OMGJeremy

The Worst Of The Worst 80s Cartoons

“Sacrilege!,” you’re probably screaming right now. But let’s face it. As much quality programming as the Eighties gave us, there was also a lot of crap. And some really bad crap at that. Today, I’m going to dig deep down into our collective subconscious and unearth the repressed memories of bad 80s cartoon shows. Why? We must realize that with the gift of giant transforming robots, comes the dire consequences of shows like Jem, Captain Planet, and New Kids on the Block.

Jem

I don’t remember much about this show, having seen it only once and vowing never to watch it again. I checked out the plot at YesterdayLand.com, and according to them, Jem revolves around a girl named Jerrica who uses a computer to turn herself into a superstar. She then gathers a group of orphans and forms the all-female band “Jem and the Holograms,” which is constantly battling with a bitchy rival band called “The Misfits.” When I first read this, I imagined Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera quarreling like bulldogs. Yeah, it sounds alright at first, but throw in bad fashion, wild hair in a variety of mind-bending colours, and earrings the size of jeep tires, and suddenly it becomes the Chernobyl of animation. Jem was originally created to sell a new brand of dolls to compete with Barbie. I guess their marketing demographic was limited to girls with no sense of sight or touch. Otherwise their ghoulish playthings would have been utterly rejected.

Memory I Wish I Had Kept Repressed: in the second grade I told my classmates that I saw an episode of Jem, and I was ostracized for weeks.

Captain Planet & the Planeteers

I don’t care if the world runs out of trees tomorrow. This wretched show was totally uncalled for. The premise is simple: five kids from around the globe are brought together to fight pollution and the evils of capitalism. They are given amazing elemental powers, except for that Latino kid, who gets stuck with the power of “love.” If the creators of Captain Planet wanted to be less blatant, they could have taken Congress hostage and demanded more environmental laws.

Memory I Wish I Had Kept Repressed: Captain Planet’s mullet.

That Scary Religious Show

I have no idea what it’s called. I was very young when I saw it and it was a French dub. My limited knowledge of the language made it hard to understand. It looked vaguely like anime and centred on Jesus. Because… yeah… Jesus and anime go together like cookies and cream. Anyway, in each episode, a group of peasants would have some problem, which usually seemed to involve sheep. Then Jesus would come along and save the day with his holy message, which usually seemed to involve sheep as well. And I think there may have been a robot involved. That could have just been a side-effect of eating Play-Doh at the time, though.

Memory I Wish I Had Kept Repressed: Jesus always looked stoned out of his mind. He also rarely blinked.

James Bond Jr.

Take a Bond movie. Make the plot (more) incoherent. Add wafer-thin supporting characters with bad pun names like “Marci Beaucoup.” Throw in 007′s slutty nephew. What do you get? Something slightly better than Moonraker, but crap nonetheless. James Bond Jr. was quickly spun off into comic books, action figures, and a video game for the NES. I found the video game to be particularly unpleasant, as the play control was non-existent. But this is another article altogether. I suppose teaching our children to be promiscuous seemed like a good idea at the time as well. But you know those crazy Brits, what with their non-stop street orgies.

Memory I Wish I Had Kept Repressed: the fact that I bought several of the action figures.

New Kids on the Block: The Animated Series

At first, I wasn’t even sure if this existed. But something deep in the back of my mind told me it did. I looked it up, and sure enough, they did squeeze the last remaining popularity of NKOTB into an animated series. Wow. You know how the world let Hitler take over Europe and then later they were all like “shit, we screwed up”? At least Hitler didn’t sing and dance like a girl, while grinding his pelvis at the audience. I’m eternally grateful I never watched this show. Simply being aware of its existence is bad enough. Granted, this particular show was from the 90s, but I couldn’t let it get away that easily.

Said one member of YesterdayLand: “I remeber when me and my cousin was laying on the floor andthe super bowl was on and we heard them and we jumped up were so happy we loved them so much” -lovebear20

LOL OMG I HAD A SIMILAR EXPERIENCE ONLY IT INVOLVED A PILE DRIVER RIPPING INTO MY CHEST CAVITY

Memory I Wish I Had Kept Repressed: going to YesterdayLand to get those pictures was an ordeal in and of itself. I could feel the despair seeping out of my computer screen and clawing at my face.

Honourable Mentions:

Gilligan’s Planet:

What could be more fun than a band of wacky characters stranded on an island? A band of wacky characters stranded on another planet, that’s what! Back in the olden days, when a show’s ratings dropped, the smart thing to do was blast them into outer space for no apparent reason. This was also done with shows like Josie & The Pussycats and The Flintstones. Gilligan’s Planet didn’t last very long, mainly due to the fact that it was a stupid idea to begin with. Also, seeing the Skipper’s fat naked pasty body leaves a lot to be desired… such as… maybe… NOT seeing the Skipper’s fat naked pasty body.

California Raisins:

Designed by some farmer’s association in order to sell more raisins, these “hip” little sun-dried dudes took the world by storm. Now that farmers have stopped putting hallucinogens in their crops, I think we can safely say that a show about talking raisins is about as “hip” as falling into a pile of hacksaws.

Hulk Hogan’s Rock N’ Wrestling:

My weeping says more than words ever could. As does the implied bondage and leopard underwear. (Sorry Billy.)

That wraps up this Gallery of the Damned. As you know, a big part of cartoon shows has always been money. It would be naïve to think otherwise. Even classics like Transformers made heaps of cash from merchandise. But when the main driving force is Mister Quickbuck, the outcome is going to be garbage. And even though the 80s have long since past, the trend towards commercialization has continued. Now, I’m not going to ask you to do something radical like bomb Nintendo’s headquarters for making Pokémon, but…wait, yes I am.

Go to it.