The 10 Greatest Anti-Drug Cartoon Episodes

Posted at 5:00 AM Aug 11, 2008

By Todd Ciolek

The TV cartoons of our childhood lived by a few simple rules: toy lines must be pushed, animation must be cheap, and, to keep the parents happy, lessons must be learned. And in Nancy Reagan’s America, there was no more important lesson for young viewers than the one about saying no to drugs. Nearly every cartoon in the nation dedicated an episode to exploring the evils of controlled substances, all overseen by producers who were likely doing blow off of Care Bears cels. Hey, it was the ’80s.

This made for some of the most hypocritical, heavy-handed moralizing ever animated, but there were deeper forces at work. For the stranger shows, it was a challenge to work cocaine symbolism into The Biskitts or Mighty Orbots. For the writers frustrated with the nobody-ever-dies precept of American cartoons, it was an opportunity to finally kill someone off. For kids, it was a chance to show mom and dad that those lousy Saturday-morning irritants were saving you from a life of shooting heroin or fencing stolen TVs. For us, it’s an excuse to recall the most memorable anti-drug cartoon episodes of the last 30 years and reflect on how little they actually taught us.

10) He-Man: “A Friend in Need”

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe all but introduced cartoons to the practice of cramming values down kids’ throats, as each episode ended with a character insufferably spelling out the lesson instilled by the preceding story. For the sharper viewers who made a game out of spotting the obvious themes, the episode “A Friend in Need” threw them a softball. During a visit to the capital of Eternia, Teela’s timid friend Ileena finds herself wishing to be stronger and braver, and her habit of expressing her insecurities aloud draws the attention of her father’s worst enemy, a mincing wizard named Jarvan. Needlessly dabbling in cross-dressing, Jarvan posses as an old woman and gives Ileena a mysterious vial. While steroids might’ve served her better, the nameless concoction turns Ileena into a danger-loving party girl.

Online Videos by Veoh.com
As per the standard anti-drug credo, Ileena is soon betraying friends for her fix while Jarvan is threatening to destroy the kingdom with a shrink ray. He’s undone by the Eternian version of a drug sting, with He-Man playing the role of the pun-spouting, overly smug Narc.

The Drug: Some form of magic cocaine, though He-Man later tells us that there aren’t any “magic drugs.” This raises the question of just what the hell Ileena was on.
The Lesson: Taking drugs? That’s for losers! Using drugs in a ruse to trap an evil sorcerer? That’s for heroes like He-Man!

9) Thundercats: “Crystal Canyon”

Like most animated TV fare in the ’80s, Thundercats was a bit too far from real life to feature genuine marijuana and coke. When the obligatory anti-drug episode rolled around, it fell to a restorative crystal to get one of the Thundercats addicted. Upon crashing in some glittering caverns, Lion-O, Tygra, Snarf, and the blind, aged Lynx-O discover a green gem that heals their injuries (though not Lynx-O’s blindness). Tygra, best known as the Thundercats figure you got when Toys “R” Us was all out of Lion-Os, grows a bit too fond of the magical, energy-giving keystone. It’s not long before he’s running around feverishly, challenging Lion-O’s alpha-male status, and shunning Snarf’s attempts to feed him. We can’t blame him for the last of these.

Tygra is eventually robbed of his crystallized meth by Alluro, a pink second-stringer in the Thundercats villain ranks. Alluro becomes just as hooked on the keystone, using its power to capture Lion-O and Lynx-O while Tygra trembles in withdrawal. Fortunately, Lion-O’s sword signal snaps Tygra out of it and spurs him to fight Alluro. The crystal’s knocked into a bottomless gorge, and Alluro follows it to his defeat. Tygra declines to help his stranded foe, and instead reflects that he almost met the same fate.

The Drug: The Keystone seems to be some kind of amphetamine, though Lion-O’s sword is apparently an even more effective upper.
The Lesson: Drug addiction is a horrible thing, but not when it happens to ugly people who you hate.

8) C.O.P.S.: "The Case of the Lowest Crime”

One would expect C.O.P.S. to come down on drugs harder than any other ’80s cartoon, since the show’s good guys were rhyme-spouting police officers of the future. In the episode focusing on “the lowest crime,” however, it’s the show’s villains who get the most screen time to take a firm, drug-denouncing stand against Crystal Twist, a sparkling new drug working its way through Empire City. Addictem, the haggard, white-haired dealer who’s apparently supplying an entire metropolitan area, offers to cut the show’s normally corrupt head villain, Big Boss, in on the Crystal Twist business. A furious Big Boss has Addictem thrown out and proclaims that “Drugs KILL!” Apparently city-controlling gangsters never do.

Big Boss makes his annoying underlings swear they’ll never touch drugs, which sets up a scene where his nephew Berserko accidentally falls into Addictem’s next shipment of Crystal Twist. Shocked by the effects of drugs, Big Boss and his cronies throw in with the C.O.P.S. forces. Their mutual sweep of the city chases Addictem to a local hospital, where the recovered Berserko grabs him and threatens to “thank him” in private. With that, the city is instantly free of drugs. The police close the case with a stern warning and a photo of a horrified Addictem, who’s clearly contemplating all the “thanks” a scrawny guy like him will get in prison.

The Drug: Crystal Twist is evidently meth, though it’s absorbed instantly through the skin and shaped like giant Lisa Frank earrings.
The Lesson: Don’t do drugs, because other forms of crime are more fun and less harmful. Selling drugs is implicitly lower than rape, murder, or blowing up the sun.

7) The Smurfs: “The Lure of the Orb”

There’s something vaguely disingenuous about the Smurfs denouncing drugs. Sure, it’s not as two-faced as the episode of A Pup Named Scooby Doo where the infamous stoner dog exclaims “Drugs? Yecch!”, but the Smurfs did live in mushrooms and, in their first movie, were met by humans who’d been hypnotized into a peyote-like fever dream. Yet the Smurfs were still cartoon characters, and they had to take a stand on the nation’s drug issue.

We would’ve pegged Jokey Smurf as the resident druggie, but it’s the underused Poet Smurf who shows kids the dangers of addiction. With his creativity running dry, Poet finds a muse in a mysterious fairy who offers him a magic orb. The drug stand-in gives Poet renewed energy, and he shares it with other occupationally classified Smurfs. Yet the orb leaves them spent and depressed, so Hefty Smurf, possibly in the grip of roid rage, destroys it. Yes, it’s just like the time your dad smashed that flute-thing he found in your big brother’s room, kids.

Undaunted, Poet and some of the more addicted Smurfs seek out the fairy and end up becoming her servants in exchange for a taste of another orb. Everything’s set to rights by the end of the tale, though it would’ve been easier to do an anti-drug episode where the Smurfs just got high by eating their own roofs.

The Drug: The orb is probably the least drug-like of any cartoon cocaine. Granted, any real drugs in the Smurfs universe were likely dubbed “smurf” and smurf.”
The Lesson: It’s always the artsy types who get into drugs and drag their friends down with them. That’s why you should major in accounting when you get to college.

6) Galaxy High: “The Brain Blaster”

There was no way Galaxy High could dodge an anti-drug segment. The show was set at an intergalactic high school, after all, and one of the two human kids there was Doyle, a dense and impressionable jock. Desperately trying to get his grades up in time for a psyche-hockey tournament, Doyle turns to a Brain Blaster headset supplied by an oily, trench-coat-wearing pusher. By frying his neurons, Doyle becomes a brilliant, energetic kid, passing tests and drawing concern from his friends, including fellow human student Aimee and at least one alien voiced by Nancy “Bart Simpson” Cartwright.

Yet Doyle’s in over his head, and he starts ripping off other students to pay his dealer’s increasing brain-blast rates. After he’s caught buying supplies in the Galaxy High equivalent of inner-city projects, he’s pulled back from the brink and thrust into the psyche-hockey tournament without any chemical help. Doyle loses, but both his opponent and the school’s dealer are both arrested for trafficking in brain-blaster narcotics.

We may never know if it was the show’s slightly smarter-than-average approach to the subject or its surprisingly decent animation that impressed someone, but either way, Galaxy High’s just-say-no episode earned a Humanitas nomination. That’s more than you can say for the Smurfs.

The Drug: Brain-blasting sounds quite useful, since it allows users to infuse their minds with a celebrity’s knowledge. And the government over-regulated it. Bastards.
The Lesson: You can abuse drugs as long as you give them up right before you get caught. And as long as you’re white.