MMPR, X-Men, Spider-Man, The Tick, Life with Louie… Basically anything that was on Fox Kids. Also a lot of YTV here in Canada. Global had some good stuff as well.
There’s also a lot of shows that one of my brothers might’ve been watching that I caught bits of. I was too old for Pokemon, Barney, and a few of the ones listed.
A lot of the shows I liked were from the '80s, as well (COPS and My Pet Monster come to mind). But I was definitely a '90s kid.
I started watching Power Rangers somewhere around In Space? I was 4 then. Stuck through to somewhere in Wild Force, fell off before finding the show again on Jetix before Dino Thunder, which still had Ninja Storm reruns alongside it. Fell off somewhere in Mystic Force, saw Once a Ranger and Road to Corinth channel flipping. Didn’t officially get back into Power Rangers until 2012, been back ever since. (Go watch Dino Fury on Netflix)
Also I definitely briefly thought Reggie Rolle and Keith Robinson were somehow the same person, but I was newly 6. Yet I still distinguished everyone else, between the two identically composed teams. I don’t want to call my 6 year old self racist buuuuuuut
I loved the cartoons. Batman:TAS, Spider-Man, X-Men, Exosquad, Animaniacs, anything on Disney Afternoon.
But I think Jim Henson’s Dinosaurs (now available on Disney+) really deserves a mention because that show was outstanding and unique.
Oh, and there was this one other show. It was kind of niche. There were a couple of puppets and silly hijinks and kids would write in with crayon drawings of the characters. It was pretty fun. It was called Mystery Science Theater 3000.
This is my vote for the best superhero cartoon series of all time! I love the style (once I got used to it), the portrayals of all the characters are classic takes, and you just can’t get enough of Mark Hamill’s Joker! But really, this series had me at zeppelins.
…is a close second. The art is a bit too much on the He-Man side of things, with everyone super-pumped, but unlike Batman the overall art is less stylistic so to me it stands out more. Still, I absolutely love this cartoon, I’ve watched it straight through a couple times, and spot-watched a number of episodes. I like the arc of the show, at least until the very last seasons: it builds on itself nicely. Having a tight arc is rare in cartoons (Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes being a notable exception), but it adds to the fun.
Just to be complete, I thought I should mention this one too. I know a lot of people consider this a great series, but I have a lot of trouble with it, and I love the X-Men. I never made it through the whole thing: the art seems garish to me, I’m not a huge fan of the acting (it was competent though), and both the action and the plots seemed jerky and staccato. Still, I understand it was relatively true to the comics (as much as you can be).
Batman:TAS and Gargoyles were the top two 90s cartoons in my book. But the art on Batman was really special. The Japanese studio that did it actually went bankrupt, in part because they loved the series so much they were losing money on it. Mr. Freeze? The ice on his dome was individually sprayed on each animation cel with an airbrush, which is why it looks so vivid and ever-changing.
But it didn’t last long. Batman:TAS was only the first season. Season 2 was The Adventures of Batman and Robin, and, as the title suggests, it introduced Robin and featured him in most episodes. A friend felt that changed the tone and storytelling, and that the series quality suffered for it. I disagree, but I understand. It’s season 3, where it became the New Batman Adventures (later merged into the Batman/Superman hour) that the thing took a nosedive from exceptional to usually fairly good. The art was greatly simplified, and so were most of the plots. Instead of character-driven stories that sometimes had mobsters and other non-costumed criminals, NBA was almost always a boilerplate supervillain plot. There were still some outstanding episodes here and there, but they were the exception rather than the norm.
Batman TAS is probably one of the best cartoon series of all time, and to me it might be the best “serious” Batman out there. Mostly serious stories played straight, with believable and often sympathetic villains, but without falling into the ludicrous grimdark that so much of that franchise falls into. And Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill head a stellar voiceover cast.
And from a lot of the same team, you’ve got another of my 90s favorites, Tiny Toon Adventures! Some of it’s veeeery 90s, but a lot of it still holds up. And again from the same team, you get the lunacy of Freakazoid, which really played into my love of both absrudity and superheroes.
Though I do disagree, part of the post-'90s superhero show presence has some of the '90s talent still working behind them. Heck, look at Spectacular Spider-Man and Young Justice. PowerPuff Girls creator Craig McCracken did Kid Cosmic for Netflix. Tad Stones of Darkwing Duck did Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (which, to be fair mightve been majority produced in the '90s). Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle also were BLOSC showrunners. They did Kim Possible and Big Hero 6 The Series
Nothing in that department since 2019 but hey that might be at least partially a COVID thing (his live action appearance to be fair was a December release). Heck he’s writing a Batman comic for Pride or something
Well, if you’ve seen the trailer for the upcoming MultiVersus game (and if not, do so immediately; it’s pure joy being injected into your eyeballs), you’ll hear Conroy as Batman again.
In the early '90s, I was all about the Disney Afternoon and Tiny Toons. Later, I got into Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, and Histeria. My favorite Saturday morning cartoon that I can think of in the '90s was the too short-lived Freakazoid. I also watched a lot of Nickelodeon, particularly the SNICK lineup. I would have killed to have been on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.
I was an '80s kid and a '90s teen, so I was both too old for Barney and made constant jokes about it. For some reason, though, I really liked Lamb Chop’s Play-a-long, even though I was probably too old for it.