Robotech. I still have the two disc set, and still play it often. There are some bombs in there, sure, but there's a ton of good vocal and musical cues that really set it apart.
The original Jonny Quest theme blows them all out of the water. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV_-u9sxYZM
Currently, the score from Avatar: The Last Airbender never ceases to stir me. Brilliant little show, a nice depth of writing, impressive youth-vocal-cast and great music. Hugo - Patiently waiting for more...
I gotta go with "Batman: The Animated Series" - some fabulous stuff in there. So many great themes... Also "The Simpsons". And I watched something last night with my roommate called "Inuyasha" that had some interesting music in it. Some of the cues were quite good and kinda reminded me of classic Trek. Some of it was plain bizarre and totally out of place, though. Bright happy music during a scene where people were sad and crying. Made no sense.
I'll agree on Stalling, for the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons of the period from 1936-1958, and for his Disney work pre-1936. His stuff is simply brilliant. Franklyn (who came in as orchestrator in 1950 and carried on as WB composer after Stalling's retirement) was good, learned well from his association with Stalling, and was better than nearly anyone else at doing cartoon music, but I don't think I'd put him in the same league as Stalling. No one is.
Oh yeah, The Real Ghostbusters. That was one of about a million animated shows that Shuki Levy & Haim Saban scored in the '80s (before Saban founded his own production company), but it stood out from the rest of their corpus of work. There was some really great stuff there in an eclectic variety of styles, from straight action music to jazz to rock to Dixieland to whatever. Although the later seasons switched to different composers, as well as being inferior in writing.
Jonny Quest has great music! and not just the theme. the only thing that bothered me was the title.....how important of a character is Jonny really? he usually doesn't even do anything most of the time. Race Bannon and Dr. Quest are the stars of the show.
Speaking of Shuki Levy & Haim Saban, they made the music score for The Mysterious Cities of Gold and it's been reported to have more or less 50 themes. The whole thing is awesome. I'm also very fond of the music from Captain Herlock's Space Odyssey and Space Adventure Cobra.
I prefer Homer Simpson's version: Homer! Homer Simpson! He's the greatest guy in history. From the town of Springfield - He's about to hit a chestnut tree!
Yeah, Simpsons was good. And I meant to mention Real Ghostbusters earlier, but forgot again (hangs head in shame ). It's been really nice to find eps on YouTube, and be reminded of the good old days.
Generally speaking, you can't beat the Warner Brothers' classic cartoons music. Not just the classical adaptations [I was at the Bolshoi in Moscow seeing "Barber of Seville" and people behind me were talking about Bugs Bunny. I'll confess, that Bugs was first in my thoughts too.] but the use of popular music. If you don't recognize the melody of "I've Got Plenty of Money, and You," you miss out on a lot of jokes. The Simpsons' theme is an excellent, classic cartoon theme. It's great.
Is that meant to be a sort of portmanteau of "I Got Plenty of Nothing," "We're In the Money," and "A Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich, and You"?