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He was the plantiff in one really funny episode of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law.
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Our List begins with:
10) Lisa Simpson!
(Yes, from The Simpsons, 1989-present)
Okay, fanboys: she just barely made the list; you can stop hyperventilating now. However, come on; it had to be said. You know it had to be said. Your best friend in the whole wide world; they knew it had to be said. If anything, putting Lisa on this list is good for two reasons. One, it proves we mean business here. Second: it had to be said.
This is far from saying Simpsons is bad. Bite your tongue! Even the bit players are hilarious. Heck, in over 14 years on the air, we've been introduced to nearly every single citizen of "Springfield," and they're all a riot...except, of course, Lisa. She just never seems to deliver a single joke. If anything, she seems to be always looking at the frivolity happening around her, and wondering what she's doing there. That makes two of us.
This is what I would call a definitive moment, in the pomposity that is Lisa: episode #32, "Lisa's Substitute." She gets a crush on her substitute teacher, then looks at her dad and sees he isn't as smart. She then screams at the top of her lungs that dear ol' dad is a "baboon! baboon! baboon! baaaa-boon!!!" I'm not an advocate for any form of physicality when rearing a child, though the very fact that Homer didn't smack her one upside the head, is evidence he's a very intelligent, sympathetic gentleman. Not even "bratty" Bart was ever so callous. Oh, and Lisa...? That episode made you look like a chimp, so I wouldn't throw stones.
That's the whole problem with Lisa Simpson: she cannot once view herself to be flawed. The Simpson family as a whole --if not the entire populace of Springfield-- is at its best whenever they can realize their flaws, and just have fun with them. Lisa always seems to feel she is the flawless waif, constantly oppressed by all the "stupid" people around her. Simpsons storylines involving Lisa, as a result, just aren't funny: Lisa whines, Lisa complains, Lisa acts like she's the overflowing cup of endless knowledge. What does Lisa know? Beats me. She can play the saxophone and bitch. That's about it.
However; yes, fanboys, she's just barely on this list, as the tenth worst character to happen to great cartoons. There's a whole lot worse than Lisa Simpson; of that, we can be certain. Let's move on.
9) Snarf
(Thundercats, 1985-1987, syndicated)
Saccharine characters are often added to action-oriented cartoons, because parents think little kids will be scared without them. Strange: I don't know why a kid who was scared of Mumm-Ra would suddenly not be scared when looking at Snarf, though that was apparently the concept here. I say "apparently," because I can't see any other reason for Snarf at all.
The truth is: Thundercats would've been just fine without Snarf. Sure, Lion-O was supposedly just a cub when he left his feline-run world of Thundera, though that's no reason to introduce his "nurse maid," Snarf; a strange little kitty alien who looked like a mutant cross between a troll, a rat, and a cat (yikes!). Now fully grown up, Lion-O had little or no use for Snarf at all. The same could be said of the series as a whole.
It didn't help that Snarf was totally out of sync with the rest of the "Thundercats" mythos. If lions and tigers and panthers evolved into intelligent, man-sized people on some alien world, why would "snarfs" be so small, fat, and stupid? It made no sense. Likewise for the nurse maid angle; Snarf was a coward, and quite frankly, a clumsy oaf. Who hired this guy as the nurse maid to the heir to the royal throne? You might as well have protected Lion-O with a guinea pig.
As it was for Lisa Simpson, there is one crowning moment of annoyance with this character, that just begged me to put Snarf on the list. There's this one (otherwise) cool episode "Lion-O's Anointment Second Day," where Lion-O is challenged to a race by Cheetara. If he loses this race, he is stripped of his title as Lord of the Thundercats. Just when this race reached a very effective fever pitch, Snarf ruins the moment by screeching in his Elmo-from-Sesame-Street voice: "He's gaining! He's not giving up!" Yeah, no duh. Thanks for ruining the moment, oh kitty rat-troll-thing, you.
8) Seven-Zark-Seven
(Battle of the Planets, @1978-1985; syndicated)
When remembering classic 1970's anime, few fans could ever forget Gatchaman; the cartoon about five gifted kids with super powers not unlike birds in flight, who flew in their fiery Phoenix spaceship to fight the forces of evil. This series was made into many incantations, including the slightly less edited G-Force, and, of course, Battle of the Planets.
Unfortunately for U.S. kids in the 1970's, the original cartoon was considered too violent, "demanding" that some parts were edited out completely. Trouble is: the whole point to Gatchaman was its teenage, PG-13 edge, making it hard to translate for a G-rated audience. So much was edited, in fact, that they had very little of the actual cartoon left! So entered 7-Zark-7; a little robot that would narrate the story, filling in the blanks at some parts, and simply acting like a comedy relief time-filler in others. Oh, he also had a little dog --robotic, of course-- called 1-Rover-1.
Like other bad characters on this list, it didn't help that Zark was most often animated via the exact same animation clips, repeated over and over. There would be a close-up shot of his lights flashing (supposedly in sync with his voice, even though they rarely were), a shot of him looking at his view screen (which rarely ever changed its view!), and the typical shot of him "flying" to his control panel just two yards away (talk about pointless ways to fill empty space in a cartoon!).
The biggest problem with Zark was in how clear it was that he was never meant to be there at all. So little was ever explained about Zark that it was never clear what he actually did. He supposedly watched over the G-force team, but...did he? They'd get into a jam, and Zark would offer little more than an "Oh dear," or they'd need a warning of some kind, and Zark wouldn't warn them. Why? Because he never did in the original story; that's why. As I said; he was just filler. Pointless, purposeless filler.
7) "Dr. Sane"
(Star Blazers, 1978, syndicated)
Space Cruiser Yamato was another 1970's Japanese cartoon, mature beyond its years. It made it's first trip to the U.S. in 1978, when a little film called Star Wars had just made a huge demand for every sci-fi series possible. Unfortunately, the 1970's was also a time when American parental censor groups were so rampant, even classic American cartoons were censored; cartoons that kids had already seen, many times! If 1970's parents found Bugs Bunny "harmful" to kids, you can imagine how they reacted to an alcoholic doctor! Every scene of Dr. Sane's drunkenness was to be deleted.
If only it were that simple...
People used to seeing a totally hammered Barney on The Simpsons, might wonder what the fuss was about. Remember: this was a pre-Simpsons age of cartoons, when all animated work was still considered as being just for kids. They therefore needed to delete Dr. Sane's drunkenness, "for the children." However, how do you keep a character from looking drunk, when the character was drunk all the time?
The resolution was as imaginative as it was problematic. He wasn't drinking sake; he was drinking spring water! Hmmm...Why did he act like an imbecile, then, whenever drinking "spring water"...? Oh; he's just that way all the time, I guess. So, basically you have two choices; either Dr. Sane is a drunk doctor (and therefore totally worthless), or he's a doctor who is simply an idiot (and therefore totally worthless). Take your pick.
The end result is a silly character, either way you look at it. Whether he was drunk as a skunk, or whether Sane was, well, in-sane, it made little sense that this guy was ship surgeon. The Star Blazers were supposedly humankind's last hope of survival; why would they hire an alcoholic --or, worse yet, an imbecile-- as the head physician aboard the ship? As Mr. Spock might say: totally illogical!
6) "Slimer"
(The Real Ghostbusters, 1986-1991, syndicated)
"Real" Ghostbusters notwithstanding, this series made one mistake; it made "Slimer" into a "good guy." I know, yeah; Slimer was cool to see as a weekly character, not an enemy seen only once-in-a-while. He wasn't very good as a good guy, though. Based on his film character, Slimer was clearly bad-boy material. That was his whole charm.
It's a well known trivia byte that the original Ghostbusters story was co-written by Dan Ackroyd, with fellow "Blues Brothers" alum John Belushi in mind, for the role of Peter Venkman. We can presume, then, that Slimer was intended as a salute to Belushi's infamous "Bluto," in National Lampoon's Animal House. Much like Bluto, Slimer was not unlike a frat brother; a "bad boy"; a mischief-maker. This is the troublesome ghost who made "He slimed me!" one of the biggest movie buzz phrases of 1984. While this isn't enough to paint Slimer as a villain per se, it is clear that Slimer was not meant to be so, well...cute.
Sure, movie characters are made into cutie versions of themselves in cartoons, all the time. However, how far is "too far"...? Gone was Slimer's grunting obnoxiousness that everyone loved to hate, replaced with an almost Jar-Jar-Binks style "Ain't-I-cute?" attitude. What's worse: they gave Slimer a "voice" (!!!), which sounded like a cross between Garfield the Cat and Scooby-Doo. Ugh.
Yes, Slimer was a funny ghost in the movie, though he was a wild and crazy ghost; that was the whole idea. Force feeding him into the role of "Casper The Friendly Ghost " was silly. He was far better suited as the ghost people loved to hate, eating what he shouldn't and causing major havoc. Instead, he's just oh so cute, eating stuff he shouldn't but that's okay because he's just cutie-cute-cute and can eat whatever he wants because, gosh, he's just oh so cutie-cute-cute. Oh...gag.
5) Serpentor
(G.I. Joe, 1983-1986, syndicated)
Toy Collectors love Serpentor. They love his cloak (often made with real cloth), they love his snake gadgets, they love his Cobra-helmet. Yes, sir; if this was a "Top Ten Best Action Figures" list, I may very well put Serpentor on that list. However, this isn't a best toy action figure list; it's a list "honoring" The Worst Characters That Ever Happened to Great Cartoons. That's a shame, because when looking at the cartoon itself, Serpentor totally sucked.
The idea here was to give Cobra --the "ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world"-- a more ominous leader. Cobra Commander had been defeated by G.I. Joe so many times, he just wasn't that scary anymore. Of course, any G.I. Joe fan would tell you that was half the fun; Cobra Commander was sort of like "Dr. Evil" from Austin Powers, as the bad guy you loved to hate, imbecile that he was. However, story writers (allegedly) wanted more ominous stories, so they added Serpentor. Nice idea...if they could deliver on the "more ominous stories" promise...
At least his introduction was cool. Serpentor was the result of a genetic experiment by Dr. Mindbender. Stealing the genetic material from the graves of some of history's most ruthless tyrants, they spliced this DNA to create a new Emperor, Serpentor. G.I. Joe was finished...literally.
Yes, literally. Upon Serpentor's incantation, the whole appeal of the series quickly tanked. This is due in no small part to the very reason Serpentor is cool as an action figure, not a character. While Serpentor was cool to look at, his entire back story could be written on an old bubble gum wrapper. He was a man with no real past. No surprise, there; Serpentor was in truth little more than genetic sludge come to life. Even less surprising was his range of dialog, which had him endlessly bellowing "This...I command!" Yeah...whatever.
As for "more ominous stories"...sorry, no. Serpentor would prove to be as much of a failure as Cobra Commander, if not worse. What's more; his plans were simplistic and banal. Even when Cobra Commander wanted to steal a laser beam weapon simply to etch his face onto the moon, it was a cool idea for a maniacal genius to think up such a vain plan. Serpentor, by comparison, did little more than build an aging machine that could make old people young, and young people old. Big whooping deal.
4) Hordak
(He-Man/She-Ra, 1985-1987, syndicated)
If you want to make a batch of girl toys under a boy-toy label; fine. Just about every brand with longevity to it, has toys for boys and girls: Legos, Play-doh, Fisher Price playsets, video game systems, and on and on. Fair is fair.
However, when trying to be fair, can you at least be consistent? Consider this when looking at the world of She-Ra; He-Man's twin sister, now known as Aurora. As a young adult, Aurora learns of her true destiny when He-Man must give her the power sword which is rightfully hers. She quickly decides to use these powers to fight evil...but in her world, not He-Man's. What girl can blame her...? This is a very girly world she was taken to: crystal castles, flying horses, fairies with shiny glitter wings...
...and Hordak. Why Hordak? There are many explanations. One is that the originally planned enemies of She-Ra weren't ominous enough, so they brought in The Evil Horde; a batch of action figures in the He-Man toy figure line, not yet introduced in the He-Man cartoons. They quickly re-wrote the story so that Hordak was part of She-Ra's world instead. However, given the overall "pink and lace" nature of She-Ra, this was a silly idea. The concept was not unlike trying to spice up the line of My Little Pony toys, by adding a dinosaur.
It didn't help Hordak's image, when most of his animation was simple stock footage recycled endlessly. We can only presume that originally, Hordak was intended to be able to "morph" into whatever weapon or construct he thought of to defeat an enemy. Yet because he originally fought She-Ra as a top and a tank, these were his most frequent forms when fighting She-Ra, over and over again. This was not only repetitive; it made him look like a total moron. I mean, the top idea didn't work, dummy; can you think of something else? Oh, yeah; turn into a tank. That didn't work either, though. So, let's try the top, anyway; maybe She-Ra has a really short-term memory! <Pow!> <Toss!> <CRASH!> Nope; guess not.
I can see the conflict of interests at work here. They couldn't have She-Ra fight little cute fluffy furry things. They needed an actual villain. However, Hordak wasn't the best idea. He was clearly a boy toy in a girl toy world. He also wasn't very bright. Unless you'd actually fight the exact same enemy as a top...a tank...a top...a tank...a top...a tank...
3) Apache Chief
(Super-Friends, 1978, ABC)
Once upon a time, Hanna-Barbera created a really cool show called The Super-Friends; a show where five DC comics super-heroes would fight the stronger forces of evil, together, as a team. This team consisted of Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Aquaman. As comedy relief, they had the occasional "trainees," like Wendy, Marvin, Wonderdog, Zan & Jana, Gleep...
The gripes from minorities, however, was that there was no representation of an ethnic super-hero. This gripe had merit; it's "solution" did not. Enter Apache Chief; the most inadvertent of racial slurs to have ever been animated for politically correct reasons.
The first problem: Apache Chief had never been in a real comic book. If he had, only to have the animators say "something was lost in the translation," this would make more sense. However, seeing as he was never in a comic, it was the job of the show to explain Apache Chief's back story: where he came from, how he got his super-powers, and so on. They never did. In fact, so little back story was ever conceived for this guy, that he wasn't even given his own arch-villain to fight; "Giganta" was from the Wonder Woman comics. What a sad state of affairs.
That's just the short of it: Apache Chief was, quite simply, as worse of a racial slur as 1970's cartoons ever got. While old Tom & Jerry and Little Rascals shorts were edited left and right thanks to a barrage of inappropriate racial jokes, along comes Apache Chief, acting like all Apache talk...real ...slow ... must ... speak ... short ... sentences ... must ... think ... long...to...solve...problems! Politically incorrect? DUH!
Oh, in case you're wondering; Apache's super-power was growing and shrinking. So, in a jam he had too possibilities; he could shrink and have a bad guy step on him, or he could approach a scene of terror, grow to humongous size, and scare the living @#$% out of every innocent man woman and child in jeopardy. Man, what a stupid cartoon concept this was. What two cartoon figures could possibly be worse? Good question:
2) The Great Gazoo
(The Flintstones, introduced in 10/29/1965, ABC)
Not to be a stickler for cartoon coherence, but: Flintstones was set in The Stone Age. Period. Yet by 1965 it had heavy competition from sci-fi galore --including a new show called Star Trek!-- so crash went a flying saucer in Bedrock, and out popped The Great Gazoo.
So much for helping the series. The Great Gazoo was introduced for a spanking total of 9 episodes; episodes which would, in turn, be the last 9 episodes of the entire series. Some say Gazoo is the cause of this finality to Flintstones in prime time, and while I wouldn't go that far, he just wasn't a very good character.
The idea was that Gazoo was banished from his home world, as punishment for creating a stupid invention. He must serve whomsoever rescues him from his flying saucer "prison," who of course turn out to be Fred and Barney. Only they can see him, however, which sucks because it would've been a howl to see what Wilma and Betty's reactions to him would have been. Pebbles and Bam-Bam could see him, thanks to "the innocent eyes of a child," though this led to little more than a single joke of Pebbles cooing "Gazoo" and Wilma saying, "Bless you, Pebbles!"
<groan!>
So, unlike every magical-friend/alien sitcom ever conceived --I Dream of Jeannie, My Favorite Martian, Alf, et al.-- Gazoo never had to worry about getting caught, taking away every decent "secret magical friend" plot possibility. What was left for Gazoo to do...? Nothing. He had magic, though it didn't work right. He wanted to help, but never was. He was worthless, and yet...no, actually, he was pretty worthless. Sorry.
It's important to reiterate that this is a list of bad characters happening to great cartoons. Once Flintstones became a staple of Saturday mornings, it had a slew of inane, imbecilic characters added to it. However, these spin-offs were not great cartoons...Unless you're one of the diehard fans who thinks a hairy nerd with the buzz phrase "Wowsie wowsie woo-woo" is a bright idea. Not to mention "The Shmoo." Augh! I just remembered the Shmoo! Talk about bad memories to have.
Yet back when Flintstones was still a major TV competitor, Gazoo was clearly their worst idea. Granted, the show already had one foot out the door when Gazoo came on the scene. However, there's no denying that Gazoo was the one holding that door open on their way out.
1) Scrappy-Doo
(Scooby and Scrappy Doo, 1979-1985, ABC)
Worse than The Great Gazoo...? Worse than Apache Chief? Worse than this whole list...? Yes, Yes, and Yes. However, the core problem with Scrappy-Doo wasn't the fact that he was so cute he was annoying: this pooch inevitably replaced three of the series' original characters! It's saying something, when the first live-action movie has Scrappy-Doo as a villain(!). It's saying something more, when I make that film's DVD the order link added to Scrappy's own image. Ouch.
Could Scrappy have been a good concept? Sure. Consider a character who was Scooby's own puppy. Awwww! Imagine if Scooby found out he was a dad, and among all the puppies there was one little pooch with his father's sense of adventure in him. They go off to fight monsters & the forces of evil, together, as father and son!
Now, forget all that, because that wasn't what Scrappy-Doo was. First of all, Scrappy is Scooby's nephew. Second, as the opening credits of the original Scooby & Scrappy Doo Show explain: Scrappy-Doo was mailed to Scooby, in a plain cardboard box! Imagine how loved this obnoxious pooch must've been, to have him sent to Scooby via fourth class mail. The train that delivered him barely stopped! This should've been the first warning sign that it was all going to be downhill from there.
I think what really defines an annoying new character is when he/she acts so high and mightier than the original characters. Whenever a monster would appear, the Scooby gang would run. Why? Because they have brains. Then there's Scrappy-Doo, saying either "Let me at 'im!" or even more annoyingly, "Puppy Power!" as if he could defeat the monster all by himself. Trouble is, whenever he did this it seemed like he felt he was "better" than the Scooby gang somehow; they ran, he was willing to stand and fight. What insult to original Scooby fans was this...?
Unfortunately, Scrappy had low friends in high places. Every time Hanna-Barbera retooled the show, Scrappy was there. First there was Scooby and Scrappy Doo, on September 22, 1979. Then poor Scooby was re-tooled the very next year, as The Richie Rich/Scooby Doo Hour, where poor Scoob was reduced to mere seven minute snippets, in an hour-long show. In 1982, they had to share a similar cartoon format with "Pete the Puppy" and an old west ancestor of Scooby's called --get this-- Yabba-Doo. To say all these shows failed because of Scrappy Doo would be jumping to conclusions. However, the very reason Scooby was only good for seven minute snippets anymore was because that's the maximum that anyone can tolerate of Scrappy Doo in one sitting.
The worst part of Scrappy Doo's character was how he actually replaced the original Scooby Gang. Fred and Velma were gone permanently, with Daphne returning only briefly, when fans demanded her return. Why did they write off the series' most classic characters at all...? This wasn't like a live-action sitcom, where Ron Howard leaves to direct movies and they replace him with Ted McGinley. These were animated characters who should've been a part of Scooby-Doo forever and ever. Yet after roughly 10 years on the cartoon, Scrappy Doo was suddenly in their place, with no explanation for why. Who thought this was a good idea? Probably the same guy who was responsible for Scooby-Dumb. Forget I asked.
Red heads ROCK. Blondes do not rock. Nuff said.
