Jerry Beck has recently written an article for Variety where he lists Animation’s 10 Sharpest Turns to date. When doing a list of influence it is usually much less subjective than “best” and I think Beck being a cartoon historian justifies his picks quite well and seems to follow a pretty clearly chronological flow of time, also something that helps make influence a little more objective. I don’t really know enough about cartoons to say that the list is slated too much in any direction but when you are talking about influence you are most certainly not talking about best. I think in this list a big companies like Disney are mentioned because those are usually what hold the greatest sway in pushing a medium into popular success. 
Still I wonder if the cartoons that influenced and continue to influence todays animators are the “big ones”? Obviously this list is not really about what motivated some kid to start drawing in his basement but rather what allowed animation to gain mainstream popularity among many demographics and not just kids. I think that any other lists that tried to ennumerate which cartoons have had the greatest influence on animators would be as diverse as the animators working today.
