Tabaluga. It never really caught on outside of Germany but I definitely remember watching a decent cartoon series of it in the late 90’s.
The Mister T cartoon. I can still hear the intro song in my head 44 years later.
Captain Caveman
I’ve actually done the “Captain Caaaavemaaaaaan!!!” yell around people in my age group and just got blank stares.
I used to love the Gummi Bears when I was a kid, but every time I’ve mentioned the show, no one sees to know what I’m talking about. 🤷♂️
Edit:
This one too. It was kinda like a mix of G.I. Joe & Transformers.
I used to love the Gummi Bears when I was a kid, but every time I’ve mentioned the show, no one sees to know what I’m talking about. 🤷♂️
My dad actually liked that show more than we did I think. When Rugrats had Stu Pickles obsessed with the Dummy Bears cartoon it reminded me of my dad. My dad wasn’t that crazy about it but that bit of characterization made the show more endearing to me.
Batman Beyond was my Blade runner. Everyone into comics/characters knows it, but they’re not all too common in my personal life.
Fun thread.
What I consider obscure:
Not obscure:
Pepper Ann
Buzz light year of star command
Guts
Are you afraid of the dark
Ghost writer
Legend of the hidden temple
What would you do
All that
Angry beavers
Cat dog
Invader zim
Rockos modern life
REN and stimpy
Street sharks
Biker mice from mars
Batman beyond
Digimon
Johnny bravo
Bear in the big blue house
Recess
Beast wars
Beetle juice
Animaniacs
Reading rainbow
Wishbone
Big comfy couch
Legend of the hidden temple
Didn’t catch this when it first aired, but when we finally got cable in high school it was kinda fun to watch on teen nick or whatever the channel was called. It’s even the source of an inside joke in my circle of friends. One contestant answers a trivia question almost but not exactly correct, and Olmec says “That is close enough for Olmec”, which quickly became a catchphrase for us.
I watched a lot of PBS growing up and was always fond of Cyberchase, but I think that show has something of a cult following (plus it’s somehow still running). I have yet to meet anyone else who remembers my all time favorite George Shrinks though- childhood me was fascinated by the idea of being able to experience the world from the perspective of being 3in tall (probably something to do with being small enough to literally live in a palace made of lego lol).
Swat Kats! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAwN8pqdtg8
Battletech! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYmwe5Y5xjo Activate Enhanced Imaging!
Rocko’s Modern Life is occasionally mentioned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFxJDFodce4
Rocko’s Modern Life
I think that show pushed the envelope on what they could get away with on a kids show even more than Ren and Stimpy did.
I had absolutely no idea MechWarrior had a Saturday morning cartoon.
It was cleaned up a bit recently by fans. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGHjfvGVxWpxqAFlAst8h56N-dlQJ9R6n
Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel show. It feels like the spiritual precursor to Dexter’s Lab, which is also a favorite but imo much less obscure.
Sweet baby Jesus! Secret Squirrel was the first that came to mind, but I didn’t mention it because i thought people would find it too obscure!
“Thing Ring, do your thing!”
He’s even been incorporated into Canon, being from Earth 700974!
“Favorite” is a stretch, but I liked Whatever happened to Robot Jones?. The art style was a rough sketch imitating Schoolhouse Rock and for the first season Robot Jones was voiced by an actual speech synth (Specifically the Fred TTS voice available on MacOS). I’m a bit of a connoisseur of vintage text to speech.
EDIT: Some more I can think of:
Cro: an edutainment show about a cro magnon boy living among neanderthals.
Road Rovers: Like TMNT, 'cept with doggos.
The Raccoons: about, well, raccoons. Forgot about this one until I saw the TV tropes article
Hyper Man
Tailspin: My personal fan theory is it’s a pre space age Star Fox.
Reboot: The old CGI has a charm to it IMO. It also has a bit of that same “gee whiz aren’t these newfangled computers just the greatest” energy that the original Tron movie had.
Earthworm Jim
Freakazoid
EDIT 2:
The Super Mario Bros Super Show (probably explains my love of YouTube Poop)
Captain N
Bucky OHare and the Toad Wars! Although, IT was called something completely different in German
Also: Samurai Pizza Cats!Bucky was great!
Samurai pizza cats :D. Now THAT’s an anime I wouldn’t mind watching again. I guess it was an early example of a gag dub, early for me anyway.
Samurai Pizza Cats <3
Loved that show
I always seem to want to conflate Bucky O’Hare and Jazz Jackrabbit. Like, if I had a nickle for every gun-toting green animated space rabbit in the 90s, I’d have two nickles. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
Exo Squad. I was obsessed with this show. How could you not love E-frames? (Mechs in space basically)
It really does look like battletech; the yellow one to the right looks kinda like a Stormcrow, and the grey one kind of like an Elemental battle suit.
Silverwing was a show that used to come on Disney XD at like 2:00am. I remember watching it on nights I couldn’t sleep. I remember nothing about it other than it being pretty good, at least better than anything else on at that time.
There’s three that I consistently have people who grew up at the same time don’t remember:
Exosquad I watched religiously, and I don’t think they ever finished it. Mighty Max was on every day before I went to school, so it was my breakfast watch.
Mighty Max was pretty cool.
I only have the vaguest recollection of the Mighty Max show, but I definitely had a couple of the mini-diorama toys. I distinctly remember a skull island one. They were like Polly Pockets but marketed to boys.
oh man, Exosquad was great! i actually had several toys.
