The Worst Shows You Used to Watch When You Were a Kid - I.E. Childhood shows that make you cringe in retrospect.

[JamesFargo]

Looten Plunder is a baller name, it has to be said.

I wonder if DC took inspiration from Dr. Blight when re-inventing Doctor Poison. Both of their faces were scarred in lab accidents.

 

[frozenrunner]

*Fifteen (How did Ryan Reynolds end up getting so many acting jobs??)

I had a huge crush on Laura Harris in that trash.

* The Secret Life of Alex Mack

And I had a huge crush on Alex's older sister. And Alex as well.

 

[Captain Marvelous]

Some things I remember from Captain Planet.
-One of the villains had a gun that sealed the Planeteers up in giant cocoons and they came out as gang members.
-Two of the Planeteers got shot into space, and Captain Planet couldn't send their powers back to them, so he was stuck flying around with earth-tone skin. One of the villains said he had been demoted to Corporal and then laughed.
-Looten Plunder, the business villain, put a bunch of giant glass domes over the Amazon and told everyone they'd have to pay him for air.
-The drug episode.
-Bigfoot and the animal kingdom put the Planeteers on trial for the mankind's crimes against nature. They were found guilty and sentenced to a lifetime of feeling bad about it. Then Bigfoot wiped their memories of the whole affair.
-The AIDS episode.
-One of the villains started dumping garbage all over a random town. Instead of getting angry, everyone in that town just went along with it and started throwing their own trash out into the street. This made Kwame, the black Planeteer, so angry that he quit.

What about the episode where Wheeler was captured by a civilization of rat people whose society was ruined by overpopulation?

 

[melty]

When it was new, I was into Science Court, because I was a science nerd and I enjoyed the science + detective novel elements, even if I found it annoying that there was a designated 'hero lawyer' and a designated villain, and so the conclusion of every case was a foregone conclusion. Later I came back to it when I was trying to remember what it name even was and recoiled in horror from its artstyle. How did I ever even watch that??

Yeah, I wanted to like this one too for those reasons but it was really formulaic even as a kid. Dumb white hair white guy lawyer misunderstands some basic concept. He makes a compelling argument and everyone is convinced he's right. Then smart poc blue hair lady uses SCIENCE to prove that dumb white hair guy is an idiot. It's like I Fucking Love Science the show. But I'm not sure enough people even watched it to have a real connection with that crowd.

Pepper Ann was also in this line up and I remember it being cringe and secondhand embarrassing even as a kid.

 

[JamesFargo]

Dumb white hair white guy lawyer misunderstands some basic concept. He makes a compelling argument and everyone is convinced he's right. Then smart poc blue hair lady uses SCIENCE

The arrogant lawyer smirked quite jewishly.

 

[Alcatraz]

Rocket Power.

Most, if not all, Klasky Csupo shows, tbh

As for a personal example, I really didn't like the old Sonic shows like SatAM and Underground. They're just so, so far removed from the source material, (and its not like it doesn't exist to an extensive degree. Every game for a while had a manual with details about zones and the ongoing plot), they just didn't care and did what they wanted.

Only one I liked was Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog, and that's because it was literally just Looney Tunes with a Sonic skin slapped on top. Can't go wrong with well done slapstick.

 

[starborn427614]

Most, if not all, Klasky Csupo shows, tbh

As for a personal example, I really didn't like the old Sonic shows like SatAM and Underground. They're just so, so far removed from the source material, (and its not like it doesn't exist to an extensive degree. Every game for a while had a manual with details about zones and the ongoing plot), they just didn't care and did what they wanted.

Only one I liked was Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog, and that's because it was literally just Looney Tunes with a Sonic skin slapped on top. Can't go wrong with well done slapstick.

AOSTH is a lot of fun. Hopefully Prime next year can capture a bit of that energy.

 

[Captain Marvelous]

As for a personal example, I really didn't like the old Sonic shows like SatAM and Underground. They're just so, so far removed from the source material, (and its not like it doesn't exist to an extensive degree. Every game for a while had a manual with details about zones and the ongoing plot), they just didn't care and did what they wanted.

You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who likes Underground. Remember, someone pitched the idea of Sonic being in a rock band with his long-lost siblings, who are all voiced by Steve Urkel, and he wasn't laughed out of the conference room.

 

[JamesFargo]

You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who likes Underground. Remember, someone pitched the idea of Sonic being in a rock band with his long-lost siblings, who are all voiced by Steve Urkel, and he wasn't laughed out of the conference room.

Sonic is the gaming equivalent of Spinal Tap. Just following trends.

It's not even fun to laugh at, like other cartoons based on games. It aims to be bland and pointless, and succeeds admirably.

 

[Alcatraz]

You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who likes Underground. Remember, someone pitched the idea of Sonic being in a rock band with his long-lost siblings, who are all voiced by Steve Urkel, and he wasn't laughed out of the conference room.

Sonic is the gaming equivalent of Spinal Tap. Just following trends.

It's not even fun to laugh at, like other cartoons based on games. It aims to be bland and pointless, and succeeds admirably.

It's widely believed Underground was initially made to drum up interest for the Dreamcast, because both the show and the console were starting production in the same year of 1997 and the CEO at the time wanted something to tie in interest... His problem was contacting DiC again instead of letting the contract die off as it should have. The show had over 20 writers, and when the songs were being written, they didn't even have storyboards.

And then it fucking died when Sonic Adventure released the year after. Jaleel who? This Ryan Drummond guy is pretty neat! The next cartoon wouldn't come until Sonic Boom rolled around, and that was a decade and a half later. There just hasn't been much interest in a cartoon series, mostly because SatAM fans are a bunch of retarded children incapable of letting go, and well, vidya games.

I don't have high hopes for Sonic Prime.

Speaking of video game cartoons, I just remembered Tak and the Power of Juju exists. Nickelodeon was on some shit in the mid 2000's.

 

[XYZpdq]

Looten Plunder is a baller name, it has to be said.

I wonder if DC took inspiration from Dr. Blight when re-inventing Doctor Poison. Both of their faces were scarred in lab accidents.

I couldn't list them off the top of my head but I recall most of the Captain Planet villains had pretty cool names.

 

[James Roancrest]

You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who likes Underground. Remember, someone pitched the idea of Sonic being in a rock band with his long-lost siblings, who are all voiced by Steve Urkel, and he wasn't laughed out of the conference room.

For an extra layer of horror, don't forget that Sam Vincent (Double D from Ed, Edd, n' Eddy) was Sonic's singing voice.

 

[JamesFargo]

I'll say this for SatAM. At least Robotnik was somewhat intimidating.

He's slowly starting to fade away as an antagonist. They tried making him neutral, like Bowser, but he's just not as versatile or lovable.

 

[MysticMisty]

Pepper Ann was also in this line up and I remember it being cringe and secondhand embarrassing even as a kid.

I had a neighborhood friend who was super into Pepper Ann. I couldn't relate to the character at all though, probably because I was 9 and allowed to watch PG-13 movies and do "ages 13 and up" puzzles. And yes, I recall those being plot points on at least one occasion.

The educational segments of One Saturday Morning didn't help either. I have a vivid memory of a woman being served a scoop of ice cream in her hand and going "Oh no, I love ice cream but I wish there was something for it to go in instead of my hand." And then a giant puppet elephant started talking about when ice cream cones were invented. I felt insulted, and I was still in elementary school.

 

[Allanon]

Yeah, I wanted to like this one too for those reasons but it was really formulaic even as a kid. Dumb white hair white guy lawyer misunderstands some basic concept. He makes a compelling argument and everyone is convinced he's right. Then smart poc blue hair lady uses SCIENCE to prove that dumb white hair guy is an idiot. It's like I Fucking Love Science the show. But I'm not sure enough people even watched it to have a real connection with that crowd.

Pepper Ann was also in this line up and I remember it being cringe and secondhand embarrassing even as a kid.

where did you even find this comment.

When I was a kid I didn't notice it being POC or blue haired or anything like that - I recognized she had darker skin, but it didn't mean anything to me. I did, however, notice that it was the woman who was always right and the man that was always wrong and I found that irritating. It made me spite-support the antagonist lawyer even though he was Actually Retarded. One episode the man actually thought not only that Summer would just stop coming starting that year on, but that he could successfully sue someone over it.

In retrospect, they accidentally mocked climate change a bit there.

 

[66andtwothirds]

yin yang yo

two and a half men

super mario bros super show

wayside

 

[JamesFargo]

super mario bros super show

That show was weird. I didn't watch it, but I had a VHS with three episodes, minus the Captain Lou segments.

It seems like they would wander from country to country, including Ming China or fighting alongside "General Washingtoad". Then a fight would break out, accompanied by an oldie like, "Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting" (China) or "He's a Rebel" (Revolutionary War).

 

[Akumaten]

Speaking of video game cartoons,

I like to include the Earthworm Jim cartoon

 

[Captain Marvelous]

Speaking of video game cartoons

Anyone ever watch Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures? They actually gave him Mario-esque power-ups.

 

[ln18]

I liked Science Court because it looked like Dr. Katz, which I loved. Same for early Home Movies and the BET show Hey Monie.