TV’s Most Popular Adult Animated Shows Premiered at Least 10 Years Ago | Charts

“Rick and Morty.” “Futurama.” “South Park.” ”Bob’s Burgers.” “Archer.” “The Simpsons.” “Family Guy.” “American Dad!”

What do these shows have in common? For one thing, they’re the Top 8 most popular adult animated comedies, according to a Ranker list that’s been voted on by 50,000 TV fans. But the shows also all premiered at least 10 years ago — and as of the writing of this article, they’re all still on the air. (“Archer” will officially conclude with a special finale event in December.)

The story of adult animated comedy arguably begins with the runaway success of “The Simpsons,” which premiered back in 1989. Since then, each successive decade has brought with it a crop of new and seemingly inexhaustible cartoon series, from “The Simpsons” and “South Park” in the 1990s, to “Family Guy” and “Futurama” in the 2000s, to “Bob’s Burgers” and “Rick and Morty” in the 2010s. But the last decade hasn’t seen any new animated shows that come close to the popularity of these eight series. Is this a sign that the adult animated comedy is on its way out? Or is the next big thing in the genre still amassing its audience?

As “Archer” moves into its final season, we’re looking into the state of animation today. First, we’ll compare the popularity of these eight beloved shows among Ranker’s millions of readers. Then we’ll spotlight a few up-and-comers that could be the next adult animated cartoon phenomenon.

The Most Popular Of All Time?

How do you determine which of these iconic comedies is the very best? We looked at six highly competitive Ranker lists that feature all eight shows: The Best Adult Animated Shows (558K votes), Best Adult Animated Shows of 2023 (3K votes), The Best TV Shows Of The Past 20 Years (2.3 million votes), The Funniest Shows On TV Right Now (148K votes), The Best Cartoons Of The 2010s (61K votes), The Best Animated Comedy Series Ever (23K votes). We totaled all their rankings (the higher the rankings, the lower the totals) to find which ones performed best across Ranker:

When you compare the rankings of these shows across all six lists, “South Park” is the most consistent, never falling outside the Top 20. Behind it are “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy,” neither of which managed to notch a #1 ranking. “Rick and Morty” comes in fourth, an impressive feat considering that it’s the youngest of these eight shows, and is the only series to finish first on more than one list. “Archer,” “Bob’s Burgers,” and “American Dad!” make up the Bottom 3, in large part thanks to their ranking outside the Top 100 of The Best TV Shows Of The Past 20 Years.

We also took a look at each show’s sentiment score — that is, the ratio of positive to negative votes each show has accumulated across all lists on Ranker.

According to this metric, it’s “Rick and Morty” that’s the most popular, with 68% of the total 160,000 votes cast for the show over the last decade indicating positive sentiment. “Futurama” also fares notably better when using sentiment instead of rankings, while “South Park” suffers — courting controversy does have its drawbacks.

What’s Next for the Genre?

With shows that are over 10, 20, and even 30 years old still monopolizing animated comedy’s mindshare, is the genre on its way out? There are a few bright spots that suggest it might not: DC Comic Universe series “Harley Quinn” is a serialized comedy whose plentiful punchlines put it just a few spots behind “Futurama” on The Funniest Shows On TV Right Now. 2020’s “Solar Opposites” places just outside the Top 10 on The Best Current Animated Series Airing Now (9K votes). And though the series was sadly canceled by Netflix after one season, “Inside Job” boasts an impressive 65% sentiment score, higher than all but one of the eight behemoths we looked at for this article.

The rise of adult animated dramas suggests that the era of joke machines like “Family Guy” may be at an end. Of the Top 10 entries on The Best New Animated Shows In 2022 (2K votes), just one (“Little Demon”) is a sitcom — the same can be said of The Best New Animated Shows Of The Last Few Years (124K votes) and “Harley Quinn.” Serialized shows in the adventure and fantasy genres like “Invincible” and “The Legend of Vox Machina” have begun to overtake the episodic comedies that used to define the genre. That’s consistent with a larger trend in comedy television that prizes storytelling and worldbuilding over a constant stream of jokes.

That said, it doesn’t seem like “Family Guy,” “The Simpsons,” or “South Park” are going anywhere any time soon. These pioneers may continue to thrive long enough to see their style come back into fashion again — and to compete with another wave of new imitators.

Ryan Mach is a content marketing manager at Ranker, a WrapPRO partner. Visit Ranker Insights for more unique information about any audience or to contact us for more information.

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