Hi Mark,
Having designed the lenticulars, I'd like to offer this: the imperfections you see in the first series are due more in part to production than animation. Most of the 1st series were intended to have an extra frame, but because of manufacturing limitations, we picked fewer key frames to best illustrate the sequence. So the challenge was animating with 3 or 4 frames, action that would really be best with 5 or 6.
That being said, I still think the 1st series was well done, but overall, the second series is more fluid, and the production quality is considerably better.