The Iron Giant for sure

• The Lion King (original)
• Mulan (original)
• Jurassic Park
• Princess Mononoke
• Castle in the Sky
• Spirited Away
• Forrest Gump
• Aladdin (original)
• Men in Black
• Galaxy Quest
• Home Alone
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• The Matrix
• Toy Story
• Top Gun
• The Terminator
• A Charlie Brown Christmas

• Yu Yu Hakusho
• Cowboy Bebop

Everything by Don Bluth. Literally everything his name on is childhood gold. Sometimes a little scary, but in a modern fairy tale sort of way.

An American Tale

All dogs go to Heaven

The Secret of NIMH

The Fox and the Hound

The Land Before Time

His movies never treated children like fools, a sentiment that's only recently becoming the standard for children's entertainment and he was doing it in the 80s.

Same Robin Hood as in the thumbnail for sure.

Also not yet listed, heavily 80s titles:

The Princess Bride

The Neverending Story

Beetlejuice

Big

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

The Dark Crystal

The Rats of Nimh

The Last Unicorn

An American Tale

Batteries Not Included

Fiddler on the Roof

Ghostbusters

Anything with the Muppets up to Treasure Island.

Back to the Future (2015 no longer the future fantasy it one was)

From a purely positive influence? Anything on PBS (wasn't allowed to have cable growing up)

• Sesame Street
• Mr Roger's
• Any documentary with David Attenborough
• same with Jane Goodall
• Nova

Bill Nye would be the one non-PBS show I remember having an impact

Modernish stuff? Bluey, Miss Rachel, Pixar especially Wall-E, Brave, Coco, Soul, Encanto, Toy Story, Inside Out (when a little older). I like Coco, but Book of Life is an underrated alternative too.

Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli For Younger Kids:

• My Neighbor Totoro
• Ponyo
• Spirited Away
• The Secret World of Arietty
• Kiki's Delivery Service
• Pom Poko

For maybe when they're getting older?

• Howl's Moving Castle
• The Wind Risees
• Castle In The Sky
• Princess Mononoke
• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Some other decent ones for kids of various ages:

Animated/Claymation

Series:

• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
• Alvin & The Chipmunks
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers
• Ducktales
• Gumby
• Inspector Gadget
• Rugrats
• Rescue Rangers
• Scooby Doo
• Yogi Bear

Movies:

• Alice in Wonderland
• All Dogs go to Heaven
• An American Tail
• An American Tail: Fivel Goes West
• The Black Cauldron
• Charlotte's Web
• FernGully
• James and the Giant Peach
• The Land Before Time
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Peter Pan
• Pinochio
• RobinHood
• The Rescuers
• The Rescuers Down Under
• The Secret of NIMH
• The Sword in the Stone
• Thumbelina
• Wallace and Gromit (All of them are great)

Live Action Series:

• Bill Nye The Science Guy
• Beakmans World

Movies:

• Beetlejuice
• Casper
• Ernest Goes to School (and all the other ones really)
• Honey I Shrunk The Kids
• Hook
• Jumanji
• E.T.
• Edward Scissor Hands
• Flubber
• Ghost Busters
• The Goonies
• Labyrinth (Creepier vibe than I remember)
• The Little Rascals
• Mary Poppins
• Mr. Mom
• Mrs. Doubtfire
• The Never Ending Story
• Operation Dumbo Drop
• Patch Adams
• Sandlot
• Short Circuit
• Space Jam
• Toys
• Tron
• We're back a dinosaur story
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Animated and Live Action)

Edit: awful formatting... And typos

Speedracer (probably at 5+ age)
Magic School Bus (original)
Arthur
Bluey
Bill Nye

Surprised PBS shows aren't mentioned more here, especially not Mr. Rogers Neighborhood being mentioned.

So in no particular order:

• Mr. Roger's Neighborhood: great show for teaching kids to how to navigate emotions and complex situations like death and discrimination but in ways they can understand

• Sesame Street: similar to Mr. Rogers but more for younger children

• Bill Nye the Science Guy: Made science accessible and fun for children. Good way to build a sense of curiosity and desire for experimentation

• Zoom: similar to Bill Nye in that it made me what to try all the activities they shared. Lots of fun games, recipes, brain teasers etc to keep kids busy. The fact that it had an all kid cast made it more accessible as a kid. Highly recommended since it seems less remembered than other PBS shows

Non-Educational:

• The Simpsons: this may be divisive but I grew up when they were super popular and I believe it helped develop my sense of humor. The earlier episodes were also pretty wholesome

• The Avatar (Last Airbender and Korra): well written show that is based on many East Asian cultures and touches on themes of depression, genocide, war, and hope (among many others). One of my favorite shows to this day

All the ghibli movies

Good on you for setting up the Jellyfin early, it's still on my to-do list

My personal favorite childhood movies/shows that made a real impact:

Fern Gully, the Disney animated originals (not remakes) mentioned elsewhere in the thread, Nightmare Before Christmas, Princess Bride, Neverending Story, Star Trek 4 (the whales one), Toy Story

Star Trek TNG and TOS, the old school B/W Addams Family, OG Looney Tunes, Nature on PBS, Nova on PBS, Mr Rogers, Arthur

Additional stuff I'll be adding to my own kid's Jellyfin (when I get to it)

Avatar the Last Airbender, Kipo and the Wonderbeasts, She-Ra:PoP (the Netflix one), Bluey, Storybots, Puffin Rock, Lucas the Spider, Trash Truck, Ms Rachel, Daniel Tiger, Elinor Wonders Why

Maggie and the Ferocious Beast (the first English cartoon I remember watching), Rolie Polie Olie, Martha Speaks, Franklin, Little Bear, Total Drama Island/Action, and 6Teen taught me English when I came to Canada.

Star Trek got me started on my path to tankiehood and sci-fi writing. Futurama also significantly contributed to the latter.

Pokemon, Wonderpets and Redwall (and many of the cartoons from the learning English category) got me interested in writing animal characters. Zootopia pissed me off so much with its inconsistent world building that it sealed the deal and made me obsessed with perfecting my own fictional animal world.

Family Guy taught me how not to write characters and their interactions.

How It's Made is just awesome and satisfying, no further comments.

Sesame Street is great for exposure to a variety of types of people and some cultures. PBS in general is pretty good for that.

Bluey is fun for parents and kids, though it can give kids some high expectations from their parents.

Numberblocks is a good math concepts/counting show.

Storybots is a good learning about the world kind of show.

Paw Patrol has some life lesson kinds of things, but has more action/adventure stuff.

The Neverending Story

Bluey. It's a really positive modern show , so not really from my childhood but it beats everything else from my childhood.

Cosmos

Avatar the last Airbender taught me to think when in conflict

flight of the navigator
rainbow brite and the star stealer
care bears 2
wizard of oz (39)
sword in the stone
mary poppins
bednobs and broomsticks
charlottes web
petes dragon
drop dead fred
mother goose rock n rhyme
any of the bugs bunny/daffy duck movies
the wizard
neverending story
the pagemaster
follow that bird
american tail
all dogs go to heaven
brave little toaster
princess bride
jetsons meet the flintstones
the flintstones (94)
little monsters
mister wizards world
fraggle rock
muppet babies

ok that's enough i got carried away :)

Sesame Street, Muppets, The Electric Company.

Completely dated, but these older shows introduced a white kid in whitesville to a completely different world. Plus fun, educational in a way that kids don’t mind.

As a relatively new father (my daughter is around 2.5 years old), you have plenty of time. They'll be a loving little lump for a while.

What she has loved so far:

• Bluey (a beautiful show about parenting in disguise as a kids show)
• Mister Roger's Neighborhood (all episodes available on archive.org, but they have to be reorganized/renamed at least for Kodi tagging)
• The Mhppets Show (and anything else muppets)
• (Modern) Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (cg show, and Clubhouse+, the short renewal)
• Dragon Prince
• Sesame Street
• Moana (2 to a lesser extent)
• Finding Nemo/Dory
• Lion King
• Little Mermaid
• Bedknobs and Broomsticks
• Mary Poppins
• Aladin
• Frozen (and all the spinoff stuff)
• Mickey Donald and Goofy: Three Musketeers (this is her current obsession, probably watched it 10 times in the last week)

I'll come back and edit this with my own shows later.

Roseanne, the first few seasons showed a poor family which I was at the time.

I am definitly not indian but I loved 3 idiots. The message it sends about you being you and how being smart works is amazing.

There is a really suprising suicide scene though but I didn't mind as a child cause its real quick, so watch at your own discretion.

Just kidding. Don't show your kid this movie unless it's as a joke when they're older. This might have been a Psyop.

I do actually recommend:

Brave little Toaster and Fivel Goes West. Those seem to stick out as most positive that I remember.

Franklin ( the one about the turtle ). For the most part, I feel like almost all the content is good enough to show a young child considering it's one of those preschool age shows. May look a little old considering it's 90s animation and also doesn't have any traditional box sets ( it seems to be nothing but sets based around themes ), but I'm pretty sure every episode is on a Canadian company's yt channel ( region locked AFAIK, so having a VPN is advised ). Treehouse Direct, IIRC.

Also, for a friendly enough way of teaching religious lessons in a non-preachy way that is actually not eye bleach or racist ( looking at you, FInding Jesus ) or low quality slop maid solely to profit off of religious parents, VeggieTales. There's a reason why it was popular with Christians and non-Christians alike, besides the silly songs.

They can be fun to watch ( not including the 4th VHS episode where 3 characters get thrown into a furnace and magically survive thanks to a "glowing man" ( probably Jesus ) ) and can be good for opening a conversation on things like being nice to others despite differences or being thankful for what you have or a number of other topics they covered from the Bible. Honestly, one of the greatest Christian animated cartoons ever considering how it is probably the only Christian cartoon parents who are and aren't Christian could probably both agree on letting their kids watch.

Cannot speak for modern VeggieTales, though, so take my words with a shaker of salt just in case modern VeggieTales isn't as lesson oriented or anywhere near as good as the originals from the 90s and early 2000s.

• Ferngully

• Emperor's New Groove

• Finding Nemo

• Turning Red is newer but SO good

TV:

• Blues Clues
• The Big Comfy Couch
• Sesame Street

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Gene Wilder version)

Do not underestimate silent film! My kiddo loved them as a toddler. Here are some great starters:

• The Cook (Roscoe Arbuckle)
• Sherlock Jr (Buster Keaton)
• Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin)
• A Trip to the Moon (Georges Méliès)

Very engaging with way more visual gags than we usually see nowadays, few title cards, and a chance to talk with your kid about what is happening on screen (Ooh no, Charlie is stuck in the lions cage! How is Buster going to get on that runaway train?)

And eventually when they're a little older, getting your kid to sit down with you to watch Scorsese's Hugo (2011). It is an absolutely magical loveletter to early film, particularly Méliès' A Trip to the Moon.

Bluey and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (of not the remake) for kids shows. Bluey isa. Double hitter as it's great for kids and adults as well. There's a few tearjerker episodes in there for adults around life and kids growing up, along with just great ideas on how to parent and play. MMCH is great as it doesn't subscribe to the overly energetic constant cutting camera angles bullshit that's super addictive and bad for kids. Shows are calm, involve learning and problem solving, and are very much like 'okay get up and expend some energy, go play' at the end. Honorable mention to Tumbleleaf. It's for kids that are a bit older, is a little more weird, but still fun. Art style is cool on it as well. Best of luck building your library and congrats on being a dad!!

Growing up I really loved the animated series Alfred Jonathan Quack or Alfred Kvakk in Norwegian. It's about a duck, his farther (I think) is a mole and the antagonist is a nazi-styled crow called Dolf. My favourite episode was about this island they visited which turned out to be the shell of this gigantic turtle.

Another favourite was The World of David the Gnome. It's about a gnome who lives in or under a tree and has all sorts of adventures with animals. The books it's based on are also great, I still have them.

I don't know if you can still find these series since they're pretty old.

The Animals of Farthing Wood was a banger show. It's because of that show that I began drawing as a kid. I love how epic it is and how it comments on deeper themes that are still important today. Among other things, it's all about how the animals are forced to immigrate to another park after their forest is turned into a highway for humans. That even after the arrive after a horrible migration, their presence isn't welcome because they disturb the old ways in the new park. How wars break out, friendships and alliances are formed and how everyone has to find a way to coexist and also keep the ever looming presence of humans at bay. It is truly a brilliant show that teaches you so much about life, death, nature and tolerance. And you know, you can also just watch the show as an entertaining epic for kids about animals without looking into all the political stuff, because it never really tries to cram all it's themes down your throat in the annoying way that a lot of media does nowadays.

Maybe hold off on showing the little one this show until they are at least kindergarten age. It's a bit rough sometimes, but it is not damaging.

Also, congratulations on becoming a dad! Glædelig jul ❤️

EDIT: FRIENDS! I LITERALLY JUST FOUND A REMASTERED VERSION OF THE WHOLE SERIES ON YOUTUBE!

GO WATCH IT HERE❤️

• Moon and me
• Bluey
• Nils Holgerson
• Totoro

I'd like to think Babe taught me a thing or two about kindness and cooperation

🐑🐑🐖🐑 🐕🐓🦆🪿🐄

Bluey. Well, not my childhood but my daughter loves it. It's adorable, educational, relatable and super positive. And can hit you right in the feels.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Here's just a few that I enjoyed as a kid and/or as an adult:

• Lion King (1994)

• Lion King 2: Simba's Pride

• Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

• Balto

• Tarzan (1999)

• Atlantis: The Lost Empire

• The Iron Giant

• The Emperor's New Groove

• A Goofy Movie

• The Princess and the Frog

• Wall-E

• Finding Nemo

• Jumanji

• Avatar: The Last Airbender (MAJOR positive influence, especially the episode "The Guru")

• Avatar: The Legend of Korra

• Courage the Cowardly Dog

• Mr. Rogers Neighborhood

• Teen Titans (2003)

• My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

• Steven Universe

• Adventure Time

• Regular Show

• Class of 3000

I am going to be a father and am making a jellyfin setup for my child. I want to start early to make a good collection of movies and shows.

Me too!

I have Bluey and The Magic Schoolbus.

Finding Nemo was one that I always watched with my dad/makes me think of him

The Incredibles is always good

Wall-e is another favorite (tbh any disney/pixar movie from that era)

The Princess Bride is a classic

The Lego Movie came out when I was in highschool but its still a great kids movie

The Sam Raimi Spiderman trilogy, Tim Burton's Batman movies, and other superhero movies of that era

Any Wallace and Grommet movie (my favorite was the one where they go to the moon to eat cheese)

For when you child is very young, look for “Mighty Machines.”

Aaahh!!! Real Monsters

Angry Beavers

Hey Arnold

Rocko’s Modern Life

Rugrats

Gullah Gullah Island

Legends of the Hidden Temple

Basically mid 90s Nickelodeon defined my childhood, and the media’s only gotten worse from there on out! :p

Patch Adams

Once Upon A Forest (1993) [idmb:tt0107745]

In the wake of an environmental disaster, the children have to work together to solve problems, and save their friend.

Look up the original Tik-Tak from the BRTN. it's non spoken animation with shapes, sounds and music. Great for toddlers. All the music is ingrained in me :D

Other good show from the BRTN was "Er was eens". They are split up in 4 main "seasons: de mens, de aarde, de ruimte and het leven.

History, how earth was formed and evolved, space and human biology.

Dutch and French, I'm not sure if it was ever dubbed English, but my kids watched this on repeat.

Winnie the Pooh! The episode where they fall down the wishing well instilled in me a lifelong fascination with wishing wells.

I also used to watch a lot of the old Thomas the Tank Engine

For a slightly different take, I was mesmerized watching New Yankee Workshop and the old This Old House seasons as a kid and often wonder how much they contributed to practical skills and hobbies I have as an adult.

Half of the Ghibly movies. The other half i was too old already.

Doctor Who was the big one, but I didn't get into that until I was a bit older

I'm a dad, so a lot of these arewhat I've found for mine, which was of course influenced by my childhood.

Get The Owl House now for when they're a bit older, before Disney buries it in the ground.

Danger Mouse both old and new ones, the new ones are amazing.

Duck Tales both old and new, again the new ones are amazing.

Frozen and Moana are IMHO the best of Disney's movies, all of Pixar's catalogue.

• 3-2-1 Contact
• Cosmos (original)
• The Secret Life of Machines
• Connections with James Burke

Zorro (1957 but I was born later 😂) was certainly the most important show I seen in my youth. He made me choose fencing as sport for more than 10 years and he taught me to be honest and Fair when I was younger

Flukten fra dyreskogen , loved it as a child, but beware it is emotional carnage - animals dying left and right.

Pingu

La linea

Fantorangen and probably a lot of other nrk stuff

The original and prequel Star Wars films and shows: The Clone Wars in particular.

The 90s X-men

X-Men Evolution

The 90s Spider-Man

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003-2012)

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (OG and 2002)

Avatar the Last Airbender

The Dark Crystal

Fern Gully

The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1990s)

Phineas and Ferb

George Shrinks

Anything and everything on pbs

Most anything NRK makes will be what you want watch. Minibarna mostly at first. All the Fantus stuff is good. Especially "Fantus of maskinene"

Tbh when hen reaches the age where hen will understand the more neuanced elements of a story you will have to fight off Paw Patrol and Spidey and his amazing friends with a stick. Whatever the kids in the kindergarten speaks off. Your old dusty slow shit will not be appreciated until much later.

Edit: Bluey! Bluey is amazing. Well written, funny, reflective and is engaging for both children and adults.

The episode with no dialog when it rains and they make a dam is perhaps the best TV I have seen in years.

David the Gnome and Flight of Dragons

Kiteretsu (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0305051/) This TV Show was responsible to ignite the fire of engineering and making things during my childhood.

Kochikame (https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/56426-kochira-katsushika-ku-kameari-k-en-mae-hashutsujo) I was a procrastinator and a lazy ass when I was a kid. So related to Ryotsu (main character) so much.