What A Cartoon!

Another month has passed at the Talking Simpsons Network , and that means we've got another awesome podcast about an animated feature film! This month, our $10+ Patreon subscribers get to hear us talk about Pixar's immortal first film, Toy Story! Listen now to this free preview, and then subscribe at the $10 level (or up your current pledge to $10) to hear the whole thing and all twelve previous W...

Disney's Bonkers has become a bit of a running joke on the Talking Simpsons Network, so of course we're doing an episode about it now that Disney+ has finally made it legally available for the first time in 15 years! While Bonkers remains the most unmemorable entry in The Disney Afternoon, it's not particularly awful —just spectacularly mediocre, especially at a time when Disney was well into thei...

Chosen by a premium Patreon supporter, we delve in the heart of the cards this week to form the Exodia of podcast! Yes, we're covering the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series, and the debut episode. We talk about the edgier manga origins, the tough adaptation into animation, how 4Kids brought the card-selling toon to the USA, and how it all ended up owned by Konami! Plus, we go into the ridiculous first epi...

We wanna be the very best on this week's podcast with special guest Kat Bailey (Editor-in-Chief of USGamer.net )! Yes, it's time for the original Pokémon series on What A Cartoon! We discuss the history of the original games, and then how master animators adapted it, and THEN how one localizer turned it into a stateside monopoly. Then we go analyze the Squirtle Squad's iconic first appearance for...

This week's What A Cartoon! podcast takes a journey back to the mid-60s days of Peanuts-mania with the property's third TV special ever! Charles M. Schulz's comic stood as a pillar of the funny pages for 50 years, influencing almost every type of pop culture in its extremely long run. So it only made sense that CBS would want to capitalize on its tremendous success with annual specials that would...

This month's What A Cartoon Movie brings haunts and holly as we discuss The Nightmare Before Christmas for over THREE HOURS, and it's available for all our $10+ Patreon subscribers! If you want to hear what you're missing, listen to this free preview, then join the Talking Simpsons Network , (or up your current pledge to $10) to hear the full podcast AND over 30 hours of our other movie podcast!!!...

Chosen by Nick, one of our premium Patreon supporters, we're covering the Halloween-themed episode of Gravity Falls! We explore the long history of Alex Hirsch's hit Disney Channel series, with a spoiler-free discussion of the show's mythology, history, and many talented writers and artists who worked on it. Then we analyze the made-up holiday of Summerween with the dangerous Trickster, melting sk...

Thanks to the generous patronage of Devin Hoffarth, this week's episode of What A Cartoon! features a Halloween classic that just celebrated its 70th birthday! Making up one half of the oddly named package film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Disney's adaptation of the classic Washington Irving story drove generations of children to madness with its terrifying depiction of the Headless Hor...

The second season of Disenchantment has dropped on Netflix, so we are here to share our thoughts on it all! We return to Dreamland to review the newest batch of episodes, discuss what has improved since, and then delve into the eighth episode of the season! Can Bean find fulfillment as a writer? Can a pig act? And what's with all these beheadings? Grab your opera glasses and listen along to find o...

Before Neon Genesis Evangelion changed the anime landscape in the mid-'90s, the animation studio GAINAX had their first stab at a full TV series with Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. Based on the remnants of an old pitch by none other than Hayao Miyazaki himself, Nadia came into being as a highly troubled production, fraught with many difficulties, including some serious internal drama at GAINAX....

Another month has passed at the Talking Simpsons Network , and that means we've got another awesome podcast about an animated feature film! This month, our $10+ Patreon subscribers get to hear us talk about Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door for more than FOUR HOURS! (It's our longest podcast yet!) Listen now to this free preview, and then subscribe at the $10 level to hear the whole thing an...

Just in time for Cybersix's 20th anniversary, we celebrate this Tokyo-Vancouver collaboration with special guest, comic writer/artist/editor Sfé R. Monster ! We discuss the show's complex creation, the amazing TMS animation, and the queer and trans narratives Cybersix spoke to! So listen as we analyze the first episode and the impact it has had since! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus e...

Before cable television grew up in the late '90s by becoming a different kind of must-see TV, networks needed lots of content—and cheap. Enter Dr. Katz, a barely (but endearingly) animated show that mostly existed as a unique way to package existing stand-up routines. Despite its budget-friendly approach, Katz became a cult hit not just for showcasing the best material of up-and-coming comics, but...

Thanks to the generous donations of patron and special guest David Whittington, this week we're exploring a very popular remake of perhaps the most popular anime of the modern era: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood! While the 2003 adaptation did a great job of taking the story in an original direction, Brotherhood emerged a mere five years later, just as the original manga was coming to an end—mean...

This week we kick some spoot with Norb and Dag in the classic Nicktoon, The Angry Beavers. We take you through the series' surprisingly long development, the career of creator Mitch Schauer, the show's rejected final episode, and so much more before diving into the shorts "Up All Night" and "Dag For Night." So put on some comical boxers and listen along to find out if these beavers are angry, or j...

Strap on your proton packs and grab your PKE meters, as we head back to the late '80s toy-fueled toon, The Real Ghostbusters! We uncover how the fairly adult film transitioned into a Saturday morning blockbuster, the many changes the show went through, and the many talented folks who worked on Real Ghostbusters (both in America and Japan). Then we dig into one of the most celebrated episodes of th...

You've probably never heard of Chihayafuru, but after this episode of What A Cartoon!, it just might be the next anime series you get into! At the request of this week's special guest, voice actor , YouTuber , and anime expert SungWon Cho , this time around we're taking a look at a cartoon that turns a seemingly dull premise into compelling drama. Chihayafuru takes all the beats you love about spo...

Our $10 Patreon subscribers got quite a treat in August with the monthly What A Cartoon Movie! We did the brand new, Netflix-hosted reboot of Rocko's Modern Life, Static Cling! If you're not yet a premium subscriber, here's a preview of that special podcast as we explore just how the new Nicktoon came to be! And if you want the full podcast, just pledge $10 at Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons to get St...

If you weren't paying attention to TV between 1993 and 1994, you might have missed Mighty Max: one of the best cartoons to be made entirely for the sake of selling toys. Despite its cynical roots, the show's creators were somehow on an extremely long leash, which gave this micro-size action figure adaptation a surprisingly dark and serious tone. On this episode of What A Cartoon!, Kat Bailey joins...

Jeremy Parish of Retronauts returns for the what might be the most '80s anime ever made! We're covering the original Bubblegum Crisis OVA that was one of the first big hits for uncut Japanese cartoons in the United States! We look at the show's influences, BC's complicated legal history, it's many influences from American films, and we chat about the very impactful episode Red Eyes! Watch out for...

We welcome back Matthew Jay ( The Deep End , Cartoons 101 ) for a millennial classic that's a tribute to anime, robots, video games, wrestling, comic books, and all the other pop culture we love! Yes, we head to New Jersey in 2004 for the lost Toonami series Megas XLR! We go deep in how the series came to be, its many inspirations, and the complex tax reason it may never get a second chance. Plus...

Another month has passed at the Talking Simpsons Network , and that means we've got another awesome podcast about an animated feature film! This month our $10+ Patreon subscribers get to hear us talk about the 1996 classic Beavis and Butt-Head Do America for more than THREE HOURS! Listen now to this free preview, and then subscribe at the $10 level to hear the whole thing and all the previous What...

Third Impact has arrived on our podcast as OK KO: Let's Be Heroes ' showrunners/animation experts Ian Jones-Quartey and Toby Jones return for our Evangelion episode! We go deep into the career of Hideaki Anno as he went from an animation prodigy to one of the most daring animation directors to ever live. We talk about the show's enduring popularity, its continuing controversy, the multiple localiz...

At the dawn of the new millennium, no figure stood higher for nerds than Kevin Smith. Fresh off of his last major motion picture and right before his first attempt at closing the book on the View Askew-niverse, Smith fraternized with mass-market television with an animated interpretation of his silver screen debut. Like many of the shows from the early '00s prime-time cartoon boom, Clerks crashed...

During the first big anime boom of the early '00s, weebs around the world were infatuated with Excel Saga: a hyper, silly, pervy, and scatalogical show that seemed to stand for everything anime could do that American animation couldn't. And while it's mostly forgotten today, this spiritual predecessor to similarly absurdist series like Pop Team Epic still exists as a wholly unique expression of a...