One of the great additions that I found after getting my kids a Wii for Christmas was finding that there was a Netflix channel. This allows you to live stream movies and cartoons, from new favorites to old classics. What I found as a pure joy was being able to walk back through time to grab a few awesome animated classics that I watched as a kid.
Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-74)
As a youngster, my first exposure to the Star Trek series was through this classic animated series. All the stars were there. You had William Shatner as Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, George Takei as Sulu, James Doohan as Scott, Deforest Kelly as McCoy and Michelle Nichols as Uhara. The 22 episodes are great if you are a lover of Star Trek. The series was so good that it won a Daytime Emmy award in 1975 for Outstanding Entertainment in a Children’s Series.
GI Joe (1985-86)
You get your money’s worth with the real American Hero. There are 95 episodes in all in the two seasons. You’ll also hear two familiar voices in the show. First is Frank Welker, who played Torch. Welker is best known for almost all of the incarnations of Freddie Jones from the Scooby Doo series. There is also Neil Ross, who played Shipwreck. His voice is familiar from three different Spider Man animated series as the voice of Norman Osborn, who is famous as the Green Goblin.
The Karate Kid (1989)
This short-lived series of only 13 episodes is a take from the classic movies with Joey Dedio as Daniel Larusso and Robert Ito as Mr. Miyagi. It is a slight surprise that Pat Morita doesn’t reprise his role since he plays more of a narrator in the show. Dedio later appeared as Wheeler in the famous Captain Planet series and Ito is more known as Jack Klugman’s assistant on Quincy Medical Examiner from the 1970’s.
Jumanji (1996-98)
There is no Robin Williams in the series of 40 episodes, but there are a couple actors involved with the animated series that have had other reasons to be famous. First is Bill Fagerbakke, who played Alan Parrish on the show. Fagerbakke went on to a more famous role after Jumanji ended as he became Patrick Star on the long-running Spongebob Squarepants series. The other good news for Parrish is that in the last episode of the series, he was finally able to get out of the game. The other famous character of the show was Tim Curry, who played Slick. Curry will forever be more famous as Dr. Frank-N-Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
