Okay, so recently(ish) posted a journal where he talked about cartoons he watched growing up, and I was showing something to my mum today and we ended up watching a ton of openings from stuff I loved when I was little, and still have very fond memories of today. I thought I'd post said openings with what I remember of each show, so you can see the awesome, cheesy stuff we got in Belgium and sometimes Portugal. It was 90% old 80s stuff, and lots of it written by French people but made in Japanese studios, and most of it bastardizations of literary classics. But I don't care because they're children's cartoons.
I didn't include the ones everyone watched and knows like the Smurfs or Ducktales or Captain Planet because that's boring.
Without further ado:

Robinson Sucroé
I LOVED THIS SO HARD. It's kind of a parody on Robinson Crusoé, only instead of being on a mostly deserted island by accident he's sent there on purpose to write exciting journals for the paper. He lives in a village with the natives, the Tout Les Jours (Everydays), where each of them has the name of a weekday. His best friend and the guy who actually writes the journals is called Mercredi (Wednesday).

Albert le 5eme Mousquetaire
Made by the same studios who did Sucroé, it's basically the story of the three musketeers (+ Dartagan) only with the added character of Albert, who's the brains in the team but never got recognized because he doesn't care about fame.

Vic le Viking
I'm pretty sure this is German, originally. It was a show about this really brainy viking boy called Vic (or Vicky) and his adventures on his dad's ship. It got really weird sometimes, as you can see by the images in the opening credits, but damn if it wasn't an awesome show.

Les Mystérieuses Cités d'Or
This was one of those Franco-Japanese collaborations. I don't remember it too well, but it was about this guy and his Aztec friends (?) looking for the golden cities. Or something. El Dorado, you know. It was really cool too.

Sherlock Holmes
This may be what started my still-standing infatuation with Britain. It's not an English show, and it was in fact made in Japan by Myiazaki (!), and even though it completely fucks up Sherlock Holmes and made them all antropomorphic dogs I'll be damned if it wasn't a great show. I always loved seeing the steam-punkish machinery and their clothes and houses, even when I was but a budding Chap. The music always struck a chord too, and I do still love it. If any of you knows where to find the opening without lyrics I'd love you forever.

Franklin la Tortue
This is one of those shows you're supposed to watch when you're like six, but no one cared. We all followed it until we were eight or nine or something. It's about the life of this turtle who's seven years old (I think) and lives in a village full of other forest animals, like bears (his best friend's a bear), foxes, otters, etc.
It
owned
everything.

Princesse Sarah
We all know A Little Princess. This was the anime version. It was alright.

Heidi
HEIDI MAKES EVERYONE CRY. You all know this, the little Swiss girl who lives in the mountains with her grumbly grandad. Oh god when she gets her friend in the wheelchair to walk fff

Rémi Sans Famille
This is the worst show. Not because it was bad, but because it was so goddamn sad. I'm surprised all the kids didn't get depression from watching it. Rémi's this little boy who's been separated from his mother (and I think his dad's dead) so he travels with his dogs and this silent old artist guy. The only things I really remember from this show are two scenes: one where they're walking on some big rocks and the narrator tells us how much Rémi's feet hurt, and then the old guy helps him down a big rock but accidentally hurls him with too much strength and sends Rémi flying so he lands badly and twists his ankle. The old man puts Rémi's wooden shoe back on and Rémi starts running while the narrator goes 'OF COURSE BY RUNNING REMI'S FEET HURT EVEN MORE.'
The other scene is where they're in this orphanage for some reason and a girl's pet rat died. She's crying and asks why the rat passed since she always gave it food, but one of the other kids starts wailing too and admits he ate the rat's food every day because he was so hungry.
IT WAS THAT FREAKING SAD.

Dartacão
Three (four) musketeers, only antropomorphised as dogs. Not much to actually say about it but it was really fun and the opening theme owns.

Zorro
It's just a Zorro anime but I used to tune in religiously for some reason. I loved the guy's frilly shirt.

Maia l'Abeille
Maiaaaaa. Just the daily life of a bee but it is the cutest thing ever.

Il Était Une Fois La Vie (Once Upon a Time... Life)
An educational show, but really awesome. Everything in the body was antropomorphised and it made understanding the human body. Dealt with everything, from breathing to fat distribution to tethanos to sex. I loved this show, even though I never could remember its name and always called it La Vie La Vie because of the opening song :v
I got really sad when the oldest red globule died ;^; even though he was reborn instantly as a little baby globule. Now I want to watch this show. And if I ever have a kid you can bet he's gonna watch this instead of the terrible stuff produced today.

Robin dos Bosques
Again, boring old bad adaptation of a literary classic, in this case Robin Hood, but I'm posting it because I used to love the opening and the songs.

Astérix et Obélix
Not a series iirc, just a bunch of films, but a must-see for everyone who lived in Belgium. We all knew this show. And we read the comics, of course. I still love the duo (and I only get some of the puns now), and Obélix is just the cutest thing. I used to think Ceasar was really handsome too, which should have rung alarm bells in my mum's head about Little Vlad liking old men but eh.

Tintin
TINTIN
TINTIN
TINTIN
TINFUCKINGTIN
EVERYONE KNOWS TINTIN. HE IS THE BEST CHARACTER.
EVEN THOUGH HE'S GOT SOME ADVENTURES THAT ARE RACIST LIKE WHOA. But oh welll, it was normal in that time. One episode I remember used to scare the everloving shit out of me, because it had some kind of creepy mummy that went into people's homes through the window at night. I couldn't sleep properly for like a week after that episode.
Opening song's great too. My favourites were the Professor Tournesol, Captain Haddock and Dupont et Dupond. D&D <3

Spirou
I remember I used to love the opening sequence and song, and I still do. Spirou is also a very famous character here, but maybe not as much in other countries. Can't tell. The adventures of Spirou, Fantasio and Spip will follow me forever. I think my favourite character was the Comte de Champignac because of how smart he was.
The ending credits were also cool, but I could only find this version: [link]

Billy the Cat
100% French, despite its name.This series was really frustrating to me because of the ending. The story was like this: there was this little bastard kid called Billy, and to punish him for being mean to animals a magician turns him into a cat, and he spends the rest of the series trying to turn back into a human or trying to tell his family what happened. Why did the ending frustrate me? BECAUSE I NEVER SAW IT. TO THIS DAY I DO NOT KNOW WHETHER HE TURNED BACK INTO A HUMAN OR NOT. ARGH.

Anyway, share your own experiences, comment on these awesome series, let this journal rot, whatever. This was a lot of fun
Even though watching all these great old cartoons makes me depressed when I compare them with the terrible stuff kids these days watch, Dora et al. At least they didn't treat us like retards back in the day, and everything was done by hand and pretty.

Some of the videos couldn't be posted because DeviantArt is awful with their goddamn smilies that can't be disabled.

I'll probably be watching The Servant tomorrow, with Dirk Bogarde. Looking forward to that.