Joe Cartoon

Joe Cartoon is the name of a series of Flash-based online cartoons that was launched in December 1998 by creator Joseph C. Shields, a comic artist, and t-shirt and toy designer from Michigan. Starting as an independent website, Joe Cartoon was later affiliated with Atom Films, before becoming independent again in 2006, then being bought in 2007 by Endemol.

Noted for their crude humor and tongue-in-cheek violence, Joe Cartoons were among the first widely distributed web-based productions of their kind. Produced in Macromedia's (Adobe's) Flash format, a number of the cartoons are interactive, such as "Gerbil in a Microwave" and "Frog in a Blender". "Frog in a Blender" has been downloaded at least 110 million times. Before the dotcom crash, the site was said to be making $25,000 per month from banner advertising. Shields won $80,000 in compensation from John Zuccarini in 2001 under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act after Zuccarini cybersquatted domain names.

The cartoons were broadcast on G4 as part of their Happy Tree Friends & Friends evening, and Joe Cartoon was in the top 10 on iTunes for several months. In April 2006, a collection of 40 Joe Cartoon creations was released on DVD in North America. The cartoons have been recoded to be playable on set-top DVD players. Some DVD-specific content was also created for this release. Joecartoon was taken down in 2010 and the content was moved over to Youtube, however the website returned in May 2012.