Aqua Teen Hunger Force
Two idiots and a genius: sentient fast food in a house where nothing is ever explained. Mreeder and McMathan's masterpiece of commitment to nonsense. 143 episodes on Max.
Genre Animation
Space Ghost Coast to Coast
The zombie talk show that invented Adult Swim: a murderer hosts, a bird in a jar resents him, real celebrities never recover. 112 episodes on Max. The grammar of surreal TV starts here.
Fantastic Four (1967)
The first animated Marvel team: 20 episodes, recycled Dracula cels, the Gee jingle. A museum exhibit that occasionally smiles. Grade it as an artifact.
Fantastic Four (1994)
The Galactus Saga on a cereal budget: Surfer's defection played straight, Doom as a Cold War thriller, 26 episodes of the best First Family hour ever filmed. Disney+.
Defenders of the Earth
Newspaper strips go to war: The Phantom, Mandrake, Lothar, and the Junior Defenders vs. the floating brain Mindball. 65 episodes, vault locked, a funnies page curio.
Thundarr the Barbarian
Sabre and sorcery on a broken Earth with a writers' room of Kirby, Gerber, and Ellison. 21 episodes of broken sun America. Shout Factory Blu-ray is the only real way in.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Noelle Stevenson's five season Netflix run: starts as a toy commercial rewrite, ends as a war epic about propaganda and defection. The best adapted villain romance in animation.
She-Ra: Princess of Power
The original Etheria: Adora's double life in the Horde, Catra, Hordak, and 93 episodes of Filmation rebellion. The appetizer to the 2018 remake.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983)
130 episodes of Filmation muscle magic: Skeletor, Sorceress, Orko, and the most famous sword raising in cartoon history. The complete Eternia shelf, graded honestly.
gen:LOCK
Rooster Teeth's mecha war: buffered pilots, dead recruits who come back, occupation politics with a thesis. 16 episodes on HBO Max. Underrated, full stop.