Recent years have blessed us, the adult or almost-adult cartoon-viewing public, with a cornucopia of excellent shows: Adventure Time; Gravity Falls; Steven Universe; Wander Over Yonder; Star vs the Forces of Evil; and so many more. These shows win Annies and Emmys every year. They bring in fans of all ages—some of them boasting more adult fans than kid fans. They inspire, they bask in their beauty, and they surprise me with new things all the time. It is a fantastic time to love animation.
But it…hasn’t always been this way. I know because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen what horrors lie festering in times long forgotten. After a long and perilous Internet dive, I’ve tracked down some of the worst cartoons ever buried by Nielsen ratings, and what I’ve seen…changed me.
Cartoons this bad harm the very soul. You have been warned.
5. The Adventures of Paddy the Pelican
Credit where credit is due: this is a pioneer. The Adventures of Paddy the Pelican was one of the first cartoon series broadcast on television, while most other cartoon shorts of the time were shown exclusively in theaters. But rest assured: this show is terrible for reasons that can’t be excused by old age.
You see, back in about 1954 some genius named Sam Singer (known, where he is known at all, as the Ed Wood of cartoons) decided that kids will be entertained by anything no matter how lazily thrown together it is. That’s the only explanation I can drum up as to why he tried to pass off a pencil test as a finished product. I can call it a cartoon because it is technically “animated,” just like the funeral parlor organ randomly pounding out chords in the background is technically “music,” and the drunken stammering voice lines recorded by one guy in one take is technically “voice-acting.” Singer cobbled it all together out of sync and declared it entertainment.
4. The Magic of Oz
I only found this one because it came up as a related video when I was watching Paddy the Pelican. As I watched it, I immediately became certain of two things: 1. whoever did the audio mixing had never seen the animation before; and 2. whoever animated this had never seen a human before.
Boy howdy, what a cartoon. Or whatever you’d call a bunch of recycled 5-frame loops on top of singing only dogs can hear. Not that it matters how many frames it has: this show’s characters look like a 6th-grade notebook doodle whether they’re in motion or not. I mourn for the background artist whose work was defiled by the shambling mockeries slathered on top of it. It makes the Zelda CD-i cutscenes look like Akira. If this show was poetry in motion, it would be a Hallmark card. You could power the Congo by harnessing the energy of L. Frank Baum’s spinning grave.
3. The Brothers Flub
Hey kids! Do you love amphetamines, but are frustrated that they don’t kill enough brain cells? Fret no more, try listening to The Brothers Flub intro instead.
This one’s bad in a different way than the last two. Its production values are decent, its acting is passable, and there are even some elements I like about it. No, The Brothers Flub is bad because it’s just plain stupid.
Its premise: Two stupid blue brothers do stupid things in various stupid scenarios, with stupid inane music and stupid stock sound effects in the background. It’s stupid. I felt dumber every second I watched it. I’m pretty sure I forgot my kindergarten years after the second time I made myself watch this. This show is like anti-school.
This one actually makes me mad. It gives cartoons—the medium I adore—a bad name. The Brothers Flub is the kind of show that convinced our mothers that cartoons rot your brains. When someone who doesn’t like cartoons thinks “cartoon,” it’s this kind unwholesome dreck that comes to mind. Someone might watch a show like this and think that this is all the entire medium has to offer. I’m just glad that time and bad reviews buried this one.
2. Brothers Grunt
WARNING: If you are easily disturbed, for the love of God don’t click on that play button. Even if you aren’t easily disturbed, please don’t click on that play button. In fact, it would probably be best if NOBODY clicked on that play button.
Imagine, if you will, that this show is like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Only instead of turtles, the show revolves around 5 pale freaks with bulging eyes, popping veins, and rictus grins, who are constantly squealing, grunting, and straining against…well, I don’t know, and that’s what’s so disturbing. Are they in pain? Are they aroused? I don’t know! The only explanation we get as to their origins is a short scene showing a huge bloated pale man getting his skin raked off and revealing a litter of white mutant babies. There’s pus and mucus and mysterious liquids and sludges all over the place, and it’s just GROSS! Why would someone make this!?
And then there’s some German music videos. No reason. They just throw them in there. Yes, that’s plural, they crammed in TWO full-length music videos to fill in the 7-minute runtime. Nothing thematically linking the videos and the episode whatsoever.
I’m concerned that whoever gave birth to this abomination was actually insane. Nothing about it makes sense, it just makes my head hurt and my skin crawl. Seriously, who was responsible for this?
…Oh. The guy who made Ed, Edd, and Eddy. OK, then.
1. The Nutshack
Here it is. The very worst one. Admittedly, it was mostly because watching all the other ones had sapped all energy and motivation to find any that might be worse. But I still feel…well, confident wouldn’t be the right word…at least satisfied calling this one the crowning white moldy turd on top of Shit Mountain. If you think that sounds immature, I don’t think you’ve sat through even 30 seconds of The Nutshack.
Every cartoon up higher on this list had something going for it. Paddy the Pelican and Magic of Oz were hilariously cheap. The Brothers Flub was interesting to look at. Even Brothers Grunt gave me a sort of morbid curiosity as to how horrible it could get.
But not The Nutshack. The Nutshack commits the greatest sin of all animation: in spite of being horrible for all the reasons the others, it still managed to be boring.
It’s ugly to look at, and its animation is bare-bones, but not in an interesting way. It just looks like a Newgrounds flash cartoon circa 2002. The writing is crass and terrible, but not provocatively bad, or humorously bad, or bad in any other way that would make it interesting. It’s just…dullsville.
Ugh…I don’t want to talk about these shows anymore. I’ve had it with all the crap of yesteryear. Here’s something good:
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