French cartoons I grew up with
Cartoons are great if you want to learn French because you can often find them on Youtube and they are pretty easy to follow. Also they are short so you don’t have to concentrate for as long as a movie and you can rewatch them. Overall I think cartoons are a great tool to work on your oral comprehension of any language and also they are a big part of the culture of a generation.
When I say French cartoons you should note that often they are co-created with Canada, Italia or Germany.
1. Foot 2 Rue (French/Italian)
Tag, Gabriel, Eloise and the TekNo (Tarek and Nordine) organize in their city of Port-Marie (basically Marseille) the first Street Football World Cup. To achieve their dream, they will have to overcome many obstacles and overcome the feeling of distrust of some residents, with regard to the Street Football considered a dangerous sport.
A whole generation of kids tried to do street football after that. Everyone liked it even kids who were bad at sports like me. Also we don’t talk about Foot 2 Rue Extreme… generally we don’t talk about the new versions of our childhood cartoons.
First episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OalJZhbmO8E
Four teenagers living in the Paris region discover a factory containing a quantum computer. Jeremy, activates it and at the same time awakens a dangerous program (later being a virus) called XANA. XANA, then takes its independence and seeks to take control of the world. Its infects memorial towers, which serve as an intermediary with the real world, in the territories of Lyoko. Aelita, a young virtual humanoid is the only enemy of XANA present on Lyoko but she can count on the help of four friends: Yumi, Ulrich, Odd and Jérémie. They lead a double life in the greatest secrecy: simple college students most of the time, they become saviors of the world when XANA launches an attack. They must keep their secret because if the authorities came to learn the threat that XANA represents, they would turn off the supercomputer. This would destroy Lyoko, and Aelita would disappear until the next reactivation of the supercomputer.
This is probably the most referenced show on French Twitter it is often considered the best show of our generation. Looking back the scenario was always kinda the same every episode but who would not dream of being in a video game ? Also the music is a bop.
Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJIKatjB00U
First episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCGixQKvTpA
3. Galactik Football (French)
This series depicts the story of a young futuristic football team, the Snow Kids, who will try to win the Galactik Football Cup for their planet Akillian. But to do this, they will face many teams much more experienced than theirs like Shadows, Lightnings or Wambas.
As you can see many shows were about football considering it is the most popular sport in France. Also the generic is kind of a meme now.
First episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmYuKOxD0Fg
4. Totally Spies (French/Canadian)
Totally spies! recounts the adventures of three friends and main protagonists: Samantha “Sam” Simpson, Clover Ewing and Alexandra “Alex” Vasquez, living together in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California, and students at Beverly High High School in Beverly Hills (in the first four seasons), then to Mali-U college (since the fifth season).
Students in everyday life, they are in fact secret agents employed by the WOOHP (meaning World Office of Human Protection), a secret organization for the protection of humanity. When their boss, Jerry, needs their services, je sends them on a mission, after having made them full body latex tight suits (yellow for Alex, red for Clover, green for Sam) and provides them with various gadgets that will help them carry out their investigations. The heroines are young, modern, independent, athletic, sophisticated girls, enthusiastic about both perilous adventures, makeup and fashion.
Everyone watched this show even boys (even if they didn’t admit it).
First episode : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inKCn1N79j8 (don’t trust the substitles they are shit)
5. Martin Mystère (French/Italian/Canadian)
Martin Mystery is a 16-year-old teenager employed as a special agent in the “Center”, a secret organization specializing in paranormal phenomena led by M.O.M. Often flirty during missions assigned to him, he investigates, along with his half-sister Diana Lombard, Java Caverns and with the help, of his watch gadget Chrono-Scan, in very strange, mysterious and scary places full of creatures.
They made a crossover of Martin Mystère and Totally Spies once and it was really a peak moment in French television history.
First episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99j3Kq5Wbgc
Two hundred years have passed since the great flood that ended the age of the Dofus and transformed the continents of the time into archipelagos. The waters are rising, nature is going crazy. Some things have happened, others have ended, but the Wakfu, the primordial creative energy of the world is strongly disturbed by a mysterious being.
On a small island off the Amakna Nation lies a small village lost in the forest: Emelka. In this small village, starts the epics of a young boy named Yugo, who has just discovered his powers, but also his origins.
First episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U5bZFH0QLY
7. Famille Pirate (French/Canadian/German)
On Turtle Island, the MacBernik family is a family of “average pirates”: the average pirate family life (boat-boarding-sleeping) serves as a backdrop to all kinds of funny situations. Victor, the father, is not a very good pirate. He is envious of his neighbor Irvin Lerequin, himself a pirate, who has “succeeded” in life, and hates his mother-in-law Granny Powder.
Despite much pettiness and anachronisms, the MacBernik remain welded. The children (Scampi and Bigorneau) go to school to become pirates while Lucile, Victor’s wife, is at home. The crew of Victor, Dr. Spratt, the Sardine and Mâchicoulis, often question the authority of their captain, who must use threats to ensure their obedience.
First episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUI3AUXrccs
8. Les zinzins de l’espace (French)
Stuck on Earth after crashing their flying saucer, extraterrestrials move into the attic of a house for rent. Unfortunately for them, human renters make cohabitation difficult. Aided by the SMTV (Super-Mega-Trans-Voltor) machine that can give them a human appearance, insect, material or animal, the five heroes (four after season 2) are doing everything they can to scare away tenants and at the same time than find a way to get home.
First episode : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHZle69liTg
9. Corneil et Bernie (French)
Corneil is a gifted dog with a IQ of 250, he can not only express himself in a perfect French, but he is also smarter than most human beings. He has come to the conclusion that no life can be more pleasant than that of a pampered pet, and that is why he does everything he can to not reveal his secret to his owners. But the plan turns out to be more complicated than expected when they hire the young Bernie Barges to serve as dogsitter, and Bernie learns the secret of Corneil by accident. Although they spend their time arguing, Corneil often uses his particular intelligence to get Bernie out of all kinds of bad things.
First episode : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJt4YthlwJw
Bonus: 10 - Titeuf (Swiss)
It had to put it somewhere even if it’s not French because the comic books and the animated series were insanely popular in France.
The series tells the daily life of Titeuf, an eight or ten-year-old child, with his characteristic blonde lock, his friends and his vision of the adult world. Much of the discussion is about the mysteries of girls, sex, seduction, and Nadia, the girl Titeuf is more or less secretly in love with. A great characteristic of Titeuf are his many expressions, notably “chô” and “c'est pô juste”. He is often accompanied by his best friends, Manu, Hugo and François.
