little epiphany I had one day: "go" is Japanese for "five." Oh, and btw, you should totally try Teen Titans Hero Pops, cuz they're like some of the best popsicles ever, seriously. Oh, and see also the TV movie Trouble in Tokyo (cartoon specials).