5. The Simpsons
I could have put any one of a number of cartoons on this list; South Park, Family Guy, Futurama were all considered but in the end I decided to go for the granddaddy of them all, The Simpsons. I am perfectly comfortable in saying that I consider The Simpsons to be one of the greatest cartoons of all time; in an era that has some people questioning if the show was ever actually that good I will stand firm and deem that to be blasphemy. The Simpsons is without doubt a work of historical significance, there will never be another animated programme that will come close to its greatness and that is a fact. At one point in time the show was appointment television, nobody wanted to miss an episode and it was as important as any live action series. but that time is now long gone and as it heads to the conclusion of its 24th season The Simpsons is now a shadow of what it once was. The jokes are played out and almost all of the characters have been developed as much as possible. How many more life lessons could Bart and Lisa possibly learn as children? Every side character that we care about has had their moment in the sun and now every single one of them is a sad overdone cliché. Mr Burns has screwed everyone in Springfield over, reformed and screwed them over again on several occasions, Barney has sobered up and relapsed repeatedly and Chief Wiggum is still a terrible police officer. Despite how it may seem, I love all of these characters. I just think that every story that could be told with them has been told and no character that has been created in recent years comes anywhere close to their quality. The best example of this is Troy McClure a character that was retired from the show following the tragic death of voice actor Phil Hartman; he is still to this day one of the most memorable creations in the history of the series and no recent character as lived up to his greatness. The Simpsons has been carried by its legacy for many years and it is time to finally let it rest. If I ever want to watch the show there are plenty of reruns from the classic era that I can watch instead.