I’m at home with a sick Nicholas today, so we’re watching Disney Channel and generally trying to feel better. With my attention focused on all these cartoons, I thought I’d run down my opinions on cartoons today.

I’m not one of those curmudgeons that thinks cartoons were oh so much better back in the day. Most cartoons from my childhood were formulaic and boring. I think there were maybe four Smurfs episodes total. There are only so many plotlines you can have in He Man, considering there were only three characters in the show. GI Joe got old as soon as I realized that the screen is always completely filled with red and blue laser bursts, but nobody ever gets hit by one. And this will probably be blasphemous for many in my peer group, but I never really got into Thundercats.

There are a lot of good adult-themed cartoons these days, my favorites being Futurama and Home Movies. But that’s not what I want to discuss today. Instead, I’ll go through the typical Disney channel morning lineup, and offer my two cents. I’ll also include a handful of live action shows that fall in the same genre.

Nicholas’s current favorite is My Friends Tigger and Pooh, which is about a billion times more interesting than old school Pooh. It does move a little slowly at times. His previous favorites include Special Agent Oso (“Special” modifies “Oso”, not “Agent”) and Imagination Movers. Candice likes the Movers because each episode features at least two new songs, most of which are catchy without being annoying. I’ve soured on them recently because in the second season, they got rid of my favorite character: Knit Knots, the neighbor who likes everything to be boring.

The newest addition to the morning lineup is Chuggington, which chronicles the adventures of several young trains (Trainees, they call them). It’s sort of like Thomas the Tank Engine, but it’s even more benign. The writing is just terrible, and the dialog is shallow and pedantic. However, Nicholas likes it because there are a lot of trains.

My favorite morning Disney show is Jungle Junction, but that’s mostly because the voice of Ellyvan is done by Billy West, who lends his talent to several characters on Futurama (Fry, Zoidberg, and the Professor among others). Unfortunately, there haven’t been any new episodes in a while, so it’s easy to get burned out on the show.

The morning lineup is rounded out by Little Einsteins and Handy Manny, which are both just fine in small doses. Little Einsteins can be quite pretentious at times, but it’s the only show I’ve ever seen that attempts to teach kids about music and art. I could do without all the little extras with Handy Manny. There are three or four different Handy Manny-themed songs done by Los Lobos that get played repeatedly, and they all suck. They also have a three minute feature on washing your hands when you’re sick, which seems like it’s an hour long.

Of course, I couldn’t talk about Disney without mentioning the gold standard, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Nicholas seems to identify best with Donald Duck, having borrowed several phrases from him (What’s the big idea?). Mickey does a good job of talking to the audience without talking down to them. Many of these shows take on a tone that just screams “I’m talking to little children now.” Mickey avoids that.

Other than Disney, we also enjoy several shows from Nick Jr. The evening lineup features the Backyardigans (fantastic), Wonder Pets (somewhat boring), Wow Wow Wubbzy (eh), Olivia (unwatchable), Ni Hao Kai-Lan (okay in small doses) and Yo Gabba Gabba (it’s grown on me, but holy crap, that’s a strange show). Overall, Nick Jr. probably has the better lineup. Maybe we should try out their morning shows, such as Pinky Dinky Doo and Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends.

Or maybe not.