“Laughter and mirth are not the same thing. I can elicit laughter by electrically stimulating parts of the brain,” the neurologist Richard Restak said the other night, onstage at the Rubin Museum.

Cartoons have changed a lot in the decade since Paste originally published this list. Sure, new episodes of The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park and SpongeBob Squarepants are churned out each year ...