what was the first cartoon to air on television?

The first cartoon series created specifically for television and widely recognized as the first to air on TV is “Crusader Rabbit.”

Quick Scoop: The Very First TV Cartoon

• Title: Crusader Rabbit
• Debut: Commonly dated to August 1, 1949, on station KNBH in Los Angeles (now KNBC).

• Creators: Alexander (Alex) Anderson and Jay Ward.

• Why it’s “the first”: It was the first animated series made specifically for television rather than for theatrical cinema.

So when people ask “what was the first cartoon to air on television?” , historians and quiz-answer sites typically point to Crusader Rabbit because it marks the birth of TV‑only animation.

A Tiny Nuance (For Nerds)

If you go deep into animation history, you’ll see a couple of related “firsts” mentioned:

• Felix the Cat as a test image (1920s): An image of Felix was used very early in TV experiments, but this was a test pattern, not a regular cartoon show.

• Willie the Worm (1938): An eight‑minute experimental short by Chad Grothkopf is sometimes cited as the first animated film made for TV, but it was not an ongoing series.

That’s why, in most trivia contexts, Crusader Rabbit is still the accepted answer: it was a proper, recurring cartoon series produced and distributed for television audiences, not just a test clip or one‑off experiment.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.