18. Bob’s Burger (Fox)
If you tweaked it only slightly, the unbridled energy of Bob’s Burgers would make it just as obnoxious as some of its brethren on Fox’s Sunday night block. Under the guidance of veteran animation expert Loren Bouchard though, the show has managed to breathe new life into a waning brand of cartoon sitcoms. Finding its footing after a rocky start, the second, and currently airing third seasons tuned each member of the Belcher family to the right manic frequency, with put-upon restaurant owner Bob (the wonderfully droll H. Jon Benjamin) often becoming a sponge for blowback caused by the hijinks of his three wild kids.
Able to wring big laughs out of small jokes -ones stuffed into stories of mechanical sharks run amuck, and drug-fuelled arcade rampages-, Bob’s Burgers features the most endearingly dysfunctional, and consistently funny cartoon family since The Simpsons. If nothing else, we can thank it for single-handedly bringing back the comic standard of properly (and improperly) timed dramatic stings.
- Best Episodes: “Bob Day Afternoon,” “An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal”
17. The Legend of Korra (Nickelodeon)
It’s hard to use the phrase, “good for a kid’s show,” when you only have one as a point of reference, and that one turns out to be better constructed, and assured of itself than a lot of entertainment made for adults. Boldly ditching the familiar setting of the prequel series that made The Last Airbender a favorite among kids, and their parents (if not filmgoers), Korra built on the imaginative world of its predecessor to create a more complex, thematically darker story, one with a feisty but burdened heroine, some stunningly gorgeous animation, and a top-rate voice cast (including J. K. Simmons, and Mad Men’s Kiernan Shipka).
Masked beneath some incredibly creative action sequences and a cool steampunk aesthetic, most younger viewers probably won’t realize that they’re getting a smart lesson on long-form narrative storytelling, and how to give the finger to network censors without actually showing it. Korra’s success doesn’t lie in capitalizing on low expectations for a genre, but in pushing the boundaries of that genre forward, and opening it up for appreciation beyond a set demographic. Put another way: of all the character deaths that happened in 2012, the one in the Nickelodeon cartoon might have been the most memorable. And that’s pretty awesome.
- Best Episodes: “The Spirit of Competition,” “Endgame”
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