I loved cartoons when I was a kid, although my time in the States was limited to kindergarten and then fifth grade, so I can sing the theme song to Japanese cartoons you have likely never heard of before. I think the late 80’s and early 90’s had some great cartoons, but there were some terrible ones as well. Even back then, there were already signs that cartoons would be a vehicle for promoting ridiculous ideologies to children, but it didn’t seem as crazy as it does in 2025. Now we live in a world where people who have chosen barren lifestyles want to indoctrinate the children of those who chose fruitfulness into believing that barrenness is desirable, so parents have to guard their children from the ideologies of those who labored to prevent them from being born in the first place.
There are also certain styles of cartoons that I just don’t care for. I don’t particularly enjoy the loud obnoxiousness of the Spongebob genre, so we steer our kids away from that sort of thing. Why would we want our kids to learn obnoxious behavior? I also don’t care for animation that looks like it was done by AI, although that’s becoming more and more common. Below are cartoons we have found for our kids that we enjoy them enjoying both visually and thematically, in roughly ascending order of age appropriateness.
PBS Kids – Curious George
If you ask my kids what is the only monkey that their father likes, they will know the answer. As a rule, I distrust monkeys, but I make an exception for George, especially as he is fictional. PBS has a long history of programming for children, but many of their shows have delved into social issues that they are not equipped to teach properly, so we try to be careful. As far as I know, Curious George has avoided all of these and just tells stories of a curious little monkey’s adventures. Despite being a show that younger children can enjoy, the characters and dialogue are affectionately “on point” enough to elicit an occasional chuckle from a grownup. The pace is slow enough for young children to keep up with while still moving through a traditional plot. This is an IP from my childhood that they haven’t ruined, and I am grateful for that. PBS Kids has a free app for Roku that rotates a limited number of episodes from multiple shows including Curious George, or all episodes are available through a subscription.
Youtube – Little Bear
This is an older cartoon that our 2 year old loves to watch. It definitely comes from an era of animation that moved slower and attempted to mimic the illustrations of a children’s book. I would choose this over Coco Melon any day of the week. The stories follow the adventures of Little Bear as he plays with his friends and lives with his family. Little Bear is polite to his friends and obedient to his family, but he is also imaginative and playful. I get the vibe of reading an older children’s story when we watch this one. As far as I know, there are multiple episodes available for free on Youtube.
Netflix – Hello Ninja
There have been a few Netlix cartoons that we have enjoyed over the years, although right now we are on Netflix hiatus while I anticipate them ruining the Chronicles of Narnia, which will be an unforgivable offense in my household. But I digress. Hello Ninja is about a brother/sister duo who use the wisdom of the Ninja to face various tasks in their life. Perhaps I am drawn to it because they are ethnically Japanese. Ba-chan (grandma) guides them in their quests and they turn into Ninjas to complete a “ninja version” of whatever real life challenge they are facing. I enjoy that they work together as siblings, that they use the wisdom of their heritage, and that virtuous character is a prominent theme. Hello Ninja was created by Christians and while there are no explicitly Christian themes, there is a tangible virtuousness to the show. Typically, I find that all the animation in Netflix shows looks alike, but in this case the animation works reasonably well without being amazing or annoying. The episodes are relatively short and there are limited seasons available.
Bentkey – Chip Chilla
We did invest in a Bentkey subscription as I was just so tired of Disney trashing all the great IP’s of my childhood. I will be relatively restrained when I say that they still have a long way to go. I think that Dailywire underestimated the energy it would take to build a media empire, even with a $100 million investment. To be honest, I think a lot of the shows are knock offs of other shows, and I think that Chip Chilla is probably a bit of a knock off of Bluey. But hey, it’s still a lot of fun. If you like that Bluey features fun parents that cooperate to raise children with values and character, then you will probably like Chip Chilla. The episodes are only about 10 minutes and there are currently 2 seasons streaming on Bentkey.
Prime – Redwall
My kids absolutely love Redwall, which originated as children’s novels from Brian Jacques starting in 1986. My favorite thing about Redwall was listening to my seven year old explain it to her grandpa, “It’s a story about mice who were attacked by a bunch of rats and had to defend the abbey, where they found the weapon to defeat the rats.” Man, if that isn’t life….defend the holy and you will find the means to defeat the enemy. Love it.
The storylines are more violent than a Curious George or Little Bear would be, but nothing graphic. In fact, the animation and the overall pace is much slower than anything cutting edge would be. Themes revolve around working as a team, honestly, humility, etc… and so it’s just good stuff. 2 seasons are available on Prime.
Angel Studios – Wingfeather
And lastly, we come to the most mature of the cartoons that my kids are watching. As an aside, my kids are relatively innocent and prefer to enjoy shows rather than be scared by them. However, we have read the Hobbit, the LOTR, and the Chronicles of Narnia, and they have watched all of those movies, so they do handle the more mature nature of Wingfeather. Without giving away too much, Wingfeather follows a family of three siblings (two brothers and a sister), and their mother and grandfather, who find out certain things about their own family that leads to them being hunted down so that they cannot fulfill their destiny. Themes of Truth, family, courage, and honor are prominent in this one. It does have its darker moments and backdrop, but even then the light shines in the darkness. Angel Studies has developed this series based on the novels by Andrew Peterson.
What cartoons are you enjoying your kids watching?
Nathan Writes 