I only closely followed the Pokémon anime through its first two season and most of the Orange Island episodes. Generally episodes me and a friend still mention now and then were the ones were Ash won his badges and how it seemed to us that Ash was shown as a bad trainer. Pity badges is what we called them cause he barely won any in a proper Pokémon fight.

I also remember that we saw the Pokémon 2000 movie three times within two weeks at the theater. It's incredible how popular the first two movies were. A bunch of kids... and us two adults.