One thing that makes me laugh even to this day is a time on Whose Line? when they were playing a round of Film, TV & Theater Styles (where Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, and the recurring performer act out a scene, while Drew Carey has them change the style based on suggestions from the audience), and suddenly, Drew had them do Pokemon... and it would seem that Ryan and Kathy Greenwood were completely stumped, because they just stood there doing nothing, while Colin suddenly started pouncing around, going "Pikachu! Pikachu!" in a Pikachu voice... he was just about the only one who knew what to do, mainly because his son Luke was a big Pokemaniac as well, so his son probably familiarized him with the characters and such.The only thing I ever felt enjoyable about the series were those strange "filler" episodes where they humanize the villains. For the longest time I felt the villains were the only thing that made the show even remotely worth while... until I found out they stole the villains completely from a superior series of anime, Time Bokan... all featured 3 villains, a gangly guy with a mustache (Nintendo stole him twice, once for "Warluigi"), a dumpy muscular guy, and a 30 year old vain exaggeratedly attractive woman... sure. Pokemon turned the Gnangly guy into an androgynous guy and the dumpy guy into a cat... but even the best part of the show was a trope, stolen from something better that the US will never get.
I really think Pokemon hurt the integrity of international animation in the US... especially when we got literally nothing but toyetic or toy based animes to this day. Beyblade? Are you KIDDING me?