Not all fictional babies are created equal, and for every cute little tree sapling that
dances around with the Guardians of the Galaxy, there's also a creepy, young corporate mascot
coming around to give you freakish nightmares.
Here are the most famous pop culture babies ranked from worst to best.
Throughout the decades, no pop culture baby has grated on everybody's collective nerves
quite like Scrappy-Doo.
Dogs are great, and Scooby-Doo is classic, but don't pretend for one second that you
liked this obnoxious little puppy version of him.
Even today, in a world so horrifyingly polarized, everyone can come together and agree that
Scrappy-Doo sucks.
YouTube has whole videos about it.
TV Tropes has an entire page dedicated to what they call "the Scrappy" trope, defined
as fictional characters who develop a universal hatedom.
This hatred likely has something to do with how Scrappy feels like a cheap effort to pander
to little kids, combined with the groaning repetitiveness of catchphrases like "lemme
at 'em!"
"Lemme at 'em!
Lemme at 'em!"
To make matters worse, Scrappy's overbearing presence altered the entire dynamic of the
gang, like a tyrannical little bully who dominates a classroom.
In fact, not long after Scrappy came around, the central trio of Fred, Velma, and Daphne
were given the boot.
Why?
To make more room for Scrappy's antics, of course.
These days, thankfully, Scrappy's been kept in the doghouse.
His last major appearance, which occurred in the 2002 live action Scooby-Doo flick written
by James Gunn, was significant mainly because it finally acknowledged the character's obnoxiousness.
Believe it or not, Godzilla started out as a dark allegory for the bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, and his 1954 debut was a surprisingly effective horror movie.
Through the '60s, though, the character became increasingly ludicrous, reaching its apex
with the introduction of the original baby Godzilla, an annoying little squirt named
Minilla.
When this kid wasn't busy wasting the Big G's time by jumping on his tail, the so-called
son of Godzilla was instead freaking everyone out with arguably the worst, cheapest, most
wrongheaded costume design of any kaiju ever.
Seriously, just one look at that smiling, human-faced kid will tell you that, despite
what everyone is claiming, he can't possibly be related to Godzilla.
Frankly, it's hard to believe he's even supposed to be part of the same species.
Of course, as old school cartoon fans may recall, Minilla also inspired the equally
silly "Godzooky," who appeared in Hanna-Barbera's Godzilla Power Hour.
Say what you will about Godzooky and his flapping wings, but he was a lot more tolerable than
Minilla.
Of all the characters you might've wanted to see a cute baby version of, Mr. Clean was
probably not one of them.
Sure, the dude may be a pleasant enough buff, bald guy who really loves scrubbing your windows,
but did you really want to know his epic, world-traveling backstory or see him trying
to fit in with other kids?
Well, too bad, because a 2013 commercial brought Mr. Clean's origin story to life, and...well,
the infamous "uncanny valley" is horrifyingly deep.
The story begins, of course, with a baby Mr. Clean turning up, without explanation, in
rural America, a la the Superman myth.
His adopted parents first discover him as a cartoon baby scrubbing off their front porch.
Why?
Because that's his life mission, you know, to clean things.
Fair enough.
Everyone could probably use a Mr. Clean in their life, but there's just something terrifyingly
unnerving about how much a Baby Mr. Clean looks like an adult trapped in a CGI infant
body.
C'mon, guys.
Did anyone actually enjoy that '80s children's TV show trend of taking a popular cartoon,
morphing all the classic characters into little kids, and pretending that the whole thing
is some kind of weird prequel?
From A Pup Named Scooby-Doo to Tom & Jerry Kids, these programs were obvious pandering.
Possibly the worst offender?
The Flintstones Kids, which presumed to show Fred, Wilma, Barney, and Betty as a toddler
squad, demonstrating that even the most clever Honeymooners tribute can only be stretched
so far.
The Flintstones Kids really hit rock bottom with the special public service episode "Just
Say No."
This "war on drugs"-era weirdness was masterminded by Nancy Reagan, and it presents the baby
cave people learning about why it's so important to say no to drugs, no matter how cool they
might look, while also attending a concert thrown by Michael Jackson.
Whoops, sorry, Michael Jackstone.
In case you haven't been following corporate advertising campaigns, you might be surprised
to learn that a certain snobby, bougie legume named Mr. Peanut is dead.
No, really.
They killed him off.
In January 2020, a commercial depicted Mr. Peanut driving with his buddies Wesley Snipes
and Matt Walsh, when suddenly, in a tragic automobile accident, the mascot sacrificed
his life to save the two celebrities.
Once everyone recovered from the shock, it was announced that Mr. Peanut's funeral would
air as a Super Bowl commercial, and it did.
In this bizarre piece of advertising, Snipes delivers the obituary.
Mr. Clean is in attendance.
So is the Kool-Aid Man, who cries crocodile tears upon Peanut's grave, one of which gets
into the soil and causes a plant to grow that gives birth to...uh, Baby Nut.
Yeah.
Pretty weird, but at least he's a cute little fella.
People had mixed feelings about the awkward name choice of "Baby Nut", and the whole thing
reeks of an attempt to cash-in on the Baby Yoda phenomenon.
Even so, the original commercial is certainly amusingly surreal, but Planters might want
to be careful about taking this joke too far.
What makes Baby Mario different from grownup Mario?
These days, who knows, since he's been turned into just a smaller, diapered version of Mario
who gets up to the same general activities as the adult Mario, minus the mustache.
Over the years, Baby Mario and Baby Luigi have shown themselves capable of doing everything
from playing tennis to playing baseball to busting their heads on question mark bricks.
Probably the key element in Baby Mario's popularity, though, is that there's nostalgia for the
days when he was a lot more helpless.
The character was introduced in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, where the whole storyline
involves the heroic Yoshi carrying the defenseless baby Mario on his back.
If you know anything about the 2020 live action Sonic the Hedgehog movie, it's that the design
of the title character went through a serious rough patch.
When the first trailer came out, fans were so freaked out by the creepily humanoid portrayal
of the classic video game hero, complete with human teeth, that the production made the
unprecedented move of retooling Sonic's design.
Thankfully, the updated version ended up being something everybody was much happier with,
and to win the good graces of fans, the new Sonic's reveal also included the first appearance
of the so-called Baby Sonic, a lovable little creature in baby red sneakers, baby white
gloves, and with big, loving green eyes.
"No one saw me; I'm too fast!"
So, Baby Sonic, to the relief of many film executives, pleased just about everybody.
What do you call a baby hedgehog, though?
Some people on the internet have settled on "hoglets," so if Baby Sonic ever gets his
own spinoff, the proper title would be Sonic the Hoglet.
Huh.
Terms like "cute kid" and "intergalactic mass murderer" don't tend to go together.
That said, scary as Thanos might be, he must've once been a bouncy, little purple baby, right?
As you might recall, Avengers: Endgame taps into an old trope when War Machine discusses
the idea of using time travel to go back and murder the young Thanos in his sleep.
The team decides against this, but the scene nonetheless prompted some hilarious fan discussion
and theories.
However, Baby Thanos actually did appear in the comics, where the same eternal argument
was answered.
Sorta.
The 2019 alternate reality comic Cosmic Ghost Rider depicted Frank Castle going back in
time to kill the purple infant.
Spoiler alert: He flinches, because even Frank Castle doesn't want to murder babies.
So Castle resolves to raise the baby with a model upbringing, hoping he grows up into
a better person.
Good idea, except Castle is a terrible role model, and the new Thanos instead turns into
an equally tyrannical conqueror.
Oops.
No, you're not seeing double.
There is another baby Godzilla.
This time, though, the concept was done right.
Minilla sucks, but his replacement, Godzilla Junior, was simultaneously cute, awesome,
and intimidating, even when people were feeding him flowers.
Here's the deal.
Back in the '70s, the once-mighty Godzilla franchise became mired in more cheese than
you could possibly spread on a cracker.
So in 1984, Toho Pictures pulled a Batman Begins and rebooted the franchise with a dark,
gritty film called The Return of Godzilla.
Some of the sillier elements of the franchise were recreated more seriously.
And, yes, Godzilla Junior got the same treatment.
First introduced in 1993's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla Two, the new version of the creature is definitely
lovable but still believably a reptile, as opposed to being a green Pillsbury Doughboy.
There's a real sense that while this lizard kid might be peaceful today, he's still going
to grow up into something a lot bigger and scarier, which made his evolution over the
following films exciting to watch.
By the end of the final film in the cycle, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, Junior has become
almost a full-grown Godzilla himself.
Take that, Minilla.
Face it, if it wasn't for Baby Groot, this video probably wouldn't exist.
This little guy was the seed that sprouted today's wave of pop culture babies, from Baby
Yoda to Baby Nut, and it's easy to see why.
After all, who could watch Baby Groot's dance at the beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy
Volume 2 and not cheer?
The secret to Baby Groot's enduring success, though, is that while he's certainly cute,
the sapling also plays a significant role in the plot, the character development, and
the evolution of the Guardians themselves.
So, how does he accomplish all this?
For one, Baby Groot's origins stem from tragedy, as he's basically the son of the elder Groot,
created when the lovable tree-man sacrificed himself to save the team in one of the saddest
onscreen deaths ever.
Thus, by taking care of the baby, the team is also honoring the memory of their lost
friend.
Secondly, Baby Groot thrusts the other Guardians into parental roles, as they all have to frequently
break away from what they're doing to take care of him.
No wonder Baby Groot proved to be everybody's favorite part of the film.
Baby Yoda is far from the first pop culture baby, but he's certainly the most universally
loved.
The first time that The Mandalorian actor Werner Herzog saw the animatronic little green
dude, he was allegedly moved to tears.
So were legions of fans, who then proceeded to flood the internet with memes.
Right now, the world still knows very little about Baby Yoda's origins, even his true name
is a mystery, since the series merely calls him "the Child", but his impact on pop culture
is going to last for a long, long time.
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