By Todd Ciolek

Say what you will about the cartoons you hate, but they clearly know that first impressions are important. That’s why every animated series of the past two decades, no matter how poorly conceived or inanely written, opened with some attempt at a great theme song. Once kids were drawn in by a mix of squealing voices, clichéd beats, forced rhyming and the show’s highest-budgeted animation, they were pretty much sold for the next half-hour. They were also fated to remember those songs for the rest of their bleak little lives.

In that spirit, we’ve gathered the ten cartoon themes catchy enough to haunt us well into adulthood, no matter how hard we’ve tried to forget them. Be warned, though: we’re not to blame if you can’t get lyrics about dinosaurs and space rabbits and terrifying entire neighborhoods out of your head.

10) Beverly Hills Teen

The Show: Beverly Hills Teens is perhaps a step above many face-value cartoons of the ’80s, since its tales of stereotyped high-school kids and SoCal opulence were partly a parody of that particular decade’s excess, garishness and vapidity. Look at the guitarist girl’s hair and try to tell us that it’s not Altman-level irony. That said, parody only goes so far, and most of the show is straight out of the Archie Comics playbook, including the unspoken assertion that dark-haired women are conniving, self-centered bitches intent on destroying their nicer, blonder, and largely oblivious rivals. No wonder so many girls of the ‘80s went bottle blond once they came of age.

The Theme Song: A perky, Jem-ish bubblegum pop confection that’s an ’80s parody in itself, and only slightly less saccharine that what was actually on the radio at this point in history. Even lyrics about dancing through the night while being dressed up out of sight would be at home in a chart-topper by the Bangles, Bananarama, the Go-Gos or about a million other one-gimmick wonders.

9) Kidd Video

The Show: One overenthusiastic band frontman, one eye-candy girl, one 37-year-old accountant and one androgynous nerd get dragged off to another dimension called the Flipside, where, in testament to cartoon writers’ undying frustration with the entertainment industry, they’re captured by a music producer. And there’s a legwarmer-wearing fairy. And a gaggle of evil cat-people henchmen. And lots of actual radio-hit pop songs, nearly all of which were removed due to licensing problems when the series came out on VHS.

The Theme Song: But hey, we still have that that opening, which manages to blend youthful garage-band embarrassment with slick manufactured ’80s embarrassment and what sounds like the title-screen strains from a Sega Master System game. Then the characters ruin the moment by talking. Don’t tell us, cartoons, show us. Especially when you can show us what allegedly cool kids were doing circa 1984.

8) Vytor: The Starfire Champion

The Show: Vytor holds the dubious honor of being the only ’80s cartoon sold almost entirely on its kitsch factor. A clichéd series about a noble tribal youth named Vytor (who is, as you might guess, the Starfire Champion) and a ditzy princess fighting some throne-bound villain, it was swiftly forgotten in its own time. Realizing that there can be no nostalgia for something no one actually saw, World Events Productions hatched a cunning plot: they deliberately played off the highly mockable retro-cheese element of the show. See their Vytor uploads on YouTube for examples of the company extolling the pure camp of Vytor, its blooper reels, and its “’80s-riffic!” theme song.

The Theme Song: The hell of it is, they have a point...at least about the theme song. It starts as an airy, standard-issue tribute to Vytor (the Starfire Champion), but it quickly jumps into high-caliber camp when the villain (who, as WEP ingratiatingly tells us, is voiced by Peter “Optimus Prime” Cullen) starts growling about knowing what the ring is for, upon which the chorus continues to proclaim the gospel of Vytor (the STARFIRE CHAMPION!). Yes, WEP, it’s ironic and hilarious and cringe-inducing and all those things that today’s snarky brats like to laugh about. We just hate being manipulated into it.

7) The Wuzzles

The Show: One Saturday morning in 1985, Disney overlord Michael Eisner took on the world of TV animation with two new series: The Gummi Bears and The Wuzzles. The Gummi Bears lasted six seasons and inspired ten years of similar Disney syndicated cartoons. The Wuzzles ended after 13 episodes. Perhaps killed prematurely, The Wuzzles had a marketable premise of animal portmanteaus (a Bumblelion’s part lion and part bumblebee, for example) and applied it to an entire world, overplaying the joke just a little in the process.

The Theme Song: The Wuzzles opener is a pleasant little celebration of paintbrush-aided animal unions making grotesque mockeries of nature’s laws. It also shows the show’s fattest character repeatedly sit on several other characters, which is either cruel commentary on the societal degradation of obese women (obese bunny-hippo women, anyway) or the intrusion of some animator’s odd fetish.

6) The Chipmunks Go to the Movies

The Show: If you were horrified by the recent Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, take comfort that it’s nothing new. For decades, the squeaking varmints have been revamped and remade, with each new form more annoying and commercial than the last. Consider the short-lived The Chipmunks Go to the Movies, a one-season attempt in 1990 to make an entire show out of every hack comedy writer’s standby: film parodies. Each episode was devoted to recreating some popular flick with the Chipmunks and the Chipettes taking on the lead roles, though their Robocop send-up didn’t involve cyborg Alvin shooting a rapist in the crotch.

The Theme Song: Though it’s yet another Chipmunk-shrieked barrage through the senses, there’s a weirdly compelling rhythm starting off The Chipmunks Go to the Movies. The lyrics are best left un-deciphered, as the song’s less about the stale parodies we see and more about the art of making movies; the special effects and directing and such. Perhaps there’s an extended version with lines about set painters, gaffers, key grips and caterers.