In the mid to late 80s and very early 90s “junior” versions of classic cartoons were all the rage. While the idea, on the surface, seems really uncreative and potentially stupid, this concept managed to produce some absolutely fantastic cartoons.

Here’s our list of the top 5 ‘Kids’ cartoons of all time…

Tom and Jerry Kids

One of the last entries into the ‘Kids’ cartoon sub-genre, Tom and Jerry Kids was a great modernization of the ‘Tom and Jerry’ formula for the 90s. The show aired on FOX from 1990 to 1993, and featured short segments staring Tom, Jerry, Slowpoke Antonio, Kyle the Cat, and Wildmouse.

The Flintstone Kids

From 1986 to 1988, The Flintstone Kids aired as an hour long show that featured the most popular characters from The Flintstones in junior sized versions. Most character personalities remained the same, but the show also introduced new characters like Captain Caveman to the Flintstones mythos. The show actually caused controversy among hard core Flintstones fans because it contradicted prior established continuity with the Flintstone’s history. Still, it was a great series, and one of the top ‘Kids’ series from the era.

A Pup Named Scooby Doo

How good was A Pup Named Scooby Doo? So good that it still airs daily on Cartoon Network (and it has been on the network since 1993!). This was the 8th incarnation of Scooby Doo as a saturday morning cartoon, and it ran from 1988 to 1991 on ABC. It follows the same formula as the original series, but with a much more sarcastic tone. Of every show on the list, this is the easiest to find. It still airs on television, and is available on DVD as well.

Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies

Muppet Babies started this ‘Kids’ trend, and ran the longest of all the series on this list – from 1984-1992 (new episodes ended in 1990). The series is an animated classic that featured the famous Muppet characters as children, going on imaginative adventures (often parodying popular culture and current films) – all from the safety of their nursery. The series has not, and probably will not, come to DVD. One reason sighted is that the series featured a great deal of footage from other sources (including Indiana Jones and Star Wars in the series opening) and rights may be difficult to iron out.

Tiny Toon Adventures

With a high production budget, fantastic writing, and the backing of Stephen Speilberg, Tiny Toons put Warner Bros. animation back on the map in the 1990s. This series took a slightly different route to the ‘Kids’ concept, with the Tiny Toons being unrelated animated kids who were taught by the previous Loony Tunes generation. The show ran for almost 100 episodes, including several specials and a direct to video movie, and often lampooned pop culture and current events.

The series is finally coming to DVD on July 29, 2008.
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More and more lately I find myself watching programming from the UK. BBC America is turning into the most watched channel in my house, and I’m really enjoying what I’m watching. It all started with the Writer’s Strike…I needed something different to watch, so I turned to other channels that I might have previously skipped over. Already being a fan of ‘Doctor Who’, it was easy to stop by the BBC to check out spin-off ‘Torchwood’, and I ended up staying for much more.

This list includes those two phenomenal shows, but also includes a few others that I think are truly great television, and that I recommend for anyone to watch.

5. Torchwood – This spin-off from ‘Doctor Who’ revolves around a government agency created to combat the paranormal forces that threaten the UK. Torchwood comes off as mostly evil – except for the branch in Cardiff run by Captain Jack Harkness, which is the branch the series focuses on.

It’s shades of “X-Files” but with its own unique twist. While a few of the episodes in season two were on the “hokey” side, this show remains engaging and well worth your time.

4. You Are What you Eat - Nutritionist Gillian McKeith doesn’t hesitate to tell the overweight people on her show exactly what they’re doing wrong. She is blunt, to the point, and a great motivator. The show makes no bones about analyzing poo, discussing farting, and showing people first hand exactly what a week of eating crap looks like.

You can learn a lot from this show, but simply watching it, is a motivator to eat a healthier diet, and live a healthier life style. If you’re even slightly over weight, I recommend watching this show at least a few times a week. Reruns run everyday, and there’s plenty of episodes to fill your DVR.

3. Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares – Chef Gordon Ramsay is well known to US audiences for “Hell’s Kitchen” as well as “Kitchen Nightmares”, the US made version of this show, but his original UK show is vastly superior to both of these programs. Free of “Reality show” casting, the show simply focuses on Chet Ramsay going to various restaurants that are in trouble, and showing them how to turn around their business.

It’s educational, and highly entertaining, and I think fans of the US show will be able to quickly see the contrast in style of the show. I have watched the first season of the US show, and will continue to watch it in the future, but there’s just something about the original that is a much more satisfying viewing experience.

2. That Mitchell and Webb Look – I originally became aware of these two when they were hired by Apple to star in UK versions of the PC vs Mac ads. While those weren’t terribly well received, their show “That Mitchell and Webb Look” is another story entirely. It is absolutely the best sketch comedy on television right now. Sure, there are a few times when I don’t get the jokes because they are referencing something in the UK that I’m not aware of, but most of the time these two guys absolutely channel the very best in british comedy.

1. Doctor Who – Who didn’t see this coming? Anyone? Anyone? I didn’t think so. Doctor Who enters its 4th season since returning to television, and new episodes will air on the Sci-Fi Channel in the US starting this Friday. Doctor Who is the very best in Sci-Fi, and out of all the current Sci-Fi television series currently in production, it is my absolute favorite.

Season 4 is set to be explosive, and possibly the best yet, with the Doctor being joined by the surprisingly likable Catherine Tate. We also know that previous companion, Martha Jones will be making an appearance, and The Doctor’s first companion (since the series returned) – Rose Tyler – will be showing up at some point as well.

If you’re a fan of ANY kind of Sci-fi – it’s worth your time to check out this amazing series.

You know, there has been some seriously terrible Sci-Fi on television throughout the years. This list is not the absolute WORST of the bunch – that’s almost incalculable. This does, however, showcase 5 truly terrible sci-fi series, none of which lasted very long – and a few of which I’ll bet you haven’t ever heard of.

Future Cop

Ernest Borgnine starred in this terrible, terrible series about a robotic police officer “a cop from the future, a future cop”. Ernest played the steadfast father figure to the Data-like robotic cop, while John Amos screamed a lot, made “white boy” jokes, and continued to be flabbergasted at the amazing things that the new rookie cop could do.

Surprisingly, the show ran from 1976-1978.
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Sometimes its hard to believe that good television even gets produced, when so much of it cancelled because of an ancient ratings system that in no-way reflects what the public is actually watching. (Nielsen’s I’m looking at you). Sometimes a Network just doesn’t give a show enough time, sometimes they just don’t understand what they have until its too late, and sometimes the people that handle scheduling are just plain idiots.

Below, we have a list of 5 TV Shows that never should have been cancelled – and each of them was for one of the reasons listed above.

5. The Screen Savers

When TechTV was merged with G4 – every fan of TechTV knew that the glory days were over. Bizarre changes started immediately, and Leo Laporte left the show, and things looked really bad. The new co-host, however, was an aspiring actor named Alex Albriecht. He, along with Kevin Rose, managed to usher in a new era for The Screen Savers. The show was reborn, but after a few months Alex was fired, and the format was changed over an over again until they finally cancelled the show all together, and moved the staff to a new program called Attack of the Show!.

The Screen Savers should have never been cancelled, and the hosting team of Alex Albriecht and Kevin Rose would later re-team for an online show called Diggnation that has officially made them tech-rock stars.
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Some Christmas Specials seem to last forever. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” has aired very year since the early 1960s. “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is another one that has been on for as long as I’ve been alive, and will probably be on every Christmas until well after I’m dead.

Then there are other Christmas Specials. Specials that, if you’re a child of the 80s, you probably watched more than once, but that haven’t lived on into the immortal status. They aired annually for a few years, but these shows will never be the holiday mainstays that they were intended to be…but that doesn’t make them any less great.

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, however, we can remember these shows…

5. A Garfield Christmas

The Garfield Christmas Special was one of my favorites as a kid, and is available on a really cheaply produced DVD that includes his Thanksgiving and Halloween specials as well. Even though the special doesn’t air annually anymore, and the DVD looks like a VHS copy, I’m glad I share this one with my kids.

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Happy Halloween! It’s that time of year again, and to celebrate, we’ve ranked the 10 Scariest TV Shows of ALL TIME….

10. Are you afraid of the Dark?

If you’re in your mid to early 20s, then you probably remember “Are you Afraid of the Dark?”. It was a show that first ran on Nickelodeon on Saturday nights. It was an anthology show that featured kids telling campfire tales as a framework for short scary stories. It was very much in the vein of Tales from the Crypt or the Twilight Zone, with a 90s, kid friendly spin…but it still scared the hell out of us here at TV Jab when we were but wee lads.

09. The Outer Limits

While the original Outer Limits was more of a “monster of the week” styled show, the remake, which ran from 1995 to 2002 introduced a more science related sci-fi that you normally see on television, and some of the show had truly frightening concepts. At 154 episodes, chances are, The Outer Limits is out there, “controlling the horizontal, and the vertical” on a television somewhere…right now…

08. Unsolved Mysteries

Unsolved Mysteries was a lot of things. Long before cable television took the concept of “reality television” and ruined it, Unsolved Mysteries could haunt your dreams with some of the most frightening tales of Ghosts and Alien encounters ever. What made them so terrifying?

They actually happened…
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This new fall season is brimming with science fiction. From Bionic Woman to Pushing Daisies, there is sci-fi all over the television these days. It’s finally gone mainstream…but sci-fi fans know that we’ve had great sci-fi programming almost as long as we’ve had televisions in our homes.

So, in honor of all these great years of sci-fi programming, we present to you…our Top 10 Greatest Sci-Fi Shows of All Time…

10. Babylon 5 – Centered around the Babylon 5 space station, a focal point for politics, diplomacy, and wars in the late 2250s and early 2260s, this series is often referred to as a “novel for television” because of it’s deep and engrossing storylines that played out over several seasons of the show.

09. Firefly – A “western in space”, Firefly was a short-lived television series that managed to established an amazingly detailed and rich world in only 13 episodes. The show developed a dedicated fan following that still work to get the series back on the air in some form to this day. The drive of the fans helped result in the feature film “Serenity” that completed the storyline from the series.

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