Various Industry standard 2D Software and Pipelines?

I havent worked on either of these shows, but Ive done plenty of 2D.
Im sure the process is the same, just heavier on the design and post in Turtles. Here's the process:

1) From Storyboars and animatics you do hand drawn Layouts.

2) You use the layouts to hand draw the scenes, on paper. Meanwhile BG team gets to work on scanning and painting the backgrounds (probably Photoshop, soemtimes Painter)

3) Final animation is scanned, but not vectorized, not on those shows, anyway. They look pretty traditional. But Power Puff style shows could probably be done in Flash, I guess.

4) 2D Shows and commercials Ive worked on have used US Animation or Animo to do post. They can do the FX pretty well.

Actually, Im old enough to remember doing all this stuff with no software at all... just cells, paintbrushes and film cameras (waaaaaaay back in 1999!). It's not the software that makes Turtles and Simpsons look so different, it's the design sensibilities and how much work you want to put into the final look of the show!

Crazy huh?

Obviously the drawing/rendering style is very different, but what about the process?

• Do they both begin with hand drawn frames, which are scanned?
in those specific cases, i reckon yes. however they dont always have to be. working in vectors you can paint directly into the program.

• If it is hand drawn, I assume the artwork is vectorized and painted - does anyone know the main software used? (Toon Boom, Animo, Toonz? Flash?)
[B]All the softwares you mention are used to a varying degree. All depends on the nature of the production and its deadlines. Each has its own strength and weakness. You also work in conjunction with other programs. A high end program is from the toon boom people called concerto or something from their US Animation series.
[/B]

• Is the animation pumped into After Effects or a similar program for post production?
[B]again depends on the post production and the budgets etc but AE would be an ideal windows platform to work in.
[/B]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has lots of action, fighting and effects...a lot of it looks like full animation, while a lot of the Simpsons looks like cut-out. I am guessing that this might change the process involved? Or is it still basically the same?
it does not change the process per se, the divisions and the departments are usually the same, a lot of animation has to go linear to get to the point of completion with value ads, i.e. key, ib, clean up etc. however the way you approach the storyboard changes, level of dynamicism, fluidity, shot set up. this then dictates the kind of animation that needs be done. A decision on style and pace is decided at the script and storyboard level and executed at the animation level.

I hope I haven't bombarded too many questions at once, but I'm very interested to know!
yes you have bombarded and its cool :)

Thanks,
goggs