It was easier being a kid in the 1990s. The internet was a new thing that most people didn't have and those that had it didn't have much to do with it. In those times before YouTube, TikTok, and endless streaming sites, everyone watched pretty much all the same shows on cable, including the cartoons.
The 1990s saw cartoons break out from their Saturday morning prison and spread across the week, airing pretty much all the time. And after being released from the weekend, cartoons started to get a lot weirder. The gross-out gags of Ren and Stimpy gave way to other odd and colorful cartoons filled with nonsequiturs, random references, and strange characters. These weird cartoons were played side by side with some shows that were more classic in nature, giving every kid a plethora of animated choices. And now, the time has come for some of these shows to return.
10 Freakazoid!
While the world was still wondering what the internet would become, Freakazoid! was screaming at kids, showing them the not too distant future of random people online doing random things.
In the show, created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, geeky Dexter Douglas finds himself pulled into the internet and gaining superpowers. As Freakazoid, Dexter fights supervillains and drinks Orange Juliuses with his pal Cosgrove. A superhero comedy, Freakazoid! was filled with random jokes that would become memes today, making it a perfect show to bring back for today's audiences.
9 Aaahh!!! Real Monsters
Everyone knows how rough school can be, and for Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm, monster school can be a real drag sometimes. The three monstrous students of Aaahh!!! Real Monsters often found themselves having to travel to the surface for class assignments that usually focused on scaring people.
Creepy but cute monsters are more popular now than they were in the 1990s and Aaahh!!! Real Monsters is filled with them. This is a show that not only worked as an entryway to horror for kids, it was also really funny. Bringing it back now would introduce the original characters to a whole new audience while making the original viewers happy.
8 Darkwing Duck
Originally part of the now-famous Disney Afternoon block of cartoons that included DuckTales, Talespin, and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck was a goofy take on the classic pulp hero The Shadow. Suburban single father Drake Mallard spends his days caring for his daughter Gosalyn, but at night he becomes the crimefighting mallard Darkwing Duck and takes to the streets with his sidekick Launchpad McQuack.
Thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, superheroes are more popular than ever, which makes this the perfect time for Darkwing Duck to come back out of the shadows and keep the streets of Duckburg safe from evil once again.
7 Rugrats
For nine seasons, Tommy Pickles and his pals kept children entertained on Nickelodeon's Rugrats. The show, which followed Tommy, his three friends, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil, and his older cousin Angelica while they tried their best to learn about the world between amazing imaginary adventures.
The second original animated series created for the network, Rugrats was a huge success for Nickelodeon, helping the cable channel carve out a new path for itself and opening the door for animated shows like Hey Arnold!, The Fairly OddParents, and most importantly, Spongebob Squarepants.
6 X-Men
While DC Comics was having an amazing run of animated shows that started with Batman: The Animated Series, Marvel found their answer in X-Men: The Animated Series. The series, which ran for five seasons, featured not just classic characters like Wolverine, Jean Grey, and Magneto, but almost every mutant from the comics. Heavily influenced by Chris Claremont's work on Marvel's mutants, X-Men: The Animated Series did something that was rarely done in animation at that time - it told one continuous story just like the comics.
This style of storytelling could make it hard for fans if they missed an episode, but it rewarded the die-hard viewers and helped make the show a classic.
5 Gargoyles
While the other shows that aired as part of the Disney Afternoon block each weekday were focused on jokes, Gargoyles went in the opposite direction. Aimed at an older audience than the likes of Gummi Bears and Goof Troop, Gargoyles told the story of Goliath, the leader of the last living gargoyles who were put into an endless sleep for a thousand years before being woken up in modern-day New York.
Filled with Shakespearean themes and intense action, Gargoyles has continued to have a vocal fanbase nearly a quarter of a decade since it went off the air. While the show's creators and fans have long been calling on Disney to bring the characters back, the House of the Mouse has so far ignored their pleas.
4 Rocko's Modern Life
Following the very surreal life of an Australian-immigrant wallaby named Rocko, Rocko's Modern Life was unlike any other cartoon that came before it.
Filled with a colorful 90's aesthetic and a lot of pure-hearted comedy, Rocko's Modern Life pushed away the sarcastic humor that the decade was known for, choosing instead to focus on humor that came from the characters. While Rocko's Modern Life only had 52 episodes, most of the behind the scenes crew and some of the voice actors would move on to create the immensely successful and long-running series Spongebob Squarepants.
3 Exosquad
Set in the early days of the 22nd century, Exosquad tells the story of an interplanetary war between humanity and Neosapiens, a race of artificially created beings that are used as slaves by mankind. The series mainly followed the adventures of Able Squad, an elite human unit of mecha pilots, but made sure to spend plenty of episodes showing things from the POV of the Neosapiens as well.
What made Exosquad strand out is the way it dealt with the very serious issues of slavery. While the members of Able Squad were never painted as being the bad guys, the series didn't shy away from the evils of what mankind had done to the Neosapiens.
2 The Tick
Based on the comic by Ben Edlund, The Tick was one of the funniest and strangest cartoons of the 1990s. Following the adventures of the superstrong blue-suited Tick, his sidekick Arthur and the other heroes of The City as they battled against all kinds of evil, from the supervillain Chairface Chippendale to a colony of ants that lock superheroes in a people farm.
The Tick lasted three seasons in animated form and has since had two short-lived live-action shows. But with superheroes being all the rage these days, it seems like the perfect time to bring back the animated adventures of the Big Blue Guy.
1 Space Ghost Coast to Coast
An animated talk show hosted by an old Hanna-Barbera Productions superhero and two of his enemies, Space Ghost Coast to Coast managed to capture the attitude of the 1990s by mixing nostalgia with up and coming celebrities that weren't really ready for the talk show circuit.
Without Space Ghost Coast to Coast, it's possible that Cartoon Network would never have created Adult Swim, which would mean that classic shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021, and The Eric Andre Show would never have found a home. While Space Ghost Coast to Coast lasted well into the 2000s, coming to an end in 2008, it's irreverent humor and low-quality animation is ready for a comeback.