The best cartoons and TV shows for kids, ranked by what they teach
From Bluey to Cocomelon to iCarly: 22 shows sorted into tiers by what your kid takes away from them.
By Lionel Mora · · 7 min read
Based on our Instagram reviews: the cartoon ranking (448k views), the kids' TV ranking (12k views).
The short answer
The best shows for kids have characters who hit a real problem and deal with it themselves: Bluey, The Magic School Bus, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Phineas and Ferb lead the cartoons, and Barney is one of the few shows ever tested with real children. At the bottom: shows built on speed or slapstick, where nothing has consequences: Cocomelon, SpongeBob and Tom and Jerry.
Most screen time advice is about minutes. Minutes matter, but they leave out what's on the screen. Twenty minutes of Bluey and twenty minutes of Cocomelon do very different things to a kid's afternoon.
So I ranked the shows kids watch by one question: what does your kid take away from it? The cartoon ranking on our Instagram passed 448,000 views. This is the full list, with the research behind the verdicts.
How we rank kids' shows
Kids copy what they see. The research on how children understand stories points the same way: kids, especially under 10, are much worse than adults at picking out the moral of a story5. What they take in is the characters and how they behave. So for every show I look at four things:
- Does the main character face a real problem and deal with it themselves?
- When someone lies, cheats or is mean, does anything happen?
- Is the pace slow enough to follow, or is it a stream of cuts and noise?
- What sticks afterwards: a skill, a question, an idea about people. Or just a song.
S tier: the best shows for kids
Bluey S tier
Excellent show. In almost every episode something goes wrong and someone helps, and there's a lesson in it. Nobody delivers that lesson as a lecture. It comes out of how the characters play, argue and make up. The parents are patient without being perfect. If you need one show to measure the others against, use this one.
The Magic School Bus S tier
Real science, on field trips into the human body, the solar system and a beehive. The National Science Foundation backed the series, science advisers sat in on story meetings, and episodes were researched and tested with children while they were being made3. Thirty years later it still holds up.
Barney and Friends S tier
Not cool. Still excellent. Barney is one of very few shows on this list that was studied with real children. Yale researchers Jerome and Dorothy Singer followed about 120 preschoolers and found gains on 11 of 12 measures, mostly vocabulary and counting, when watching was paired with simple lessons in class4. It's a preschool show, so it's for the younger sibling more than the 9-year-old.
A tier: great picks
Avatar: The Last Airbender A tier
The main character spends three seasons becoming a good person, and a lot goes wrong for him along the way. There's no instant payoff. That's a good thing, and quite rare in kids' TV today. Best for 8 and up: there's a war in it, handled with care.
Phineas and Ferb A tier
This one was a good surprise for me. In every episode the brothers find a problem, come up with an idea, draw the plan, build it and test it. That's how engineering works. Kids get the design process on repeat, and nobody ever calls it a lesson.
Mr. Bean A tier
He solves every problem without saying a word. It's clever to watch, and it works in any language. It wasn't made for kids in the first place, so the learning is limited. The problem solving is real, though.
Victorious A tier
A girl who isn't the most talented person in the room joins a school full of gifted kids, and she keeps showing up anyway. That's a useful thing for a kid to watch.
B tier: good, with caveats
Paw Patrol B tier
Everyone has a role, and the job only works when everybody comes together. That's a real lesson about teamwork. It's also very repetitive, and it doubles as a toy commercial.
Hannah Montana B tier
Balancing two lives and staying true to yourself. Good message. The characters are pretty rude to each other, though.
Wizards of Waverly Place B tier
The main character lies and cuts corners with magic. But almost every episode ends with a lesson about responsibility and honesty, so the consequences do show up. That's the part that counts.
Good Luck Charlie B tier
A family with a newborn, and older kids with mixed feelings about it. Very common situation, and a good one to learn from if there's a baby on the way at your house.
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody B tier
Fun, but Zack and Cody get away with constant scheming and lying to adults, and they rarely face consequences for it. Watch it with your kid and talk about it.
C tier: fun, not much learning
Scooby-Doo C tier
Great show, same story every time. There's a small lesson in there (the monster is always a person in a mask), and not much learning beyond it.
Pokemon C tier
I loved Pokemon as a kid. The cartoon itself, though, is mostly kids memorizing names, types and weaknesses. Not much more than that.
Peppa Pig C tier
There's a big debate on this one. Peppa Pig talks about kindness and sharing, which is good. But the main character is regularly mean and rude to her friends and family, and nobody ever really corrects her. Kids copy the character more than the moral. Is that a good show to watch? I don't think so.
Drake and Josh C tier
Some good lessons about getting along with a sibling you didn't choose. Mostly it's just funny.
Lizzie McGuire C tier
Real middle school problems, handled gently. But nobody ever faces consequences, so the lesson stops halfway.
iCarly C tier
Kids make their own web show, which takes real creative and technical skills. The only adult in charge is the least responsible person in the building.
D tier: watch out
Tom and Jerry D tier
Eleven minutes of two characters hurting each other. It's funny, and it's a classic. But kids copy what they see, and there isn't much learning in there.
SpongeBob SquarePants D tier
Researchers had 4-year-olds watch nine minutes of SpongeBob, then tested them. They did worse on attention and self-control tasks than kids who had watched a slower cartoon or spent the nine minutes drawing1. It was a small study, and it only measured the next few minutes. Still, the word for SpongeBob is overstimulating.
F tier: skip these
Cocomelon F tier
Super fast cuts, bright colors, music that never stops. The American Academy of Pediatrics notes that child development experts criticize its pace as too fast and its educational content as shallow2. Toddlers struggle to keep up with what's going on. Very little learning, and plenty of reasons it's hard to turn off.
Shake It Up F tier
Kids might pick up some dance moves if they're lucky. Beyond that, there are barely any adults in the show, and nothing has real stakes.
How to get more out of any show
- Ask one question after an episode. "Was that fair, what she did?" turns a cartoon into a conversation.
- Talk about the characters, not the moral. Kids remember the characters anyway.
- Put the slow shows in the evening, before bed. Save the loud ones for when there's time to run it off.
- Watch the first episode with them. Ten minutes tells you more than any rating.
Looking for a show that isn't here? Check it on the Marble Index, our free score out of 100 for kids' shows, games, apps and books.
Questions parents ask
Is Cocomelon bad for kids?
Not harmful in small doses, but it teaches very little. The American Academy of Pediatrics notes that child development experts criticize Cocomelon's fast pace and shallow educational content. Young children struggle to follow the rapid cuts, and in research on fast-paced cartoons, 4-year-olds did worse on attention and self-control tasks right after watching. Slower shows like Bluey or Daniel Tiger make a better default.
Is SpongeBob bad for kids?
In a 2011 study in Pediatrics, 4-year-olds who watched 9 minutes of SpongeBob did worse on attention and self-control tests right afterwards than kids who watched a slower show or drew. It was a small study, and it only measured the short-term effect. Still, I'd keep SpongeBob away from homework time and bedtime.
Is Peppa Pig a good show for kids?
Mixed. Peppa Pig talks about kindness and sharing, which is good. But Peppa herself is often rude to her friends and family, and she's rarely corrected. If your kid watches it, ask them what they thought of how Peppa behaved.
What is the most educational cartoon for kids?
For kids 6 to 12, The Magic School Bus is hard to beat for science. The National Science Foundation funded it, and it was made with science advisers and tested with children during production. For social and emotional lessons, Bluey is the best show there is. Phineas and Ferb walks through the engineering design process in almost every episode.
How do I choose a good TV show for my kid?
Look at the main characters. Do they face real problems and solve them themselves? Do their mistakes have consequences? Is the pace slow enough to follow? Kids remember characters and how they behave far more than the moral of a story, so a show is only as good as the people in it.
Sources
- Lillard and Peterson (2011), The immediate impact of different types of television on young children's executive function, Pediatrics (summary)
- American Academy of Pediatrics: Watching Cocomelon and guidance on early childhood development
- Education Week (1995): The Magic School Bus and its National Science Foundation backing
- Singer and Singer, Yale University: Barney and Friends as education and entertainment (ERIC)
- Narvaez et al. (1999), Moral theme comprehension in children, Journal of Educational Psychology
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