Looking Current or Recent Animated Series Recommendations

Yes, Gargoyles was excellent, a rare attempt by Disney to do a serious action-adventure animated series (though that was a reaction to Batman: The Animated Series's success; the earliest plans were for yet another Disney Afternoon comedy). It had a strong writing staff headed by Greg Weisman and Michael Reaves, terrific animation, and a magnificent cast including Keith David, Salli Richardson, Ed Asner, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, and many more (including many Star Trek cast members from all four then-extant series). It had rich fantasy world-building steeped in world mythology, and a thousand-year epic backstory woven through British (mostly Scottish) history, including a version of King Macbeth who, despite his involvement with magic and time travel, is considerably more historically accurate than Shakespeare's version.

But if you do watch it, skip the final season, The Goliath Chronicles. Aside from its first episode, it was made without Greg Weisman's involvement, and it was dumbed down for Saturday mornings, so Gargoyles fandom considers it non-canonical -- with the canonical version being the comics Weisman did after the series (though those were cancelled after a fairly brief run; they're available as three fairly slim trade paperbacks).

 

Thanks, I'll have to remember that when I do get around to watching it.

 

As mentioned, Green Lantern TAS was really good. Blew me away at how good it was, in fact; I was bummed when it ended. Others:

Transformers Prime
Thundercats (2011?) It's just Ok; worth it for nostalgia alone.
The entire DCAU was brilliant, Justice League, Batman TAS, even Superman TAS had its moments
The Dragon Prince (Netflix)
TMNT (2003) - They hit their peak here. Nothing Turtles has been as good, although I haven't seen Rise of the TMNT yet
DuckTales (2017)

 

Not sure how much one would get out of it they haven't seen the original show it's based on, but Corner Gas Animated is pretty good and stays pretty faithful to the original live-action show. I was very skepitical that an animated show based on that could work, but it effectively treats the show the same way and as such feels more like an extension to the original show.

 

I spent the last week brushing up on recent Scooby Doo shows. I highly recommend

"What's New Scooby Doo?" (2002-2006)
&
"Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated" (2010-2013)

Possibly the best incarnations of the show. Alongside the original 1969-1970. Added bonus: WNSD features Frank Welker and Casey Casem ( the original VAs for Fred and Shaggy) reprise their roles. Welker also took over the role as Scooby as well. He did Dyno-Mutt back in the day too. Mystery Inc has the same voice cast as WNSD but with Matt Lillard ( from the live action Scooby movies) as the new voice of Shaggy.


Other recommendations I can give are:
Thundercats (2011)
Tron Uprising (2012)
TMNT (2003) You can find all 7 seasons on Youtube. Nick only has the first 3 seasons available on iTunes.

 

You mean Frank Welker and Casey Kasem. And Shaggy is played by Matthew Lillard, not Willard.

Frank Welker is, to date, the only actor who's ever played the teenaged Fred Jones in animation; the only other actor to voice the character (other than a singing double in a 2012 direct-to-video movie) was Carl Steven as the pre-teen Fred in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. Fred is thus the only main character in the show whose voice actor has never been permanently replaced. Welker's been doing it on and off for nearly 50 years now, and he still sounds almost exactly the same. It's amazing.

 

Yes, you got it. Damn autocorrect on my phone.

 

I haven't seen either of those, but I have heard good things about Mystery Incorporated.

The only one of those I've seen is the Thundercats reboot. Are the TMNT episodes up legally? As much as possible I stick to watching stuff legally only.

 

The two are quite different. What's New, Scooby-Doo? is a straightforward, basic Scooby-Doo show made by Warner Bros. Animation, adhering to the classic formula but better-made and more modern than the original show, pretty much in the same vein as their DVD movies. Mystery Incorporated is a dark, skewed deconstruction/satire of Scooby-Doo tropes that also manages to be a loving tribute to them at the same time, and it's very funny and bizarre but also gets into some pretty intense horror territory for a kids' show (it actually has a death toll), as well as giving the characters more development, growth, and drama than they usually get. MI is basically Scooby-Doo for people who don't like Scooby-Doo, but it's respectful enough that I think it works for people who do like the original as well.

Oh, if you like Batman: The Brave and the Bold, there's a recent DVD movie in the Scooby-Doo line that resurrects BB&B and crosses its characters over with the Scooby Gang (specifically DC detective characters like Batman, Martian Manhunter, Plastic Man, the Question, and Detective Chimp, who let Mystery Inc. join their crime-solving club). It works pretty well, since BB&B was always a team-up show, and an homage to the charmingly cheesy Batman of the '50s, '60s, and '70s, a period that includes the Batman/Robin guest appearances in The New Scooby-Doo Movies.

 

I remembering hearing about that around the time it was coming out. I'll have to remember to include when I watch TB&TB.

 

The 2K3 TMNT is on youtube. So it's not a pirate site. Nickolodeon bought all TMNT rights back in 2011. However, the 2K3 series only goes up to season 3 out of 7 on iTunes and Amazon. The 1987, 2012 and the 2018 series are available in full for digital. Idk the 2K3 series is only half available.

 

I’d recommend “Wolverine & The X-Men” From 2009 (it really deserved a second season) and the 90’s “X-Men” (along with the 90’s “Spider-Man” which features a 2 episode crossover with the X-Men, plus there are other crossovers with other Marvel characters like Iron Man, Blade and Daredevil).

Also check out the 2008 “Iron Man Armoured Adventures”. Really, out of the 3 late-2000’s Marvel cartoons, Iron Man was the Surprise hit cartoon, and I really wish they had done more than 2 seasons (and it’s to bad that the series wasn’t released on Blu-Ray—-there was a Blu-Ray of the first 6 episodes exclusive to Best Buy, but it the general release was on DVD—-and Season 1 was cropped to 4:3 for some odd reason, but Season 2 was in the proper 16:9; it’s too bad the Season 1 hasn’t been reissued in 16:9).

 

Is it on a official channel for Nickelodeon or one of the production companies? If not then it's probably not up legally. Even though it's not a pirate site, there is still tons, and tons, and tons, of TV shows uploaded onto Youtube illegally.

 

Which, incidentally, is in the same continuity as The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, which premiered the following year.

 

Castlevania on Netflix is a fantastic Gothic Horror series. Familiarity with the video game series is not required.

 

Just to clarify, since @JD specifically asked for western animated series, this is an American-Japanese co-production (with the actual animation probably done in South Korea, anyway), and it is written completely by British writer Warren Ellis. I also feel like "Gothic Horror" is only part of a pretty wild genre mix there, with martial arts action, and weird fantasy all in there.

By the way, has Spectacular Spider-Man been mentioned? It ends on a cliffhanger, but it's still one of the best, if not the best Spider-Man anything ever across media.

 

I watched the first half season or so of Spectacular Spider-Man and I absolutely loved it. Still hope to eventually see the whole thing sometime.
How as Ultimate Spider-Man? It and the old '60 animated series are the only animated Spidey shows I've never seen a whole episode of. I watched part of the first episode of USM back around the time it started, and it seemed like it was pretty good.

 

I wasn't especially fond of USM. It wasn't as good as you'd expect from a show with Paul Dini's involvement. It was a bit too kid-oriented, trying a bit too hard to be hip and cool and silly, and it relied too much on Family Guy-style cutaway gags. The animation also wasn't that great. It had an interestingly different dynamic from other Spidey cartoons in that it focused on Spidey as part of a SHIELD-run team of young heroes including Power Man, Iron Fist, Nova, and White Tiger, with characters like Nick Fury and Agent Coulson (voiced by Clark Gregg) as their mentors. (Fitz and Simmons also appeared, played by the original actors.) And it did have a very effective, creepy version of Doctor Octopus voiced by Tom Kenny. It also had effective turns by Steven Weber as Norman Osborn and Tara Strong as MJ, and had J.K. Simmons reprise J. Jonah Jameson (mainly as a talking head on TV). Still, I lost interest in it after a couple of seasons.

 

“Spectacular Spider-Man” was a piece of garbage. How it even got made is a mystery. The animation was terrible and the stories were weak or terrible copies of classic Spider-Man shows (like “The Alien Costume” arc from the 90’s Spider-Man Show, aside from a scene in Peter’s head, the rest of the SSM version was just a duplicate of the 90’s version, the scenes were blocked out exactly the way they were done in the 90’s). Not recommended.

 

Wow, I couldn't disagree more. I wasn't crazy about the character design style in The Spectacular Spider-Man, but other than that, it was very well-written and well-animated. It was showrun by Greg Weisman of Gargoyles, Young Justice, and Star Wars Rebels, and it was as strong and intricately plotted as his other shows.