Binge Recommendations - Day 4 - Like Drawings That Move

Sometimes you just want to plonk yourself down in front of some good old-fashioned cartoony entertainment. Or you’ve got, I don’t know, kids to entertain or something. Either way, sometimes only animation will do. Here are some examples of animated fun to either appease your own inner need to be soothed by the pictures or to entertain those kid thingies (either / or).

Gravity Falls
Why’s It Good? It’s funny, weird and silly but it has something that you don’t often get in kids cartoons - a beginning, a middle and an end. Over the course of the two series, it tells the story of brother and sister Dipper and Mabel who are spending the summer with their Gruncle (Great Uncle) Stan, a grifter who runs the scam-tastic Mystery Shack in the town of Gravity Falls. Except it turns out that Gravity Falls is home to all sorts of weird stuff. One of those shows that works for kids but also has plenty of gags for the adults. Watch it. Then you’ll probably want to watch it again.
How Much Of It? 40 episodes over two seasons.

Regular Show
Why’s It Good? It’s a weird 80s-nostalgia-heavy-rock-tinged slice of weirdness about two slackers, a blue jay named Mordecai and a raccoon named Rigby, who work in a park and get themselves into all sorts of utterly bizarre adventures. While airing on Cartoon Network, it definitely feels like it's edging towards slightly older territory, given the way that chug sodas and go on the equivalent of drunken sugar-fuelled benders. Oh, and the creator has stated that The Mighty Boosh is definitely an influence on the crimping style singing that the lead characters do so there’s your indicator of weirdness factor.
How Much Of It? 261 (at 11 mins each) episodes over eight seasons plus a movie

The Amazing World Of Gumball
Why’s It Good? Riding high on the weirdness scale again is this one revolving around the adventures of cat Gumball Watterson and his former pet fish / adopted brother Darwin. It’s a mixture of traditional animation, CGI and stop motion which varies from character to character giving it a very eclectic look. It also strangely goes into the fact that each of these characters are very different from the T-Rex to the giant yet to the ghost girl yet they all exist in the same shared environment. It’s also very, very silly. 
How Much Of It? 240 (at 11 mins each) episodes over six seasons

Batman: The Animated Series
Why’s It Good? It is, to my mind, the definitive adaptation of comic book Batman. It redefined the way traditional 2D animation series were done when launched back in 1992 with it’s highly stylised, 40s noir influenced take on the character and it still looks great nearly 30 years later. It also gives us two definitive portrayals - Kevin Conroy’s Batman is the best onscreen version as far as I’m concerned (and it's his voice I now hear when I read a Batman comic) and Mark Hamill’s bonkers Joker enlivens any episode that he’s in. The follow up series Batman Beyond is also surprisingly good too.
How Much Of It? 109 episodes over three seasons plus two movies

Alright, that’s plenty of series recommendations you’ve had now. What if you want something a bit more feature length, though? Hmmm...