#Duck in a submarine cartoon series

But the world of animation did offer the Star Trek writers the chance to portray things they could never do on a live-action budget at the time - from three-armed crew members to new and exciting alien worlds. Featuring animation by Filmation, the show didn't typically excel visually - cartoons proved to most definitely not be the final frontier for the Enterprise. Running for two seasons (from 1973 to 1974) on NBC, these Star Trek half-hour adventures are seen by many fans as the lost fourth year of Captain Kirk and crew's legendary five-year mission.

#Duck in a submarine cartoon series

Lots of live-action TV series have gotten cartoons over the years - Gilligan's Island, Happy Days, even The Dukes of Hazzard! - but rarely have such hand-drawn variations been so successful in conveying the spirit of their forbearers. Watching the series as an adult, one can't help but sympathize a little bit with the Smurf-hating Gargamel - the constantly upbeat and overly saccharine attitudes of most of the Smurfs, mixed with whininess and an extreme overuse of the word 'smurf' by everyone, makes you start to root for the poor, bumbling wizard who just wants to make some nice Smurf stew.

The peaceful Smurfs, led by Papa Smurf and predominantly male (with the sole exception of Smurfette), were often chased by the evil wizard Gargamel and his cat Azrael. The animation itself wasn't much to speak of, but the stories told over the course of its 256 episodes were kiddie cocaine to those of us who grew up in the '80s. Based on a Belgian comic strip, the tiny blue-skinned Smurfs became an unstoppable media empire with this popular 1980s Hanna-Barbera animated series.

Like many of the shows represented on our Top 100, The Smurfs is a cartoon we here at IGN grew up with, and as such it holds a special place in our memories. But one of the more notable aspects of the show was the fact that it showed a single dad taking care of his only son while fighting the forces of evil. And since Scott was always upgrading his expensive buddy, he provided plenty of validation for the little boys who would grow up to be today's tech geeks and robot nerds. His son Scott and his friend/pet robot T-Bob provided some comic relief. His pimp ride was a red Chevrolet Camaro G3 that transformed into a gull-winged fighter plane. Matt Trakker was the ruggedly handsome, rich, charismatic lead of the show. The masks provided the ethnically-diverse-yet-stereotypical cast with abilities like anti-gravity, flight, and energy beams. But what really set it apart was the namesake of the show - the super-powered masks the characters wore. Joe- Transformers hybrid, but it managed to combine the best elements of those franchises while adopting few of their flaws. One of the more popular cartoon/toy marketing machines of the Eighties was M.A.S.K., the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand (yes, command with a 'K', that's what happens when you have to make an acronym fit into your story concept). You might just find yourself animated by it. So put away your ink and paint for a while and have a look at this list. From classic tales of cats chasing mice to the legend of a Dark Knight avenger patrolling the streets of a place called Gotham, from incompetent alien invaders to incompetent nuclear families, from stories of the future to sagas of the past, IGN's Top 100 Animated Series has it all. In fact, as we prepped for this story and looked back at our many favorite animated series from over the years, we were amazed by the diversity of the shows that we came up with. And in particular, television has proven to be a hugely important part of our toon-development, starting from our earliest days with the Saturday morning and after-school shows and continuing right on to today with the more mature Adult Swim offerings and the like. And so it goes without saying that we sure do love us some cartoons. Once mostly deemed to be the territory of a kids-only audience, the world of animation has evolved over the years so as to appeal to adults as well as childrenвЂ¦ or is it just that many adults these days have the minds of children?Дon't ask us, for if there's one thing that the IGN editors can claim to be, it's kids trapped in the bodies of adults.