Cartoons that made a big pop culture splash but are now disproportionately forgotten

[Zanneck]

I do, but Xiaolin Showdown never made a pop culture splash, as I recall. The show had a loyal fanbase when it originally aired, but the show made very little merchandise and it was never as big as say, Dragon Ball, Pokemon or even Yu-Gi-Oh!. Heck, even Winx Club was a bigger deal than Xiaolin Showdown. At least that show had merch.

And that sucks, because Xiaolin Showdown was Truly Awesome, from beginning to end. UGH.

 

[CassieTheDragon]

I do, but Xiaolin Showdown never made a pop culture splash, as I recall. The show had a loyal fanbase when it originally aired, but the show made very little merchandise and it was never as big as say, Dragon Ball, Pokemon or even Yu-Gi-Oh!. Heck, even Winx Club was a bigger deal than Xiaolin Showdown. At least that show had merch.

Actually, I still see Xiaolin Showdown get brought up from time to time. Not that popular and certainly not on the level of KND or Ed Edd N Eddy, but occasionally I see people bring it up, which isn't something I can say for Bobby's World or Dragon Tales, which are, by comparison, largely forgotten despite both being FAR more popular in their prime.

 

[CassieTheDragon]

Bobby's World had TONS of fast food tie-in merch:

List of Bobby’s World Fast Food Promotions

And, for whatever reason, despite reruns on Fox Kids ending in 2001, there was a Popeyes promotion in October 2008, half a decade after the show stopped airing.

An SNES game was supposed to be released around the mid-90s, but it got cancelled right before it was gonna come out because the company who was making it went out of business.

Even the TvTropes page for it admits that not that many people remember it despite running for 8 years.

Around 2006 (and later in 2014), talks of a revival were underway, but it seemingly never happened.

I'd say that these are the 5 most forgotten once-popular cartoons:

1. Dragon Tales
2. Bobby's World
3. Adventures of The Gummi Bears
4. Wow Wow Wubbzy!
5. Star vs. The Forces of Evil (this one's not entirely forgotten)

Dragon Tales almost certainly beats everything else in this thread, at least for popularity in North America; you had to be there in the early 2000s. It was huge and was promoted a shit ton on PBS and was everywhere. Not the most popular cartoon back then (definitely not as popular back then as SpongeBob and Dora, both of which are certainly NOT forgotten in any shape or form), but it was very, very popular.

Like, these other examples pale compared to Dragon Tales, and it's ridiculously disproportionate how forgotten that show is. You never see any merch of it at any stores like Boxlunch or Hot Topic, where you'll find merch of other shows that were also around as popular as Dragon Tales, it rarely if ever gets brought up in nostalgia circles, and even many of the people who do bring it up seem to not remember it particularly well. Although I certainly vividly remember it, as well as multiple details about it.

I think the reason why other popular PBS cartoons from the 90s and 2000s have remained popular (like Arthur, Clifford, The Magic School Bus, Curious George, WordGirl, and Cyberchase) is because of longevity.

Of all of the popular PBS cartoons mentioned, Dragon Tales easily had the shortest run time total; every other PBS cartoon I mentioned eclipses it, if not in original run, in overall reruns total.

Counting both the original run and reruns:

• Dragon Tales ran from 1999 to 2010; reruns ended very early.
• Curious George (2006-present), Arthur (1996-present), Clifford (2000-present, reboot in 2019), The Magic School Bus* (1994-2012, reboot in 2017), WordGirl (2007-present), and Cyberchase (2002-present)

*TMSB had reruns on various different stations throughout the years, last airing on Qubo from 2010-2012).

The only cartoons that had a shorter run of original episodes are Clifford The Big Red Dog (2000-2003, with 65 episodes) and The Magic School Bus (1994-1997, with 52 episodes), but after combining the episode count of the reboots, both beat the episode count of Dragon Tales; Clifford's goes up to 104 episodes combined, and TMSB's goes up to 82 episodes combined.

Meanwhile Dragon Tales only has 78 original episodes (many of season 3's "new" episodes were just repeats of previous episodes from the season 2), and unlike the other two, not only does it not have a reboot, it'll likely never have a reboot due to being owned by both Sony and Sesame Workshop, so you can count on Dragon Tales fading into complete and total obscurity in 10-20 years.

 

[Ed Nygma]

Were Eek! The Cat and Mighty Max ever really that popular? There was a popular toyline for Mighty Max, but the show was based on the toyline. Even the Wikipedia page admits that the toyline was far more popular than the show itself. Eek! The Cat had a SNES game, but that was terrible and from what I could gather the show wasn't particularly popular even when it was airing.

The lack of availability for Dragon Tales also really contributed to that show being kinda forgotten.

Isn't Pokemon season 1 really easy to find? It definitely still has complete season releases and i'm pretty sure it can be found on plenty of streaming services.

I can't find Pokemon on a single streaming platform, and even on iTunes it's buried under the confusing name "Indigo League" with not every episode included. It's pretty much the opposite of a 65 episode complete series release under one name.

Yeah, I guess Mighty Max was made only for a toyline, but that doesn't change that the toyline/cartoon synergy implanted a lot of it in kids' heads, and it's been completely banished from the pop culture discussion now. Compare it to something like He Man, also based on a toyline and not exactly a marker of quality, and yet that one is still getting revived and discussed to this day. I do think Gen X had more of an outsized say in the pop culture discussion than they want to admit, Millennial 90s stuff is pretty much forgotten as detritus for the most part.

Every cartoon that exists has some agenda; I don't think there are too many that you can label as 'pure artistic expression' devoid of a purpose, whether that's to sell toys or just some idea they threw against the wall to land an influential endorsement, like Spielberg and Animaniacs. It's all about commerce unfortunately, but if something did make children happy and give them pleasant memories then I don't think it matters what the original origin of it is, too much. Just imo

 

[pacman000]

Netflix does have the first 52 episodes of Pokemon's season one available and Amazon Prime has some episodes available as well. I don't think that the complete first season is available for streaming yet. The first season has been re-released through DVD box sets a couple of times, which are still relatively easy to find. Assuming that TPCI has something planned out after they shut down Pokemon TV, the free streaming service that rotated episodes throughout the various series, they'll hopefully make the series more accessible through streaming. A lot of the more recent series are spread across multiple different streaming services.

The first season is the first 52 episodes; the end of the Indigo Saga & the Orange Islands are, officially, the 2nd season. (Source: Understanding "Seasons" of the Pokémon TV Show)

Annoying, but that's how it was packaged for syndication, so that's how most DVD sets get packaged too.

I was going to mention EEK! the Cat, but someone else already has. I think I'll go back a bit further:

Mutt & Jeff, the once-popular comic duo, had a very successful run of theatrical cartoons in the silent era, under a series of different studios. Now, you can't even find 'em on public domain compilations that'll release anything.

 

[Pooky]

As with so much in life a lot of it seems to come down to corporate backing. Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network are (for now!) still active brands, so they have an interest in keeping in touch with recent and future parents, part of which might be reminding them how much they liked Rugrats and The Powerpuff Girls, or even Johnny Bravo and Catdog. Fox Kids is a dead brand, so sadly no one has a vested interest in reminding you about Bobby's World and Eek the Cat.

 

[Dr.Pepper]

Bobby's World had TONS of fast food tie-in merch:

List of Bobby’s World Fast Food Promotions

And, for whatever reason, despite reruns on Fox Kids ending in 2001, there was a Popeyes promotion in October 2008, half a decade after the show stopped airing.

An SNES game was supposed to be released around the mid-90s, but it got cancelled right before it was gonna come out because the company who was making it went out of business.

Even the TvTropes page for it admits that not that many people remember it despite running for 8 years.

Around 2006 (and later in 2014), talks of a revival were underway, but it seemingly never happened.

I'd say that these are the 5 most forgotten once-popular cartoons:

1. Dragon Tales
2. Bobby's World
3. Adventures of The Gummi Bears
4. Wow Wow Wubbzy!
5. Star vs. The Forces of Evil (this one's not entirely forgotten)

Dragon Tales almost certainly beats everything else in this thread, at least for popularity in North America; you had to be there in the early 2000s. It was huge and was promoted a shit ton on PBS and was everywhere. Not the most popular cartoon back then (definitely not as popular back then as SpongeBob and Dora, both of which are certainly NOT forgotten in any shape or form), but it was very, very popular.

Like, these other examples pale compared to Dragon Tales, and it's ridiculously disproportionate how forgotten that show is. You never see any merch of it at any stores like Boxlunch or Hot Topic, where you'll find merch of other shows that were also around as popular as Dragon Tales, it rarely if ever gets brought up in nostalgia circles, and even many of the people who do bring it up seem to not remember it particularly well. Although I certainly vividly remember it, as well as multiple details about it.

I think the reason why other popular PBS cartoons from the 90s and 2000s have remained popular (like Arthur, Clifford, The Magic School Bus, Curious George, WordGirl, and Cyberchase) is because of longevity.

Of all of the popular PBS cartoons mentioned, Dragon Tales easily had the shortest run time total; every other PBS cartoon I mentioned eclipses it, if not in original run, in overall reruns total.

Counting both the original run and reruns:

• Dragon Tales ran from 1999 to 2010; reruns ended very early.
• Curious George (2006-present), Arthur (1996-present), Clifford (2000-present, reboot in 2019), The Magic School Bus* (1994-2012, reboot in 2017), WordGirl (2007-present), and Cyberchase (2002-present)

*TMSB had reruns on various different stations throughout the years, last airing on Qubo from 2010-2012).

The only cartoons that had a shorter run of original episodes are Clifford The Big Red Dog (2000-2003, with 65 episodes) and The Magic School Bus (1994-1997, with 52 episodes), but after combining the episode count of the reboots, both beat the episode count of Dragon Tales; Clifford's goes up to 104 episodes combined, and TMSB's goes up to 82 episodes combined.

Meanwhile Dragon Tales only has 78 original episodes (many of season 3's "new" episodes were just repeats of previous episodes from the season 2), and unlike the other two, not only does it not have a reboot, it'll likely never have a reboot due to being owned by both Sony and Sesame Workshop, so you can count on Dragon Tales fading into complete and total obscurity in 10-20 years.

Maybe it’s just my age, but I don’t remember Dragon Tales being insanely popular. I’m not saying it was an obscure show, or that it received zero promotion from PBS, but I don’t recall it being up there in the top 10 most popular cartoons or anything. But again, I was a young adolescent in the early 2000’s so maybe its popularity just flew under my radar.

Also Bobby’s World had a fast food promotion in 2008?! That makes no sense.

 

[Silverstar]

Bobby's World is the prime example of this. It was one of the sacred pillars of Fox Kids during its' run; it got renewed every year and in promos and adverts Bobby was treated like the jewel in the Fox Kids crown, yet that show dropped off the radar faster than the pet rock.

 

[CassieTheDragon]

Maybe it’s just my age, but I don’t remember Dragon Tales being insanely popular. I’m not saying it was an obscure show, or that it received zero promotion from PBS, but I don’t recall it being up there in the top 10 most popular cartoons or anything. But again, I was a young adolescent in the early 2000’s so maybe its popularity just flew under my radar.

As illustrated in my post about the show, it was absolutely massive. It had multiple live stage show tours from 2001-2006 in almost every city, it had tons of merchandise (video games, plushies, puzzles, you name it), it had multiple meet-and-greets with dragons from the series, and Cassie (the pink dragon girl) even had a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloon.

Again, I certainly never said it was as big as SpongeBob or The Powerpuff Girls, but of late 90s and early 2000s cartoons, it certainly was one of the most heavily promoted, inside and outside of it's home network.

 

[CassieTheDragon]

Bobby's World is the prime example of this. It was one of the sacred pillars of Fox Kids during its' run; it got renewed every year and in promos and adverts Bobby was treated like the jewel in the Fox Kids crown, yet that show dropped off the radar faster than the pet rock.

I'd say Dragon Tales is the biggest example, as it was even more popular than Bobby's World was, but i'd say Bobby's World is definitely the second biggest example.

 

[Red Arrow]

I can't find Pokemon on a single streaming platform, and even on iTunes it's buried under the confusing name "Indigo League" with not every episode included. It's pretty much the opposite of a 65 episode complete series release under one name.

In Belgium, Netflix has Indigo League and many other seasons.

 

[Ace]

I'm pretty sure Winnie the Pooh was a much bigger thing up until the early 2000s. The franchise isn't entirely forgotten but it was way more in the limelight until soon after the turn of the millennium. I vaguely remember all the toys and merch that series had as a kid. After that Disney tried keeping the franchise relevant with new shows and movies without much success.

 

[CassieTheDragon]

I'm pretty sure Winnie the Pooh was a much bigger thing up until the early 2000s. The franchise isn't entirely forgotten but it was way more in the limelight until soon after the turn of the millennium. I vaguely remember all the toys and merch that series had as a kid. After that Disney tried keeping the franchise relevant with new shows and movies without much success.

That's still way too popular to be here. The OP says "disproportionately forgotten" and Winnie The Pooh just doesn't fit here. Maybe not AS popular as it once was, but still very popular.

 

[MTAF1976]

One example I can think of is Captain Planet and Planeteers. That cartoon came out in 1990 and lasted for six seasons and has over 100 episodes. It also had a bunch of merchandise and there were even plans for the movie. But nowadays you don't see that many people talking about it. It wasn't even among most prominent examples of "what cartoons do you think of when you think of the 90s?" When you see people talk about 90s cartoons. When thinking of 90s cartoons, people will likely first remember cartoons like Rugrats, Animaniacs, Batman the Animated Series, Ren & Stimpy, Simpsons, Dexter's Laboratory , Rocko's Modern Life, Beavis and Butt-Head, Johnny Bravo, Hey Arnold, Gargoyles, Recess etc, than they will remember Captain Planet. Time didn't treat Captain Planet all that well

Captain Planet only lasted that long because it was Ted Turner's pet project and was willing to dump whatever money into it

 

[CassieTheDragon]

I feel like most of the PBS cartoons fit here actually. Everyone has watched or at least heard of Arthur, Clifford The Big Red Dog, and The Magic School Bus, but most of their other cartoons aren't very well-remembered. They don't get much attention from most people. Tell me, when's the last time you saw someone in public wearing a shirt of WordGirl, Dinosaur Train or Dragon Tales?

 

[ZephyrFromAvalon]

WordGirl actually had a resurgence in popularity relatively recently (it was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid but I didn't join it's new fandom), but I haven't really heard anybody talk about Dinosaur Train at all asides from Athena P's video about it

 

[Pooky]

Dinosaur Train was still running (so to speak) in 2021 and at least here in the UK it's still on Netflix, it'll be a few years before we know if it has any nostalgic currency. (For what it's worth I only heard of the show via people talking about seeing it with their kids/grandkids)

 

[CassieTheDragon]

Dinosaur Train was still running (so to speak) in 2021 and at least here in the UK it's still on Netflix, it'll be a few years before we know if it has any nostalgic currency. (For what it's worth I only heard of the show via people talking about seeing it with their kids/grandkids)

I do on occasion see WordGirl and Dinosaur Train love but I NEVER see Dragon Tales get brought up. Shame because it's the much better show of the three

 

[Dr.Pepper]

I feel like most of the PBS cartoons fit here actually. Everyone has watched or at least heard of Arthur, Clifford The Big Red Dog, and The Magic School Bus, but most of their other cartoons aren't very well-remembered. They don't get much attention from most people. Tell me, when's the last time you saw someone in public wearing a shirt of WordGirl, Dinosaur Train or Dragon Tales?

To be fair, Arthur was on for a quarter of a century, Clifford is based on a timeless book series, and Magic School Bus is popular at schools. That can’t really be said for many other series.

 

[CassieTheDragon]

To be fair, Arthur was on for a quarter of a century, Clifford is based on a timeless book series, and Magic School Bus is popular at schools. That can’t really be said for many other series.

I think the only really popular PBS cartoons are based on books. Curious George is based on a book series as well, along with the other three shows you mentioned. Most people only think of the live-action stuff, and the four shows mentioned. WordGirl, Cyberchase, Dinosaur Train and Wild Kratts are popular in Gen Z nostalgia circles but I rarely see mentions for other cartoons.