Continuing on from the previous post, the toons below are ranked from least to best.
"Aladdin" - Successfully managed to turn the film into a decent action adventure show, mostly because of a handful of new villains and secondary characters. However, it never lost the vibe of being just a watered down extension of the film, just like the direct-to-video features. Notably, Aladdin and the Genie became the least interesting characters in the ensemble, and the better episodes were usually the ones built around sidekicks like Abu, Iago, or even the Sultan. Still, decent animation (by TV standards) and production values kept this one more than watchable.
"Gummi Bears" - The show actually predated the Disney Afternoon by several years, and was one of the first Disney produced cartoons for television. Though it only ran for a year as part of the Disney Afternoon block, I remember it as a very charming medieval fantasy show with a lot of strong characters and concepts. You can see a lot of elements developed here that would pop up in other Disney shows later on. The vocal performances in particular stuck with me - it seems like every major voice actor of the era from June Foray to Peter Cullen showed up here at some point.
"Goof Troop" - Occasionally the hijinks of the Goofs and the Petes would get too silly for me, but the series operated like a traditional family sitcom with a massive heart. That's what won me over more than anything. No matter how much Max might be exasperated by his dad for being Goofy, he still loved him. And no matter how much of a louse Pete was, he'd still do right by his family in the end. And it was the willingness of the show to get into the thorny familial stuff on a regular basis that put it a cut above the rest. And I loved that this carried over to the spinoff movies too, featuring older versions of Max and Pete's son PJ.
"Darkwing Duck" - "I am the terror that flaps in the night!" Long before Disney cozied up with Marvel, they managed to create at least one sterling home-grown superhero in Darkwing Duck, the egomaniacal do-gooder who was never as smart or as competent or as cool as he thought he was. However, with no small amount of help from a good-natured sidekick and a tomboy daughter, Darkwing was still able to save the day most of the time. The show marked a definite shift in the Disney Afternoon, as it was the first of their shows to be based around an original character, and featured more surreal, snarky humor including parodies and fourth-wall breaking.
"Gargoyles" - Disney's first foray into action-adventure territory was a daring original series about medieval gargoyles living in modern day New York. Darker in tone and heavily serialized, it was meant to compete with the likes of "Batman: The Animated Series." While this was my favorite Disney Afternoon show for a long while, I have to dock it some points for consistency. The third season, taken away from the original creators and dubbed "The Goliath Chronicles," was just a mess from start to finish. There was a long stretch of the second season that was essentially a filler arc. Still, the show was frequently better than anything else airing at the time.
"Duck Tales" - I wasn't a big fan of the Gizmoduck or Bubba duck episodes, but there's no denying that "Duck Tales" was a game-changer. It set a new standard for quality for our afternoon cartoons that everyone else scrambled to meet. The series still looks fantastic to this day. It took its cues not from the toy companies, but the beloved Carl Barks "Uncle Scrooge" comics. And it managed to reintroduce its classic characters to a new generation of fans. It's no wonder this was the longest running Disney Afternoon show, with four seasons, and 100 episodes. To date, it's also the only one that's been rebooted, with an all-star cast.
"TaleSpin" - I'm not sure how they did it, but putting "Jungle Book" characters into a nostalgic '30s world centered around bush pilots and the early days of aviation was something magical. Heavily inspired by adventure serials of the '30s and '40s, "Tale Spin" did high adventure, screwball comedy, and pathos better than many live action shows I could name. I still love the characters, the universe, and the whole darn conceit of the show. It remains my favorite cartoon of my childhood, and the best thing that came out of the Disney Afternoon.
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