Most of their emotional eps in the OS like "Go West, Young Meowth," "Holy Matrimony," "Ignorance is Blissey," and such are my most favorite prior to BW Team Rocket.
Also, they were actually hilarious in the first season of AG and sadly after that started becoming repetitive and boring. Like in "Seeing is Believing," where James as well as Meowth were trying to avoid incurring Jessie's wrath, and that episode where James has a meltdown in the cave with Aron...those were priceless, IMO.
DP Team Rocket was mostly bad, but had a few excellent episodes, like "Once There Were Greenfields" and "Crossing Paths." Other than those eps, DP TRio has my least favorite set of episodes prior to BW Team Rocket.
"Noodles: Roamin' Off!" is probably my least favorite episode of them. "For the Love of Meowth!" is my second least favorite.