Top 10 Best Cartoon Episodes of 2017

[Music] 2017 was a pretty decent year unless he were a male celebrity in Hollywood or a politician it's safe to say that it was better than last year though maybe not by a whole lot but who cares about decisions that could change how the whole internet functions when I could talk about cartoons for me one of the most important parts of this year was that it was another great year to be a fan of animation I'll be the first to say that the theatrical animation that we got was a little weaker than usual all but two of the widely released features felt like they had a good reason to exist besides making a quick buck selling merchandise or a bull not to discredit all of those movies I mean the emoji movie was a sleeper hit as we all know but now more than ever animated movies feel like products of an assembly line run by advertisers rather than works of art with something to say luckily TV animation picked up the slack and offered all the creativity and passion that was lacking on the silver screen so many great shows both new and returning graced the small screen this year I wanted to pay tribute to the best of the best animated shows on TV today but I've decided to go in a direction that's a little different from what I did last year instead of focusing on shows I'll be looking at individual episodes but I will also get my thoughts on how good each show was as I go along I'm limiting myself to only one episode for each show so that this list stays interesting no Netflix shows either since I barely watched any of the ones that came out this year if there was a miniseries were special that was split up into individual parts I'm allowing myself to be able to talk about only a single part of it since I feel that in some cases some of those segments were better than the whole miniseries are special with all that said let's close out the year with my top 10 cartoon episodes of 2017 sonic boom chicks all the boxes of being a show that I would review it's both a current show and one based on the glorious mess that I'd love to talk about that is the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise I gave them a chance when it first came out but my interest in it decreased over time of all the sonic cartoons out there this one is the most unlike Sonic it's a dialogue heavy sitcom take off that feels akin to the Simpsons rather than something related to the blue blur it was a commented comedy but not anything very special and because of that I eventually lost interest in the show less than midway through its first season but season two of sonic boom seems to have stepped up the quality it's more self-aware of what it is a great snarky fourth wall breaking sense of humor and it's made the world of the show its own dude is that tomato Potamus to game companies always ruin their beloved franchises they never should have changed the color of tomato paw Thomas's legs it also tackles questions that the main series never bothered to answer like what if sonic overcame his fear of swimming what if Sonic met an animal version of Christian or what would happen if dr. Eggman actually succeeded in taking over the world while Sonic was out of commission oh wait where of all the Sonic's gone plays out like a simplified and funnier version of the plot to Sonic forces dr. Eggman and his shape-shifting brother Steve from another dimension just go with it send Sonic to another dimension where he doesn't exist so Steve can impersonate Sonic and turn his friends against him since Steve fails at every opportunity to properly impersonate Sonic the episode mainly focuses on Sonic having to gather together alternate versions of his friends to form a resistance I mean rebellion to take down dr. Eggman and find a way home dr. Eggman in this universe is clearly marked as a threat after oh he's wearing black and the townspeople fear and obey Him sonic boom doesn't exactly have the budget to show that dr. Eggman is completely in control since there's no way to do that without recycling models which this show does far too often probably so that they can just repurpose old action figures with different paint jobs as stupid as this kind of is fits better than fading and text on a black screen that says what's happening instead of actually showing it you would think that the setup would give the episode and unusual dark tone but it maintains the show's goofy tone by using this setup for comedy and showing how different all the characters are in this dimension I especially like how knuckles leads an upper body only workout program and there's a decent twist with tails that actually makes sense for a universe where Sonic doesn't exist the plot is very simple but it has a good idea behind it and keeps me interested with some really consistent comedy oh and Sonic and Tails fist bump - now I wonder if there was a deleted subplot where classic sonic showed up for no reason then maybe this line wouldn't seem like a continuity error boy I'm sure glad that everyone in my audience got that extremely specific joke sonicboom has become a show that is far better than the sub series that it's based on and episodes like this are good examples of that it's a shame that we might lose a great show simply because the other parts of the sonicboom brand perform poorly but hey maybe this will open the door for a new sonic cartoon fingers crossed for a Sonic Underground continuation in today's world of reboots anything's possible watching The Adventure Time episode cloudy is like sitting in on a conversation it moves at its own pace and goes from focusing on one topic to another in the blink of an eye there's no adventure in this episode of Adventure Time Finn and Jake's conversation dominates the episode and it's so interesting that the rest of the episode doesn't need much more cloudy is the midpoint of the elements miniseries and this episode allows the duo to let their worries out about the current situation on the warped world below them as Finn and Jake float on a single cloud in the middle of nowhere this is basically a bottle episode and it gets a lot of mileage out of just having Finn and Jake hang out and talk to each other sometimes they talk about death sometimes Jake goes to the bathroom it's got a sporadic sense of focus yet it never stops being entertaining even when the two start singing kind of badly I had a lot of options for Adventure Time episodes to put on this list episodes that probably look a lot more interesting than cloudy like what would you rather watch this hey turn around I can't go would you looking at me for this [Applause] still I kept coming back to cloudy it doesn't aim to be anything more than just a really fun and relaxing experience it's a testament to the strength of adventure times main characters finn and jake don't need anything but themselves to make for a great episode guys guess who's back did you guys starve us as the forces of evil remains to be a show that does not impress me it's gotten a bit better since I mentioned it in my end of 2016 video though that's mostly due to it dropping the obnoxious and cliche love triangle I've seen every single episode of this show and rarely have I gotten invest in the characters or story there's certain things that I like and I can see why so many others like it but I still can't get into it however on rare occasions I think that the show can be something special in this case it had to switch its focus to a different set of characters and make its tone a touch darker in other words it really didn't have to change that much enter the second part of the battle from uni special moon the undaunted it's a flashback that shows stars mother Queen moon in a situation that puts the weight of the world on her shoulders shortly after losing her mother and becoming Queen immune II she's tasked with trying to put a rebellion against deadly monsters to an end either by peace or by war moon ends up consulting a former Queen the imprisoned eclipse' to learn a dangerous spell that ends up saving the day but at a price that may put Muni in even more danger of all the segments in the battle for Muni this was by far the strongest unlike many other episodes of this show I never thought that any element was forced or unnecessary I got invested in the struggles that moon and the others were going through I also wasn't expecting them to be so blunt about the death of moons mother they don't hold back here and it adds a strong extra layer to the situation at hand as on top of keeping peace a Muni moon also has the chance to avenge her mother this episode also acts as a decent origin story for a few of the characters we see a young River stand by the Queen side and have faith in her when everyone else seems to have forgotten about her we also see the route of Tommy's grudge against the butterfly family in a powerful ending where moon stands her ground both against the monsters threatening Muni and the Royal High Commission the story and Moon the is not incredibly original or unique but it's executed in a very solid way with the story creating the impact that it wants to and little getting in the way of my enjoyment of it also Pony head was nowhere to be seen that's also one of the reasons why I liked it more than the average episode of star versus so the ducktales reboot is a show that I can't get enough of it manages to make everything from the animations of the voice acting as good as its theme song something that the original show could only dream of doing I really like all the updates they made to the characters to make them likable and interesting some are minor others are major but the characters are the cause of the series biggest problem at the moment in an attempt to focus on developing one specific character at a time some characters are completely absent from certain episodes with no explanation it's not a deal breaker but it bugs me when I enjoy watching every member of the cast there are still episodes that manage to focus on the entire main cast and give them all something interesting to do and the one that I think that at best was the final episode released this year the impossible summit of Mount Neverest well the first part of this reboots pilot did a fantastic job introducing the cast this one puts them into what I think is a more interesting situation Scrooge Webby Huey and Dewey attempt to scale monstrous mountain with a supernatural secret that Scrooge also has some history with meanwhile Louie just opted out of being part of the adventure and hangs out at the resort at the bottom of the mountain Bree helps launchpad after it gets scanned not everything that happens in this episode is nail-biting adventure but what works really works the main plot goes through a few unexpected turns with some good humor sprinkled throughout it also ends with a satisfying action sequence that may or may not have killed some of the characters as time goes on the adventure becomes bigger and bigger and it also becomes a much more personal journey for the characters on the other hand the launchpad Lewis subplot is simple but it's enjoyable for what it is and doesn't overstay its welcome almost all the other episodes of the ducktales reboot take adventure story tropes and combine them with the problem that you might find in a sitcom that formula has produced plenty of good episodes but for me it's interesting that it's best episode so far straight from that formula it reminds me a bit of Rick and Morty and how it added a sci-fi twist to a cliche story as is the ducktales true boot is much better than expected but if it keeps on producing episodes like this one then I think that I can become even plenty motivational smell that came from allies and we are the police's is the whole cuckoo stand I am freezing so what happens when you take the amazing world of gumball and combine it with the incredibly strange internet phenomenon don't hug me I'm scared well you get whatever this episode is season 5 of the amazing world of gumball has tried out a lot of different things there were new episode formats a slightly different sense of humor and a lot more guest animation than usual gumbo is still a really good show it's just that this season hasn't really appealed to me as much as the past few have and I found that there just haven't been as many great episodes as there usually are but when season 5 has a great episode it really knocks it out of the park and the puppets is a good example of that darwin becomes attached to his old childhood puppets grainy Franken howdy to the point where he wears them all the time and can't take them off of his hands after gumball convinces him to finally throw them away the puppets possessed Darwin and trap him in his own imagination and gumball has to rescue him the plot and message of the puppets are very simple but they have a nice bit of relatability as leaving your childhood behind is something that a lot of people have to deal with at some point in their lives but this episode is more of a vehicle for weird jokes and crazy visuals which are the bread and butter of some of the best gumball episodes the puppeteered sections were easily the highlight as they produce some very visual gags and an atmosphere that walks line between being creepy and charming at certain moments everything leading up to that climax is good - and it's full with some fun weird and self-aware gumball jokes there's kind of two separate styles working to craft this episode and they come together so well to the point that it's kind of hard to distinguish one from the other even as someone who has seen none of don't hug me i'm scared i really like what its creators brought to this episode and it gave this season of gumbo the kind of episode it needed that worried you sir i advise you not to look down okay kayo is my favorite cartoon currently on the air it's not perfect since I feel like some of the characters go just a bit too off model occasionally and some episodes especially around the middle of the first season had some minor problems like those were either a little too uninteresting or ended too soon but even the episodes that were the least good had a really good interesting concept or a cool moment for one of the characters even when it doesn't focus on it's more story heavy elements the characters world and overall style that okay kayo has is so entertaining that I'm pretty much on board with anything that they do this made it a challenge to pick my favorite episode so far since I really enjoyed quite a few for my pick I decided to go with face your fear because it has the most of what I enjoy from the series for one it gives a little bit of development to all of the main characters by having kayo dive into their various fears there's also a good bit of action and grand visuals towards the end when ko ride and Enid arriving gars dream where they encounter a situation that raises even more questions about gar and Carol's past the fears have a lot of variety to them and they're used to foreshadow or lead to ideas that will be important in later episodes this is kind of a major story episode for the show but it's enjoyable enough on its own that it doesn't really feel like that also Dendy is here and that's always nice face your fears didn't shock me or do anything very innovative with its premise it just gave a creative and solid execution to a solid idea and I think that's what has made OK ko a blast to watch so far the regular show series finale was the first episode of regular show that I had watched since the show had a movie back in 2015 the movie wasn't what caused my lack of interest I just forgotten about the show for a little over a year I intend to finish watching all of it someday but for now I can say that they delivered a pretty satisfying series finale if I was a bigger fan of the show I might have a few more things to complain about but if this really is the last we see of regular show then I think this ended it on a high note the finale did everything a good finale should do it called back to the history of the series in a respectful way it took risks resolved the plot that had been building for most of the final season and gave all of its characters great send-offs so much time passes from the start to the very end of this episode but it's still very well paced and manages to include the right amount of comedy action and heart that the series is known I'll omit that the final part of this three-part special is a lot better than the first two as I found the battle and those two to be good but not as interesting as the character stuff done in the very last episode also I recommend that before you watch this Vannelli you watch the two or three episodes that come before it or just all of season eight overtime Regular Show has become a very series so don't just expect that you can dive into this finale and understand all the context then stakes this in the next couple of episodes on this list are ones that you really need to experience and I can't do them all just as here anyway I can't say that too many series finales are as good as the shows that they finish off but regular show was a big exception to that trend it got the ending that it deserved and as a minor fan of the series I'm happy to say that it's ironic that the Rick llantas mix-up hardly feels like a Rick and Morty episode since Rick and Morty are the only characters in it even the episode itself hides its true identity the advertising for this episode as well as its opening scene one have you believed that it revolves around Rick and Morty messing around in the lost city of Atlantis but instead it's actually about the lives of the various tricks and Morty's that are living in the Citadel of Rick's after Rick destroyed its high console and the season premiere speaking of the season premiere many of you are probably wondering why that episode isn't in this spot on the list since there was just so much competition for the best Rick and Morty episode this year truthfully I do think that the Rick shank redemption is the better episode of these two but I've already spoken about it at length and it wasn't nearly as creative and interesting as the Rick Landis mix up when you get right down to it the most interesting part of the Rick shank redemption was a red herring that basically ripped off the twist from em Nitra Millions while this episode explores a unique and intricate world all its own we see the shady ins and outs of the Citadel through the eyes of a Rick and Morty cop duo a factory employee Rick who is sick of being ignored after working at the factory for years a group of misfit Morty's who are in search of a special wishing portal and a morty who is the campaign manager for the only morty in the set of those presidential race one of my main complaints with rick and morty season 3 was simply that a lot of its episodes were not very funny many of them relied a little too much on a joke or two to keep the episode entertaining aside Rick turning himself into a pickle was funny at first but seeing him do nothing more than just murder people for half the episode got old rather quickly the Rick Landis mix-up has its shining moments but it's not a very funny episode but what makes it the best episode from the season is the immensely interesting world that it builds the Citadel has a unique social hierarchy and rules for what is wrong and right but because everyone in this society are essentially characters that we've spent the rest of the series with it's very easy to understand how everything works the concept of this universe is simple enough that you can easily get invested in it without questioning why everything is how it is the four different perspectives in the episode are used to showcase different parts of the universe they each tell different stories that mostly stand alone but eventually they're all united as one of the plots grows to affect the others I've never seen such a detailed and fascinating world like this be established by show in only 22 minutes it would be a shame if we never return to this world especially since the ending suggests that big changes are coming to the Citadel whatever is the case the wreck llantas mix-up is unlike any other episode of Rick and Morty and it's also one of the best episodes of Rick and Morty that might not sound like it makes a lot of sense but remember this is Rick and Morty the smartest show on television so of course it makes sense if you can only pick one episode to prove to someone that reviving Samurai Jack for Adult Swim was a good idea then show them X C III aka episode 93 aka season 5 episode 2 aka the one where a bunch of teenagers hunt Jack down and he accidentally kills one of them you all know the one I'm talking about this one episode showcases the best of what this season had to offer were reintroduced to the evil sorcerer aku and the performance given to him by his new voice actor Greg Baldwin almost makes him sound like he hasn't aged a day Jack's internal struggle is gripping and adds new layers to his character and the action and animation are still extremely fast-moving and well choreographed this isn't the first time where Jack has had to go up against characters that are equal to him and strength and agility but this is probably one of the best as expected the fight between the two ends up being kind of long and takes up nearly half of the episode but it stays interesting throughout due to how Jack uses the changing surroundings to avoid the sisters and how the tension never slows down for a second the atmosphere here is magnificent as well the hard rain and limited in some scenes give some beautiful visual character to this fight sprawling ring and I could watch moments like the encounter lit only by sparks and the sequence where Jack hides in the tomb over and over the season 5 premiere did a good job setting up the toning stakes that would be the norm for the rest of the series but this episode expands and carries out what was set up and it results in one of the most intense cartoon episodes that I've ever seen it's a shame that the rest of this season wasn't at a similar quality to this but I still think it's amazing that a reboot was even able to generate an episode that is one of the best to ever come out of its franchise for a little while jack was truly back here's a few honorable mentions that didn't quite make it onto the list put it down from South Park and storm in the room from Steven universe were both really good episodes and the best from each of their shows they both deserve spots somewhere on this list but I kept them off because I think I've said everything that I wanted to say about them when I covered both of them recently and my last two reviews Paul friction was the best episode of the loud house that I saw from this year and it was a solid episode but there was very little about it that made it special or something that I felt like I needed to talk about the Milo Murphy's Law episode a Christmas peril was great it was the kind of Christmas special that only this show could have produced I would have included it if it were not for the fact that this is only one of the two Milo Murphy's Law episodes that I watched this year yeah remember when I said that I was going to keep up with this show as it aired new episodes that was before the show went on hiatus for four months and I forgot about it I tend to forget about shows easily if you couldn't tell the same kind of applies to we bare bears panda 2 was a cute episode that gave Panda a nice bit of backstory but it deserves a mention here solely because it reveals that in the we bare bears universe Seinfeld is an anime [Music] so it was like what's the deal with bees hi Carrie so anyway in its 18th year running SpongeBob SquarePants produced the episode mimic madness which I honestly think is one of its best episodes of all time the concept of it is basically face freeze by way of ear worm after learning that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery swine begins to imitate everyone that he sees he does this to the point that he's imitated so many people that he forgets who he truly is and the other characters have to help spongebob return to normal it's a simple flop but I think it leads to a ton of great and varied comedy both SpongeBob's impressions and the reactions to them are funny and it's helped that Tom Kenny does all the impressions himself the man gets to show off his incredible vocal range and it's the most impressive when he swaps from one to another with ease I also love how SpongeBob's impressions are animated the faces of the other characters are simply fused with SpongeBob's body but it's not overly detailed to the point where it's off-putting or creepy and even when the different impressions twist in and out and combine with each other it's animated in a super fluid way that's pleasing to the eye but my favorite part of the episode is the song Who am I for me it's up there with Gary come home as one of the standout musical numbers from this show the bold and triumphant singing and backing tracks are juxtaposed with the fact that this is a silly ballad about a kitchen sponge having an identity crisis but like the thumb song from two thumbs down it's so silly that it works and it works really well [Music] you have so many features it makes it hard [Music] [Music] of all the episodes on this list this is not the deepest or has the best animation or character development but it's number one because it made me the happiest each and every time I watch this episode I grin from ear to ear even if I knew that it had a lot in common with one of my favorite episodes bang geeks since both involve all the characters banding together in support of another and most fantastic musical moments I still would have been skeptical of this episode the past decade or so that I've been watching spongebob for has kind of conditioned me to not expect that any new episode will rank among my favorites of all time but I am comfortable with saying that this episode lived up to the hype that it now has if you still believe that every spongebob episode past season 3 is bad stop living like Patrick and give mimic madness a shot you might not rediscover your identity by watching it but you might just find a fantastic episode no to whom am i speaking [Music] and that just about wraps up this video my last video of 2017 well it's been a great year for animation as I just illustrated it's been a pretty great year for me too I'm proud to have doubled my subscriber count in all but I'm really glad that I got closer with all of you this was a big social year for my channel if you couldn't already tell by the 10 collabs I did and that's not even counting my failed podcast and other projects that I was involved with but I'm not just glad about getting the chance to work with so many other great creators it's also great to have gotten to know you guys through social media or through having good conversations in the comments seeing a community of people discuss and respect my videos makes the dozens of hours I put towards the channel worth it I can't wait to connect with others with this channel in the future I hope that 2018 brings good things for me my channel animation in general and to all of you I'm Nintendo and if there's one thing to take away from this year it's this load we will never be the two of us holding the key we see today will be couldn't see before I say goodbye to you one more last baseball [Music]

Channel: NICKtendo

Views: 153,852

Keywords:

Id: eN0no8H_lME

Length: 25min 13sec (1513 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 31 2017