here's the rundown from episodes 1-100...
episodes 1 to 40-60ish, not sure, It's basically Naruto is an outcast, when he was a born they sealed this demon fox that terrorized the town in him, (which he doesn't know this till like ep. 50) but anyways... He wants to become Hokage, basically the leader of a village, in this case, Konoha, the leaf village. Yet he's such a sucky ninja that it's embarrassing just thinking that he's the main character, so people laugh about it and crap. Naruto is at his highest level of obnoxiousness in this area, he's always obnoxious, but trust me, it's bad at the beginning.
At around ep. 60-70, somewhere around the chunin exams I believe, Naruto starts actually getting skill, and starts kicking butt. He advances in strength from here on out, and this is where the show really gets good. Much more action.
then every episode between 90 and 100 is a total filler. So because of that, I stopped watching.
Shippuuden is apparently good, but I'm not watching until it's English, and I hope for all our sakes that Naruto's voice drops in Shippuuden xD