Jefimus Top 15 Favorite Cancelled Animated Series

You know what sucks?  When your favorite show is canceled!!!!! I'm Jefimus Prime this are my top 15 animated series that where canceled.  Now some of you already made a list Hell Watchmojo.com and the Black angry nerd did their own list, so here is mine Also I am excluding Family Guy because that came back from cancellation and officially overstayed it's welcome, and I'm also excluding Futurama because that show was also revived only to be cancelled again but for the best.

15. Invader Zim: This Nicktoon was also a hit with critics, but kids and tweens at the time weren’t feeling it. That doesn’t mean the show, which featured a diminutive alien aggressor trying – and failing miserably – to take over Earth, wasn’t good; in fact, it was great – it even won an Emmy. Creatively drawn and with imaginative writing, “Zim” had a host of fun characters and interesting plots that just didn’t translate into ratings. It did, however, translate into post-cancellation cult popularity.

14. Gargoyles: It was a gothic gem that didn’t get to shine for all that long. “Gargoyles” was delightfully dark and occasionally comical, and for the show’s fans, it was just an all-around cool cartoon. It skewed a little bit older in terms of themes, but it also generated a die-hard fan base that still exists today. Too bad that wasn’t enough to keep the show afloat after three drama-filled seasons.

13. Sonic the Hedgehog SATAM: The Better out of all of the adaptations of The Sonic The Hedgehog franchise Sonic SATAM takes a simple concept You know a blue hedgehog running around really fast collecting ring and battling a mad scientist who is turning woodlen creatures into mindless robots. and makes it gritty with in the restrictions of a kids network. You have Sonic and Tails team up with westernized 'Sonic-esque' characters, including the the fan-favorite likes of Sally Acorn, Bunnie Rabbot, Antoine, and Rotor, as they lead a Freedom Fighters faction to free their world of Mobius from the clutches of a more sinister (and competent) Dr. Robotnik and his robot army. This feels like a Star Wars movie, unfortunately  the show's writer himself, Ben Hurst,claimed that a new president for ABC wasn't quite fond of this series and wanted something that would compete against Fox channel's Power Rangers at the time. But despite all that, the show remained to be unforgotten by the praise and cheers from it's loyal hard-core fans that still look up this Sonic TV franchise (a little more than Sonic X even).

12. Green Lantern: The Animated Series: This one is a sad case of stigma from retail. What stigma is that? The Green Lantern movie. Directed by Giancarlo Volpe and written and animated by several DCAU veterans, the only season this series had was divided into two arcs - one dealing with the threat of the Red Lanterns and the other dealing with the threat of the Anti-Monitor and the Manhunters. Things went downhill during the second arc, in which the DC Nation block went through an unexpected three-month hiatus two episodes into the arc, and then it was announced that both it and Young Justice were going to be cancelled three weeks after DC Nation came back. It uses some elements from the comics while having some of its own original characters, particularly the GL A.I. Aya and the conflicted Red Lantern defector Razer, both of whom have pretty good character arcs. It ended with a few loose ends, even though it didn't necessarily end on a huge cliffhanger.

11. Star Wars The Clone Wars: Anyway, not to be confused with the 2003 micro-series without the "The" in it by Genndy Tartakovsky. This is more of a spiritual successor to that series (borrowing elements from it) and this was produced by George Lucas and directed by Dave Filoni, previously known for his work on Book One of Avatar: The Last Airbender. And compared to the pilot movie preceding, it was much better received critically (and the team has learned since then that you should not promote a pilot movie for a TV series as a feature film). And it had the benefit of enriching the time period of the Prequel Trilogy, and improved upon some aspects that trilogy failed to (but let's not open the can of worms that's this show vs. the rest of the Expanded Universe; those debates can get as nasty as other fandom wars). Also, what separates this series from the previous (aside from the writers and it being all-CGI) is that it doesn't just focus on the battlefield, but the time period of the Clone War in general. For example, we had stories dealing with the criminal underworld as well as a rather surreal journey exploring Anakin Skywalker's destiny (and it had the benefit of re-mystifying the Force). It also has more character focus. This series had an admittedly rough start (partially due to the pilot movie), but it got better (and darker) with every season (the opposite of some long-runners). The animation quality improved and the writing quality improved as well. Also, like Futurama, this is one of the longer-lasting shows on this list. On another note, this show lasted a lot longer than any other action cartoons on modern Cartoon Network, which is quite a feat. However, it wasn't meddling on CN's part (although I suspect they made two attempts that failed given that the practices they used ended several other cartoons; those two would be during Season 2 and Season 5, the former due to an inconsistent airing schedule and the latter due to moving from a Friday night to Saturday morning timeslot) or a lack of merchandise (it had plenty of it), but rather the rights to the Star Wars franchise being handed over to Disney. Thankfully, the team was allowed to finish the episodes/arcs that were already deep in production, and released those episodes a year later on Netflix (as well as a few other platforms). The Saving Grace is Star Wars Rebels was not Bad.


10. Wolverine and The X-Men: Despite the fact that Wolverine is the main character (to be fair, he’s a lot better here than in most places), this cartoon is everything I want from an X-Men cartoon.  Prejudice against mutants, colorful characters, character interaction, and a great story inspired by Days of Futures Past.  The series only got one season and ended on a cliffhanger that was going to lead into the Age of Apocalypse storyline! The show got cancelled because of financial problems.  What!?!?  This could have been The next best X-Men cartoon since 1992'a X-Men: The Animated Series and It didn't have the money what a let down.

9. The Spectacular Spider-Man: This is a cartoon made for Spider-man fans, by either Spider-man fans or people who actually took their time to research this character well.  This cartoon is probably the best Spider-man cartoon I’ve seen (then again, I haven’t seen the 90’s cartoon so I don’t know how they compare).  It features Spider-man/Peter Parker in high school, features all the supporting cast you remember such as: Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane, Flash Thompson, Liz Allen, Aunt May, J Jonah Jameson, etc.  and features all of his villains in their proper way: Venom (whose actually an alien symbiote and not “concentrated Spider-man aggression” or whatever BS Ultimate Spider-man did), Green Goblin, Rhino, Vulture, Sandman, Electro, Doc Ock, Mysterio, Chameleon, Molten Man, Tombstone, Kraven, and so many villains.  Heck, they where going to bring in Scorpion on in the third season!  Scorpion!  That guys awesome, and what other villains could they have brought on?  Kingpin, Silver Sable, Hobgoblin, Morbius?  If this show would’ve continued it might have been one of the greatest superhero cartoons ever. So why did this cartoon get cancelled?  Because Disney wanted to make their own Spider-man cartoon so they took the rights to Spider-man’s cartoons and they replaced it with Ultimate Spider-man.  And while Ultimate Spider-man is funny and I do enjoy it when I watch it, the characters are misrepresented and the villains take the concepts of their comic book counterparts, but leaves the characters behind.  The potential of future seasons just makes this cancellation even more annoying and I wish that it would come back to finish.

8. SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron: Who knew that One of the coolest animated action series to ever come out of the 1990's and from Hanna-Barbera out of all people starred a couple of cats. Very cool cats; renegades even. This Underrated gems stars two cat guys named Razer and T-Bone who are a duo of ex-law enforcers turned junkyard workers turned Batman-esque crime fighters who enforce Megacat City once again, but with weapons blended with gadgetry as goes with their jet fighters and vehicles, and tackle with villains like the Pastmaster, the Metallikats, Doctor Viper, and Dark Kat.  “Swat Kats” packed a lot of a bucket full of semi-cliche over-the-top comic book elements for good measures, some 90's metal rock music, action and adventure into each episode, but didn’t skimp on intriguing storylines and well-developed characters. Speculations on it's reason for cancellation has been juggled around like in a circus act. But one reason that was approximately clarified was that Ted Turner didn't like the show because it was too violent (or more popular than his Captain Planet thing) and sought to push it off the course of it's line of airing and merchandising; equivalencing it of pushing it off a cliff for good. D@#$ Move. But even after it's demise after 2 seasons it was something so rich with fanfare as Swat Kats will never be forgotten, in fact the creator of the show have started a kickstarter program to revive the show as "SWAT Kats: Revolutions"

7. Samurai Jack: From the mind of Genndy Tartakovsky of Dexter’s Laboratory fame, Samurai Jack tells the story of a nameless samurai displaced in the future and his battle against evil personified in Aku. It’s challenging to describe Samurai Jack. Simply put, it’s a work of art. The design of the world is both sublime and complex and the story mirrors this idea. The series draws from a world’s mythology and art (including pop culture) that engaged adults but at its core told a story understandable (and enjoyable) by young people. Just some of its inspiration was drawn from ukiyo-e paintings, Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo), Frank Miller (300, Ronin), Star Wars, Lone Wolf and Cub, Thundar The Barbarean Hayao Miyazaki and Kung fu.  The achievements of Samurai Jack was surely recognized by its peers gaining eleven awards including four Emmys. Later acclaimed works like Kung Fu Panda and Avatar: The Last Airbender would draw inspiration from the television series. Samurai Jack would last four seasons and was suppose to be followed by a feature film until Cartoon Network’s The Powerpuff Girls Movie flopped at box office. With the film canceled, Tartakovsky moved on to other projects but has always planned to finish this unresolved work. A comic book series based on the franchise is currently produced by IDW Publishing. On the brightside Toonami is planning to renew the show on Adult Swim.

6. Teen Titans: Of all things that have been written down in the record of 'one of the most unexpected things in life to become sensational', comes the one show that to me is like the middle child between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I'm talking about Teen Titans, a strange yet successful attempt at blending super-heroic adventures of teenage crime-fighters (which included Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Raven) with Anime-styled art, kooky humor, and drama. But none of this was enough to keep the show on the air, and fans were devastated to learn of its cancellation, leading to a following that remains devoted to this day. That, and the inferior Teen Titans Go! series that came after it decades later. Sometimes, it’s not you; it’s them.

5. The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes: Before The Avengers film came around in 2012, we had this series which followed the Avengers comics more closely. After a breakout of various supervillains and constant threats from groups such as HYDRA, the Avengers are assembled by Tony Stark AKA Iron Man, initially consisting of him, the Hulk, Ant Man, Wasp and Thor. Eventually, other heroes join such as Captain America, the Black Panther (T'Challa), Ms. Marvel and the Vision. This series had the benefit of providing some likeable new portrayals for old characters, such as what they did for Ant Man and Wasp. And I really like this series' version of the Hulk. He's intelligent and capable of speaking complete sentences while in Hulk-form, but still has anger-management issues. I'd say its writing quality is on par with the DC Animated Universe. And yes, characters can die in this show. This one got cancelled after two seasons. Why? It had good ratings and was well-received critically, but most of its audience was outside the target demographic, and ended up being replaced by the relatively inferior Avengers Assemble, which was more in line with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


4. Megas XLR: Telling the story of a man and his giant futuristic robot, Megas XLR was every geeks dream come true. Hitting on references to comic books, anime, pro wrestling, cartoons, video games, tokusatsu, science fiction, and so much more in a huge mixed bag for fans, the show became a series on Cartoon Network after its pilot was voted on by viewers to become the channel’s next Cartoon Cartoon. The result was two cult-followed seasons of the show that featured voice actors from the English dubbed Cowboy Bebop (the creators being huge fans of the show), Bruce Campbell as a MODOK pastiche, and Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprising their roles as homages to Optimus Prime and Megatron of Transformers. The decision to cancel Megas came directly for administrative reasons as Cartoon Network had Ben 10 and Teen Titans on the schedule and didn’t want to continue producing a third show that touched on the same basic demographic in house (albeit Megas also brought in the older demo, which wasn’t viewed positively back then). Ironically as I mentioned, Teen Titans would be canceled the following year.

3. Young Justice: It's kind of funny to think about, but when the animated Teen Titans was like the Young Justice comic, the animated Young Justice ended up being like the Teen Titans comic. To elaborate, while the Young Justice comic was relatively light-hearted and the Teen Titans comic was dark, it was the other way around for their animated adaptations. Greg Weisman's previous show (known for Gargoyles, W.I.T.C.H., and The Spectacular Spider-Man; by the way, none of those shows are on this list because I haven't watched them yet, I've only seen a little of Gargoyles and I barely remember it), Young Justice followed a team of teenage Justice League sidekicks creating their own sub-team from the League, handling some of the missions the League couldn't do themselves without repercussions. One particularly notable episode had the team in a training scenario that goes horrifically wrong to the point that it traumatizes them. Also, all the team members have some personal issues. Like Green Lantern: TAS, it got cancelled around the same time, but it arguably suffered worse. It took over a year to air its first season due to an inconsistent airing schedule and its second season suffered from the thee-month DC Nation hiatus. And it ended on a bigger cliffhanger than GL. Sadly, the merchandising reason behind its cancellation reeks of bullsh*t. This show had a periphery demographic of teenage girls, and for some reason, the toy companies are still ideologically stuck in the 1980s, thinking only boys should be watching action cartoons, and with a different demographic watching, not many toys will be as bought.

2. ThunderCats (2011): The first out of two remakes of two strong brands from the 1980's. ThunderCats was acquired by Warner Bros. from Rankin/Bass Productions some years ago. The franchise would be developed into a new animated series by Warner with accompanying toyline by Japanese company Bandai. The original series featured a handful of feline survivors of the planet Thundera who land on the planet Third Earth. Therein, their presence awakens an ancient evil in Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living who recruits mutants from the planet Plun-Darr who followed the Thunderans and became marooned on the planet. The world became a crossroads for various alien beings as the Thunderans, or ThunderCats as they referred to themselves, unravel the mysteries and past of their new home. For the franchise’s reboot, the series took a rather dramatic leap from the source material incorporating characters and names from the original but rather drastically uprooted the mythology. Observed as a much darker interpretation, the new show featured the kingdom of Thundera annihilated from the shadows by the malevolent Mumm-Ra leaving the surviving ThunderCats to explore Third Earth searching for stones that would provide the power necessary to defeat their foe. When the series premiered, its ratings did extremely well. However, these ratings went significantly downhill as time passedone of the many 'liberties-that-should-never-have-been-taken' that possibly led to the show's unfortunate cancellation; that, and the fact that the show's advertising and toy-lining fell flat on it's face due Fans of the original series felt the reboot rather poorly handled the source material as it appeared children saw the show as either too cerebral or dark. By the time CN pulled the plug the creators moved on with different work. But even after vanishing form the face of the media, it's still a modestly great reboot with beautiful animation designs that can rival even the Avatar (Last Airbender) series. If you give it a look, it is really like an art portrait to behold.

1. He-Man and The Masters of the Universe (2002) At Number 1 is another remake of Another extremely strong brand during the 1980s. Masters of The Universe was one of the hottest toylines in the history of  action figurea. Its developer Mattel had a desire to renew interest in the property and developed a new line returning to the roots of the series. To promote the toys, they had an animated series commissioned and aired on Cartoon Network’s Toonami programming block. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe returned He-Man to the planet Eternia rebooting its story, paying homage to the original series by Filmation, while updating the material with much more action (including showing characters actually fighting each other) and adding character development by focusing the story on the denizens of the world. The series and toyline both proved popular with fans but mismanagement by both Mattel and CN was fatal to the brand. For the former, Mattel choked the market with variants of He-Man and Skeletor while other characters consumers actively sought became increasingly difficult to find. CN, as it has had a history of doing, moved the series on the line-up leading viewers having to find the show which hurt ratings. The series would be canceled halfway into its second season. It's also because Like Avengers: EMH this was also one of my all time favorite Animated series.

Honorable Mentions

Justice League Unlimited

Clone High

The Critic

Garfield and Friends

Voltron Force