Eternal characters, endless comfort: Why cartoons are dominating streaming
Kelsey Weekman, Reporter
As long as I’ve had the dexterity to flip channels, I’ve found solace from burger-flipping eccentrics — first through watching SpongeBob SquarePants as a kid and later Bob’s Burgers. The fact that these shows are still wildly popular after years on the air, despite ever-changing trends in television and the ways we watch it, is comforting.
I’m not alone in my love of cartoons. The biggest streaming show of 2025 so far isn’t the Emmy-winning hospital drama The Pitt, the often-discussed vacation dramedy The White Lotus or even tried-and-true old episodes of Friends. It’s Bluey, the animated children’s program about a talking dog who lives in Australia.
According to a report from market research firm Nielsen, U.S. audiences streamed more than 25 billion minutes of Bluey between January and June 2025. The second-most-watched show was Grey’s Anatomy, followed by NCIS, but animated shows had a strong presence across the board. Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, SpongeBob SquarePants, American Dad! and South Park are all among the 20 most-watched shows.
Bluey is a bit of a unicorn — it’s new compared with the other shows on the list, premiering in 2018 and taking the world by storm. It’s been lauded as one of the best shows for kids of our time, also beloved by the parents who watch it with their little ones. But the Nielsen list makes clear that animation is something you grow up alongside — many of these popular shows have been on TV consistently since the late 1990s, with audiences that continue to tune in for more.
The high watch times for cartoons could be enormous for a few practical reasons. Many of these shows have vast catalogs — Family Guy has 450 22-minute episodes, and Bluey has 154 7-minute episodes, compared with buzzy live-action comedies and dramas that typically have between 10 and 20 longer episodes — so there are fundamentally more minutes of them to watch. Animated series rarely follow narrative arcs across multiple episodes or deal with major changes to characters and settings, so viewers can easily jump in at any point during a season. They also serve as both a lighthearted distraction from the world and as entertainment that it’s OK to not give your full attention to.
Cartoons aren’t just lovable because they’re easy to follow. Tj Bitter, executive director at creative studio OddBeast, tells Yahoo that the art itself “taps into our imagination much quicker than live action can.”
“When you’re watching something animated, your brain doesn’t have to stretch reality to wonder why a cat and a dog share the same long body (like Nickelodeon’s CatDog), and that opens a door to endless possibilities of storytelling,” he says.
Cartoons can produce so much more than just the visuals we’re used to seeing in our everyday lives. It’s a bit like magic, animator Brandon Kosters tells Yahoo. That makes them a great medium for kids, who tend to let their imaginations run wild. The fact that Bluey and SpongeBob are often associated with childhood further cultivates feelings of warmth.
To rack up viewership numbers like these, though, it’s clear that children aren’t the only ones tuning in — adults are too. Not only do they fondly remember the shows they watched in their youth, but they’re willing to watch them over and over again with their own children.
“Animation is compelling to people for the same reason that magic tricks and puppetry are,” Kosters says. “There is the nostalgic element, and the part that evokes warm memories from childhood, but there’s another part, which deals with our innate need to suspend disbelief and explore spaces which feel fantastic.”
Even when cartoons aren’t for kids, like Family Guy or South Park, they still tap into that over-the-top fantasy realm that makes everything feel possible. That’s why so many of them are used as a vehicle for social and political commentary, as Paul Downs, interim head of the computer animation department at Ringling College of Art and Design, tells Yahoo.
“Animation has actually grown up with us. It still carries the bright colors and catchy theme songs but pairs them with heightened satire and social commentary,” Downs says. “It’s the only art form where a talking dog can be the family’s moral compass, a burger-flipping dad can be a feminist icon and a group of fourth graders can engage in geopolitical debate.”