Board 8 > The 100 Dumbest Events In Children's Television History

(+) Yeah! (+)

RySenkari posted...

#70: Big Bad Beetleborgs

Well deserved. When I think about why I stopped watching Power Rangers, it's because I saw one Beetleborgs episode and was severely turned off to the genre forever.

As someone who watched all of Voltron, seasons 7 and 8 went full on Shonen anime and it really wasn't a direction they needed to end the show with.

cow and chicken...now there's a show that I never purposefully sat down to watch as a kid. I would only ever watch it if I was bored scrolling through the channels or if it came on after a show I intended to watch. Even back then, I knew that cartoon was weird, but I recalled it was often quite funny.

The fun thing about ignoring basically all social media is not even being aware that shipping was a thing at all until recently, and being completely sheltered from basically all the stupidity of it. (Well, okay, most of it. I do play Genshin. But for as much of a reputation as those folks have, shipping tends to be pretty benign and accepting there.)

azuarc posted...

(Well, okay, most of it. I do play Genshin. But for as much of a reputation as those folks have, shipping tends to be pretty benign and accepting there.)

You sweet summer child.

The Genshin M/M shippers have one of the worst reputations on the market at the moment for any active fanbase, lol.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

You sweet summer child.

The Genshin M/M shippers have one of the worst reputations on the market at the moment for any active fanbase, lol.

...Dare I ask why this is?

The core of the issue, from how I understand it (I have not gotten very far into Genshin myself yet), is two fold: One, there are several charactera that large portions of the fandom consider to be "sibling coded", even though they completely unrelated, thus shipping them is incest, and the other issue is there are some characters that are "Underage coded", even though they're adults, so if you ship them you're a pedophile.

Yep, called Buffalo Gals.

Not like Genshin already has enough actual underage characters

Crescent-Moon posted...

As someone who watched all of Voltron, seasons 7 and 8 went full on Shonen anime and it really wasn't a direction they needed to end the show with.

Also uh.. I was never aware of any ships between Shiro/Keith/Lance and I also never thought any coupling of them might occur so that's sure a thing to hear.

I still like season 7 and wish it would have ended there. Season 8 as far as I'm concerned doesn't exist and I thought that's what it was gonna be on the list for. I forgot about the shipping stuff...

#64: Well Excuuuuuse Me, Princess!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/4/8/AAAG8cAAEoJ4.jpg
This is why Link doesn't talk.

The Legend Of Zelda animated series aired in 1989 as part of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. It got 13 episodes, based on the original NES games, and was the first adaptation of any sort of the Legend Of Zelda series. Though it had its moments, with some solid action and references to the games, it's mostly infamous for how it decided to characterize the game's protagonist Link, who was given a speaking voice for the first time. Though Link remains brave and heroic, he's often rude to Princess Zelda, often shown trying to get a kiss from her despite her annoyance with him. That leads us to Link's "catchphrase", which he says whenever Zelda displays too much of this annoyance for Link's liking. When she did, he almost always responded with an exasperated "Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, princess!", and an infamous moment in the history of video game adaptations was born. The games portray Link as a selfless, courageous hero, but here he just comes off as a whiny jerk, and we're supposed to root for this guy? Apparently, that's the sort of thing that passed for humor in the late 80s/early 90s era of cartoons in which this was made, but it usually came off as more annoying than funny. Later, gamers did manage to make Link's catchphrase into a meme, redeeming it somewhat, but it's still a shame that the only Legend of Zelda animated adaptation we got had to slap Link with such an annoying catchphrase, and we can only hope that the inevitable animated movie adaptation makes Link a bit less whiny.

RySenkari posted...

#64: Well Excuuuuuse Me, Princess!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/4/8/AAAG8cAAEoJ4.jpg
This is why Link doesn't talk.

The Legend Of Zelda animated series aired in 1989 as part of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. It got 13 episodes, based on the original NES games, and was the first adaptation of any sort of the Legend Of Zelda series. Though it had its moments, with some solid action and references to the games, it's mostly infamous for how it decided to characterize the game's protagonist Link, who was given a speaking voice for the first time. Though Link remains brave and heroic, he's often rude to Princess Zelda, often shown trying to get a kiss from her despite her annoyance with him. That leads us to Link's "catchphrase", which he says whenever Zelda displays too much of this annoyance for Link's liking. When she did, he almost always responded with an exasperated "Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, princess!", and an infamous moment in the history of video game adaptations was born. The games portray Link as a selfless, courageous hero, but here he just comes off as a whiny jerk, and we're supposed to root for this guy? Apparently, that's the sort of thing that passed for humor in the late 80s/early 90s era of cartoons in which this was made, but it usually came off as more annoying than funny. Later, gamers did manage to make Link's catchphrase into a meme, redeeming it somewhat, but it's still a shame that the only Legend of Zelda animated adaptation we got had to slap Link with such an annoying catchphrase, and we can only hope that the inevitable animated movie adaptation makes Link a bit less whiny.

Sounds a bit like Han Solo. I am sure that's what they were going for.

#63: Jabberjaw

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/7/1/AAAG8cAAEoKP.jpg
Just when you thought it was safe to turn on Saturday morning cartoons...

The first thing to appear on this list that also appeared in the original 100 Dumbest TV Moments book, Jabberjaw showed up as an (dis)honorable mention on that list, and at the time I actually wondered why. Jabberjaw's actually a bit of an iconic character who'd shown up a ton on Cartoon Network, and at the time I thought his cartoon was well received... but upon doing some research I realized that I couldn't have been more wrong. Created in 1976 to capitalize on the shark craze started by Jaws a year earlier, Jabberjaw combined elements of shows like Scooby-Doo and Josie and the Pussycats, with a talking shark (who talks like one of the Three Stooges, God help me) who teams up with a band of teenagers to take down villains. That's... pretty much it, with most of the show's humor revolving around Jabberjaw himself and the lack of respect he gets as he goes around the ocean trying to help people (he even straight up steals Rodney Dangerfield's catchphrase "I get no respect!"), as if this show wasn't derivative enough. We've all heard about just how bad animation got in the 1970s, but with the repetitive and formulaic Jabberjaw it may have truly reached its nadir. Despite only lasting 16 episodes (15 too many if you ask anyone who's actually seen the show), Jabberjaw himself, as I mentioned before, survived to show his mug in other cartoons over the years, though he never really improved on his original incarnation, and the only reason he might've been more entertaining is because he appeared in smaller doses. Either way, Jabberjaw represents an animation industry that had begun scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas, and though the bar would fall even lower at times (we've got 62 more rankings to go, remember), it's rare to see such an uninspired idea for an animated comedy.

If you do some more digging youll find that Hanna-Barbera had some truly awful derivative shows much worse than Jabberjaw. They seriously have like 10 or 15 different shows from that era that were basically Scooby-Doo but slightly different.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/7/AADIBqAAEoKp.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/8/AADIBqAAEoKq.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/9/AADIBqAAEoKr.jpg

what the fuck

goober and the ghost chasers is so lazy. at least make the dog a different animal.

#62: The Legend Of Korra Moves To Friday Night For Season Two

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/0/5/AAAG8cAAEoKx.jpg
It's all Bolin's fault, he didn't want to get up that early on Saturdays.

The Legend Of Korra was the critically acclaimed successor series to Avatar: The Last Airbender, debuting in 2012. After a successful season one in which the show averaged right around four million viewers in its Saturday morning timeslot, the show would see a steep ratings decline for season two, followed by being removed from Nickelodeon's schedule entirely halfway into season three, with season four also relegated to online and the Nicktoons network. Fans will give you lots of different reasons why the show went into such a steep ratings decline, but here I'd like to posit a fairly simple solution: the move from Saturday mornings to Friday nights for the show's second season. Nick may have had many reasons for moving the show: its mature subject matter made it inappropriate for a morning audience, it may have noted the success of iCarly and Victorious in nighttime slots and wanted to repeat that success... but ultimately, when the show moved to Friday night, its ratings fell almost immediately, bleeding a million viewers from the season 1 finale to the season 2 premiere, and falling off sharply soon after that. Why was Korra such a success on Saturday mornings? Ultimately, Saturday mornings are were Nickelodeon traditionally aired its biggest cartoons. Yes, there actually was a crossover audience between Spongebob Squarepants and The Legend Of Korra: kids liked both shows, despite the vastly different subject matter, and the shows helped boost each other's ratings via cross promotion. When Korra was removed from its home on Saturday mornings to stand on its own, it had to rely on hardcore fans only, with few new people having the opportunity to discover the show. There are other factors at play, certainly, but the biggest one and the easiest one to control was the timeslot, and the fact of the matter is that Nickelodeon blew it by moving Korra. There's an old saying, "you dance with who brung you", and when Nick ditched its Saturday morning dance partner, it left Korra twisting in the wind. The move from Saturday morning to Friday night didn't kill Korra,, but it inflicted a slow and festering wound that would lead to the series being pulled from Nickelodeon entirely within just two years.

Scooby Doo was just a misguided attempt to ripoff Lupin III anyways.

Yeah, say what you will about jabber jaw, it isn't any more derivative than a host of marvel or DC characters

As opposed to some of those direct rip offs

RySenkari posted...

64: Well Excuuuuuse Me, Princess!

I'm sorry I thought this was 100 dumbest events in children's television history not 100 awesome events in children's television history.

TheRock1525 posted...

I'm sorry I thought this was 100 dumbest events in children's television history not 100 awesome events in children's television history.

Agreed. Obnoxious Link was way better than silent protagonist Link. And his catchphrase was based on Steve Martin's over the top bit. I found it hilarious as a kid and I have friends that will still bust out the line over 30 years later to be intentionally obnoxious. Funny then and still funny now.

Nickelodeon fucking hated Korra. It's wild.

KamikazePotato posted...

Nickelodeon fucking hated Korra. It's wild.

I wonder what endgame goal for the character could have caused Nickelodeon to try and tuck the show away....

What they did to Simon Belmont is far worse.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I wonder what endgame goal for the character could have caused Nickelodeon to try and tuck the show away....

Certainly not something that also doomed another cartoon already mentioned on this list.

Yeah you're being too tough on Jabberjaw. It's just kind of a run-of-the-mill bad cartoon, and yet it's above some legitimately disturbing stuff that's already shown up. Same with the Link thing. If it even belongs on the list at all, it should be down in like the 90s.

Is this just the original timeslot move for Korra or the whole affair?

Its absolutely wild how Nick made the exact wrong decision at every step. The first season was a ratings smash that was winning awards left and right. So of course they hit the ratings by moving it to a worse timeslot but its still doing pretty well. So then of course they let three episodes of the next season leak, and rather than just do what every other series does they panic and release the season early with one weeks notice plus no press causing ratings to tank. Do they try to right this? No they just put it all online, then as one last screw you they cut the budget forcing the showrunners to either drop an episode or fire people. They could easily avoided all of that.

Oh this is a cool concept, tag

Yeah I have to agree with the fact you're being a little too hard on Jabberjaw. Was it good? Not really, but I was never like offended to the level to place it on a list like this. Plus as you stated yourself, Jabberjaw is a fairly iconic HB character; most people of a certain age are going to be aware of who he is. Granted that doesn't automatically give you a pass but I feel like there are worse ripoffs out there (some were presented even).

RySenkari posted...

#63: Jabberjaw

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/7/1/AAAG8cAAEoKP.jpg
Just when you thought it was safe to turn on Saturday morning cartoons...

The first thing to appear on this list that also appeared in the original 100 Dumbest TV Moments book, Jabberjaw showed up as an (dis)honorable mention on that list, and at the time I actually wondered why. Jabberjaw's actually a bit of an iconic character who'd shown up a ton on Cartoon Network, and at the time I thought his cartoon was well received... but upon doing some research I realized that I couldn't have been more wrong. Created in 1976 to capitalize on the shark craze started by Jaws a year earlier, Jabberjaw combined elements of shows like Scooby-Doo and Josie and the Pussycats, with a talking shark (who talks like one of the Three Stooges, God help me) who teams up with a band of teenagers to take down villains. That's... pretty much it, with most of the show's humor revolving around Jabberjaw himself and the lack of respect he gets as he goes around the ocean trying to help people (he even straight up steals Rodney Dangerfield's catchphrase "I get no respect!"), as if this show wasn't derivative enough. We've all heard about just how bad animation got in the 1970s, but with the repetitive and formulaic Jabberjaw it may have truly reached its nadir. Despite only lasting 16 episodes (15 too many if you ask anyone who's actually seen the show), Jabberjaw himself, as I mentioned before, survived to show his mug in other cartoons over the years, though he never really improved on his original incarnation, and the only reason he might've been more entertaining is because he appeared in smaller doses. Either way, Jabberjaw represents an animation industry that had begun scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas, and though the bar would fall even lower at times (we've got 62 more rankings to go, remember), it's rare to see such an uninspired idea for an animated comedy.

Nobody likes Soggy Scooby.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I wonder what endgame goal for the character could have caused Nickelodeon to try and tuck the show away....

That may have been a factor in Season 4 (and maybe 3) but I don't think Korra/Asami was actually planned out very far. Everything that happened before that was due to sheer, unbridled network incompetence.

Also Korra and Spongebob cross promotion reminds me of that infamous meme.

Korra/Asami was planned from the season 3 writing stage I believe, so probably just after the initial timeslot shenanigans but before the rest of it.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Scooby Doo was just a misguided attempt to ripoff Lupin III anyways.

Huh? Scooby Doo is older than the Lupin III anime.

All the Scooby-Doo knockoffs actually just make the original cast more impressive. Really shows how evergreen the OG character designs/personalities are. The concept may be simple, but the execution is what gave it insanely broad appeal.

Xeybozn posted...

Huh? Scooby Doo is older than the Lupin III anime.

Not the manga!

Also it's mainly just a series of funny coincidences as seen in 56:18 here.

https://youtu.be/Tif-n3QpQgE

#61: Re-Animated/Out Of Jimmy's Head

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/1/5/AAAG8cAAEoMf.jpg
"You're telling me a boy just happens to have cartoon characters living in his head like that? No! He orchestrated it! Jimmy!"

A two-for-one for this entry, in which Cartoon Network tried desperately to get you to love this boy and all the cartoons living in his brain. The original film, Re-Animated, was the network's first attempt at an original movie, and it featured a boy named Jimmy who, after a near fatal accident, has the brain of a famous animator transplanted into his head (but somehow retains his original personality?), causing him to see a bunch of cartoon characters. Eventually, when the son of the original animator comes after him for his brain, he has to fight back. Also, apparently Jimmy's sister is an alien. Somehow, this movie did well enough for a whole series to be made with Jimmy and his cartoon pals experiencing the trials and tribulations of everyday life. This series, no surprise, had an even worse reception than the movie, and ended up being canceled after one season. Now, the idea of a live-action/animation hybrid featuring a real world person interacting with cartoon characters isn't bad in and of itself, but why didn't Cartoon Network just use its own characters, of which it has many? Seeing a kid interacting with characters like Bloo and Johnny Bravo might've actually been fun, but there really wasn't anything fun about these characters created for the movie and show, which are essentially expys of classic Disney characters. The movie and show are remembered as an infamous example of Cartoon Network attempting to introduce live action programming, but it wouldn't be the last time they'd do so, as you may see later on this list...

Underleveled posted...

Yeah you're being too tough on Jabberjaw. It's just kind of a run-of-the-mill bad cartoon, and yet it's above some legitimately disturbing stuff that's already shown up. Same with the Link thing. If it even belongs on the list at all, it should be down in like the 90s.

To be fair, I'm not being as hard on it as the original book did, if you count only kids' show moments, he had Jabberjaw tied for #3. So I'm being nice to Jabberjaw comparatively :P But I see what you mean... the reason I felt Jabberjaw was so dumb compared to all those other ripoffs is that Jabberjaw's the one they kept trying to ram down our throats even after it got canceled. Hanna-Barbera was basically saying "you will like this character, dammit!", even after kids made it clear that no, they did not. But I do see what you mean.

Same with Link... I know some of these moments are legitimately beloved by lots of people, same as with the other list (they had the St. Elsewhere finale twist in the top 30 and a lot of critics thought that was BRILLIANT), so "dumb" is definitely in the eyes of the beholder here.

LightningStrikes posted...

Is this just the original timeslot move for Korra or the whole affair?

The original timeslot move, which I feel enabled all the other dumb stuff that ended up happening.

I think for long lists like these, the ordering matters less than the content. Owl House is only #100 and that was bananas if you look at the behind-the-scenes reasoning.

KamikazePotato posted...

I think for long lists like these, the ordering matters less than the content. Owl House is only #100 and that was bananas if you look at the behind-the-scenes reasoning.

This is how I feel as well. I'm not fussed over the relatively harmlessness of HB trying to make Jabberjaw work being over fandoms almost driving people to suicide. Content is great and I'm learning a bunch of stuff that I didn't necessarily know!

Lmao I remember Out of Jimmy's Head. Or at least the images. Couldn't tell you a thing about the show or movie though.

Yeah I would absolutely place Owl House much higher if the ordering were an all-important thing (haven't sat down and watched it myself but my daughter's a huge fan and I've seen enough bits of it that way)

Print the book later, then let the masses argue about the order too.

Ah yes, the CN Real era.

Aka "DIsney at Home", except if you had access to Cartoon Net- sorry CN... you probably also had access to Disney.

So why?

RySenkari posted...

To be fair, I'm not being as hard on it as the original book did, if you count only kids' show moments, he had Jabberjaw tied for #3. So I'm being nice to Jabberjaw comparatively :P But I see what you mean... the reason I felt Jabberjaw was so dumb compared to all those other ripoffs is that Jabberjaw's the one they kept trying to ram down our throats even after it got canceled. Hanna-Barbera was basically saying "you will like this character, dammit!", even after kids made it clear that no, they did not. But I do see what you mean.

At least they didn't get to the point where they were having random Jabberjaw marathons like Scooby got all the time.

Dark_Young_Link posted...

Anyway predictions

The Great Gazoo (Flintstones)

He said that shows intended for a general audience wouldn't count and even used The Flintstones as an example.

I mean on the subject of this era and given that this list is US-only I have a UK/Ireland specific moment in my back pocket that I will regale you all with when CN Real and the sheer hubris of CN/Turner in the late 2000s inevitably comes up here.

Underleveled posted...

He said that shows intended for a general audience wouldn't count and even used The Flintstones as an example.

Uh, I think he just used the cigarette commercial as an example not the show itself. You really believe that The Flintstones is not a children's animation show...?

Underleveled posted...

He said that shows intended for a general audience wouldn't count and even used The Flintstones as an example.

Ah, well scratch that prediction then.
(Though I still question "Who wanted him?")

#60: Everyone Drops The Ball On Class Of 3000

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/3/3/AAAG8cAAEoMx.jpg
"Never meant to make the fandom cry. I apologize a trillion times."

Cartoon Network's Class of 3000 was a collaboration between the network and Outkast member Andre "3000" Benjamin, focused on a class of talented young musicians in Atlanta. Featuring a wide variety of fun characters and an eclectic mix of animation and unique music, the show proved to be a critical success, though its ratings didn't quite match the reception it received. Regardless, it did well enough that most believed it would get at least three seasons, and it cultivated a small but quite enthusiastic fandom, who were eagerly awaiting news on the show's third season going into 2008. Unfortunately, that third season never happened, and though some attributed the cancellation to the show's slowly declining ratings, the real truth is an unfortunate tragedy of errors that forever left a bitter taste in the mouths of the fandom. The show was, in some ways, a victim of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Mooninite "bomb" scandal, which led to a regime change at Cartoon Network that removed Jim Samples, who'd been one of the show's biggest champions. In addition, Andre 3000 himself found himself too busy to submit new music for the show, leading to costly production delays that ultimately made Class Of 3000 too much of a liability to hold onto. Had one of those things not happened... the Mooninite incident, Andre 3000 being too busy, the low (but not too low) ratings, Class of 3000 might've survived. The show fell victim to one of the most unfortunate combinations of factors in modern television history, and ultimately fell into a degree of obscurity, leaving its fandom carrying the torch for one of the most unique shows to ever air on Cartoon Network.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/3/4/AAeolZAAEoMy.jpg

v_charon posted...

Uh, I think he just used the cigarette commercial as an example not the show itself. You really believe that The Flintstones is not a children's animation show...?

Flintstones wasn't a children's show. There's not even much to argue about there.

Damn yeah I liked Class of 3,000. Wasn't the biggest fan or anything as it was just past my prime CN and Nickelodeon watching days but yeah it was good.