While no cartoon can top The Simpsons has being a long running series (in fact it’s more than double it’s second closest competitor), you’d be surprised at the amount of cartoons out there that had particularly long series runs. In fact we have a list that is comprised of 11 cartoons that each spanned over 10 seasons and each contained 150 episodes or more (one had 149). It would be a difficult task to come up with these on your own.
What’s more surprising to me is that there are a lot of cartoon shows that lasted for considerably shorter periods than I thought. Think about some of the classics when you were a kid. Remember He-Man? 3 seasons. How about Thundercats? 4 seasons. GI Joe? 1 season! Yup, 1 glorious 1985 season and that’s it. A cartoon lasting more than 5 seasons is extremely rare which is why this list is more impressive than you might think.
So yeah, the Simpsons takes the cake but I personally think that South Park is the most impressive one on this list. What do you think?
“Rugrats” – 1990-2006 – 172 episodes
“Spongebob Squarepants” – 1999-Present – 230 episodes
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” – 1987-1996 – 193 episodes (and now there’s a new one)
“Family Guy” – 1999-Present – 287 Episodes
“King of the Hill” – 1997-2010 – 258 episodes
“Space Ghost Coast to Coast” – 1993-2004 – 96 episodes
“Arthur” – 1996-Present – 213 episodes
“Aqua Teen Hunger Force” – 2000-2015 – 139 episodes
“South Park” – 1997-Present – 278 episodes
“Fairly Odd Parents” – 2001-Present – 149 episodes
“The Simpsons” -1987-Present -618 episodes
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I just have to say, the bit in the opening paragraph about G.I. Joe: “GI Joe? 1 season! Yup, 1 glorious 1985 season and that’s it.” Is grossly incorrect.
First, there were at least two seasons (1985-1986). And that doesn’t take into account the 1983 and 1984 miniseries (essentially TV movies created in 5 episode chunks for easy syndication) and the 1987 (ripped from theaters to become a made for TV) movie. Just right there you have 96 episodes (100 if you count the 1987 movie as 5 episodes instead of 1 – which is how it was broadcast in some syndication markets) over the course of 5 years. That’s the same amount of content as Space Ghost Coast to Coast in half the time (although calendar duration – not content – seems to be your main criteria).
Then they outsourced the production to DiC and put out 44 more episodes in a mini-series and two full seasons (Sept. 1989 – January 1992). Granted, a lot of fans (and IMDB) don’t acknowledge it, and when they do they call it a second series, but at the time Hasbro thought of it as simply the next seasons of the series. It followed up on and referenced events from the previous episodes. It just wasn’t great, so people tend to forget about it (or actively disavow it). But it had the same title, was a continuation of the same story, and was still controlled by Hasbro and Sunbow. So once fanboys get over their pride, that brings the total to 140 (or 144) over four regular seasons, three miniseries and a movie from 1983 to 1992. Again, more content than Aqua Teen Hunger Force (albeit in less time).
That’s not counting the Sgt. Savage and His Screamin’ Eagles toy pack-in movie or GIJOE EXTREME, which were continuations of the same narrative. Sgt. Savage was packaged under the Real American Hero line and the cartoon featured some characters from the previous cartoons, but it was intended to be a soft reboot. And Extreme was a soft reboot of the Sgt. Savage soft reboot. So while they should not be counted on this list, they are worth noting. The original franchise story lasted 167 (or 171) individual entries from 1983 to 1997. Everything in the franchise after that was an homage or hard re-boot. That’s more content than Fairly Odd Parents (which finished at 161 episodes over 16 years) and comes in just behind Rugrats.
At minimum, you need to remove the incorrect statement in the opening paragraph. Better, you should replace Space Ghost with G.I. Joe.