any of the Crayon Shin-chan movies
The show is far more hilarious than the movies, and IMO the english dub is excellent (despite some questionable cultural references intended to make it more relevant to Western audiences). The manga is also quite good. Very funny, but I don't know about "uplifting".
This is a funny topic. Most anime (and manga) is "uplifting" in some way, but
almost all also contain (or are fundamentally made up of) much darker elements -- probably because Japanese culture seems to love self-sacrifice and suffering (massochism?). Even something like
Astro Boy, while fundamentally a feel-good hero story, has some really horrific and tragic moments (in Astro's origin, his creator sells him to the circus after raising him as a loved son, where he is then treated as sub-human). And the most "uplifting" stories generally tend to end with the protagonist(s) "winning" but dying or giving up the thing they love most or some equally bittersweet ending (Ashita no Joe is a prime example).
For something truly uplifiting, read Dragon Ball if you haven't already (or watch, if you must). (I mean "Dragon Ball", by the way --
pre-DBZ, which isn't that good anyway, and only should matter to fans as a continuation of the original serial.) If you have doubts, throw away all your preconceptions, it's one of the best narratives ever created. There are some sad moments, and like most anime there's a lot of dying and self-sacrifice, but the characters' successes overwhelmingly outweigh their tragedies. If you watch it, make sure it has a JP dub and english subtitles and is the original uncut version -- the neutered English-dubbed one is terrible.
And +1 on Cromartie High School, which is amazingly funny (although, again, not particularly uplifting).
