TV’s Animated Specials, Ranked: Lucifer, PEN15, Supernatural, Fringe and 9 More Memorable One-Off Episodes
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The Winchester brothers, Raymond Reddington and the Devil himself are among the lucky TV characters to have found themselves in cartoon form.
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While animated television specials have popped up numerous times over the decades, the coronavirus pandemic has forced even more series — including some you might not expect — to get creative with different art forms as live-action TV production halted during the last 18 months. In recent weeks, Hulu’s PEN15 and Netflix’s Lucifer have both experimented with animation, but where do those episodes rank among the rest of television’s animated specials?
In the list below, we’ve ranked 13 animated one-offs, meaning the shows in question are all typically live-action series that ventured into 2D styles on one occasion — or, in Community‘s case, three occasions. And though all 13 episodes intrigued us with their outside-the-box approaches, we quickly found that not all attempts at animation are created equal. (It still feels like we imagined that holiday episode of The Nanny, but alas, it’s real!)
We should also note that an episode did not need to be entirely animated from start to finish in order to make our list. The Blacklist, Legends of Tomorrow, Fringe and other series only delivered a handful of animated scenes in total, but they also made the cut (for better or worse).
Which animated episode claimed the No. 1 spot on our list? Scroll down to find out, then drop a comment with your own rankings!
13. The Blacklist, “The Kazanjian Brothers”
In fairness to the NBC drama, The Blacklist was among the first series to pivot to animation (with limited time, no less) as the coronavirus pandemic made in-person production infeasible. Unfortunately, the resulting Season 7 finale — which mixed live-action scenes with animated sequences — looked like it was produced quickly, with the show’s take on graphic novel-style animation appearing more like a half-finished modern video game.
12. The Nanny, “Oy to the World”
Given the popularity of The Nanny‘s opening credits, we weren’t surprised when the CBS sitcom decided to give us a fully animated episode in that same style back in 1995. However, we were surprised by… well, pretty much everything about the episode itself. A Christmas musical with a talking dog, an Elvis-inspired elf and an “abominable Babcock” monster determined to ruin the holiday? If footage didn’t still exist online, we’d swear this was a fever dream.
11. One Day at a Time, “The Politics Episode”
Rita Moreno and Gloria Estefan’s sing-off aside, the beloved reboot’s animated episode — the last episode produced after production was halted due to the coronavirus pandemic, which would then become the series’ last episode ever — was a tonal misfire. Simply put, ODAAT‘s brand of progressivism, combined with Family Guy-style sight gags, was not a good match.
10. black-ish, “Election Special: Part 2”
Matthew A. Cherry, who won an Oscar for his animated short film Hair Love, directed this pre-Season 7 episode that served as half of the show’s 2020 election special. In it, Dre decided to run for office if only to spite his racist boss, Stevens, who was doing the same. The best part? A voice cameo from Stacey Abrams, former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, who gave Dre a pep talk when he (of course) lost… badly.
9. Community, “G.I. Jeff”
Like most sequels, this spiritual successor to another one of the NBC comedy’s animated episodes — Season 2’s “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” — just wasn’t as good as the first. We just couldn’t sympathize with Jeff, who was merely depressed about turning 40, as much as we could with Abed, who we’d previously seen suffer from deep-seated abandonment issues when he took the Greendale 7 on a Rankin/Bass-style adventure (more on that in a bit).
8. Legends of Tomorrow, “The Satanist’s Apprentice”
Alistair’s 2D cartoon spell on Astra had such a wonderful old-school Disney vibe, complete with a song number, that we wish we’d gotten a fully animated episode. As is, we’ll happily take Astra briefly kicking butt as a ‘toon princess and the rest of the Legends as speaking inanimate objects. (Spooner as a fork was particularly brilliant.)
7. Creepshow, “A Creepshow Animated Special”
A surgeon (voiced by 24‘s Kiefer Sutherland) crash-lands onto a desert island, testing his will to survive and tolerance for pain. The story (by Stephen King) is grisly and twisted, with an animation style akin to a comic book coming to life. Sutherland’s raspy vocals lend tense realism to the stranded doctor’s plight, and when it’s time for the tale’s many amputations, his screams chill to the bone.
6. Lucifer, “Yabba Dabba Do Me”
In the final season’s “Yabba Dabba Do Me,” Lucifer and Chloe went to visit the series’ very first caught killer, Jimmy Barnes, in Hell. The record producer’s personal Hell loop, though, in part took an animated form, because a young Jimmy marathoned TV cartoons after being abandoned by his mother. Lucifer and Chloe thus found themselves animated for a spell — “butt” chins, “smooth” private parts and all!
5. PEN15, “Jacuzzi”
Hulu’s throwback comedy got around COVID filming restrictions by producing a cartoon special, employing a trippy, quirky animation style to chronicle Anna and Maya’s summer road trip to a Florida beach town. The girls were just as exquisitely awkward in two dimensions, and the animation allowed for unique moments like Anna and Maya getting unflattering caricatures drawn of them and then morphing into the grotesque drawings. (So uncool.)
4. Community, “Digital Estate Planning”
You needn’t be a gamer to admire the commitment to the bit — or should we say 8-bit? — here, as Pierce and the study group played a video game built around his late father’s many prejudices. We’re not sure what was funnier: Britta acknowledging that the game was racist, or Annie and Shirley “tying up loose ends” after Annie accidentally killed the town blacksmith.
3. Fringe, “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide”
In Season 3’s “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide,” with William Bell’s mind still possessing Olivia’s body, Walter and Peter endeavor to enter the mind of “Bellivia” and nudge her ego to take control. Inside her mind, once they find Bell, live action gives way to animation, giving the outing an extra-trippy feel while, practically, allowing the show to bring back the retired Leonard Nimoy by pairing his voice with a cartoon.
2. Community, “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”
This homage to classic Rankin/Bass Christmas specials was both a perfect parody and a touching deep dive into the psyche of Abed Nadir, who was struggling with his mother’s absence during the holiday season. Far and away the best of the sitcom’s animated adventures.
1. Supernatural, “ScoobyNatural”
The CW series’ animated crossover with Scooby-Doo was the kind of wild idea that somehow made sense on paper and then was actually delightfully well-executed. Having the folks behind the classic cartoon involved in the process certainly helped the special episode capture the charm of Scooby-Doo, but even more impressive was just how well the Supernatural characters and the show’s twisted sense of humor fit in with Scooby, Shaggy and the gang. (Check out our favorite moments from the episode.)
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