Strawberry Shortcake (2003)

Strawberry Shortcake is an American animated series produced by DiC Entertainment. It is the second installment in the Strawberry Shortcake franchise. The entire series consisted of 44 direct-to-DVD episodes, although the show did air on the Kewlopolis block on CBS.

Plot
A girl named Strawberry Shortcake, along with her talking pink cat Custard and her blue and white dog Pupcake, has adventures in friendship in Strawberryland.

Why It's The Franchise At Its Best

 * 1) Top-notch animation for 2003-2008 standards.
 * 2) Adorable character designs (apart from Season One, which has the first four episodes, which have weird character designs.)
 * 3) Strawberry and the entire pride, including those who don't appear much (like Frosty Puff), are likable. Even Peppermint Fizz, and Lime Light, who started out as mean girl stereotypes are likable, as they gain development within their characteristic and eventually they fully redeem.
 * 4) Even the villains are likable characters, such as Licorice Whip from Season 2's Festival of the Fillies, and the Purple Pieman and Sour Grapes, who were reintroduced in Season 3 and in The Sweet Dreams Movie.
 * 5) The theme song is a BANGER.
 * 6) In fact, all of the songs (there are two songs in every episode) from the series are bangers so much to the point that almost all of them were released on several soundtrack albums.
 * 7) It managed to get a feature film called The Sweet Dreams Movie that was released theatrically (in select cities).
 * 8) All the episodes have great morals to take away from them, such as being a good sport and not judging a book by its cover.
 * 9) Many good plots for the episodes
 * 10) While it was pretty strong to begin with, it started to get even better when the final season came out in 2008, with the greatest character designs in the entire franchise as a whole, more interesting and high-stakes stories, and more important lessons. To top it all off, the final episode "Lights... Camera..." also reformed the Purple Pieman and Sour Grapes, ending the series on a high note.
 * 11) There is some lit humor.
 * 12) There are some funny moments, such as these lines from "The Blueberry Beast".
 * Custard: "Unless, it's a bear pretending to be a frog."
 * Orange Blossom: "Or a lion acting like a bear pretending to be a frog!"
 * Angel Cake: "Or a tiger who wants to think he's a lion acting like a bear pretending to be a frog!"

Bad Qualities

 * 1) As mentioned above, the first four episodes have weird character designs.
 * 2) Strawberry could be seen as a bit of a Mary-Sue, as she always is the voice of reason to solving problems, everybody loves her, and she rarely makes mistakes.
 * 3) The Arabic dub was not well received.
 * 4) Sometimes, the voice acting for the some of the characters isn't that good.
 * 5) The CGI animation in The Sweet Dreams Movie can be a little cheap looking, akin to an early mh:awesomegames:Dreamcast, mh:awesomegames:PlayStation 2, mh:awesomegames:Game Boy Advance, mh:awesomegames:Nintendo GameCube or an Xbox video game. It clearly hasn't aged well since there are some models that look a bit grotesque, rubbery and stiff, particularly the non-regular cast.
 * 6) Pieman's desire to dominate the planet was not emphasized enough.
 * 7) The 1980 series, Berry Bitty Adventures, and Berry in the Big City, while still pretty good, don't seem to have quite the same charm or unique set of characters like this incarnation does.