Okay, so I did in fact hint that I'm going to be doing a few posts in the coming blogposts on animation.... so, okay, here's what that's about, some of you might remember last year, when I participated in Geekcast Radio Network's Poll of the Top 100 Television Shows of All-Time, and for those who do, I decided to post my ballot to their poll on here; you can see five the five blogposts I devoted to that above under "TOP TENS". Now, I had a lot of fun doing that, and they seem to really respect and consider my opinion, despite the fact that some of them completely misunderstood the whole point of "Scrubs", but what are you gonna do? Now, they do these lists, somewhat periodically; I participated in another one, a little more under the radar about video game franchises, which I did not reveal my ballot for, 'cause frankly, it wasn't really a well-thought-out and knowledgeable list; I'm really not a video game expert, so.... Anyway, that was a relatively minor list, this year they're doing another subject for their Annual Top 100 Lists and they invited me to participate again, and again I've obliged, and later this month, they'll be counting down their list of the TOP 100 ANIMATED CHARACTERS!
So, very quietly, although I've made an occasional hint or two that I've been working on this, in my rare spouts of free time, for the last three or four weeks or so, I've been putting together my ballot of the TOP 100 ANIMATED CHARACTERS, and just like before with my Television Shows Ballot, I decided to also, after all the ballots were submitted and in the process of being counted of course, with the blessing of the folks at, "The GCRN", to reveal my ballot, here.
No, I will reiterate, this is MY BALLOT, and MY BALLOT ONLY! As of today, I have no idea of the actual results; I'm not privy to the counting process, however you can check back on their Facebook Page, their Twitter and on their website, each of which, the links to are below:
https://www.facebook.com/GeekCastRadioNetwork/
https://twitter.com/GeekCastRadio
http://www.geekcastradio.com/
And I'll be posting more links to them on both my Facebook pages and Twitter, and here as well also, when they start the countdown and reveal the final results, and giving you links to those podcasts as well, and check them out, they do plenty of other stuff that I've sure many of you would be interested in, And I'm very honored and happy in this latest large endeavor for them.
That said, before I begin to reveal my ballot, (And I'm not doing five different posts this time, there will be this one, andone two more on this. as fun as TV blogs were, that was exhausting and time-consuming to do.) I gotta talk about the process of making this list for me, cause...- well, a lot of you are probably aware, that while I do often admonish obsessive list-making, you all know I say that, 'cause of experience, and I've made, a lot, of lists over the years, tons, I-, they didn't have Letterboxd yet, when I was making my list of every movie I've seen, (Which I still keep and have published here twice) but even considering all that, this was by far, the toughest list I've ever had to make.
By far, this took forever! I'm not kidding when I say, literally every spare free time I had, and I didn't exactly have much of that to begin with. I've actually got multiple projects going on that I'm quite busy with, and this was disheartening at times. Just trying to compare, character from films to TV shows, well, not even that, I had to go through and check every animated feature I've seen, and then go back and remember ever animated television show I've seen, every animated short film I've seen, and I'm seeking out "characters" as well, and-, there was just a whole lot of levels; I spent half the time, after I successfully collected about 300 or so characters that I seriously considered to some extent, just trying to figure out how to organize these characters, much less rank them!
Which is a whole other layer of worms, 'cause it' a little subjective here, the Top Animated "Characters"? This is a wide open thing to begin with, but now I'm thinking about how to judge these characters? Is it just complexity, is it importance, is it the quality of the things they were in. I mean, a TV show characters that's been on for 20+ years, is gonna naturally have more development than any character from just a 90 minute movie, I-, this was hard. Normally I have a generally good idea when it comes to these lists, where I suspect who will be on it, and where they'll probably be ranked, and just sorta estimate, but this list...-, this list, was really just digging into each character I could think of any trying to figure out how to analyze their character.
Basically I finally organized the characters into three groups, a group that was just primarily known for feature films we'll that GROUP A, a group primarily known for being on animated shorts on TV , a group of characters from feature films, GROUP B, and then, I had a third categories, GROUP C, which was just for shows and franchises that had multiple characters to consider seriously, in this case, I think I used five characters as the minimum to be in this section, and I ended up with. (1,2,3,4...) 14 different shows/collections where I considered a minimum of five characters for this list. Minimum, there's a few and I'm sure if you take a guess and can name them, where I seriously consider well over 2 and 3x that many characters for this list.
And it doesn't help that there actually is a l-ah-t, of great animated characters. There were so many characters I was shocked that they didn't make my final ballot, and plenty more I would've liked to have seen on my ballot, that I think it's worth bringing up, and since I'm sure I'm gonna get shit on for not including some of them anyway, and not even getting to the point of considering some others, I thought I'd go through a brief list of SPECIAL/HONORABLE MENTIONS, and others who did not make the ballot for one reason or another and why, and also, because it's also a cool backdoor way to talk about a few characters I won't get the chance to on the ballot, and also because it's a cool different way to go through some of the things I considered and didn't for this list.
So before I even get to revealing my ballot, let's take a look at some honorable mentions. I'm not doing this in any particular order, so for convenience, let's start with GROUP B, characters from Animated Shorts and Television Series that didn't make the list.
HONORABLE/SPECIAL MENTIONS-Shorts and TV Series
ERIC T. DUCKMAN
Does anybody remember "Duckman" other than me? It was big for awhile in the '90s. He was on the list 'til the very last second; I highly recommend looking that show up; he's was a pretty unique and unusual character for his time.
FELIX THE CAT
In terms of my animation knowledge, I do go back to the early beginnings of cinema, which actually had a lot more animation than people realize, but not a lot of quintessentially recognizable characters, until Felix the Cat came around. I guess, I could've found a spot for him out of importance and obligation, but, even though he did survive well into the 20th Century in some form, eh, it's a 100 years or so later and there's been a 100 years or so of great cartoon characters; he kinda fell off the list for me.
TOPCAT
(Starts singing theme songs) "Topcat,the most effectual, Topcat who's intellectual..." um, I honestly have not seen enough Topcat to seriously consider him, although what I have seen I liked; but he's just somebody who I didn't grow up with, and that's a shame, 'cause his show was actually based on one of the great TV sitcoms of all-time, "The Phil Silvers Show", and even with what little I have seen, he still was pretty heavily considered but..... There's a few characters out there, that I kinda missed completely, eh, the biggest one I can think of, especially from those older television kids shows was Underdog; I suspect, but-eh, I missed him completely too. If there's someone on the list that I missed, I only considered characters who I had actually seen, so I saw a little Topcat, but he's still the representative of ones I probably just missed completely. Speaking of cartoons based off of old sitcoms.
INSPECTOR GADGET
Oh, another great theme song. (Sings) "Inspector Gadget, do-be do-be do, de-dooo!) Eh, it pains me that I didn't find room for anybody from "Inspector Gadget". (Penny Gadget also came close to making the ballot) I think I was the only kid my age who really knew "Get Smart" at four or five years old and got what this was a reference too and enjoyed it on multiple levels. It doesn't necessarily, entirely hold up now, but it's still got some amazing moments and episodes, and yeah, one of the best young secret sleuths of television was Penny Gadget. Great show.
BENDER BENDING RODRIGUEZ
Okay, I'm gonna get shit for this one, and until I finished the list, I honestly did think I'd find room, at least for Bender, but I don't have a single character from "Futurama" on this list. I do like and admire "Futurama" a lot, I watched it constantly; it's always made me laugh, but I've always found myself a bit removed from it, and it wasn't until I did this list did I realize what the actual problem is; that, there aren't a lot of good characters on the show! No, I'm deadly serious, and I'm standing by this, Bender is by far the best, but go through them, what's so interesting about Fry? He's a bit dim, and he accidentally traveled to the future, that's it; things happens to him as much if not more than things he does. Leela, she's a good-looking cyclops and I guess her character is a little bit reminiscent of Kristen Johnson's from "3rd Rock from the Sun", but is she anything other than a romantic foil? I never thought so. There's the old scientist guy, who's name I can't remember, all of a sudden, um, huh. He's interesting in theory but in practice, he's more or less a big exposition machine who runs a delivery company, and there's-um, um,... I can't remember the other characters name, what the hell!? I must've watched at least a couple hundred episodes and a DVD movie of this show, and, and, there's nothing here! The pink octupus mouth guy, what he ever do that was interesting? A few one-liners, but not much. The other girl, who I think the show forgets is even there most of the time, what does she do? Yeah, I'm standing by this, "Futurama" is overrated because they don't have strong enough characters. It's good, I like it, it's funny, and it has one really cool, interesting character, and even he didn't make this list. Came close but....
BECKY BOTSFORD/WORDGIRL
In terms of shows and characters that are supposed to be "satires" of the Superhero genre, "Wordgirl" on it's worst day is smarter, funnier and more interesting than "The Tick" ever hoped to be! I am not joking; this show is hilarious and I don't care if it's a PBS show intended for six-year-old to teach them about the English language (In fact, I like educational shows, that's a point in their favor), it's subtlely twisted so brilliantly. Any show that who's sixth or seventh best villain is named Lady-Redundant-Woman and her evil power is that she can make copies of herself,..- (Chuckling under breath) this is quite possibly one of the underrated animated shows of all-time and even the main character's interesting as a superhero in her own right. Word Up!
SKEETER
Okay, you got me, I didn't actually seriously consider Skeeter but I wanted to bring her up to make a point about one of the rules I was told about for this poll, which is that the characters had to be either originated or are most prominently known/recognized as being animated characters, which is why there's a few characters here that might otherwise have made the list, but it could be argued that they were originally or most well-known as an animated character. This is why I've brought up Skeeter, since she's the only original "Muppet Babies" character that didn't originate as a Muppet, which makes her eligible and not Kermit the Frog or Ms. Piggy. I did some skating along the lines of that rule on my ballot but mostly it did leave off some really great characters.
CARMEN SAN DIEGO
Including and especially this one. This one pains me too, if you've paid attention to my blogs over the years, you might've notice me make occasional Carmen San Diego references, and what can I say, I've always liked mysteries and I've always been a geography buff, so this was right up my alley. Although to defend the "Where on Earth is Carmen San Diego?" character a bit as well, thinking back, that's the one animated children's series I can think of where through other characters, you end up learning more and more about another character, and that's the point of the show in fact. We learn more and more about Carmen as she leads us these hunts for missing landmarks; that's pretty unique.
GADGET HACKWRENCH
Okay, I know more people seem to be reminiscent about "Duck Tales" which I certainly liked as well, but "Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers" was by far the best show of the Disney Afternoon collection. Chip & Dale, were the highest ranked original Disney Shorts character to just miss this list, but the coolest character on the show was Gadget. She had a smart tomboy laid back southern girl demeanor, but she was intelligent, look at all the amazing stuff she built! She was the emotional core and the brains of that show, and most of the best episodes revolved around her. Also, I went and looked back at this show, one other thing I noticed, this is the only kids cartoon I can really think of, at least at that time, where ever major cast member, was essentially an adult! Think about it, Chip & Dale, weren't kids, Max, Zipper, Gadget's a grownup, they're all running a surprising successful detective agency. Even "Where On Earth is Carmen San Diego?" has a kid watching the events on a computer screen; I guess you can go back to "The Flintstones" but they had kids eventually and even "Scooby-Doo" had Scrappy Doo, although I'd debate whether everyone in that show were adults, but, yeah, that was weird for it's day.
SHAGGY ROGERS & SCOOBY-DOO
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Oh, eh, speaking of "Scooby-Doo", um it sucks! Always has, I distinctly remember first seeing an episode at age four, and thinking, "This is too stupid for me!" I have no idea how this show has remained popular. That said, I did consider Shaggy & Scooby for the list and seriously as well, they almost made it, 'cause Eddie Izzard's point about them being the only happy cowards of literature, um, he's probably got a point there, and that did stick with me enough to respect them, and even consider them for this list for awhile. Ultimately, they just missed.
SPEED RACER
This is the closest any television anime character came to making the list, sorry, I just don't have that much of a background in anime and didn't really have time to take a look at them before doing this ballot; there's some movie characters but, other than a couple episodes of "Speed Racer", I looked up "Sailer Moon" once, way after that was ever a thing, (I completely missed that when I was going on, even despite being a huge Barenaked Ladies fan) and that killed quite a few brain cells that I'll never get back. I also saw "Pokemon" when it first aired, eh, no, that was horrible then, it's horrible now. In fact, I'm pretty certain it was "Pokemon" even before it took off and became big, was the reason I stopped watching kids cartoons. Let's collect slaves and have them fight each other-, what in the fucking hell are we thinking there?
ARTHUR READ
I actually love "Arthur"; I watch it now, it's very good and I wanted to include at least one character from like a pre-school intended-age show, but Wordgirl just missed, and "Arthur" has the opposite problem of "Futurama", it's got too many interesting characters; I honestly couldn't single out one. It works as this wonderful mosaic, but the books were cool when I was young and the show is really cool now.
TINTIN
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I think I'm the only one who ever actually really loved "Tintin", at least in the States when this cartoon made it to Nickelodeon, but I disqualified Tintin since he's pretty solidly more well-known as a comic book character than from this, but that's a shame.
BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD
Oh boy, I'm gonna get knocked for this. Um, I do actually really enjoy and respect "Beavis and Butt-Head" as a cartoon, and I didn't ignore everything Mike Judge has done with animation, more than a few of his characters made my ballot, but defending them as characters, as really full, 3-dimensional ones; I think that's a bit of a stretch for Beavis and Butt-Head and that's ultimately the reason I didn't find a place for them. There was also a couple other characters who I think did that kind of humor in a more interesting way.
BOJACK HORSEMAN
I'm only just now getting into "Bojack Horseman", I know I'm a little late, but I'm enjoying it; I just don't know enough about him to put him on the list.
STEVEN UNIVERSE
Oh, on top of finally getting around to "Bojack Horseman", I made sure to check out some of those "Animated Short-Format" shows that are so popular and keep getting Emmy nominations and wins. Uh, honestly, I didn't like most of them; I don't see the big deal about "Adventure Time" or "Gravity Falls" or anything like that,-, I mean, I get it, but it's just not really intriguing, but "Steven Universe", I totally fell for. Again, I don't know enough to put him on here or not, but yeah, I get it with this show.
RICK SANCHEZ & MORTY SMITH
Oh, speaking of another show I finally got around to, um, I do like "Rick & Morty" a little bit, I certainly like it better than Dan Harmon's "Community", 'cause at least here, he's set up a world here where it actually makes sense that they can seem to go and do anything and anywhere, instead of just, taking a perfectly good premise for a sitcom, and then ignore them entirely in favor of just doing whatever random crazy shit he feels like making fun or or doing today, to the point where the once-promising funny show is an unwatchable unfunny cult shell of what could've been. (Yeah, I said it, come at me! It's overrated!) but that said, um, this show just exhausted me after a few episodes. It's funny, but Jesus, reign it in, I get it, the scientist is taking his young nephew on these wildly inappropriate and awful inter-galatic time-shifting adventures; it got old on me fast. Sorry
ROCKO .
This is another weird one where I thought the show was ridiculously hilarious but the characters themselves weren't always that interesting, but the world around them was.
ADAM SEYMOUR DUCKSTEIN
Ah, man; I didn't have room for "Queer Duck". Awe! If you don't know "Queer Duck", look him up, really funny. Just missed my ballot.
DR. KATZ
(Shrugs) Yeah, another one I always liked, but ultimately didn't find any truly interesting great characters from it.
TED "SPACE GHOST" GHOSTAL
I know, the guy who created him just passed away, but I just didn't watch enough "Space Ghost" to put him on here, sorry.
ARNOLD SHORTMAN
I always liked "Hey, Arnold" as a kid, kinda reminded me of if "Peanuts" were modern-day and in a city, which I really liked; you didn't see a lot of animated series about people in the city. It actually kinda reminds me now of "Everybody Hates Chris", in a good way, I just didn't have room.
YOGI BEAR & BOO-BOO
I always love Yogi & Boo Boo as a kid, but I grew less and less fond of them as I grew up though. I think I just grew less and less fond of Hanna-Barbera's TV work in general however.
ALVIN, SIMON & THEODORE SEVILLE
Yeah, they've been around awhile but overall, the quality levels between good animated Chipmunks and bad animated Chipmunks work, is really wide; I can't really justify putting them on here.
GEORGE JETSON
There will be one character from "The Jetsons" on my ballot, but George Jetson wasn't it. You know, either in primetime or daytime, at no point were "The Jetsons" ever really a hit show. They barely lasted a year in their initial run in the '60s, and continued in reruns on all three major networks and it wasn't until a syndication run in the '80s did they have more episodes and the movie, and that was basically an add-on to other Hanna-Barbera programs. Just thought I'd mention that, they have a strange network history, that's all.
APRIL O'NEIL
This is the closest any character from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" came to making the list. She's by far the only really interesting character, and from what I'm told and have seen, she's the only one who's actually changed or evolved significantly over time and variations and interpretations, everything else they seem to keep constant, which is kinda weird, 'cause the "...Ninja Turtles" were, never that good. (Screech sound) I'm sorry, but, no, they weren't. They had a good theme song, the original show was, decent, but not actually that memorable. Seriously, who actually remembers moments from this show, you remember the feeling the show gave you, especially in the beginning with the theme song, but the show was pretty one-dimensional and boring. The villains weren't that menacing, one or two, again, seem interesting on paper, but in practice, not really. I mean, she keeps getting captured, but hell, she's also looking for a story, looking to save them, looking to get respect in the workplace for her work; I'm standing by this, she's the only really good character. (I tend to think the same about Lois Lane with Superman btw.)
BOSKO
I think technically Bosko is apart of the Merry Melodies/Looney Tunes, but he's probably the best and most well-known of the characters that came around that were basically copycats of Mickey Mouse. There were a bunch of them, but Bosko is the only one that I think anybody really remembers.
GUMBY
I'm Gumby, dammit! I didn't have a lot of stop-motion on my ballot, there's maybe one or two, but I'm not sure why. I always liked Gumby myself, but I doubt anybody remembers him that well anymore, as anything other than a strange little rubber toy.
LUXO, JR.
Awww! Yeah, I considered a lot of characters for this list.
ACE & GARY
A lot of characters!
OPTIMUS PRIME
Um, I didn't consider this character, at all. I'm sorry, what the hell did any of you guys see in this show? Every time I think of "Transformers" I think of that scene in "Big" where Tom Hanks talks about how boring these character that turn into robots, and comes up with a better idea than the ones they have. Even as a kid, this was just remarkably stupid to me. I do not get the appeal.
G.I. JOE
I don't get why anybody watched "G.I. Joe" either. I guess I understand the appeal of G.I. Joe, like 50 years ago, but I grew up watching "M*A*S*H" all my life, it was always insane to me that there was a kids show that was about being in the military. Screw that, give me a ring that can shoot fire or water or Earth or even heart at you and has Captain Planet saving us from dangerous polluters any day of the week!
FAT ALBERT
(Long awkward silence) He wouldn't have made the list anyway "Fat Albert...", sucked. It just did, I'm sorry, have you watched it lately? Even taking Cosby out of it, it really doesn't hold up that well; it aged badly.
CASPER
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Does anybody ever actually think about how fucking morbid, "Casper" is?! I mean, not a horrible character, but Jesus Christ, Here's a children's cartoon, let's have a dead little kid, who's lonely, 'cause nobody wants to be friends with him 'cause he's a ghost, and the others ghosts don't even like him! How the fuck was this a thing!?
MR. MAGOO
Oh, right. It was still okay to make fun of near-sighted people. (Although to be fair, there are some good "Mr. Magoo" cartoons)
Alright, that's enough of that category, let's go to the movie characters that just missed the list.
HONORABLE MENTIONS-Feature Films
BAMBI
I know, I just added "Bambi" to the Canon of Film, but I couldn't find a place for Bambi on this list.
TATSUO SHIMA
No, I couldn't find a place for anybody from "Akira" either, but Tatsuo Shima came close.
TINKERBELL
You know I don't know if anybody's ever thought about it, but you can legitimately argue Tinkerbell is one of the most iconic of all of Disney's characters. Seriously, she's up there; who's the one who shows up on screen to blink to "poof" dissolve into something, she's actually right up there as one of Disney's most recognizable and important characters, which is weird, 'cause "Peter Pan" was such a second-tier film of there's. Good, but-eh, does anybody really rank "Peter Pan" as their favorite Disney film?
JIMINY CRICKET
This is another character that's surprisingly prominent although Disney, and yeah, it's kinda weird that he is now that you think about it, but at the time, I suspect he was more relateable, Jiminy Cricket, used to be an alternate curse word to "Jesus Christ" back then, and not an actual cricket.
BUZZ LIGHTYEAR
Don't worry, I didn't forget about "Toy Story" completely, but Buzz Lightyear just missed the list.
PRINCESS ANNA
This was the highest-ranked Disney Princess that didn't make my ballot, and spoilers, there weren't actually that many on the list.
LADY EBOSHI
I didn't have too many villains on the list, Lady Eboshi's the highest ranked one that just missed, and I think the reason is that few villains were truly complex and interesting characters outside of being villains. Lady Eboshi is one of them, but "Princess Mononoke" is full of great characters that some of them had to just miss.
DORY
I did really like "Finding Nemo", but admittedly I didn't exactly love it the way others seem to have. It was very good, not great to me, but it did have some great characters, Dory was the highest ranked, but yeah, it's not represented on my ballot.
DONKEY
As great as Eddie Murphy is as Donkey, I think it's a little hard for side characters to make a list like this. Some made mine, of course there's exceptions but, I don't know, Donkey, compared to some of the other Shrek characters in terms of depth, he's just good comic relief really.
MR. FOX
This should be more highly remembered and regarded as a great animated comedy, but I couldn't find a place for it on the list.
HELEN PARR/ELASTIGIRL
I didn't ask, and you may have noticed, you can includes duo or trio or more as one entry if they're so associated as being together that you can include them as one. I didn't ask about whether or not I could do that with "The Incredibles" as a family, but I eventually decided to think of them separately, (Well, I put Dash & Violet as one but...) but anyway, doing that, and unfortunately Elastigirl didn't quite make the cut.
MINIONS
For the records, I didn't include Smurfs either or some other group of a bunch that didn't make it as a character, although Minions are a 1,000x better than Smurfs. Including the original cartoon.
EVIL QUEEN GRIMHILDE
No character from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" made the list. I know that kinds sucks, um, but honestly they weren't really great characters. I mean, hell, most of the character in the film were named after a single emotion they entailed! Even this one, and she's the best character in the film! Evil Queen!
HORSE
I don't know how many have seen "A Town Called Panic"; I know it originated as, I think a Belgian television show, but I've only seen the movie, it's weird, it's wonderful, surreal, I think it streams free on a bunch of sites, check it out!
MRS. BRISBY
(Sigh) This is the closest that any Don Bluth character came to making my ballot, and it's from the only one of his films that I actually think is a good movie. "The Secret of NIMH" is a great film, but, sorry, I never thought "All Dogs Go to Heaven" or "The Land Before Time" held up. Those were two morbidly dark films too, come to think of it. Dogs dying and going to heaven, and all the dinosaurs getting killed. Well, "Secret of NIMH" is pretty morbid too, and I guess it's a lot better than most of his lighter material. Yikes.
CLAUDE FROLLO
I'm sure if I didn't mention this character than somebody would bitch at me, so I'm bringing him up here. Yes, I considered him, he's a great character, I actually like "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" quite a bit, but-eh, I had others ahead of him.
WYLDSTYLE/LUCY
I like "The LEGO Movie" but I had a hard time coming up with a truly great character from it.
MUFASA
I tend to have the same feeling about "The Lion King" that I do for "Finding Nemo", it's very good, just not a great film, but it does have some great characters, I didn't forget about it.
JOY
Okay, so I lied, you can be a great animated character if you're named after your emotion, but she didn't make the ballot either.
THE IRON GIANT
Again, same with "The Lion King" and "Finding Nemo", very good, but not great.
PRINCESS VANELLOPE VON SCHWEEZ
Ah man, another great character I couldn't find space for. Completely underrated character.
NORMAN BABCOCK
Man, there's a lot of great animated movies these days; it's actually sad that one as great as "ParaNorman" manages to slip under the radar most of the time.
HADES
Yeah, most interesting character in one of the more forgettable Disney films. I actually do like "Hercules", but yeah, until somebody brings it up I don't think I've managed to even remember it exists since I've seen it.
DREAMER
One of the greatest animated movies of all-time, sure, but yeah, "Waking Life" isn't exactly a character movie.
CORALINE JONES
This is the closest a Tim Burton-influenced animated character came to making the list. (Shrugs) I like "Coraline", I hated "The Nightmare Before Christmas", sorry; this was at least cool surreal and strange, the other was just a good-looking corpse.
BERNARD & MS. BIANCA
It's weird that these two had multiple Disney films, like, before every damn Disney film had a bunch of sequels. It's weird that they were both pretty good movies but still, not great enough to make the list
DUMBO
I was never that big a fan of "Dumbo", I think the movie, just always seem to drift too much from it's story too often, especially as a kid. I can appreciate a sequence like "Elephants on Parade" now, but it just seem to confuse me at the time.
MALEFICENT
I never liked "Dumbo", but I really never liked "Sleeping Beauty", and I don't get the appeal of "Maleficent" either. Okay, she's vengeful, and turns into a dragon, but if you're really paying attention, she's mostly just an arbitrary villain. She never intrigued me.
CHAMPION
People forget the main character of "The Triplets of Belleville" is actually quite a good character himself.
TED
"Ted" would've made the list easily, had I not decided to disqualify computer-animated characters that weren't in animated movies. If was just easier, 'cause that would've opened a huge other section of animated characters, and I just didn't want to do that.
Alright, last batch, of characters who didn't make my ballot, characters who are from franchises that I considered five or more characters seriously for the list. Again, no particular order.
HONORABLE MENTIONS-Major shows/brands/franchises with multiple characters seriously considered!
DUDLEY DO-RIGHT
Sorry Canada, Dudley Do-Right didn't make it in, but-eh, he's still pretty funny.
CLEVELAND BROWN
This was a tough one that I debated, I don't have any obvious African-American characters on my ballot, (Well, actually I have one, but unless I told you she was African-American, I doubt anybody would know) but there was always a reason to disqualify, say somebody from "The Boondocks" for being more well-known in comic book form or not really as great a character as they are a caricature, (That's why nobody from "Drawn Together" got close to getting in, even though I do kinda like that show) and of course, Fat Albert was overrated to begin with and Cosby didn't make it any easier to watch now, but as much as I love "Family Guy" and I did like "The Cleveland Show" too, um, but I couldn't really find a place for him.
LANA KANE
Ugh! Lana Kane, came really close to making the list, but good God,- first of all "Archer" is one of the best shows on television; it's that perfect smash of "Get Smart" meets "Arrested Development" it's funny as hell, but good god, I could've made a decent argument for like six characters on this show, and honestly, as great as she is, she might be one of the least interesting characters. Any other show, she'd easily be the breakout star character, just another character on "Archer".
YOSEMITE SAM
Oh, Looney Tunes, not-so-shocking spoiler, there will be a lot of them on my ballot and I thought Yosemite Sam would be one, but as I kept going, a few others I started ranking a little higher and higher, and he ended up on the outside looking in.
MONTANA MAX
The reason I came pretty close to putting Montana Max on the list, of all the Tiny Toons, and I even think I had him higher-ranked than Yosemite Sam, but of all the Tiny Toons, you could argue he's the most unique and versatile of the characters. He could be the bad guy, he could be the one you're sorta cheering for 'cause he's trying to screw over everyone to get rich; he's actually a bit of amalgam,of other characters, it's not like Plucky Duck who's clearly a descendant of Daffy primarily, but in a way, that helped make him one of the most unique and original characters on that show. He was kinda like the anti-Richie Rich, back when that had a cartoon series, that I think I'm the only one who remembers that that was on back when "Tiny Toon Adventures" started, but it wasn't on long after.
BOBBY HILL
I won't exactly say which character was 101 on my list, but Bobby Hill was really close to making this list. I'm really regretting leaving him off actually. Oh well.
RE-RUN VAN PELT
I swear, I think I'm the only one who really liked Re-Run. I'm not sure why he didn't catch on more, even among "Peanuts" fans, but he's always been one of my favorites. Him observing on seeing the world on the back of his Mom's bicycle, that was really unique and cool.
TIGGER
When I was a kid, Tigger was my favorite Winnie-the-Pooh character, as an adult I think he's a bit more annoying, but the wonderful thing about Tigger is Tigger's a wonderful thing. Not wonderful enough for my ballot unfortunately.
RALPH PHILLIPS
Ralph Phillips is one of the more obscure Looney Tunes characters, I think he only appeared in two Chuck Jones directed shorts, but he's got a lasting legacy as a character to me, in that being in that, his shorts are by far, the best film versions of a Walter Mitty character ever put on screen. (Yes, I'm counting that horrible Ben Affleck movie in that statement.) Creating something Walter Mitty-esque on film and successfully is really hard to do, so I give credit to the one time it worked.
BOB BELCHER
This was a tricky one, admittedly but I don't think Bob is the most interesting character on "Bob's Burgers", and I think if you think honestly about it, you'd agree with that analysis.
NED FLANDERS
Okay, I am a bit more critical of "The Simpsons" than others are, although nowadays when everybody shits on them I'm usually the one defending them, 'cause I always thought they were a bit overrated before and the backlash is now just too big an adjustment swing, but when I am critical, I am grading on a helluva curb here. You know an animated series is absolutely brilliant when I can't find room on the list for this character.
KENNY MCCORMICK
Same goes for "South Park" with this character.
SHEILA BROFLOVSKI
And this one. Man, "South Park" has a lot of great characters.
STEVE SMITH
I always liked "American Dad", but it always did turn me off that they focused so much on Steve, especially since I always thought some of the other characters were more interesting, but I guess I can't complain too much here; he is still pretty interesting, I think it's just me that gets annoyed by him.
OSWALD, THE LUCKY RABBIT
Ah, Oswald, the original Mickey Mouse. There's only a few Oswald cartoons that have survived, but Walt Disney created him before Mickey Mouse, and when he was forced to sell the rights to the character he swore never to do that again. He's finally apart of Disney now, after he was involved in what has to be considered the strangest Hollywood trades of all-time when NBC-Universal traded his rights back to Disney for the contract for Al Michaels, yeah, the sports commentator Al Michaels; Disney traded him to NBC for a cartoon rabbit.
PEBBLES FLINTSTONE
I know, I have no justification for this, but I tend to think of Pebbles as one of the more interesting Flitnstones character, and I have no idea why; I guess I can argue that it was the first time was saw an interesting and inquisitive little kid on television at the time, at least animated, and unlike say Little Ricky on "I Love Lucy", she didn't become a four-year-old right away or anything, Oddly, the character I most find myself comparing to her is Tabatha on "Bewitched", maybe it's the time period thing, they were around at the same time, but Tabatha was a half-witch and that automatically made her more interesting, and I-, hmm. (Shrugs) Maybe most of the characters from "The Flintstones" aren't as interesting as we'd like to think they are, and she gets more interesting by default? Maybe? Or maybe it's that, she's the dynamic that most arguably made them the most different from "The Honeymooners", that could be it. It is strange that they named a cereal after her though.
MEG GRIFFIN
Shut up, Meg. (Okay, I'm kidding, she's probably my favorite character on the show, but..., oh well.)
Alright, that's enough for now, or else I'd be going on forever. Anyway, I'll be revealing my Geekcast Radio Network's ballot and MY BALLOT ONLY, on my blogpost over the next couple blogs, one will be 100-51 and another will be 50-1, so remember that'll start next bl-
Oh shit, what a minute, I got a movie review blog up next. Dammit!
Okay, the next 2 BLOGS after my next batch of Movie Reviews, that's when I'll start revealing my ballot and revealing what I consider the TOP 100 ANIMATED CHARACTERS of ALL-TIME! Keep an eye out for that folks, and the Geekcast Radio Network for their complete results! Thank you.
So, very quietly, although I've made an occasional hint or two that I've been working on this, in my rare spouts of free time, for the last three or four weeks or so, I've been putting together my ballot of the TOP 100 ANIMATED CHARACTERS, and just like before with my Television Shows Ballot, I decided to also, after all the ballots were submitted and in the process of being counted of course, with the blessing of the folks at, "The GCRN", to reveal my ballot, here.
No, I will reiterate, this is MY BALLOT, and MY BALLOT ONLY! As of today, I have no idea of the actual results; I'm not privy to the counting process, however you can check back on their Facebook Page, their Twitter and on their website, each of which, the links to are below:
https://www.facebook.com/GeekCastRadioNetwork/
https://twitter.com/GeekCastRadio
http://www.geekcastradio.com/
And I'll be posting more links to them on both my Facebook pages and Twitter, and here as well also, when they start the countdown and reveal the final results, and giving you links to those podcasts as well, and check them out, they do plenty of other stuff that I've sure many of you would be interested in, And I'm very honored and happy in this latest large endeavor for them.
That said, before I begin to reveal my ballot, (And I'm not doing five different posts this time, there will be this one, and
By far, this took forever! I'm not kidding when I say, literally every spare free time I had, and I didn't exactly have much of that to begin with. I've actually got multiple projects going on that I'm quite busy with, and this was disheartening at times. Just trying to compare, character from films to TV shows, well, not even that, I had to go through and check every animated feature I've seen, and then go back and remember ever animated television show I've seen, every animated short film I've seen, and I'm seeking out "characters" as well, and-, there was just a whole lot of levels; I spent half the time, after I successfully collected about 300 or so characters that I seriously considered to some extent, just trying to figure out how to organize these characters, much less rank them!
Which is a whole other layer of worms, 'cause it' a little subjective here, the Top Animated "Characters"? This is a wide open thing to begin with, but now I'm thinking about how to judge these characters? Is it just complexity, is it importance, is it the quality of the things they were in. I mean, a TV show characters that's been on for 20+ years, is gonna naturally have more development than any character from just a 90 minute movie, I-, this was hard. Normally I have a generally good idea when it comes to these lists, where I suspect who will be on it, and where they'll probably be ranked, and just sorta estimate, but this list...-, this list, was really just digging into each character I could think of any trying to figure out how to analyze their character.
Basically I finally organized the characters into three groups, a group that was just primarily known for feature films we'll that GROUP A, a group primarily known for being on animated shorts on TV , a group of characters from feature films, GROUP B, and then, I had a third categories, GROUP C, which was just for shows and franchises that had multiple characters to consider seriously, in this case, I think I used five characters as the minimum to be in this section, and I ended up with. (1,2,3,4...) 14 different shows/collections where I considered a minimum of five characters for this list. Minimum, there's a few and I'm sure if you take a guess and can name them, where I seriously consider well over 2 and 3x that many characters for this list.
And it doesn't help that there actually is a l-ah-t, of great animated characters. There were so many characters I was shocked that they didn't make my final ballot, and plenty more I would've liked to have seen on my ballot, that I think it's worth bringing up, and since I'm sure I'm gonna get shit on for not including some of them anyway, and not even getting to the point of considering some others, I thought I'd go through a brief list of SPECIAL/HONORABLE MENTIONS, and others who did not make the ballot for one reason or another and why, and also, because it's also a cool backdoor way to talk about a few characters I won't get the chance to on the ballot, and also because it's a cool different way to go through some of the things I considered and didn't for this list.
So before I even get to revealing my ballot, let's take a look at some honorable mentions. I'm not doing this in any particular order, so for convenience, let's start with GROUP B, characters from Animated Shorts and Television Series that didn't make the list.
HONORABLE/SPECIAL MENTIONS-Shorts and TV Series
ERIC T. DUCKMAN
Does anybody remember "Duckman" other than me? It was big for awhile in the '90s. He was on the list 'til the very last second; I highly recommend looking that show up; he's was a pretty unique and unusual character for his time.
FELIX THE CAT
In terms of my animation knowledge, I do go back to the early beginnings of cinema, which actually had a lot more animation than people realize, but not a lot of quintessentially recognizable characters, until Felix the Cat came around. I guess, I could've found a spot for him out of importance and obligation, but, even though he did survive well into the 20th Century in some form, eh, it's a 100 years or so later and there's been a 100 years or so of great cartoon characters; he kinda fell off the list for me.
TOPCAT
(Starts singing theme songs) "Topcat,the most effectual, Topcat who's intellectual..." um, I honestly have not seen enough Topcat to seriously consider him, although what I have seen I liked; but he's just somebody who I didn't grow up with, and that's a shame, 'cause his show was actually based on one of the great TV sitcoms of all-time, "The Phil Silvers Show", and even with what little I have seen, he still was pretty heavily considered but..... There's a few characters out there, that I kinda missed completely, eh, the biggest one I can think of, especially from those older television kids shows was Underdog; I suspect, but-eh, I missed him completely too. If there's someone on the list that I missed, I only considered characters who I had actually seen, so I saw a little Topcat, but he's still the representative of ones I probably just missed completely. Speaking of cartoons based off of old sitcoms.
INSPECTOR GADGET
Oh, another great theme song. (Sings) "Inspector Gadget, do-be do-be do, de-dooo!) Eh, it pains me that I didn't find room for anybody from "Inspector Gadget". (Penny Gadget also came close to making the ballot) I think I was the only kid my age who really knew "Get Smart" at four or five years old and got what this was a reference too and enjoyed it on multiple levels. It doesn't necessarily, entirely hold up now, but it's still got some amazing moments and episodes, and yeah, one of the best young secret sleuths of television was Penny Gadget. Great show.
BENDER BENDING RODRIGUEZ
Okay, I'm gonna get shit for this one, and until I finished the list, I honestly did think I'd find room, at least for Bender, but I don't have a single character from "Futurama" on this list. I do like and admire "Futurama" a lot, I watched it constantly; it's always made me laugh, but I've always found myself a bit removed from it, and it wasn't until I did this list did I realize what the actual problem is; that, there aren't a lot of good characters on the show! No, I'm deadly serious, and I'm standing by this, Bender is by far the best, but go through them, what's so interesting about Fry? He's a bit dim, and he accidentally traveled to the future, that's it; things happens to him as much if not more than things he does. Leela, she's a good-looking cyclops and I guess her character is a little bit reminiscent of Kristen Johnson's from "3rd Rock from the Sun", but is she anything other than a romantic foil? I never thought so. There's the old scientist guy, who's name I can't remember, all of a sudden, um, huh. He's interesting in theory but in practice, he's more or less a big exposition machine who runs a delivery company, and there's-um, um,... I can't remember the other characters name, what the hell!? I must've watched at least a couple hundred episodes and a DVD movie of this show, and, and, there's nothing here! The pink octupus mouth guy, what he ever do that was interesting? A few one-liners, but not much. The other girl, who I think the show forgets is even there most of the time, what does she do? Yeah, I'm standing by this, "Futurama" is overrated because they don't have strong enough characters. It's good, I like it, it's funny, and it has one really cool, interesting character, and even he didn't make this list. Came close but....
BECKY BOTSFORD/WORDGIRL
In terms of shows and characters that are supposed to be "satires" of the Superhero genre, "Wordgirl" on it's worst day is smarter, funnier and more interesting than "The Tick" ever hoped to be! I am not joking; this show is hilarious and I don't care if it's a PBS show intended for six-year-old to teach them about the English language (In fact, I like educational shows, that's a point in their favor), it's subtlely twisted so brilliantly. Any show that who's sixth or seventh best villain is named Lady-Redundant-Woman and her evil power is that she can make copies of herself,..- (Chuckling under breath) this is quite possibly one of the underrated animated shows of all-time and even the main character's interesting as a superhero in her own right. Word Up!
SKEETER
Okay, you got me, I didn't actually seriously consider Skeeter but I wanted to bring her up to make a point about one of the rules I was told about for this poll, which is that the characters had to be either originated or are most prominently known/recognized as being animated characters, which is why there's a few characters here that might otherwise have made the list, but it could be argued that they were originally or most well-known as an animated character. This is why I've brought up Skeeter, since she's the only original "Muppet Babies" character that didn't originate as a Muppet, which makes her eligible and not Kermit the Frog or Ms. Piggy. I did some skating along the lines of that rule on my ballot but mostly it did leave off some really great characters.
CARMEN SAN DIEGO
Including and especially this one. This one pains me too, if you've paid attention to my blogs over the years, you might've notice me make occasional Carmen San Diego references, and what can I say, I've always liked mysteries and I've always been a geography buff, so this was right up my alley. Although to defend the "Where on Earth is Carmen San Diego?" character a bit as well, thinking back, that's the one animated children's series I can think of where through other characters, you end up learning more and more about another character, and that's the point of the show in fact. We learn more and more about Carmen as she leads us these hunts for missing landmarks; that's pretty unique.
GADGET HACKWRENCH
Okay, I know more people seem to be reminiscent about "Duck Tales" which I certainly liked as well, but "Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers" was by far the best show of the Disney Afternoon collection. Chip & Dale, were the highest ranked original Disney Shorts character to just miss this list, but the coolest character on the show was Gadget. She had a smart tomboy laid back southern girl demeanor, but she was intelligent, look at all the amazing stuff she built! She was the emotional core and the brains of that show, and most of the best episodes revolved around her. Also, I went and looked back at this show, one other thing I noticed, this is the only kids cartoon I can really think of, at least at that time, where ever major cast member, was essentially an adult! Think about it, Chip & Dale, weren't kids, Max, Zipper, Gadget's a grownup, they're all running a surprising successful detective agency. Even "Where On Earth is Carmen San Diego?" has a kid watching the events on a computer screen; I guess you can go back to "The Flintstones" but they had kids eventually and even "Scooby-Doo" had Scrappy Doo, although I'd debate whether everyone in that show were adults, but, yeah, that was weird for it's day.
SHAGGY ROGERS & SCOOBY-DOO
Oh, eh, speaking of "Scooby-Doo", um it sucks! Always has, I distinctly remember first seeing an episode at age four, and thinking, "This is too stupid for me!" I have no idea how this show has remained popular. That said, I did consider Shaggy & Scooby for the list and seriously as well, they almost made it, 'cause Eddie Izzard's point about them being the only happy cowards of literature, um, he's probably got a point there, and that did stick with me enough to respect them, and even consider them for this list for awhile. Ultimately, they just missed.
SPEED RACER
This is the closest any television anime character came to making the list, sorry, I just don't have that much of a background in anime and didn't really have time to take a look at them before doing this ballot; there's some movie characters but, other than a couple episodes of "Speed Racer", I looked up "Sailer Moon" once, way after that was ever a thing, (I completely missed that when I was going on, even despite being a huge Barenaked Ladies fan) and that killed quite a few brain cells that I'll never get back. I also saw "Pokemon" when it first aired, eh, no, that was horrible then, it's horrible now. In fact, I'm pretty certain it was "Pokemon" even before it took off and became big, was the reason I stopped watching kids cartoons. Let's collect slaves and have them fight each other-, what in the fucking hell are we thinking there?
ARTHUR READ
I actually love "Arthur"; I watch it now, it's very good and I wanted to include at least one character from like a pre-school intended-age show, but Wordgirl just missed, and "Arthur" has the opposite problem of "Futurama", it's got too many interesting characters; I honestly couldn't single out one. It works as this wonderful mosaic, but the books were cool when I was young and the show is really cool now.
TINTIN
I think I'm the only one who ever actually really loved "Tintin", at least in the States when this cartoon made it to Nickelodeon, but I disqualified Tintin since he's pretty solidly more well-known as a comic book character than from this, but that's a shame.
BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD
Oh boy, I'm gonna get knocked for this. Um, I do actually really enjoy and respect "Beavis and Butt-Head" as a cartoon, and I didn't ignore everything Mike Judge has done with animation, more than a few of his characters made my ballot, but defending them as characters, as really full, 3-dimensional ones; I think that's a bit of a stretch for Beavis and Butt-Head and that's ultimately the reason I didn't find a place for them. There was also a couple other characters who I think did that kind of humor in a more interesting way.
BOJACK HORSEMAN
I'm only just now getting into "Bojack Horseman", I know I'm a little late, but I'm enjoying it; I just don't know enough about him to put him on the list.
STEVEN UNIVERSE
Oh, on top of finally getting around to "Bojack Horseman", I made sure to check out some of those "Animated Short-Format" shows that are so popular and keep getting Emmy nominations and wins. Uh, honestly, I didn't like most of them; I don't see the big deal about "Adventure Time" or "Gravity Falls" or anything like that,-, I mean, I get it, but it's just not really intriguing, but "Steven Universe", I totally fell for. Again, I don't know enough to put him on here or not, but yeah, I get it with this show.
RICK SANCHEZ & MORTY SMITH
Oh, speaking of another show I finally got around to, um, I do like "Rick & Morty" a little bit, I certainly like it better than Dan Harmon's "Community", 'cause at least here, he's set up a world here where it actually makes sense that they can seem to go and do anything and anywhere, instead of just, taking a perfectly good premise for a sitcom, and then ignore them entirely in favor of just doing whatever random crazy shit he feels like making fun or or doing today, to the point where the once-promising funny show is an unwatchable unfunny cult shell of what could've been. (Yeah, I said it, come at me! It's overrated!) but that said, um, this show just exhausted me after a few episodes. It's funny, but Jesus, reign it in, I get it, the scientist is taking his young nephew on these wildly inappropriate and awful inter-galatic time-shifting adventures; it got old on me fast. Sorry
ROCKO .
This is another weird one where I thought the show was ridiculously hilarious but the characters themselves weren't always that interesting, but the world around them was.
ADAM SEYMOUR DUCKSTEIN
Ah, man; I didn't have room for "Queer Duck". Awe! If you don't know "Queer Duck", look him up, really funny. Just missed my ballot.
DR. KATZ
(Shrugs) Yeah, another one I always liked, but ultimately didn't find any truly interesting great characters from it.
TED "SPACE GHOST" GHOSTAL
I know, the guy who created him just passed away, but I just didn't watch enough "Space Ghost" to put him on here, sorry.
ARNOLD SHORTMAN
I always liked "Hey, Arnold" as a kid, kinda reminded me of if "Peanuts" were modern-day and in a city, which I really liked; you didn't see a lot of animated series about people in the city. It actually kinda reminds me now of "Everybody Hates Chris", in a good way, I just didn't have room.
YOGI BEAR & BOO-BOO
I always love Yogi & Boo Boo as a kid, but I grew less and less fond of them as I grew up though. I think I just grew less and less fond of Hanna-Barbera's TV work in general however.
ALVIN, SIMON & THEODORE SEVILLE
Yeah, they've been around awhile but overall, the quality levels between good animated Chipmunks and bad animated Chipmunks work, is really wide; I can't really justify putting them on here.
GEORGE JETSON
There will be one character from "The Jetsons" on my ballot, but George Jetson wasn't it. You know, either in primetime or daytime, at no point were "The Jetsons" ever really a hit show. They barely lasted a year in their initial run in the '60s, and continued in reruns on all three major networks and it wasn't until a syndication run in the '80s did they have more episodes and the movie, and that was basically an add-on to other Hanna-Barbera programs. Just thought I'd mention that, they have a strange network history, that's all.
APRIL O'NEIL
This is the closest any character from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" came to making the list. She's by far the only really interesting character, and from what I'm told and have seen, she's the only one who's actually changed or evolved significantly over time and variations and interpretations, everything else they seem to keep constant, which is kinda weird, 'cause the "...Ninja Turtles" were, never that good. (Screech sound) I'm sorry, but, no, they weren't. They had a good theme song, the original show was, decent, but not actually that memorable. Seriously, who actually remembers moments from this show, you remember the feeling the show gave you, especially in the beginning with the theme song, but the show was pretty one-dimensional and boring. The villains weren't that menacing, one or two, again, seem interesting on paper, but in practice, not really. I mean, she keeps getting captured, but hell, she's also looking for a story, looking to save them, looking to get respect in the workplace for her work; I'm standing by this, she's the only really good character. (I tend to think the same about Lois Lane with Superman btw.)
BOSKO
I think technically Bosko is apart of the Merry Melodies/Looney Tunes, but he's probably the best and most well-known of the characters that came around that were basically copycats of Mickey Mouse. There were a bunch of them, but Bosko is the only one that I think anybody really remembers.
GUMBY
I'm Gumby, dammit! I didn't have a lot of stop-motion on my ballot, there's maybe one or two, but I'm not sure why. I always liked Gumby myself, but I doubt anybody remembers him that well anymore, as anything other than a strange little rubber toy.
LUXO, JR.
Awww! Yeah, I considered a lot of characters for this list.
ACE & GARY
A lot of characters!
OPTIMUS PRIME
Um, I didn't consider this character, at all. I'm sorry, what the hell did any of you guys see in this show? Every time I think of "Transformers" I think of that scene in "Big" where Tom Hanks talks about how boring these character that turn into robots, and comes up with a better idea than the ones they have. Even as a kid, this was just remarkably stupid to me. I do not get the appeal.
G.I. JOE
I don't get why anybody watched "G.I. Joe" either. I guess I understand the appeal of G.I. Joe, like 50 years ago, but I grew up watching "M*A*S*H" all my life, it was always insane to me that there was a kids show that was about being in the military. Screw that, give me a ring that can shoot fire or water or Earth or even heart at you and has Captain Planet saving us from dangerous polluters any day of the week!
FAT ALBERT
(Long awkward silence) He wouldn't have made the list anyway "Fat Albert...", sucked. It just did, I'm sorry, have you watched it lately? Even taking Cosby out of it, it really doesn't hold up that well; it aged badly.
CASPER
Does anybody ever actually think about how fucking morbid, "Casper" is?! I mean, not a horrible character, but Jesus Christ, Here's a children's cartoon, let's have a dead little kid, who's lonely, 'cause nobody wants to be friends with him 'cause he's a ghost, and the others ghosts don't even like him! How the fuck was this a thing!?
MR. MAGOO
Oh, right. It was still okay to make fun of near-sighted people. (Although to be fair, there are some good "Mr. Magoo" cartoons)
Alright, that's enough of that category, let's go to the movie characters that just missed the list.
HONORABLE MENTIONS-Feature Films
BAMBI
I know, I just added "Bambi" to the Canon of Film, but I couldn't find a place for Bambi on this list.
TATSUO SHIMA
No, I couldn't find a place for anybody from "Akira" either, but Tatsuo Shima came close.
TINKERBELL
You know I don't know if anybody's ever thought about it, but you can legitimately argue Tinkerbell is one of the most iconic of all of Disney's characters. Seriously, she's up there; who's the one who shows up on screen to blink to "poof" dissolve into something, she's actually right up there as one of Disney's most recognizable and important characters, which is weird, 'cause "Peter Pan" was such a second-tier film of there's. Good, but-eh, does anybody really rank "Peter Pan" as their favorite Disney film?
JIMINY CRICKET
This is another character that's surprisingly prominent although Disney, and yeah, it's kinda weird that he is now that you think about it, but at the time, I suspect he was more relateable, Jiminy Cricket, used to be an alternate curse word to "Jesus Christ" back then, and not an actual cricket.
BUZZ LIGHTYEAR
Don't worry, I didn't forget about "Toy Story" completely, but Buzz Lightyear just missed the list.
PRINCESS ANNA
This was the highest-ranked Disney Princess that didn't make my ballot, and spoilers, there weren't actually that many on the list.
LADY EBOSHI
I didn't have too many villains on the list, Lady Eboshi's the highest ranked one that just missed, and I think the reason is that few villains were truly complex and interesting characters outside of being villains. Lady Eboshi is one of them, but "Princess Mononoke" is full of great characters that some of them had to just miss.
DORY
I did really like "Finding Nemo", but admittedly I didn't exactly love it the way others seem to have. It was very good, not great to me, but it did have some great characters, Dory was the highest ranked, but yeah, it's not represented on my ballot.
DONKEY
As great as Eddie Murphy is as Donkey, I think it's a little hard for side characters to make a list like this. Some made mine, of course there's exceptions but, I don't know, Donkey, compared to some of the other Shrek characters in terms of depth, he's just good comic relief really.
MR. FOX
This should be more highly remembered and regarded as a great animated comedy, but I couldn't find a place for it on the list.
HELEN PARR/ELASTIGIRL
I didn't ask, and you may have noticed, you can includes duo or trio or more as one entry if they're so associated as being together that you can include them as one. I didn't ask about whether or not I could do that with "The Incredibles" as a family, but I eventually decided to think of them separately, (Well, I put Dash & Violet as one but...) but anyway, doing that, and unfortunately Elastigirl didn't quite make the cut.
MINIONS
For the records, I didn't include Smurfs either or some other group of a bunch that didn't make it as a character, although Minions are a 1,000x better than Smurfs. Including the original cartoon.
EVIL QUEEN GRIMHILDE
No character from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" made the list. I know that kinds sucks, um, but honestly they weren't really great characters. I mean, hell, most of the character in the film were named after a single emotion they entailed! Even this one, and she's the best character in the film! Evil Queen!
HORSE
I don't know how many have seen "A Town Called Panic"; I know it originated as, I think a Belgian television show, but I've only seen the movie, it's weird, it's wonderful, surreal, I think it streams free on a bunch of sites, check it out!
MRS. BRISBY
(Sigh) This is the closest that any Don Bluth character came to making my ballot, and it's from the only one of his films that I actually think is a good movie. "The Secret of NIMH" is a great film, but, sorry, I never thought "All Dogs Go to Heaven" or "The Land Before Time" held up. Those were two morbidly dark films too, come to think of it. Dogs dying and going to heaven, and all the dinosaurs getting killed. Well, "Secret of NIMH" is pretty morbid too, and I guess it's a lot better than most of his lighter material. Yikes.
CLAUDE FROLLO
I'm sure if I didn't mention this character than somebody would bitch at me, so I'm bringing him up here. Yes, I considered him, he's a great character, I actually like "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" quite a bit, but-eh, I had others ahead of him.
WYLDSTYLE/LUCY
I like "The LEGO Movie" but I had a hard time coming up with a truly great character from it.
MUFASA
I tend to have the same feeling about "The Lion King" that I do for "Finding Nemo", it's very good, just not a great film, but it does have some great characters, I didn't forget about it.
JOY
Okay, so I lied, you can be a great animated character if you're named after your emotion, but she didn't make the ballot either.
THE IRON GIANT
Again, same with "The Lion King" and "Finding Nemo", very good, but not great.
PRINCESS VANELLOPE VON SCHWEEZ
Ah man, another great character I couldn't find space for. Completely underrated character.
NORMAN BABCOCK
Man, there's a lot of great animated movies these days; it's actually sad that one as great as "ParaNorman" manages to slip under the radar most of the time.
HADES
Yeah, most interesting character in one of the more forgettable Disney films. I actually do like "Hercules", but yeah, until somebody brings it up I don't think I've managed to even remember it exists since I've seen it.
DREAMER
One of the greatest animated movies of all-time, sure, but yeah, "Waking Life" isn't exactly a character movie.
CORALINE JONES
This is the closest a Tim Burton-influenced animated character came to making the list. (Shrugs) I like "Coraline", I hated "The Nightmare Before Christmas", sorry; this was at least cool surreal and strange, the other was just a good-looking corpse.
BERNARD & MS. BIANCA
It's weird that these two had multiple Disney films, like, before every damn Disney film had a bunch of sequels. It's weird that they were both pretty good movies but still, not great enough to make the list
DUMBO
I was never that big a fan of "Dumbo", I think the movie, just always seem to drift too much from it's story too often, especially as a kid. I can appreciate a sequence like "Elephants on Parade" now, but it just seem to confuse me at the time.
MALEFICENT
I never liked "Dumbo", but I really never liked "Sleeping Beauty", and I don't get the appeal of "Maleficent" either. Okay, she's vengeful, and turns into a dragon, but if you're really paying attention, she's mostly just an arbitrary villain. She never intrigued me.
CHAMPION
People forget the main character of "The Triplets of Belleville" is actually quite a good character himself.
TED
"Ted" would've made the list easily, had I not decided to disqualify computer-animated characters that weren't in animated movies. If was just easier, 'cause that would've opened a huge other section of animated characters, and I just didn't want to do that.
Alright, last batch, of characters who didn't make my ballot, characters who are from franchises that I considered five or more characters seriously for the list. Again, no particular order.
HONORABLE MENTIONS-Major shows/brands/franchises with multiple characters seriously considered!
DUDLEY DO-RIGHT
Sorry Canada, Dudley Do-Right didn't make it in, but-eh, he's still pretty funny.
CLEVELAND BROWN
This was a tough one that I debated, I don't have any obvious African-American characters on my ballot, (Well, actually I have one, but unless I told you she was African-American, I doubt anybody would know) but there was always a reason to disqualify, say somebody from "The Boondocks" for being more well-known in comic book form or not really as great a character as they are a caricature, (That's why nobody from "Drawn Together" got close to getting in, even though I do kinda like that show) and of course, Fat Albert was overrated to begin with and Cosby didn't make it any easier to watch now, but as much as I love "Family Guy" and I did like "The Cleveland Show" too, um, but I couldn't really find a place for him.
LANA KANE
Ugh! Lana Kane, came really close to making the list, but good God,- first of all "Archer" is one of the best shows on television; it's that perfect smash of "Get Smart" meets "Arrested Development" it's funny as hell, but good god, I could've made a decent argument for like six characters on this show, and honestly, as great as she is, she might be one of the least interesting characters. Any other show, she'd easily be the breakout star character, just another character on "Archer".
YOSEMITE SAM
Oh, Looney Tunes, not-so-shocking spoiler, there will be a lot of them on my ballot and I thought Yosemite Sam would be one, but as I kept going, a few others I started ranking a little higher and higher, and he ended up on the outside looking in.
MONTANA MAX
The reason I came pretty close to putting Montana Max on the list, of all the Tiny Toons, and I even think I had him higher-ranked than Yosemite Sam, but of all the Tiny Toons, you could argue he's the most unique and versatile of the characters. He could be the bad guy, he could be the one you're sorta cheering for 'cause he's trying to screw over everyone to get rich; he's actually a bit of amalgam,of other characters, it's not like Plucky Duck who's clearly a descendant of Daffy primarily, but in a way, that helped make him one of the most unique and original characters on that show. He was kinda like the anti-Richie Rich, back when that had a cartoon series, that I think I'm the only one who remembers that that was on back when "Tiny Toon Adventures" started, but it wasn't on long after.
BOBBY HILL
I won't exactly say which character was 101 on my list, but Bobby Hill was really close to making this list. I'm really regretting leaving him off actually. Oh well.
RE-RUN VAN PELT
I swear, I think I'm the only one who really liked Re-Run. I'm not sure why he didn't catch on more, even among "Peanuts" fans, but he's always been one of my favorites. Him observing on seeing the world on the back of his Mom's bicycle, that was really unique and cool.
TIGGER
When I was a kid, Tigger was my favorite Winnie-the-Pooh character, as an adult I think he's a bit more annoying, but the wonderful thing about Tigger is Tigger's a wonderful thing. Not wonderful enough for my ballot unfortunately.
RALPH PHILLIPS
Ralph Phillips is one of the more obscure Looney Tunes characters, I think he only appeared in two Chuck Jones directed shorts, but he's got a lasting legacy as a character to me, in that being in that, his shorts are by far, the best film versions of a Walter Mitty character ever put on screen. (Yes, I'm counting that horrible Ben Affleck movie in that statement.) Creating something Walter Mitty-esque on film and successfully is really hard to do, so I give credit to the one time it worked.
BOB BELCHER
This was a tricky one, admittedly but I don't think Bob is the most interesting character on "Bob's Burgers", and I think if you think honestly about it, you'd agree with that analysis.
NED FLANDERS
Okay, I am a bit more critical of "The Simpsons" than others are, although nowadays when everybody shits on them I'm usually the one defending them, 'cause I always thought they were a bit overrated before and the backlash is now just too big an adjustment swing, but when I am critical, I am grading on a helluva curb here. You know an animated series is absolutely brilliant when I can't find room on the list for this character.
KENNY MCCORMICK
Same goes for "South Park" with this character.
SHEILA BROFLOVSKI
And this one. Man, "South Park" has a lot of great characters.
STEVE SMITH
I always liked "American Dad", but it always did turn me off that they focused so much on Steve, especially since I always thought some of the other characters were more interesting, but I guess I can't complain too much here; he is still pretty interesting, I think it's just me that gets annoyed by him.
OSWALD, THE LUCKY RABBIT
Ah, Oswald, the original Mickey Mouse. There's only a few Oswald cartoons that have survived, but Walt Disney created him before Mickey Mouse, and when he was forced to sell the rights to the character he swore never to do that again. He's finally apart of Disney now, after he was involved in what has to be considered the strangest Hollywood trades of all-time when NBC-Universal traded his rights back to Disney for the contract for Al Michaels, yeah, the sports commentator Al Michaels; Disney traded him to NBC for a cartoon rabbit.
PEBBLES FLINTSTONE
I know, I have no justification for this, but I tend to think of Pebbles as one of the more interesting Flitnstones character, and I have no idea why; I guess I can argue that it was the first time was saw an interesting and inquisitive little kid on television at the time, at least animated, and unlike say Little Ricky on "I Love Lucy", she didn't become a four-year-old right away or anything, Oddly, the character I most find myself comparing to her is Tabatha on "Bewitched", maybe it's the time period thing, they were around at the same time, but Tabatha was a half-witch and that automatically made her more interesting, and I-, hmm. (Shrugs) Maybe most of the characters from "The Flintstones" aren't as interesting as we'd like to think they are, and she gets more interesting by default? Maybe? Or maybe it's that, she's the dynamic that most arguably made them the most different from "The Honeymooners", that could be it. It is strange that they named a cereal after her though.
MEG GRIFFIN
Shut up, Meg. (Okay, I'm kidding, she's probably my favorite character on the show, but..., oh well.)
Alright, that's enough for now, or else I'd be going on forever. Anyway, I'll be revealing my Geekcast Radio Network's ballot and MY BALLOT ONLY, on my blogpost over the next couple blogs, one will be 100-51 and another will be 50-1, so remember that'll start next bl-
Oh shit, what a minute, I got a movie review blog up next. Dammit!
Okay, the next 2 BLOGS after my next batch of Movie Reviews, that's when I'll start revealing my ballot and revealing what I consider the TOP 100 ANIMATED CHARACTERS of ALL-TIME! Keep an eye out for that folks, and the Geekcast Radio Network for their complete results! Thank you.
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