Top-rated shows to keep kids entertained

When your kids are watching TV, you want it to be quality, for the sake of their brains and your sanity. Here are six Showmax series that have all earned coveted 100% critics’ ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Whichever grown-up said, “It’s just a kids’ show” clearly hadn’t sat down to watch these classics with their children.

SpongeBob SquarePants

Age: FPB: 7-9 PG | Common Sense Media: 6+

“Smart enough for adults, weird enough for kids.”

The Guardian

Listing SpongeBob at #22 on their list of the greatest American television series of all time, TV critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz said, “SpongeBob SquarePants is an absurdist masterpiece that Salvador Dalí and Groucho Marx would have watched together in their smoking jackets.”

That may seem like high praise for a kids’ TV show about the misadventures of a talking sea sponge who works at a fast-food restaurant and lives in an underwater pineapple, but 20 years into its run, SpongeBob is still the most in-demand kids’ show in the US, according to Parrot Analytics’ June 2019 survey.

“SpongeBob SquarePants is an irresistible celebration of positivity that pops off the screen with its absurd sensibility and vivid characterizations,” is the critics’ consensus over at Rotten Tomatoes.

The Guardian says it’s “smart enough for adults, weird enough for kids,” adding that, “SpongeBob is TV perfection… a show that transcends cultural and generational differences.”

Time Magazine calls SpongeBob himself “the anti-Bart Simpson … conscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him,” while The New York Times says, “It’s the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest … It’s also good, clean fun.”

Accolades: 100% critics rating and #6 Best Animated Series of All Time on Rotten Tomatoes; winner of five Annie Awards and four Emmys; nominated for a further 16 Emmys and three BAFTAs; has won the Kids’ Choice Award every year but one for the past 17 years.

Watch S1-11 »

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Age: FPB: 7-9 PG | Common Sense Media: 8+

“The Last Airbender teaches without trying-and is a shining example of what it means to show unconditional devotion to a greater cause.”

Vanity Fair

In a war-torn world of elemental magic, Aang, a 12-year-old boy with the power to manipulate air, awakens from a hundred-year sleep to undertake a dangerous quest. As the Avatar, Aang’s destiny is to restore peace by ending the Fire Nation’s imperialistic war against the other nations and bring peace to the world.

This hyper-intelligent show’s animation style brings anime and shades of Miyazaki to an American cartoon that IGN described as “one of the greatest animated series of all time.”

Its complex themes, humour, elements of East Asian art and mythology, and beloved characters gave it a massive following with both kids and adults. In fact, the series was so huge that it spawned a comic book series, action figures, trading cards, a best-selling video game franchise, a live-action movie (directed by M. Night Shyamalan), and another animated series – The Legend of Korra – with a new live-action movie slated for 2020.

Before starring in almost every other show on this list (as well as Phineas and Ferb, Steven Universe and Gravity Falls), voice legend Dee Bradley Baker was Appa in Avatar: The Last Airbender. The series drew other big names to its voice cast, including Oscar nominee Mako as Uncle, Jason Isaacs as Commander Zhao, and cameos from George Takei, Daniel Dae Kim, Ron Perlman and Serena Williams.

Accolades: 100% critics rating for all three seasons, and #10 Best Animated Series of All Time on Rotten Tomatoes; #13 Top Rated TV Of All Time, IMDb, with a 9.2/10 rating; won an Emmy, six Annie Awards, and a Kids’ Choice Award.

Watch S1-3 now »

Adventure Time

Age: FPB: 7-9 PG V | Common Sense Media: 10 +

“The first cartoon in a long time that is pure imagination.”

Den of Geek

Off-the-wall cartoon series Adventure Time has an almost cult following among kids, from preteens to teens, as well as adults. The series follows 12-year-old Finn and his adopted brother Jake – a wise dog with the power to change shape and size at will – on their adventures in the surreal, post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, which they share with Princess Bubblegum, the Ice King, Marceline, BMO and the candy people.

The voice cast includes SpongeBob himself – Emmy and Annie Award winner Tom Kenny – and top award-winning voice artists John DiMaggio (Bender from Futurama) and Hynden Walch (who also voices Starfire in Teen Titans Go!). Guest stars have included Kristen Schaal (Mabel from Gravity Falls), Oscar nominee Kumail Nanjiani, Golden Globe nominees Neil Patrick Harris and Matthew Broderick, BAFTA winner Mark Hamill, Emmy nominee Anne Heche, Felicia Day and singer Chris Isaak.

“Adventure Time makes me wish I were a kid again, just so I could grow up to be as awesome as the kids who are currently watching Adventure Time will be,” says Entertainment Weekly, while Den of Geek calls it “the first cartoon in a long time that is pure imagination.”

The A.V. Club says this “terrific show fits beautifully in that grey area between kid and adult entertainment in a way that manages to satisfy both a desire for sophisticated (i.e. weird) writing and plain old silliness,” summing it up as “basically what would happen if you asked a bunch of 12-year-olds to make a cartoon – only it’s the best possible version of that, like if all the 12-year-olds were super geniuses and some of them were Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and the Marx Brothers.”

Accolades: 100% critics rating and #19 Best Animated Series of All Time on Rotten Tomatoes and a five star rating on Common Sense Media; rated 8.6/10 and #169 Top Rated TV Of All Time, IMDb; winner of eight Emmys, a BAFTA, two Annie Awards and a Teen Choice Award.

Watch S1-2 now »