Animation has been a staple of pop culture for years. During that time,
we’ve progressed as a race with what we’re capable of and have reached a level of
scientific understanding only dreamed before. All thanks to the influence of our favorite cartoons…
right? From cloning to space travel, many on this list have quite the
resume of accomplishments… But not every cartoon scientist has the IQ of Einstein.
I’m Brad with WickedBinge and this is Cartoon Scientists: Dumbest to Most Brilliant.
There are a few rules that affect the ranking. We’re going to eb weighing the scope and scale
of their inventions and creations. The scientist will be ranked on not only the
reputation within their show but what we actually see them accomplish on screen.
And of course, if they only produce prototypes or unsuccessful final projects,
they will lose major points for that. And they’ll also lose some points if they totally lack common
sense, which is a bit of a trope for otherwise brilliant cartoon scientists.
With that said, let’s start at the bottom with the least intelligent and work our way up…
First up, Doctor Weird and Doctor Fritz Huhnmorder are worth mentioning briefly
though they aren’t too widely known. At least not in the same way the others on this list are.
Weird is the one who is featured at the beginning of Aqua Teen Hunger Force
and normally indulges in very destructive methods. He gets himself hurt a lot in the process and
while his monsters and robots are formidable, they do enough damage in the lab that they never leave.
Fritz on the other hand is the doctor that features on Robot Chicken,
and gets a low ranking because all he is seen doing is re-animating the chicken. Both are
mad scientists, but to the point they’re only concerned with their immediate surroundings.
Next from the bottom is Doctor Zoidberg. There’s some divided opinion on how well he does his job.
It’s been stated in the show that he only struggles with working on humans and that
he’s an excellent doctor to alien species, but we don’t get to see much of it. While he
does make some good calls, helping the professor from turning into a yeti and
helping get Hermes his body back, he also is proven to be clueless on how to act.
He lives in a dumpster eating garbage, allows himself to be treated as less than dirt,
and will throw away pretty much anything for a decent meal.
Doctor Otto Scratchansniff was one of those recurring characters on Animaniacs. He’s an
educated man and would be a successful psychiatrist if he wasn’t trying to help
some of the most ridiculous characters in animation. He takes social events seriously
and tries to build a reputation that he can rely on. He’s easily
taken advantage of when he’s on screen which is unfortunate because he does try to help others.
There is a theory that the Brain may not be the actual brains of his operation, but we don’t delve
into the possibility of Pinky being the smart one. Brain is seen as the powerful force of the duo,
but none of his plans work. He talks about taking over the world but has no reason for wanting to
do so. His inventions are only to help himself and he only wants to be in charge of a situation
because he has a massive ego. He spends the majority of his time berating everyone, including
the only other creature that tolerates him, and only lets up when asking for romantic advice.
Next is Plankton. Rival to Mr Krabs his only goal in life is to get the Krabby Patty formula.
But even with having experience in engineering,
inventing and robotics, he was unable to take a simple recipe
in a bottle. His plans always backfire, but he manages to do some impressive work. Making robots
that could disguise as a patty or destroy all of Bikini Bottom, being able to use a mind control
device on Spongebob and creating a self-aware program in his wife Karen. Still he becomes too
sidetracked when he feels he’s already succeeded and that’s typically what trips him up in the end.
Jack Spicer was dubbed a boy genius and, weird antics aside, this wasn’t much of an
exaggeration. But he had trouble using his intellect effectively when taking on the
enemy. There were actually many times he gave up his leverage to be freed from a bad situation.
Doctor Drakken was one of the main villains of Kim Possible, but let’s be real: he’s nowhere
near as successful as he could be. In fact a lot of the times he does manage to be a threat
it’s because Shego was leading him through the project and calling him out on mistakes.
His robotics were impressive and tech such as the mood device was entertaining to see in action,
but he didn’t really seem to use his full potential.
Bling-Bling Boy had the money and smarts to dominate
at least a small country but he would get way too distracted by Susan. He was far more
invested in using his connections and gifts of time travel and genetics to woo the Test
sister than he was to actually make much of a name for himself. We’re pretty sure
this is a flaw he’s aware of since he starts almost every interaction by stating his name.
Next we have Doctor Alphonse Mephesto. He was the creepy madman of South Park,
and that is a strange honour to have considering how many strange people reside in the mountain
town. He’s obsessed with cloning and is the man people go to if they want something strange done.
He was the one able to reveal Eric’s real father and is often the voice to explain why an idea will
or will not work. Making mini elephants is cool and all, but do we really need them? Or
a monkey with more than one rear end? We have to rank him higher because of all he manages to do,
but at the same time, we have to place him here due to his odd motivations.
Princess Twilight Sparkle, though royalty, was also a sharp mind. In her world, magic
and science often come together and Twilight used her knowledge of magic to find solutions plenty of
times. She also managed to become experienced in how the minds of her fellow ponies worked,
often interviewing people on how they felt about her approach to friendship
and peaceful resolutions. She was regarded as a top student in all her classes and
even the human version of her was gifted in science and equations,
quickly being granted the right to study in an independent lab even in high school.
Professor Oak deserves being mentioned. His main work focuses on pokemon and how to breed and care
for them while still preserving their lives, but he’s also knowledgeable in meteorology
and genetics. His expertise often comes up in times of crisis such as in the 2000s movie,
but since his focus is pokemon care, we can’t rank him much higher as a man of science.
Professor Frink was one of those Simpsons characters around since the beginning.
He was deemed one of the brightest members of the community for his robots,
making a chess playing arm and device to call all the school children for snow days.
But he also had a lot of weird and fairly useless devices such as a sarcasm detector
and hamburger earmuffs. Though we will ask, Professor, what is the pickle matrix?
Doctor Thaddeus Venture is likely not to be voted the world’s best dad, but this isn't
a list on morality. From a young age, he was raised to place intellect and ability to use it
above all else. He’s cunning and always finds a way out of whatever jam he’s in.
He’s used time travel, built vehicles and weapons, but is pretty clueless
when it comes to everyday life. He becomes confused at times such as checking his email
and mixing up spam in his real messages and giving poor dating advice to Rusty.
Mr. and Mrs. Fenton were known as the ultimate ghost hunting duo. Though their methods were
extreme at times, they did make a decent living out of their obsession. They lose a lot due to
being oblivious to what’s clearly in front of them. While Vlad had a somewhat decent disguise,
the voice made it clear it was still him. And not recognizing their own son? We don’t drop
them lower since evidently no one was able to figure out that the two people who looked and
sounded the same were the same person. That seems to be a weird trait with heroes, ghosts or not.
Doctor Doofenshmirtz had a rough life, but he uses the energy he spends frustrated at the world
to make some interesting machines. He managed to make a variety of successful clones until
he deleted them all by accident and he almost had a very successful slave empire of monkeys
forever doing laundry. His worst fault is that he doesn’t seem to take all the
variables into account and winds up failing. His worst habit is putting a self destruct
button on everything he builds which is almost always used against him.
We’ll mention Mojo Jojo next. The very first time we see him,
he’s nearly successful in taking over the world with the bust of Anubis’ head. He’s been defeated
by the girls more than a few times, but he’s shown to have experience with gaining powerful allies,
using mind control and creating a variety of threats to use against the Power Puff Girls.
He’s one of the most well known villains simply because of all his near-successes.
Dexter and Mandark we’ll put together. Not just because they’re in the same show,
but because they’re both young boys with a very narrow mindset.
And formidable foes to one another. They thrive on being able to show each other up,
and they feed off of their rivalry. They lash out at others when things don’t work out and will
do anything to manipulate a situation and bend things to their advantage. They’re both able to
build some pretty incredible labs and inventions right in their family homes with anyone knowing.
Princess Entrapta is high energy and often overwhelming to be around.
She is almost always seen with goggles on her head, ready to be plunged into an experiment.
While some of her research does backfire on her and sometimes her over zealous nature can
cause more harm than good such as trying to demonstrate sound for a sound-motivated threat,
she’s always quick to roll with the punches.
Next we have the resident of Superjail simply known as The Doctor. Deranged and driven,
he delighted in being able to use the prisoners for human experimentation. He creates machines,
monsters and all sorts of abominations he affectionately shows off. He stays in the
jail so he can submerge himself in work that in any other setting would dub him a war criminal.
But as horrible as his work is, you have to admit it takes skill.
Asami Sato worked alongside Avatar Korra and made quite an impact for their team.
She was considered formidable and ruthless, even taking out her father to fight for her cause.
She uses everything she’s given in an almost effortless way, making her a challenging opponent.
She adapts to each citation quickly and is able to think steps ahead of everyone she faces.
Jimmy Neutron was a young boy genius. Much like Mandark and Dexter, he was more invested in his
own projects and surroundings, making a lot of gadgets and tools that would make his own
life easier. Such as having a robot dog so he could have a companion without having to
get shots for his pet, making so he didn’t have to style his hair by himself every day,
and be praised by his teachers. We rank him higher than many on the list, however,
because he had a lot of experience dealing with multiverses such as during his adventure with
Timmy Turner and dealing with aliens such as when Carl was carrying an exterrestrial offspring.
Professor Utonium was the creator of the Power Puff Girls, making superhuman kids
when all he was trying to do was make a family for himself. The guy was clearly successful,
being regarded by the community and working from home before he created
his daughters. He was also the one to lead to Mojo Jojo’s intelligence and,
while limited when interacting with women, is well aware of what to do to raise his kids with powers.
Zim was said to be a scientist before he was tasked as an invader. Even in the show, we see him
build a variety of things from new eyes for Keef to trick the kid into thinking a squirrel is him
to being able to remove organs out of a living thing and replacing them with inanimate objects.
He’s seen adapting his PAK in a few scenes and is always experimenting with the life
he finds on Earth. We don’t understand why he’d launch a chicken into the sun,
but we will say figuring out to cover himself in glue to survive the rain was resourceful.
Megamind has earned our next spot. Being an alien, he was outcast for looking and acting differently.
He didn’t easily impress others and so used a lot of his energy to make weapons. We see from
his later interactions when training Titan that he only wanted someone to present a challenge to him.
He wasn’t able to show a lot of his potential for a good portion of the movie because he simply
wasn’t driven to give his full. But what he does manage when he’s successful is impressive. Able to
use holograms to disguise himself, dehydrate and rehydrate living organisms and using his
quick wit to take down the power hungry Titan are just a few of the shocking feats he managed.
Next is Doctor Nora Wakeman. Known for her passion in robotics, she built J-10 to help
keep people safe. She made a self-aware teenage robot which is quite the feat.
On top of that, she aided Jenny in being able to utilize new information and take on new threats.
Jenny was her pride and joy, being a massive step forward for everyone in AI and robotic technology.
Peridot was another alien that was just trying to adapt to what resources she had on Earth.
She was stubborn to adapt at first, but once she got a hang of the Earth technology
she had access to she was able to use her past experience as an engineer for Homeworld
to create a drill to go all the way to the center of the Earth in order to face the Cluster.
Jumba was deemed mad, but he was one of the most successful scientists of the galaxy.
He was able to create Stitch and his many cousins,
each one with a unique ability of their own on top of their great feats of strength and endurance.
Jumba was able to make various weapons and was considered a threat by the Galactic Federation.
Had he stayed a shady character, he would be a scary super villain.
Vlad Plasmius was once an aid to Jack, but once he was cursed to be half ghost he used it to gain
success. He was always a top student, having been friends with Jack initially due to their shared
interest in ghosts and science. He is seen to be able to seperate Danny from his phantom half
and, though the lashback was not pretty, that couldn’t have been an easy thing to do.
Princess Bubblegum not only managed to rule a kingdom, but became one of the most advanced
minds of the land. She created Lemongrab and his brother, made guardians for the candy kingdom
and was constantly researching trends to seek out possible oncoming threats. She’s also one
of the few scientific minds on this list that, while still struggling with certain interactions,
had a good grasp on human behavior and interaction. She was able to easily reject people,
calling one in particular out for only loving “the idea of her.”
Susan and Mary Test rank far above Bling Bling Boy. They were way more ambitious,
finding solutions to world hunger and making a variety of vehicles, genetic modifiers and a
time traveling tea house. And admit it: when you saw the super backpack, you wanted one.
Hange Zoe was crazy at times, but her work with Titans was essential to learning how to take them
down. The woman risked being flat out devoured more times than we feel comfortable counting.
She’s high energy when it comes to discussing her research and is relentless when gathering
information. Her sheer drive and passion alone makes her formidable. Factor in that
she’s nearly killed every time and you have a mind the human race should be grateful for.
Stanford Pines and his research actually resembles Twilight Sparkles in that they both
wound up heavily relying on a combination of magic and science. He used Bill’s abilities to know how
to build the portal and made a lot of headway on researching the odd creatures of Gravity Falls.
His journals wound up being as helpful as they were harmful. It was because Ford was
smart enough to find out why Gravity Falls attracted so many oddities that kept Bill
in place. He was able to use the leverage to buy time and eventually, with Stan’s help, defeat him.
Of course Ford wouldn’t have gotten far without our next ranking,
Fiddleford McGucket. The engineer that made the portal possible, he went on to create the memory
eraser and make things such as a voice changing elixir and a robotic version of a lake monster.
He may have had a few screws loose for most of the time we see him, but he comes through during
the conflict with Bill to make the Shack into a formidable foe. At least, for a little while.
Bronze of brilliance goes to Professor Membrane. Like him or not, he’s done things that should be
impossible. Creating an energy source that didn’t require fuel, tackling issues like world peace,
creating scopes to look into other dimensions, and surviving more than horrible explosion. He’s not
the most attentive father, but his children are also an example of his intelligence.
It’s been stated that had the series continued, fans would have learned that Dib was created in
Membrane’s lab and was likely a near clone of the scientist, meant to take on his father’s empire.
That explains why Membrane was always pushing Dib to study “real science.”
Professor Farnsworth was known for sharing “good news” while frequently leaving off the good.
Now the man could be clueless at times, but there are a lot of moments where he shows off why he was
so honored through his life. He manages to make a machine that shows possible futures,
saves the flow of time after Leela and Fry almost break it
and creates a way of space travel that moves space around the ship. The fact that this man
makes a living from making the impossible possible is nothing short of remarkable.
Our most brilliant scientist should not come as a surprise to anyone. After all, he’s been stated to
be the smartest man in the universe. We have to give the gold medal to Rick Sanchez. He’s been
called overpowered, full of himself and downright insane. But the man has accomplished a lot.
A portal gun to easily travel the multiverse. A set of robotic limbs that pop up when he
loses an arm or leg. Super robotic suits. And taking down two government powers in one day
just because they both crossed him? The man is to be feared.
But what do you think? Who are the most brilliant minds of the fictional world?
Let us know in the comment section. Don't forget to hit that notification
bell and binge our Good-to-Evil playlist. Where we break down the morality of the
characters in your favorite cartoons, shows and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked!