Here we go.
It's time to check out some of my absolute favorite cartoons!
With, one small catch.
These are the most embarrassing moments of otherwise fantastic cartoons.
Because these cartoons are normally such masterpieces,
it is soul-crushing when the creators release an outright dreadful episode.
These bad episodes might be our heroes acting so out-of-character,
that it permanently scars them in the viewer's eyes!
While the episodes might be overly cruel, self absorbed, or just, completely nonsensical!
So let's check out, the Top 10 Worst Episodes of Great Cartoons!
And, more than ever, if you do like these episodes...
I totally understand.
It's just my silly personal opinion.
And I'm glad you can enjoy these episodes when I can't.
Anyway, onto the countdown!
- Ow, ow, ow, ow!
Uhhh!
- You know those old government ads on TV that tried to scare you into never doing drugs?
Sometimes, in very strange ways!
Well, they made a entire Powerpuff Girls episode like that,
except it's about sunburns!
This episode is just excruciating uncomfortable to watch!
10 straight minutes of the girls very slowly moving across the room,
while they wail in agony over their sunburns!
The writers dedicate a good quarter of the episode,
exclusively to showing close-ups of Blossom's convulsing sunburned skin, as she yells in pure agony!
- Owwww!
- In fact, their sunburns are so painful, that they can't even put clothes on.
So our three heroes fight crime:
El natural!
But our heroes are helpless against the villains, because of theirsunburns.
Okay, I admit sunburns can be freaking painful and potentially cause skin disease.
But they don't completely incapacitate you from living.
This is just silly.
Then to top it off, we watch them peel of their skin.
Thanks writers, I guess I didn't need to eat tonight.
But I will say this for it.
After watching this episode, I will certainly always wear sunscreen!
So if that was your goal, writers? Good job.
Okay. Now let's have an episode that consists purely of an 80-year-old elephant and a pig making out.
Doesn't that sound pleasant?
We start the episode with Finn and Jake encouraging Mr. Pig to confess his love to Treetrunks.
Okay, I'm a little grossed out, but I'm happy for them. Moving on.
No, wait. We're NOT moving on.
They're just making out over and over
This entire episode is just Treetrunks and Mr. Pig making out (ooh-la-la).
We even get close-ups of their tongues! (Shield your eyes, children!)
What were the writers thinking with this episode!?
Then, the two are "tragically" split apart because they made out so much that they disgusted the town!
They then compliment this ball of fecal beans with a tone deaf song from the 80-year-old elephant and the pig!
And for the final cherry on our unholy pile, we finish the episode with the two resuming making out!
Did one of the Adventure Time writers really think that writing an episode dedicated to two senior citizens making out would be stellar Adventure Time material?
Ugh, moving on!
Let's move onto one of the most god-awful Spongebob episodes ever conceived!
There's a few REAL stinker Spongebob episodes out there,
like "Spongebob, You're Fired" or "The Splinter".
But very few match the BEASTLY quality of "A Pal for Gary".
This is the closest thing I've seen to animal torture in a cartoon.
Our usual good-natured Spongebob is completely out of character.
The imagery is VERY unnerving.
And the sound effects of this monstrous horror pet are legitimately unnerving!
Gary is tortured by a monster and Spongebob sadistically punishes him in return!
And even as the monster slowly eats Gary alive, Spongebob continues to punish him!
None of the imagery is pleasant!
Most of the episode, we're looking down the throat of this leviathan horror!
And it's basically about Gary being tortured.
I'm actually impressed by how uncharacteristically cruel this one is!
Is this episode the big one? The episode that made everyone think Spongebob has gone downhill?
It's entirely possible!
Or is there an even worse one out there?
This is probably the most reviled NickToon episode in cartoon history!
The hostile reaction I get from friends for even mentioning this episode is just astonishing.
And it's no wonder!
I distinctly remember seeing this episode when I was 8 and feeling distraught afterwards!
The story is basically our hero, Arnold, sees his friend, Iggy, in bunny pajamas.
When he accidentally tells others this, he spends the whole episode suffering humiliations to repay him.
This is one VERY nasty trope we used to see in a lot of badly done cartoon episodes.
Where our hero continually cowers down and suffers humiliation to another character for no other reason!
Personally, I just get frustrated when I see this trope and just say, "Why doesn't our hero stand up for himself"?
I can still see that empty, miserable look in Arnold's eyes as he slowly walks through the jeering, mocking town in bunny pajamas!
Surprisingly enough, watching our hero be endlessly humiliated and jeered at is not pleasant to watch!
This episode was SO detested by the public that even the creator hated it.
In fact, he personally asked Nickelodeon to stop airing it right after he made it!
And graciously enough, they did. Thank JEEBUS for that.
Would you like to watch eleven minutes of the entire city of Townsville crying while the most annoying cartoon villain ever SQUEALS into your ears?
No?
Well, I don't blame you! Me neither.
Can I just say that "crying" voice acting barely ever sounds legitamate?
You really have to be a spectacular voice actor to make crying sound real in cartoons.
Good evening, ladies and germs!
We just flew in from Las Vegas.
BECAUSE WE CAN!
Hearing voice actors pretend to cry not only breaks the immersion for me, but it can be really insufferable.
*Weeping* Imagine if I spent the whole Top Ten List like this!
It would probably make you want to knee me in the crotch until I keeled over!
*kicked in the crotch*
Ow.
Not everyone knows this, but most of what was shown on CartoonNetwork was the first four seasons of Powerpuff Girls.
Seasons 5 and 6 got REALLY bland.
The voice acting of this guy is cringe worthy.
This episode safely fits into that special category of bad anime hentai English fandom. (The best category!)
But I actually did like the message behind this one, as terribly executed as it was.
The one thing that's catchier than sadness is laughter.
And perhaps that's the best thing to take from this episode.
This one was a tough decision between this, "Island Adventure" and "Say Uncle".
In the end, though, Rinaldo was just even more irredeemable than that heinous opening in "Say Uncle".
The only three characters I don't like in this otherwise elegant, beautiful cartoon
is Lars, Onion, and Rinaldo. But Rinaldo is in his own league of aggravating.
He's loud, he's obnoxious, he's completely full of himself.
And there's not a shred of humility in this guy.
Even his voice makes me want to throttle this guy!
And we get an entire episode dedicated to him!
With continual, wide-angle lens close-ups of his face.
Not only that, but he's dangerous!
Knocking Steven out because he thinks he's an alien!
In a surprisingly unsettling scene for this cartoon,
Steven is slowly inspected in a dark cavern by this train wreck of a character!
The only part I liked was when we got to see Rinaldo get the crap kicked out of him
by Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl.
I think I agree with Doug and Rob on this one (love you guys!).
Rebecca Sugar made this character so people didn't think her cartoon was too perfect.
In case we try to burn her for being a witch, Joan of Arc style.
My only other guess that Rinaldo exists is maybe it's a message from the creators not to end up like Rinaldo.
Question your world, but don't lose sight of reality.
And don't be a completely self-absorbed goon!
Rinaldo is a giant wart on the face an otherwise immaculate, gorgeous cartoon that I simply adore.
Fortunately, in the newer episodes, he's nowhere to be seen.
This is BY FAR the most painfully long, boring Looney Toons cartoon I have ever seen.
Which is impressive, given that it's only six minutes.
How is that even possible?
How can you make six minutes of my life drag by so SLOWLY!?
This is considered by many to be the worst Looney Toons episode of all time!
Going in, I thought, "Oh, come on, how bad can it be? It's Looney Toons!"
Boy, was I wrong.
Get this premise: Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales go through time in a time machine!
How could you mess up this premise?
You have Daffy Duck!
You have the freaking voice legend, Mel Blanc, at your disposal!
You could have just done a short of these two talking for six minutes and it would be more interesting than this!
But the episode just drags on as the two slowly walk from screen to screen
or simply announce whatever humdrum activity they're doing!
Again, writers, you botched up Daffy Duck, time travel, and Mel freaking Blanc!
For shame!
Apologies, as I know I've already talked about Adventure Time,
but I really just can't stand this episode.
I don't think many people were as bothered by this episode as I was,
but it single-handedly destroyed Finn's character in my eyes!
"Frost and Fire" is this strangely in-depth look into Finn's character.
But sadly, when we see Finn's character in depth, we realize just how shallow and self-centered he is.
Humiliating and hurting Simon in order to get wet dreams?
I mean, kinks aren't something we chose, and whatever you enjoy is fine as long as you're not hurting anyone.
But Finn is going out of his way to make others fight and hurt each in other to get his rocks off!
(Pause and read the letter. He speaks oh-so quickly)
Simon the Ice King is my favorite character in Adventure Time.
So, seeing him suffer like this really bugged me.
Even when Flame Princess is injured and suffering, he's still thinking of his wet dreams.
Even over 50 episodes later, I still don't like Finn's character as much after seeing this episode.
I have nothing but respect for this cartoon.
It's among one of my absolute favorite cartoons of all time!
But I certainly had a lot less respect for Finn after this episode.
Some people have probably picked up, I like South Park.
A lot.
So when they take a nosedive, it really kicks me in the knads!
Only South Park could get away with the amount of middle fingers they give to their viewers.
But this one?
Ugh.
You'd expect crude from South Park, but showing live-action surgery of a sex change operation!?
How do you even get away with that?!
Yet, nipples are a no-no? What sense does that make?
This made me so uncomfortable that I couldn't watch it more than once!
Even splicing the DVD footage together, I had to take extra care not to accidentally view the live-action sex change footage!
The rest of the episode is bad as well!
With Kyle having...testicles in his kneecaps? I do apologize for the visual imagery.
And basically just freak-showed plastic surgery.
Just talking about this one makes me uneasy and disturbed.
In my opinion, of what I consider a classic cartoon series, this one is one of the worst!
I can't think of another episode of what I consider a great cartoon series that makes me so queasy.
And, before we get to #1, I'd like to give a couple of quick of honorable mentions.
While this series isn't one of my personal favorites,
there was such a hostile reaction to this episode among fans that it couldn't not be mentioned.
An episode dedicated to Timmy seeing how much better the world would be if he was never born.
What could possibly be mean-spirited about that?
This is another overused BAD cartoon trope that was never funny to begin with.
Once again, we have this trope I've never understood where a villain will continually do bad things
and the hero will get continually blamed and punished for it.
It was such a bad episode that the writer deeply regretted making it.
But Foster's isn't quite one of my personal favorites, so I didn't include it on the list.
Although not as classic as it once was,
I personally think "The Simpsons" remains a quality, sophisticated show.
Which is freaking amazing since it's been running for over 27 years! (True story)
However, "Lisa Goes Gaga" was appallingly bad and crapped all over our favorite Simpson characters.
I covered it in "Worst Simpsons" though, so I left it off the list.
This episode is bad as we have to watch painful bickering between two tribes continually for 24 minutes.
But honestly, I only thought it was bad by Avatar standards.
Which is so freaking high that many cartoons can't even see them.
So, I left this off the list too.
Anyway, here we go!
Wow...I really didn't expect any episodes on this list to fall into that special ROTTEN category.
But, you've done it writers!
An episode about the slow isolation and torture of Plankton.
And I thought "A Pal for Gary" was bad!
In this episode, we watch Plankton collapse into a deep pit of paranoia filled despair
as he is continually traumatized by Mr. Krabs dressing up as a whale.
Interestingly enough, Krabs doesn't actually have a reason for torturing Plankton.
He's not protecting the Krabby Patty formula! He's purely doing it out of malice!
He even stalks Plankton in his own home.
Plankton then breaks down into tears, followed by a paranoia filled nightmare.
I just don't get it!
Do cartoon writers just get possessed by evil, satanic spirits when they make these episodes?
And then...Plankton tries to kill himself.
Because, ya know, self-harm is such a kid-friendly topic. (It's a FAMILY PICTURE!)
It's just...ugh...
I'd expect self-harm jokes from "Family Guy" nowadays, but Spongebob?
The show that is sometimes too sappy, even for me?
And Krabs is happy to hear Plankton is attempting to kill himself.
That's...actually kind of impressive.
I mean, don't get me wrong, this episode is foul kitty litter that's been left out in the sun too long!
But just the fact that the writer could skip an episode about torture and self-harm past by the Nickelodeon censors really is an impressive feat.
If you didn't consider Mr. Krabs a sadistic, selfish, scumbag villain before,
you certainly will after this episode.
You know when an episode has truly defiled a normally excellent cartoon when you start rooting for the bad guy!
Congratulations, writers of Spongebob!
Of all the cartoons I considered great, you've made the worst episode! And you did so with flying colors!
Suicide, isolation, and torture? Yup, that'll do it.
And we finish this disaster off by burying Plankton alive.
Okay, that's it, I'm done.
But, as I've mentioned, I like all these cartoons.
Many of them are among my favorite cartoons.
And molded me and many others growing up.
As much as I nitpick, these bad episodes really are a rarity.
And I can't wait to see what new content each and every one of these cartoons will bring us in the future.
Do you think I missed a particularly bad episode of an otherwise great cartoon?
I know there's a lot out there I did miss.
If you think so, feel free to let me know in the comments.
And as always, thanks for watching!
And I'll see you next time.