Jun 11, 2026, 7:12 PM EDT
Diego Pineda has been a devout storyteller his whole life. He has self-published a fantasy novel and a book of short stories, and is actively working on publishing his second novel.
A lifelong fan of watching movies and talking about them endlessly, he writes reviews and analyses on his Instagram page dedicated to cinema, and occasionally on his blog. His favorite filmmakers are **Andrei Tarkovsky **and Charlie Chaplin. He loves modern Mexican cinema and thinks it’s tragically underappreciated.
Other interests of Diego’s include reading, gaming, roller coasters, writing reviews on his Letterboxd account (username: DPP_reviews), and going down rabbit holes of whatever topic he’s interested in at any given point.
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Animated television is a medium that lends itself perfectly to shows that run for a long, long time. Voice actors getting older is much less noticeable than in live-action, and as animation techniques and technology keep getting better, shows can only keep getting better-looking and better-looking. As such, there are plenty of cartoons and other animated series that have been running for well over a decade.
From children’s television like ***The Fairly OddParents ***to adult shows like Futurama, these are the ten longest-running animated shows of all time. This list is focused on mainstream television; otherwise, the longest-running animated series ever is the German (originally East German) Unser Sandmännchen (“Our Little Sandman”), an obscure children’s bedtime stop-motion program, which has been on the air since 1959.
It’s almost difficult to believe that ***Bob’s Burgers ***has been on the air for what already amounts to 15 years, because as one of the few long-running animated sitcoms that has never really jumped the shark in any way, it feels like a far younger series. Clever, witty, and often delectably character-driven, it’s the type of sitcom that has earned the right to run forever.
What has remained key to* Bob’s Burger*‘s success is its rejection of the typical cynicism that plagues oh so many modern* *animated sitcoms. Contrary to many families in this genre, the Belchers actually like each other, and that makes the show as frequently wholesome and comforting as it is funny. It’s relatively low-stakes without ever being boring, and that’s how it has remained so fresh for as long as it has.
Adult Swim’s ***Squidbillies ***is a masterclass in absurdist and satirical animated humor. Its redneck humor may seem like hyper-specific cultural satire at first glance, but the way this cartoon became an international cult classic was by boiling it all down to a surreal, unapologetically crude sense of humor that makes the whole thing universally endearing.
Furthermore, with its appealing themes of class struggle and dysfunction being able to cross borders across the globe, it’s no wonder how *Squidbillies *managed to run for 16 admirable years. Intentionally abrasive and absurd in every way that matters, it dug up a niche all of its own and still reigns supreme within it.
The character of Curious George originated in the popular children’s books by **Margret Rey **and H. A. Rey, a curious but well-behaved monkey that was taken from Africa to America by the Man with the Yellow Hat. There have been several adaptations of the story, but the most prominent in 2006 became the film Curious George, whose sequel was the PBS Kids series of the same name.
The show saw a great evolution over the course of its run, including a period between 2015 and 2018 when it was canceled, until Peacock picked it back up. *Curious George *finally definitively ended in 2022, and throughout the 17 years that it was on air, it was one of the best things that little kids could watch on television. Cute and full of visual whimsy, it was the kind of children’s show that even adults could appreciate.
Although the quality of its seasons declined as they went on, *The Fairly OddParents *remains one of the most iconic cartoons of the 2000s, one that many people grew up watching and loving. Even for those who never saw it growing up, however, it’s still a fantastic show, full of cool storylines and anchored by a strong sense of humor.
The series went through a revival, some dry periods, a crossover event with Jimmy Neutron, and three feature films, reflecting just how successful it was with audiences throughout its 17-year stint. Despite its weak ending, it remains a beloved cartoon that fans who watched it every week in their childhood still hold dear to their hearts.
Divisive though it may be, there’s no denying that ***Robot Chicken ***is one of Adult Swim’s most iconic shows ever. It’s a claymation sketch comedy classic consisting of 12-minute sketches typically satirizing pop culture in general. It’s one of Adult Swim’s best shows, Internet humor before Internet culture took over television. That humor kept evolving in all sorts of interesting ways over the course of its 17-year run.
The brief runtime of every episode not only makes *Robot Chicken *delectably bingeable: It’s also a structure that makes it so that the rapid-fire pacing of its jokes ensures that **there’s always at least one landing every few seconds. It’s low-commitment viewing at its most entertaining, the kind of animated show that you can pick up and drop at any given moment every time you crave this sort of humor.
Although it usually sits under the shadow of a certain other animated **Seth MacFarlane **sitcom, ***American Dad! ***is very much its own thing, and just as worthy of praise. Moving from Fox to TBS and now back to Fox, it has stayed quite creatively uniform throughout its soon-to-be 21-year run.
The show is far funnier, better-written, and more original than many people give it credit for, to the point that many MacFarlane fans would call this a better show than the writer’s other brainchild. The voice acting is great, the animation has stayed consistently solid since 2005, and the characters are all delightfully fun and full of surprises over two decades later still.
Yet another Adult Swim cult classic, ***Aqua Teen Hunger Force ***is one of the best animated shows of the 2000s. It’s surrealist comedy at its peak, a show that almost entirely ignores any semblance of logic, continuity, or narrative payoff. For a whopping 23 years, it remained one of the most iconic animated comedies for adults on television.
The way the show balances its nonsensical plots and total disregard for stakes or continuity while still finding ways to keep its fanbase loyal for over two decades is nothing short of masterful. Its “cheap”-looking animation only enhances its charm and sense of humor, and its iconic trio of lead characters is one of animation’s most legendary.
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
***Cyberchase ***has remained one of the best and most prolific animated shows for kids over the course of 24 years, and you don’t get to that age as a TV series unless you have something of value to offer. Indeed, this sci-fi series is one of the best ways for the little ones of the family to learn math while watching television.
It isn’t really the type of series that any adult television fans would get anything out of, but parents looking for a good long-running for their kids to watch ought to take a look at Cyberchase. With its cute animation and the ways in which its story constantly makes its audience feel smart, it’s the type of show that adults should want* *kids to watch.
The ***Pokémon ***franchise is so humongous at this point that it’s hard to keep track of all the video games, shows, and movies; but, to this day, the original anime remains many people’s favorite part of the whole franchise. One of the longest-running anime of all time, it consists of eight series based on different main installments from the video game franchise, split across a whopping 27 seasons.
Though many of the show’s fans are mainly in it for the nostalgia, there are still plenty of people getting into it for the first time nowadays, and for good reason. The series is just that good. Despite the storylines getting somewhat repetitive from time to time, the animation is vibrant, the Pokémon designs always keep things fresh, and each season’s plot is consistently entertaining.
Based on the popular children’s books, ***Arthur ***is fantastic for kids, dealing with important topics like illness, reading, and empathy. It won several awards, from Emmys to BAFTAs, over the course of its nearly three-decade-long run, and all of those were always deserved.
The show is great for the little ones of the house; that’s for sure, but it even throws some higher-level jokes and pop-culture references to properties like South Park and ***The Sopranos ***in there to keep parents entertained, which is what allowed it to run for 27 years. It may not be the kind of series that grown-ups would have any interest in getting into by themselves, but for those with kids, it’s a fantastic choice.