Behold! The Worst Cartoon Show of all time

[GonzoLeaper]

Rubik, the Amazing Cube, Captain Planet

You don't like these for animation styles or just the whole idea of the shows themselves? I admit it was kinda out there to have a cartoon based on a Rubik's Cube, but that's what was great about the '80s- you could have all kinds of totally wacky cartoons that were a lot of fun. I've seen a bit of this and I like it okay. But Captain Planet- I grew up watching that one- I've always enjoyed it. But I'm usually pretty hard-pressed to find a cartoon I don't like.

 

[frogboy4]

You don't like these for animation styles or just the whole idea of the shows themselves? I admit it was kinda out there to have a cartoon based on a Rubik's Cube, but that's what was great about the '80s- you could have all kinds of totally wacky cartoons that were a lot of fun. I've seen a bit of this and I like it okay. But Captain Planet- I grew up watching that one- I've always enjoyed it. But I'm usually pretty hard-pressed to find a cartoon I don't like.

Those were terribly written programs and the animation was low-rent. Some of those ideas just came off as cynical corporate decisions rather than quality ones.

A few examples of quality television animation to me?

Classic Warner Brothers, Chuck Jones and Tex Avery for writing and style (even though the best stuff was made for theatrical short subjects).
Invader Zim for quality writing and unique animation style.
Batman the Animated Series has style and substance that stands the test of time.
Ducktales was just plain fun and the best Disney animated series ever.
Foster’s Home is inventive and has an interesting style that resembles Henson’s doodles to me.
The Smurfs were magical to me as a kid. I hear Jim Henson enjoyed the program too.
Spongebob for being just so quirky and palatable. I enjoy the cheery little self-made sponge.
The Animaniacs were really well done too!
And don’t forget Alf’s animated show. It was actually impressive.
I almost forgot Venture Brothers. How could I?

Low frame rate, strobing, bad compositing, amateurish proportion discrepancies, irritating voice work and even incomplete drawing plagued many popular programs. Again, I won't mention those.

 

[Drtooth]

I love the Smurfs and all, but I wish someone would just publish the original comics in English.... seems we're about to be flooded with all sorts of Smurfendise, but I'd trade it all in for European comic albums... I love those things.

Again, if you're feeling brave, you can find Clutch Cargo DVD's at certain dollar stores. As amazing as it sounds, I have 2 Clutch DVD's, and one that I bought where I discovered Clutch (Captain Haralock and Friends... like a kickbutt Japanese space pirate hangs out with slow-witted 1950's pilots)... In fact, it's so terrible it's either going to be funny as heck or traumatizing beyond belief. But seriously, if you have or can borrow the Incredibles DVD... watch an episode of Clutch, and then watch the "Mr. Incredible and Pals" cartoon on the second disk... I have never seen a cartoon parody that dead on.

 

[mr3urious]

I think seasons 1 through 3 of SpongeBob were the best.

 

[dwmckim]

The thing about Spongebob is that there's such a shift in quality between pre-movie episodes and post-movie episodes. I would agree that despite the overexposure and marketing frenzy the original cartoons were up there with the classics (and Squidward is on my personal list of Best Cartoon Characters of All Time), but someone who might be getting their first taste of Spongebob via the later episodes may very well be wondering "THIS is what all the fuss is about?"

 

[frogboy4]

The thing about Spongebob is that there's such a shift in quality between pre-movie episodes and post-movie episodes. I would agree that despite the overexposure and marketing frenzy the original cartoons were up there with the classics (and Squidward is on my personal list of Best Cartoon Characters of All Time), but someone who might be getting their first taste of Spongebob via the later episodes may very well be wondering "THIS is what all the fuss is about?"

Yeah, it's hard for a series to follow their movie counterpart and Stephen Hillenburg left at that time too.

 

[D'Snowth]

Overexposure and the frenzied fuss is what killed SpongeBob for me... I mean, even BEFORE the movie came out, all the kids in school were so SpongeBob made and they were all "You SO HAVE to LOVE SpongeBob!", "SpongeBob is the BEST show of ALL TIME!", "You HAVE to be a SpongeBob fan to be accepted by society!" that they made it IMPOSSIBLE to even like SpongeBob... not to mention the annoyance of that laugh of his, and when the two main characters of the show are complete idiots... yeah, that makes for good times right there.

SpongeBob, to me, become very over-rated, very quickly, and I even began to cringe at those commercials about how SpongeBob made people's lives better (ala that family checking into a hotel with SpongeBob luggage, and all of the bellhops literally fighting each other to be the ones to carry them to the room, or the school teacher who said his SpongeBob lunchbox made his wife's cooking taste better, etc).

 

[frogboy4]

Overexposure and the frenzied fuss is what killed SpongeBob for me... I mean, even BEFORE the movie came out, all the kids in school were so SpongeBob made and they were all "You SO HAVE to LOVE SpongeBob!", "SpongeBob is the BEST show of ALL TIME!", "You HAVE to be a SpongeBob fan to be accepted by society!" that they made it IMPOSSIBLE to even like SpongeBob... not to mention the annoyance of that laugh of his, and when the two main characters of the show are complete idiots... yeah, that makes for good times right there.

SpongeBob, to me, become very over-rated, very quickly, and I even began to cringe at those commercials about how SpongeBob made people's lives better (ala that family checking into a hotel with SpongeBob luggage, and all of the bellhops literally fighting each other to be the ones to carry them to the room, or the school teacher who said his SpongeBob lunchbox made his wife's cooking taste better, etc).

OOookay. Don't know where you're getting all that but it's interesting. (quietly inches backwards and out of the room)

Edit - but seriously, that's how I always felt about the film Titanic. But that really does blow. Frog, how I hated that movie even without the hype.

 

[D'Snowth]

Um, I thought I explained it in petty details in my previous post.

 

[frogboy4]

Um, I thought I explained it in petty details in my previous post.

I never saw the examples of over-exposure that you cited, but I'm in a different demographic.

Spongebob has a way of being an individual and non-conformist without being snarky. That's quite a feat. However, having so many non-conformist followers does create its own conformity now doesn't it?

I still like him. But I would prefer to have Zim be the show that survived all this time.