The 30 best cartoons even adults can enjoy

6. Family Guy

Family Guy is an acquired taste. There are many who hate it because of the ADHD storytelling and the overreliance on pop culture gags. However, just as many people love it for the same reasons, and very few shows on television have a success rate for pop-culture gags as this Seth MacFarlane creation.

Fox premiered Family Guy in 1999, a story about a dysfunctional family and their misadventures. Peter Griffin is the father, a fat, lazy and negligent man, who has little brains and a propensity to always do the wrong thing. Lois is his wife, a very outgoing woman, and protective mother. Chris is the oldest son, possibly the only person in the show dumber than his father and Meg is the daughter, a nerdy girl who is unsure about her sexuality and place in life.

Finally, the baby is Stewie, a child who wants to kill his mother and rule the world, and while we can hear him talking, no one else outside of the alcoholic, philosophical dog Brian seems to understand him. Add in a perverted sex-crazed neighbor named Quagmire, a paraplegic police officer named Joe and an African-American friend named Cleveland, and the cast alone makes this show a huge hit.

However, what makes the show funny are the pop-culture references, where MacFarlane pulls out just about everything that was popular from the past and throws it at the viewers in rapid-fire jokes. Add in a lot of heart, usually coming from unexpected places, and it is never a question why fans defend this show so passionately. To date, there have been 16 seasons and 300 episodes.