Top Ten Favorite Cartoon Openings

I've done the anime lists so let's finish with American cartoons. If you looked at this list and thought this is just a bunch of random intros, you'll be correct. I liked plenty of openings but few of them actually made me FEEL something inside of my soul. So yeah, this is practically a thrown together list of American amination. Now let's get to my Top Ten Favorite Cartoon Intros.

10. Beast Wars Intro "Beast Wars Theme Song" by Robert Buckley

Hasbro jointly owns Transformers with Takara Tomy so some of their past series are considered anime depending on who made the show. Since Beast Wars was a joint production by Canadians and Americans, it goes on this list. Robert Buckley really captured that primal, jungle essence with this theme. It helps there's no pesky humans to get in the way of all the animal robot fighting. He also has a long list of credits that includes Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, arranging music for Aerosmith and creating incidental music on Friends.

9. The Wacky World of Tex Avery Intro "The Wacky World of Tex Avery" (to the tune of "Infernal Galop" from Orpheus In The Underworld)

I didn't know who Tex Avery was when this show debuted in 1997, I was just hooked by the outlandish theme song. I wasn't aware of how important he was during the Golden Age of animation where he played a role in creating Warner Bros. characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd. So when this DIC produced show came out, people were pretty pissed at it since they feel it bastardized his animation style. If you wanted to properly represent a Texan's influence on the early days of animation, don't have French companies produce the show.  

8. Johnny Bravo Intro "Johnny Bravo" by Louis Fagenson

In this pussified world of Cancel Culture, Johnny Bravo could not air today. People would bitch about his toxic masculinity and sexually harassing women in every episode and imagine the outrage over this clip!. People would be calling everyone associated with the show transphobic on Twitter! Thankfully, this show ran from the late 90's to early 00's back when people didn't get offended over every little thing. So I can enjoy this dimwit strike out so many times with the ladies while getting outsmarted by a little girl. Anyway, here's some more of Lou's work.

7. The Magic School Bus Intro "Ride on the Magic School Bus" by Little Richard

Michael Jackson may not have sung the Pokémon song but Little Richard did sing The Magic School Bus theme. Who knew a teacher putting her class in danger on field trips could be so much fun? Just ignore that shitty Netflix reboot they did years ago with bootleg flash animation.

6. Garfield Intro "We're Ready to Party" by Desirée Goyette

I prefer the second song starting with season three over "Friends Are There" by her husband Ed Bogas. It's just a more energetic beat with clips from the first two seasons. Desirée is also the reason why I thought Nermal was a girl when actually he's a boy. Not that I'm complaining.

5. Sealab 2021 Intro "Sealab" by Julie Stepanek and Calamine

This is a calm, pleasing song to a chaotic show. In other words, it's the calm before the storm. How this show was created is wild in itself and Julie made the song by herself at home for the pilot before bringing in her band Calamine to do the official theme for the rest of the episodes.

4. Johnny Test Intro "Johnny Test Theme" by Aaron Molho, Scott Fellows, Kevin Manthei and Kevin Riepl

I liked the first song over what they replaced it with in season 2 because it just seems more energetic. Considering the two Kevins based the theme off of Green Day's "American Idiot", it's no wonder it's so good. I also liked the theme because of this:

The biggest travesty in changing songs was losing Johnny with a "i" from the intro. :(

I thought of an episode idea where Susan and Mary wanted to give Gil the perfect birthday present. But they need someone to pick his brain so they turn Johnny into a girl (it happened before) and enrolled her into Gil's school. Gil becomes lovestruck with Joni and awkward hijinks ensure. Eventually Johnny gets the info, Joni "moves away", Susan and Mary presents Gil the perfect gift and he remembers their names. I admit I didn't watch every episode but I'm pretty sure that episode doesn't exist. And I doubt the Netflix version will be any close to it either.

3. Dilbert Intro "The Dilbert Zone" by Danny Elfman and Steve Bartek

Here's another theme song that's based off another song. Elfman has decades of experience creating music for tv and movies (most notably the theme song for The Simpsons) so he and Bartek combined to make this theme based off their band's song "The Forbidden Zone". Generally he doesn't remix or remaster his Oingo Boingo songs so this was a special treat.

2. What's New Scooby-Doo Intro "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" by Simple Plan

Yet another intro performed by popular musicians, this time by Canadian rockers Simple Plan. You can thank the live action movie Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed for Simple Plan's heavy involvement in the show and the show existence in general. It was meant to modernize the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! for todays audience after a long hiatus. Well I enjoyed the theme, show, character designs and personality traits. Scooby, Shaggy and Velma pretty much look the same while Daphne and Fred ditched the ascots. Also Daphne is no longer a damsel in distress and Fred is built like a jock while the others are again the same. In later shows and movies they went back to their original attire but kept the personalities from this show. It's still weird to see them go back and forth between real eyes and dot eyes though.

Bonus: Freakazoid! Intro "Freakazoid! Theme" by Richard Stone

I thought about putting this on my superhero list since Bruce Timm and Paul Dini created this show but I leave it here as my bonus instead. Richard Stone crafted a catchy theme that could fit any 90's superhero show if you replaced the lyrics, but that's the joke, like after credit scenes.

1. Johnny Quest Intro "Main Title Theme" by Gary Lionelli (Based on "Johnny Quest Theme" by William Hanna, Joseph Barbera and Hoyt Curtin)

The original show's theme song is pretty cool. All of that gunfire and horns, it just screams 60's. So how do you make that song better? Take about the opening 50 seconds of the original and make it more dramatic. Then set it to a camera zooming by a black background with green lines to mark mountain ranges as clips from the show play out (I liked Jessie's hair flip). The "epic, big orchestra" music was taxing on Guy Moon but it made him a better composer for years to come. So much so, he's working on another show about a blonde boy, Johnny Test.