Animation · 1990s

94 shows103 sequences

One Piece

1999–Fuji TVAnimation

The longest-running opening rotation in television — more than twenty distinct sequences over a quarter of a century, each announcing a new arc.

Season 1

2 sequences

South Park

1997–Comedy CentralAnimation

A banjo, a cut-paper Colorado town and four boys at a bus stop — re-recorded and re-animated repeatedly across nearly thirty years while staying recognisably the same twenty-nine seconds.

Season 1
Season 15

1 sequence

SpongeBob SquarePants

1999–NickelodeonAnimation

A sea shanty led by a painted pirate head, in call and response with children — one of the most universally known pieces of television music written this century.

Season 1

2 sequences

Family Guy

1999–FoxAnimation

A musical number performed by the family about how television used to have values — a sitcom opening from the 1970s, done straight and then undercut.

Season 1
Season 10

2 sequences

King of the Hill

1997–FoxAnimation

Four men drinking beer in an alley, and a guitar riff. Thirty-one seconds that tell you the show has no interest in going anywhere.

Season 1
Season 14

1 sequence

Neon Genesis Evangelion

1995–1996TV TokyoAnimation

Ninety seconds cut faster than the eye resolves, with whole frames of text and diagram flashed for one frame each. Yoko Takahashi's theme is bright, major-key J-pop laid over imagery that is doing nothing of the kind, and the mismatch is the point rather than an accident.

Season 1

2 sequences

Futurama

1999–Fox / Comedy Central / HuluAnimation

Like The Simpsons, an opening built to differ every week — a new caption under the logo and a different scrap of old cartoon on the screen the ship flies past — wrapped around Christopher Tyng's theme and a crash into a billboard.

Seasons 1–4
Seasons 6–7

2 sequences

Pokémon

1997–TV TokyoAnimation

The longest-running video-game adaptation on television, and a theme song that outlasted every cast change.

Season 1
Season 5

1 sequence

Beavis and Butt-Head

1993–MTVAnimation

Two teenagers on a sofa, and a guitar riff played about as well as they would play it.

Season 1

1 sequence

Batman: The Animated Series

1992–1995Fox KidsAnimation

No dialogue, no narration, and the character's name never appears — a full orchestral score over a robbery, a rooftop and a silhouette, and the audience is trusted to work it out.

Season 1

1 sequence

Arthur

1996–2022PBSAnimation

An aardvark in the third grade, in the longest-running animated children's series in American television.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Ren & Stimpy Show

1991–1996NickelodeonAnimation

Rubber-limbed animation and a jaunty theme, both of which are considerably more unhinged than a children's network should have permitted.

Season 1

1 sequence

Ed, Edd n Eddy

1999–2009Cartoon NetworkAnimation

Wobbling outlines and a scat vocal, drawn deliberately so that every line shakes — the last major American cartoon animated entirely by hand on paper.

Season 1

1 sequence

X-Men: The Animated Series

1992–1997Fox KidsAnimation

A guitar riff, a name card per character, and nothing else — the most efficient superhero roll-call ever animated, and the reason the 2024 revival copied it exactly.

Season 1

1 sequence

Courage the Cowardly Dog

1999–2002Cartoon NetworkAnimation

Twenty-nine seconds establishing a farmhouse in the middle of Nowhere and a dog who is right to be frightened.

Season 1

1 sequence

Dexter's Laboratory

1996–2003Cartoon NetworkAnimation

Thirty seconds of a boy genius and the sister who ruins everything, in the flat graphic style that defined a decade of the network.

Season 1

1 sequence

Batman Beyond

1999–2001The WBAnimation

The same animation house forty years on, trading the orchestral score for industrial percussion and a Gotham that has kept getting worse.

Season 1

1 sequence

VeggieTales

1993–2015SyndicationAnimation

Bible stories told by vegetables, made on desktop computers in Chicago before any studio would have paid for it.

Season 1

1 sequence

Blue's Clues

1996–2006NickelodeonAnimation

A host talking directly to camera and waiting for an answer, which changed how American preschool television was made.

Season 1

1 sequence

Daria

1997–2002MTVAnimation

The cast doing ordinary things badly while the lead refuses to participate, over Splendora's 'You're Standing on My Neck'.

Season 1

1 sequence

Spider-Man: The Animated Series

1994–1998Fox KidsAnimation

The Fox Kids Marvel block's other pillar, alongside X-Men, with a guitar theme that does the same job.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Wild Thornberrys

1998–2004NickelodeonAnimation

A wildlife-documentary family whose daughter can talk to the animals they are filming.

Season 1

1 sequence

Hey Arnold!

1996–2004NickelodeonAnimation

A jazz theme over a city block, for a children's cartoon that treated urban childhood with unusual seriousness.

Season 1

1 sequence

Cardcaptor Sakura

1998–2000NHKAnimation

CLAMP's magical girl, with a new costume every episode and three separate openings across the run.

Season 3

1 sequence

Æon Flux

1991–1995MTVAnimation

Peter Chung's assassin, drawn in a style nothing else on television had, and killed off at the end of most early episodes.

Season 1

1 sequence

Berserk

1997–1998Nippon TVAnimation

'Tell Me Why' — an English-language pop song with almost no relationship to the series it introduces, which has become part of the show's reputation.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Maxx

1995MTVAnimation

Sam Kieth's comic animated almost panel for panel, about a homeless man who is a superhero in another world.

Season 1

1 sequence

Pinky and the Brain

1995–1998The WBAnimation

A theme that explains the premise as a call and response, ending on the same question every week and never answering it.

Season 1

1 sequence

Recess

1997–2001ABCAnimation

A brass march over a school playground treated as a sovereign state, which is exactly how the series plays it.

Season 1

1 sequence

Rocko's Modern Life

1993–1996NickelodeonAnimation

An Australian wallaby in O-Town, written for children with as much as possible smuggled past them.

Season 1

1 sequence

Johnny Bravo

1997–2004Cartoon NetworkAnimation

A pompadour, a bass riff and a character who has never once been correct about anything.

Season 1

1 sequence

Gargoyles

1994–1997DisneyAnimation

A thousand years of stone, narrated with the gravity of a Shakespearean prologue — which given how much of the cast came from Star Trek, it very nearly is.

Season 1

1 sequence

Sailor Moon

1992–1997TV AsahiAnimation

The series that built the magical-girl template, opened by "Moonlight Densetsu" across five separate runs.

Season 4

1 sequence

Doug

1991–1999Nickelodeon / ABCAnimation

A mouth-percussion theme over a boy walking to school — an opening performed almost entirely with a human voice.

Season 1

1 sequence

Great Teacher Onizuka

1999–2000Fuji TVAnimation

A former biker gang leader who becomes a teacher for the wrong reasons and stays for the right ones.

Season 1

1 sequence

Digimon Adventure

1999–2000Fuji TVAnimation

Seven children pulled into a digital world, opened by "Butter-Fly" — a song that has outlived every reboot.

Season 1

1 sequence

Slam Dunk

1993–1996TV AsahiAnimation

A delinquent who joins the basketball team to impress a girl and stays for the game.

Season 1

1 sequence

Superman: The Animated Series

1996–2000The WBAnimation

The companion to Batman: The Animated Series, and the same trick — a full orchestral score over a sequence that names nothing.

Season 1

1 sequence

Home Movies

1999–2004UPN / Adult SwimAnimation

Nineteen seconds, squiggle-drawn, from the series that established the improvised-dialogue style its creator would later bring to Bob's Burgers.

Season 1

1 sequence

Tiny Toon Adventures

1990–1995Syndication / Fox KidsAnimation

A patter song naming the entire cast, which the series' successor Animaniacs would take further still.

Season 1

1 sequence

Rocket Power

1999–2004NickelodeonAnimation

Four children in a California beach town who do every extreme sport in sequence.

Season 1

1 sequence

Rugrats

1991–2004NickelodeonAnimation

Mark Mothersbaugh scoring a baby's-eye view of a living room — the theme is closer to a Devo B-side than to children's television.

Season 1

1 sequence

Aaahh!!! Real Monsters

1994–1997NickelodeonAnimation

Monsters at school under a city dump, learning to frighten people as a trade.

Season 1

1 sequence

CatDog

1998–2005NickelodeonAnimation

A cat and a dog sharing one body, and a theme song that spends its whole length asking how.

Season 1

1 sequence

Cowboy Bebop

1998–1999TV Tokyo / WOWOWAnimation

A jazz record given ninety seconds of animation. Silhouettes and hard-edged colour panels cut on the beat of a big band, borrowing the grammar of 1960s film titles so completely that the show it opens looks like a rediscovery rather than a debut.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Powerpuff Girls

1998–2005Cartoon NetworkAnimation

Narrated origin, sugar, spice and everything nice — a premise delivered in one sentence over sixties-modern graphic design.

Season 1

1 sequence

Freakazoid!

1995–1997The WBAnimation

A superhero theme performed at a volume and speed that make the joke before the show has started.

Season 1

2 sequences

Todd McFarlane's Spawn

1997–1999HBOAnimation

The comic adapted as adult animation, and among the first American cartoons made explicitly for an adult slot.

Season 1
Season 2

1 sequence

The Angry Beavers

1997–2001NickelodeonAnimation

Two beaver brothers who have left home and are managing it badly.

Season 1

1 sequence

Animaniacs

1993–1998Fox Kids / The WBAnimation

A patter song with a different closing rhyme every week, sung by three cartoon characters at a tempo no live performer would attempt.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest

1996–1999Cartoon NetworkAnimation

The 1964 Hanna-Barbera series rebuilt for the nineties, with early CG sequences inside it.

Season 1

1 sequence

Celebrity Deathmatch

1998–2007MTVAnimation

Claymation celebrities fighting to the death in a wrestling ring, with commentary played completely straight.

Season 1

1 sequence

I Am Weasel

1997–2000Cartoon NetworkAnimation

The Cow and Chicken spin-off, with a theme that is mostly the title said repeatedly.

Season 1

1 sequence

Bobby's World

1990–1998Fox KidsAnimation

Howie Mandel's stand-up child character animated, with Mandel voicing both the boy and his father.

Season 1

1 sequence

The PJs

1999–2001Fox / The WBAnimation

Eddie Murphy's stop-motion housing-project comedy, animated in foam rather than drawn.

Seasons 1–2

1 sequence

KaBlam!

1996–2000NickelodeonAnimation

An animated anthology framed as a comic book being read, with the hosts drawn on the page.

Season 1

1 sequence

Yu Yu Hakusho

1992–1995Fuji TVAnimation

A delinquent who dies saving a child and is given a job in the afterlife rather than a rest.

Season 1

1 sequence

Spider-Man

1994–1998Fox KidsAnimation

The nineties adaptation, with a guitar theme that a generation can still produce on request.

Season 1

1 sequence

Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?

1994–1999Fox KidsAnimation

The geography game animated, with Rita Moreno as the thief and a jazz score to chase her with.

Season 1

1 sequence

Mighty Max

1993–1994SyndicationAnimation

A toy line turned into a series with Tim Curry and Richard Moll in it, and a body count.

Season 1

1 sequence

Life with Louie

1995–1998Fox KidsAnimation

Louie Anderson's Wisconsin childhood animated, with his own father as the character the show turns on.

Season 1

1 sequence

Eek! The Cat

1992–1997Fox KidsAnimation

A purple cat whose motto is that it never hurts to help, in a series built entirely on disproving it.

Season 1

1 sequence

Histeria!

1998–2000Kids' WBAnimation

History taught as an Animaniacs-style variety show, made to satisfy an educational broadcasting requirement.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries

1995–2000Kids' WBAnimation

The chase reframed as a detective series, with Granny solving cases and the cat still not catching the bird.

Season 1

1 sequence

Bob the Builder

1999–2011BBC OneAnimation

Stop-motion construction with a call and response the programme never varies, and a number one Christmas single.

Season 1

1 sequence

Road Rovers

1996–1997Kids' WBAnimation

Domestic dogs from six countries turned into a superhero team by a scientist who does not explain much.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Critic

1994–1995ABC / FoxAnimation

Al Jean and Mike Reiss's film critic, made between their Simpsons runs and cancelled by two networks.

Season 1

1 sequence

Trigun

1998TV TokyoAnimation

A desert western scored like a spy thriller, with a gunman who refuses to kill anyone.

Season 1

1 sequence

Cow and Chicken

1997–1999Cartoon NetworkAnimation

A cow and a chicken with human parents whose faces are never shown above the waist.

Season 1

1 sequence

Angela Anaconda

1999–2001TeletoonAnimation

Photographs of real faces cut out and animated over drawn backgrounds, which is as unsettling as it sounds.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Animals of Farthing Wood

1993–1995BBC OneAnimation

Animals leaving a destroyed wood for a nature reserve, and a children's series that killed off its cast as it went.

Season 1

3 sequences

Beast Wars: Transformers

1996–1999Syndication / YTVAnimation

Transformers rebuilt in computer graphics on a fraction of the budget, which is why everybody is an animal.

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3

1 sequence

The Busy World of Richard Scarry

1994–1996ShowtimeAnimation

Busytown animated faithfully enough that the books' cutaway drawings survive intact.

Season 1

1 sequence

Caillou

1997–2011Teletoon / PBSAnimation

A four-year-old with no hair and very little patience, adapted from Quebec picture books.

Season 1

1 sequence

Detention

1999–2000Kids' WBAnimation

Nine children in permanent after-school detention, animated in a flat 1950s style that nothing else on the block used.

Season 1

1 sequence

Dragon Tales

1999–2005PBS Kids / CBCAnimation

Two children who reach a dragon world by reciting a rhyme over a scale they find in a toy box.

Season 1

1 sequence

Earthworm Jim

1995–1996The WBAnimation

The game adapted with its own voice cast and most of its absurdity intact.

Season 1

1 sequence

Jay Jay the Jet Plane

1998–2005PBS KidsAnimation

Talking aeroplanes at a small airfield, made first on video and later for television.

Season 1

1 sequence

Kevin Spencer

1999–2005The Comedy NetworkAnimation

A Canadian animated series about a chain-smoking sociopath and his parents, drawn as crudely as it is written.

Season 4

1 sequence

Kipper

1997–2000ITVAnimation

Mick Inkpen's dog animated at the pace of the picture books, which is to say slowly and on purpose.

Season 1

1 sequence

Little Bear

1995–2001CBC / Nick Jr.Animation

Maurice Sendak's drawings animated in no hurry whatever, and about the quietest programme Nick Jr. ever ran.

Season 1

1 sequence

Madeline

1993–2007The Family ChannelAnimation

Bemelmans' twelve little girls in two straight lines, animated in the style of the books.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Magic School Bus

1994–1997PBSAnimation

A science teacher who shrinks her class and drives them through the lesson, with Lily Tomlin at the wheel.

Season 1

1 sequence

Mummies Alive!

1997SyndicationAnimation

Four Egyptian mummies revived in San Francisco to guard the reincarnation of a pharaoh's son.

Season 1

1 sequence

Nanalan'

1998–2004CBCAnimation

A puppet toddler spends the day at her grandmother's, filmed at grass height.

Season 1

2 sequences

Oggy and the Cockroaches

1998–France 3Animation

A French cartoon with almost no dialogue in it, which is the reason it sold to nearly every country there is.

Season 1
Season 6

1 sequence

ReBoot

1994–2001YTVAnimation

The first television series animated entirely by computer, and set inside one.

Season 1

1 sequence

Redwall

1999–2002TeletoonAnimation

Brian Jacques' abbey mice animated in Canada, with the villains drawn considerably better than the heroes.

Season 1

1 sequence

Rolie Polie Olie

1998–2004CBC / Playhouse DisneyAnimation

A world of robots built entirely out of spheres and cylinders, computer-animated in Toronto.

Season 1

1 sequence

Samurai Pizza Cats

1990–1991TV TokyoAnimation

Kyatto Ninden Teyandee rewritten wholesale in English by writers working without translated scripts.

Season 1

1 sequence

Skysurfer Strike Force

1995–1996SyndicationAnimation

Five pilots on energy surfboards, from the syndication block that ran opposite the Saban shows.

Season 1

1 sequence

Super Mario World

1991NBCAnimation

The last of the Mario cartoons, made for one autumn after the game of the same name.

Season 1

1 sequence

Theodore Tugboat

1993–2001CBCAnimation

Model tugboats in Halifax harbour, narrated for years by Denny Doherty of the Mamas and the Papas.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Vision of Escaflowne

1996TV TokyoAnimation

A schoolgirl pulled into a war between a hidden planet and an empire, scored throughout for full orchestra.

Season 1