EMN File List – Interstitials/Ads File List – Bumpers File List
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
Year: 1993
Synopsis: A wacky comedy featuring the fastest thing alive foiling the plans of Dr. Robotnik on Planet Mobius.
EMN Notes: I can’t help myself; I love this show. I would buy VHS tapes in England from thrift shops and watch episodes of this show, and I even had some VHS tapes I got from a teacher in school when she was selling her old collection. Whenever I would sleep over at a friend’s house who had Cox Digital Cable I would purposely wake up early on Sundays to catch episodes. YTP helped breathe new life into this show with Long John Baldry’s performance as Robotnik being hilarious and memorable. It helps that this show sometimes gets really, really, really, really weird. Like, one episode I was watching on EMN randomly seemed to turn into a coliseum fight and I still can’t tell you what was going on or how we got to that point. Anyway, I just like this show! I liked the portrayals of Sonic and Tails, the music puts a smile on my face, Robotnik is funny, and it’s overall just a goofy little Sonic cartoon that reminds me of simpler times.
Bigtop Burger
Year: 2020
Synopsis: A surreal selection of shorts featuring clowns who work at a food truck.
EMN Notes: Worthikids makes such unusual animations, all dripping with character and heart. Bigtop Burger is surreal and strange, but it’s funny, too, and it’s just so cool to see 3D animation used to create convincing 2D-style cartoons. This feels old school, like a Newgrounds Flash animation, but with the polish of a modern production. It’s just so cool to see.
Bob’s Burgers
Year: 2011
Synopsis: The owner of a local burger joint tries to keep his restaurant afloat and his family happy.
EMN Notes: I love when a show sneaks up on us and makes us realize it has the EMN atmosphere. Pawn Stars did it, but something interesting is that during that same trip to the Wisconsin Dells that helped solidify Pawn Stars for us we watched Adult Swim live on TV for the first time in ages. Getting to appreciate TV in a hotel room after years of being without it helped refresh my mind on what we’re trying to accomplish. Anyway, Bob’s Burgers was one of the shows that came on and I remember it being amusing and fairly enjoyable, but nothing special…but in that new context I found myself laughing, comforted and warmed by the show that is really just mostly silly and a little absurd. It’s a cute show, and while it doesn’t match, say, The Simpsons in terms of comforting animated comedies, it has its own place on EMN.
Captain N: The Game Master
Year: 1989
Synopsis: Young Kevin Keene is sucked into the world of his NES where he has to team up with gaming all stars and save VideoLand as the hero Captain N.
EMN Notes: It’s honestly impressive how much this show gets wrong. Character names are more like suggestions. They call “Metroid” a planet. The characterization of literally every videogame character is off-the-wall weird. I mean, it’s not like they had much to work with in 1989, but even back then I doubt people played Castlevania and headcanoned Simon Belmont as an arrogant wannabe-ladies’ man in flight goggles. This show is so wonderfully strange and so completely incorrect in every way that it takes the slam dunk concept of “video game crossover” and turns it into something unrecognizable. I love it.
Clerks: The Animated Series
Year: 2001
Synopsis: An absurdist show based on the Kevin Smith movie chronicling the lives of two friends at a convenience store and the stoners that loiter in the parking lot.
EMN Notes: A more-recent addition to the channel, this was suggested by Mandy and considering we have Kevin Smith films on there already, we’re fans of the View Askewniverse in general, and it just made sense. It’s an easy add, because it is a funny show with a vibe we both enjoy, and at six episodes it was silly not to. Sometimes it’s good to mix it up with some real variety.
Clone High
Year: 2002
Synopsis: Way, way back in the 1980s a group of scientists cloned a whole bunch of famous people, and now they’re angsty teenagers.
EMN Notes: I have really fond memories of this show. I was never allowed to watch MTV as a kid, so I’d have to sneak in some time watching it at a friend’s house or in my brother’s room on his TV. Clone High would come on and I distinctly remember the episode where Gandhi is shunned for having ADHD. I didn’t understand the greater social satire, but I did appreciate the show as a cartoon I Was Not Allowed To Watch. When clips of the show started circulating around social media again recently I went back and watched a bunch of episodes and found that it was incredibly smart and incredibly funny, a fantastic parody of teen dramas with great jokes, characters, and voices. It’s no wonder the creators of this show went on to make Into The Spider-Verse.
Dilbert
Year: 1999
Synopsis: Off-the-wall sci-fi comedy loosely (very loosely) based on a comic strip about a group of engineers who work in a bureaucratic office.
EMN Notes: I have no excuse for this show. I added a few episodes because it’s one of the adult animated cartoons I remember watching with my parents as a kid back when it would come on UPN, and I remembered the Steve Austin cameo in one episode (which is still an incredibly funny moment). But hoo boy, watching it now is like a fever dream. I have no idea how this show got greenlit. It’s so genuinely, almost unsettlingly bizarre. It’s funny, yes, but who saw the rather beige comic strip Dilbert and decided it really needed some bonkers off-the-wall sci-fi parody plots with Dilbert getting pregnant or the people in the office mutating into weird alien creatures due to an unsafe working environment? For that reason I honestly love that we added some of this show. It’s one of the weaker entries we have on here quality-wise, but I absolutely love how utterly baffling it is.
Disney’s House of Mouse
Year: 2001
Synopsis: Mickey Mouse hosts an anthology show presenting Disney cartoons new and old, and deals with animated guests at his comedy club at the same time.
EMN Notes: Another nostalgic Toon Disney sleepover show for me, but also one that’s cute, funny, and harmless. It’s just fun seeing Mickey, Donald, and Goofy and a ton of other Disney animated cameos all hang out in a comedy club and have little episode throughlines separated with classic Disney shorts. It’s just enough Disney-brand-Disney for my tastes, enough to tickle the old nostalgia-bone while providing enough entertainment that it isn’t just that.
Donkey Kong Country
Year: 1998
Synopsis: Donkey Kong and his friends are just trying to live peacefully on Kongo Bongo Island, but the villainous King K. Rool wants to steal the Crystal Coconut. Also, there’s songs.
EMN Notes: Another incredibly impressively weird video game cartoon adaptation, Donkey Kong Country is surprisingly well-animated for a 3D show from its time period. It also has entirely miscast voice actors, there’s a song in every episode (some catchy, some completely unhinged), and a collection of nonsensical plots including one that’s just a version of It’s A Wonderful Life except starring Donkey Kong. It is bananas. Utterly off-the-wall bananas. It is prime Saturday-morning-cartoon material, and it’s no wonder I could only catch it at 7:30 AM. At least you can’t say it’s boring.
DuckTales
Year: 2007
Synopsis: The richest duck in the world, his nephews, and a cast of many others go on globe-trotting adventures in search of magic and mystery.
EMN Notes: My favorite Disney character is Scrooge McDuck. I love the original DuckTales NES game, I think ducks are cute, and the original Mickey’s Christmas Carol warms my heart. Out of everything I really feel that this is the best the character and indeed the entire Disney Afternoon cast of characters has ever been. This show is fun and adventurous, it has tons of great cameos from characters I grew up watching, it’s just plain cute at points, and it has all kinds of great plot points that are explored throughout the show. It just makes me smile, and I have so many great memories watching episodes as they dropped with Mandy up until the end. It’s nice! It’s just nice.
Garfield & Friends
Year: 1988
Synopsis: Everyone’s favorite lasagna-loving cat gets into mischief that is often wacky, witty, and weird. Also featuring segments from Orson’s Farm.
EMN Notes: This show is one of those nostalgia bombs for me because I have always loved Garfield and still do. This show was on a lot whenever I’d visit my nan in England, and eventually I had a DVD set of the second season specifically that I would watch again and again, often in airports. This show has aged so gracefully with its fourth-wall-breaking humor, super funny dialogue, and hilarious voice acting especially with Lorenzo Music as Garfield. I quote a lot of the jokes, especially There Is No Such Thing As Wyoming, to this day, and even on re-watches certain episodes still cause me to laugh out loud. This show is a warm blanket, a balm to my soul. I love it to bits.
Gravity Falls
Year: 2012
Synopsis: Two twins go to a remote town in Oregon for their summer vacation only to learn that it’s a place where the paranormal resides.
EMN Notes: So, this show was already on EMN Mystery, and it’s a show we both knew we loved – hell, I watched the finale on TV with my brother. It was an experiencing, taking part in the final stretch and enjoying the mystery and humor that surrounded the town of Gravity Falls, but part of us didn’t want to add it to main EMN because we didn’t want to ruin the magic. Well, on a recent vacation Mandy and I found ourselves with little to do but watch an episode of Gravity Falls…and immediately we were sucked back into the world it gave us but also surprised at how comfortable and funny it still was. Like, yeah, logically I remembered it being good, but I really underestimated the warmth and humor it imparted. It was one of the first things we knew we wanted to add to EMN in its third year and I’m glad we did.
Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law
Year: 2003
Synopsis: A hard-done-by but chiseled lawyer has to work in a firm devoted to getting other Hanna-Barbera characters off the hook.
EMN Notes: This is probably my favorite of the Adult Swim shows where they took Hanna-Barbera cels and made new cartoons out of them. The crossover aspect is really fun, and the whole thing feels a little more classy than the others, with Harvey being a pretty funny, fun character, and some of the side characters (especially Bird Girl) being super entertaining. It’s fun how they got a lot of soundalikes for the Hanna-Barbera crossover characters, too, and the episode where the Jetsons visit from “the far-off time of 2001” never fails to make me chuckle. I don’t know, I just like the atmosphere of this one.
He-Man & The Masters of the Universe
Year: 1983
Synopsis: Prince Adam uses his magic sword to transform into the muscular He-Man and defend the realm of Eternia from an evil skeleton man.
EMN Notes: This show is so silly and fun. It has moments of bizarrely good animation combined with the absolute worst cliches of the 80s toy tie-ins. It has an amazing opening, multiple goofy mascots, a ridiculous plot set in a ridiculous fantasy world, and it’s just so much fun. Mandy loves Skeletor and can do a spot-on impression, and while this isn’t exactly a childhood show, it just has impeccable vibes.
King of the Hill
Year: 1997
Synopsis: An ordinary Texas family does ordinary Texas things, like sell propane, drink beer, and grill. But, like, it’s really funny.
EMN Notes: I feel like I appreciate this show the older I get. I used to watch this as a kid and it was always “the show that came on before The Simpsons”, but one day in high school an episode played at the gym and on a whim I watched it and was amazed at the natural dialogue, the low-key air of it all, and the gentle humor. It’s not a perfect show, but it’s calming, humorous, and comforting, with some really excellent jokes and killer quotes. I think everyone can do or try to do a Hank Hill impression. Choosing to revisit this show with Mandy was such a great idea because we both ended up totally in love with it, at least for the first eight seasons or so.
Megas XLR
Year: 2004
Synopsis: A video-game-playing food-loving mechanic and his slacker buddy are thrust into an intergalactic war when they find a giant robot that originally belonged to a time-hopping soldier.
EMN Notes: Another surprise courtesy of the EMN format, this is a show I always knew was well-loved but never realized just how funny and ahead-of-its-time it was. It’s wild that they actually got the Cowboy Bebop English voice cast on purpose. The show is a romp, with real humor and fun adventures and it’s no wonder it’s a cult-classic. It somehow both feels like a show that could only have been made when it was but also could have been made yesterday. It helps that the main character, Coop, is a genuinely really fun guy, and it’s great to see some layabout fat dude soup up a giant robot and save the Earth.
Men In Black: The Animated Series
Year: 1999
Synopsis: Aliens walk among us, and it’s up to the government agents known only as the Men In Black to find them, capture them, and make sure you don’t remember them.
EMN Notes: The Men in Black films were among the first movies I remember watching in theaters, and I really enjoyed the animated series. It’s a fun sci-fi adventure with a really interesting and cool art style. It doesn’t shy away from having Weird Alien Shenanigans, and the opening theme always gets me in the mood to watch it because it’s so catchy. This isn’t the deepest show we have on here, but it really stands out just like it stood out back then.
My Adventures With Superman
Year: 2023
Synopsis: Rookie reporters Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen start at the Daily Planet together, but Clark has a secret – he is an alien superhero the public dubs Superman.
EMN Notes: This is the Superman show I’ve been waiting for my whole life. Don’t get me wrong, Superman: The Animated Series is great and all, but this show has such great action, romance, and interpretations of the Superman mythos combined with funny and fresh writing and a fantastic Lois. This show in particular fills me with warm fuzzies, and more than that, it fits on EMN aesthetically in a way that similar shows don’t. It just feels right.
Sealab 2021
Year: 2000
Synopsis: In the year 2021, a group of scientists band together in a submarine to find out if it’s possible to colonize the ocean. Things get very weird from there.
EMN Notes: Another one of the early Adult Swim Hanna-Barbera-reuse shows, this was a really interesting one. I think it works because it knows how to get out of hand and fast, and each episode has a rough and improvised feeling that assaults your senses like a strangely punk rock comedy. While shows like Space Ghost and others were on the air by this point, this is one that still manages to feel fresh by reveling in late-night delirium. It is a show I don’t hold immense love for or anything, but it’s one that strikes a note when it needs to.
Space Ghost Coast to Coast
Year: 1994
Synopsis: It’s the galaxy’s favorite late-night talk show featuring the galaxy’s favorite superhero-turned-sweet-talker.
EMN Notes: The original and arguably most-famous of the Adult Swim Hanna-Barbera shows, this one works because it’s another staple of late-night television. It’s almost a series of non-sequiturs, and Space Ghost’s voice really sells it by being hilarious. I don’t find this show to be especially funny, but I do find it to be pleasantly weird, like I’m watching something that is just slightly overstimulating without meaning to be. The way it always starts at an attempt at a serious late night show but devolves into some avant-garde half-cartoon-half-reality mess is fascinating.
Super Mario Bros. Super Show
Year: 1989
Synopsis: A show featuring both live-action and animated segments starring the Mario Brothers that bounce between the mishaps at their Brooklyn plumbing company and the crazy adventures they get up to in Mushroom Land.
EMN Notes: This show is an absolute delight for me. The live action segments are ridiculous, featuring former pro wrestler Captain Lou Albano as Mario and a bevy of odd celebrities and guest characters showing up to their weird whimsical apartment. All the episodes are lazy parodies and themed episodes based around pop culture references but including the cast of Super Mario Bros. 2. They had two Mario games to work with here and they got far more out of the premise than they should have. It cracks me up.
Super Mario World
Year: 1991
Synopsis: The Mario Brothers have come to Dinosaur World for a vacation, and have to navigate stopping King Koopa, teaching cave people modern conveniences, and taking care of their new dinosaur pal, Yoshi.
EMN Notes: This was the first Mario cartoon I saw. I had just moved to Florida and I remember seeing the episode Mama Luigi on TV. Fast forward a few years and I found a VHS in a charity shop in England (you’ll read this sentence a lot) and it had Mama Luigi on it! I watched that video ’til the tape wore out. It had all the really iconic episodes on it, though this is only a 13-episode series. It’s so funny that the show alter got a second life as prime YTP fodder, because I had seen all the original episodes and knew all the now-famous quotes by heart already! Honestly, I think it’s a cute and funny show. It’s a goofy Saturday Morning Cartoon, just like the Super Show or Super Mario Bros. 3, and it had plenty of animation errors and weird plots as is to be expected, but it has a spark and a charm that SMB3 didn’t have. Also there’s just something really funny about Luigi hitting Mario with a stone football.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Year: 1987
Synopsis: After being exposed to mutagen, four turtles grow into humanoid creatures that live in the New York sewers and fight crime under the cover of darkness.
EMN Notes: This show fills me with endless joy. It’s funny, it’s ridiculous, it stuck in peoples’ heads for a reason. I just love the Turtles and their chemistry, and as a show it’s a wonderfully silly show with some genuinely funny jokes and some memorable monsters and action pieces. It’s a vibe I took to immediately, even as a kid. My brother was the big Turtles fan and loved the movies and show, and so when we found a ton of VHS tapes at the charity shops in England I’d snatch every one of them up to watch with him. Because of that I have super fond memories of really specific episodes, but I also know it as “Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles” because “Ninja” was too violent apparently. Anyway, TMNT media in general brings me warm fuzzy memories of bonding with my brother as kids, something we didn’t do nearly enough of. Even as adults we still love the Turtles.
The Adventures of Tintin
Year: 1991
Synopsis: A Belgian reporter and his pup Snowy go on globe-spanning adventures in search of treasure, lost civilizations, and intrigue.
EMN Notes: I love Tintin! It’s so pulpy, fresh, and fanciful. It’s a serious adventure that just bleeds fun and excitement, and it makes me want to travel the world. It’s an energizing show and it’s fun to randomly catch an adventure where Tintin finds a lost treasure or what-have-you. Plus, Snowy is cute. This was a show added for extra aesthetic variety, and it delivers.
The Boondocks
Year: 2006
Synopsis: A razor-sharp and darkly funny series about two rowdy kids and their grandfather navigating life as an African-American family in the suburbs.
EMN Notes: While I was never allowed to watch Adult Swim as a kid, I would sometimes be able to wake up when my brother came home from work, back when we lived in a small apartment. It was during those times that I watched piece of FullMetal Alchemist, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and this show. I only remember much from the pilot, and I thought it was funny but because I was pretending to be asleep I couldn’t really pay attention. Later, after we moved to Italy, the original comic the show was based on was being run in the newspaper we got. It was one of my favorite comics in the paper because it was extremely anti-Bush and incredibly pointed. It spoke to me because I was deep in my anti-Bush era an era I still am deeply in. Anyway, eventually Mandy suggested we add this to EMN. I didn’t remember enough about the show to be an emphatic yes, but I remembered that it looked good and that I liked the comic, so I agreed. Shortly after, we watched an episode to refresh myself on it and was blown away at how sharp, hilarious, shocking, and raw it was. Later, when watching EMN, the episode Riley Wuz Here played. I sat in awe as I witnessed one of the finest single episodes of television I’ve ever seen. That is one of my biggest “Oh, so this is why I’m doing this” moments I’ve had while doing this project. It’s just fantastic.
The Critic
Year: 1994
Synopsis: A comedy about the life of a pretentious television movie critic with an absurdist angle.
EMN Notes: This show is great. It is by the creators of The Simpsons, but it’s much more ridiculous with off-the-wall cut-aways and gags that come out of nowhere. Also, now that I’ve seen plenty of Siskel & Ebert I can understand the overall parody aspect of the show, and I love the episode where they actually have roles. It’s a tough show to describe the atmosphere and vibe of, but it’s very specific, very funny, and an episode showing up on EMN is a rare treat.
The Proud Family
Year: 2002
Synopsis: Penny Proud learns to live with the struggles of growing up as a member of an eccentric (and extended) family.
EMN Notes: This show is one of the few Disney Channel shows from a more modern era that I really truly enjoyed. It would often play in Italy on one of the AFN channels and it’s still very fun and fresh with great cast of characters. Oscar is hilarious, Penny and her friends are super likable, and it’s all told in this really nice-looking almost paper-texture art style. It’s a really fun and unique show, and it adds a lot of energy to the channel.
The Simpsons
Year: 1990
Synopsis: A satirical take on the traditional sitcoms of the time, the Simpsons are a completely normal family in the completely normal town of Springfield.
EMN Notes: The idea of making an all-Simpsons channel is what started EMN. It was the first show we knew we were going to add. Mandy loves it, I love it, and we have a lot of great memories watching old Simpsons episodes I had never seen together back when Rabbit was a thing. I grew up watching Simpsons on TV, but I watched a lot of later seasons that were actually pretty not-great. Now I’ve seen so many more and I can say that this show is still so incredibly funny, a joke-a-minute with smarts and references and while some of it hasn’t aged gracefully it still maintains this soothing atmosphere while only getting funnier the more I understand what it’s referencing and satirizing. When I think of shows that embody the “lean back and relax” atmosphere of EMN, The Simpsons comes to mind for us both.