10 Criminally Underappreciated Classic Cartoons

Cartoons, in and of themselves, tend to be one of the most underrated forms of television. For decades, cartoons have excelled at entertaining people young and old with wit and action. At their best, they've created icons in their own rights, becoming irreplaceable parts of everyone's childhoods.

Nevertheless, cartoons sometimes struggle to get the same respect that other popular forms of television receive naturally. Franchises like "Scooby Doo", "The Flintstones", and "Tom and Jerry" have stood the test of time, but don't get thought of nearly often enough as the cornerstone pieces of television and culture that they are.

That's just the blockbuster cartoons too. There've been tons of cartoons over the years that have flown under the radar for far too long, from surprisingly successful celebrity vehicles to even video game adaptions. Now, that's not to say that these shows are meant to challenge those brilliant classics - far from it. More that they're just more examples of entertaining TV that never got the recognition they deserved.

Fortunately, with the internet being the treasure trove that it is, now people can seek these under-appreciated shows out for themselves and see some of the great cartoons they may have missed.

After talking about characters who have become animated celebrities in their own rights, it only seems natural to talk about a celebrity who tried to translate his popularity to cartoons.

Chuck Norris headed a limited run cartoon in 1986 called "Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos". The show was almost unabashedly a knock-off of "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero" which was nearing the end of its own run at the time. Norris voiced himself as the leader of a crack team of operatives who were tasked with fighting the villainous organization known as VULTURE.

Not the most original plot in the world, but don't let that fool you. This show was just as fun as G.I. Joe, if not more so, even though it was only on for five episodes. Part of that was due to the show's creative cast of characters, the least of which were a sumo wrestler and samurai who teamed with Norris, and a Cobra Commander type named Claw who, you guessed it, had an absurdly diabolical looking claw for an arm.

Even better, the show started and ended with Chuck Norris explaining the lessons learned from each episode in perfectly eighties vignettes from gyms.

In other words, if you ever wanted to see Chuck Norris blast into space to fight a guy named Super-Ninja with the fate of the world at stake, then you know what to do.