Anime

I can actually feel my IQ start to drop whenever I watch western cartoons, with the sole exception of the early seasons of The Simpsons and Family Guy. It actually amazes me that the typical western cartoon actually has the bar set so low in terms of the expected intelligence of its audience.

(oh, and I don't mean to include classic animations such as Disney's Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck stuff. Those are divine).

True that

So I take it you hate South Park? That is good stuff, that cartoon..

South Park makes me want to put certain parts of my anatomy through a meat grinder. <_<

oh well I like it quite a bit. To each their own, I guess..

I have to agree with you there. Sometime I wonder how stuff like that gets on the air.

Not too sure. Regular cartoons have each have their own style while lots of anime almost always look similar. But most animes flow better and have a long story instead of just separate and unrelated episodes. Hard to choose.

However, nothing beats the old school Looney Tunes and Mickey Mouse cartoons. I guess I would take Western animations.

NSFW

This is epic win, from Black Lagoon.

Classic animation I understand, but early Simpsons and Family Guy is your example of intelligent western animation? Stay away from that stuff (now I can see where anime fans are coming from) and your IQ won't drop.

Some personal "intelligent" recommendations of mine

-Moral Orel (Starts off as a fairly juvenile attack on religion, but quickly morphs into one of the deepest, darkest pieces of animation (or claymation) ever)
-12 Oz Mouse (As you can tell by RR259's reaction, it's incredibly polarizing. Beyond the joke artwork is one of the most complex plots ever)
-Home Movies (Very dry, dialogue-driven humor. This one is on Netflix Instant)
-Explosion Bus (Start at The Origin Story. Some really good character development from the same people as Home Movies https://www.youtube.com/user/explosionbus)
-Ed Edd n Eddy (The only kids show I'm mentioning here, because it contains some great character development and a lot of backstory due in part to the limited cast)

Ed Edd n Eddy was genius.

Ed Edd n Eddy is a great example of a dumb show done intelligently. Or at least done very well.

also waltzelf credibility is loss regardless of everything else since even I know how much more genuinely intelligent King of the Hill is as a satirical 90s/2000s cartoon on Fox.

Ed Edd n Eddy was just fantastic. Such an entertaining funny cartoon.

Ha! Implying that early Family Guy didn't set the bar low. I can only hope that was a joke.

Also, @Rayword45: Telling people to stay away from early Simpsons? Have you lost your mind?

If you simply are relating Anime to Japanese shows and Cartoons to Western ones then I'd have to say Cartoons, and I shall quote the man below me:

I'm sorry, but it's impossible to compete with classic western cartoons.
I could list over a hundred unquestionably high-quality western cartoons. And that would just be 90's or earlier.
There are so many great studios to choose from: Disney, Hannah Barbera, Warner Bros, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, etc.

My mistake, I meant newer Simpsons. However, early Simpsons was innovative, but it wasn't the wittiest cartoon on television (I can think of many cartoons with better satire). The new Simpsons is pretty bad, with complete Flanderization (which they invented) of pretty much every characters, poorer writing and an over-reliance on crude humor (A major flaw of many adult cartoons like Bob's Burgers which would be so much better if they removed all the lame gags)

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends was a great cartoon. Courage the Cowardly Dog was great too and Power Puff Girls the list goes on.

Some of the old cartoons several years ago (Courage, Foster's, heck, even Spongebob) I loved...the older ones were even better (I miss Rocko's Modern Life and Ren and Stimpy...well they're on Netflix anyway but you get my point, lol). But now and days...bleh. I'm fine with Family Guy and American Dad, since I enjoy stupid humor. I wanna find some older Simpsons episodes, only thing I have is the movie. That said, Futurama beats all 3 of those.