The 10 Most Unnecessarily Horrible and Horribly Unnecessary Cartoon Sidekicks
Posted at 5:03 AM Jan 14, 2009
By Rob Bricken and Brian HeilerIf last summer's movie ticket sales have shown anything, it's that superheroes are popular enough to be enjoyed by more than just children and nerds. We are finally at a point where Hollywood is taking superheroes seriously--but there was a time not long ago when soulless executives thought that the wee children couldn't handle a pure superhero tale, and made sure to include a goofy sidekick character with every superhero cartoon. These executives could not have been more wrong, and we hope they're all dead now. A few of these unnecessary characters were reasonably harmless to their series, although none of them were actually funny. Some were terrible, dumbing down the show far past the point execs thought the cartoons had already dumbed down the show (cartoon makers assumed children were gibbering idiots in the '70s and '80s, who would shove a toothbrush up our nose and straight into our brain unless told otherwise by our cartoon heroes). And then some of these sidekicks can be used to prove that there is no God, as no loving God would ever have let innocent children suffer through the horror of their mincing antics and rampant imbecility. Here are those 10.
When Sandy Frank Productions brought the fantastic Japanese cartoon series Gatchaman to U.S. screens as Battle of the Planets, Frank made a few changes--he gave the five psychotic teens who dressed like birds American names, turned the gender-switching Zoltar into an evil brother and sister team, and cut out virtually all of the violence. But the most glaring addition was the series' new narrator, a robot who appeared not once in the original, which you might have figured out since he wasn't even animated. 7-Zark-7 was designed solely to rip off the lovable R2-D2 in the recent blockbuster Star Wars. The robot rarely moved, and yet his screen time exactly equaled the running time of all the cool violence left on the cutting room floor. And did we mention he had a robot puppy?
9) Orko from Masters of the Universe
Filmation had a bad habit of saddling their action series with comic relief characters, and their most famous was Orko, the effeminate pixie-like magician who made life hard for He-Man and the other Masters of the Universe. While Orko's spirit was willing, he was a terrible screw-up whose spells invariable turned He-Man into stone or warped Man-at-Arms to another dimension, taking valuable time away from Skeletor's ass. However, he very occasionally saved the day, when means he's not as bad as many of the other fuck-ups on this list. Plus, since he never showed his face, we could pretend he looked like a Lovecraft beastie under than hat.
8) Marvin from Superfriends
Of the two horrible, worthless kids that followed the Superfriends around in 1973, Wendy was the more tolerable of the two mostly because she filled her days yelling at Marvin. Marvin was just a mess, a deadly combination of whiny, boastful and immature that endeared him to no one, not the audience, and not the Superfriends (one imagines that the Bruce Timm-era Justice League would launch him into an air lock). The Superfriends themselves were watered down enough without this punk making them suck worse. Thankfully, Hanna Barbera decided to retool the series a few years later and Marvin (along with poor Wendy) went away to that remote prison they sent Chuck Cunningham.
7) Needle from Conan the Adventurer
Robert E. Howard's Conan isn't exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think "kid's show" but that's exactly what he got in the early '90s. Of course, they had to take out 90% of the stuff that made conan interesting, especially the killing and the sex, resulting in very little. Conan was no longer a barbarian thief out for his own gain but a noble adventurer, and adding insult to injury he was saddled with a talking bird sidekick named Needle. Needle's sole role in the series was to get captured and teach kids how annoying it was to speak in the third person. The real Conan would have pieces of Needle in his stool several hours after he met him.
6) Baby Plas from The Plastic Man Comedy Show
Somebody decided that the second season of Plastic Man needed a baby; one assumes this person was in fact Satan. So Plastic Man's gal Penny had a kid (one assumed they got married during her third trimester), and Baby Plas was born, a tot so awful he didn't even get a real name from his parents. Baby Plas was to Plastic Man what Scrappy was to Scoopy Doo--an obnoxious minature copy of the title character who fulfilled none of the functions. His lame antics turned a whimsical adventure series into an unwatchable cartoon atrocity. It also didn't help that his appearance frightened small children.
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Comments
How can Scrappy Doo NOT be on this list? I thought he would be top 3 for sure. God I wanted to see him get ran over.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 05:56:41 AMMan Captain Flunky I 100% agree Scrappy Doo sucked! I wish had ate him.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 06:20:00 AMI've been told that while in high school, I looked a lot like Marvin from "Super Friends." I never dated a chick as hot as Wendy, that's for sure.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 06:21:51 AMAnd thanks for leaving T-Bob OFF of this list ... for some reason, I've always loved that guy.
Damn I sound like a dumbass, my comment should have read: "Man Capatain Flunky, I agree 100%, Scrappy Doo sucked! I wish Scooby had ate him."
What I get for trying to work while typing.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 06:24:06 AMNot sure Brian but keeping it as I wish I ate him, makes it a bit more personal.
and I am glad Scrappy is not on here, he was so bad he should not even be given the right to be on any list.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 06:27:33 AMI agree with Captain Flunky, where's Scrappy Doo the prototype for shitnugget sidekicks?
Orko wasn't that bad. I can't believe he made the "top ten" when there are countless other spazzes out there. Orko's character design is cool and Final Fantasy copied his ass with the black mage.
I would have added Scrappy Doo, Scott Trakker & T-Bob from M.A.S.K., Daniel Witwicky from Transformers, Elmyra Duff from Pinky and the Brain, Baby Smurf, Molly from Talespin, or Gameboy from Captain N' The Game Master before putting Orko on this list.
Snarf is the #1 shitnugget of them all. Thank you for stating it so.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 06:31:55 AMSnarf made my eyes bleed even at age five. A worthy #1 indeed. God I hate that fucking cat. Er.... rodent. Er...possum? Er...Snarf.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 06:35:10 AMBWAHAHAHA! I've never watched that '70s FF show before, and that origin story made me laugh out loud. "Reed Richards was turned into a stretch-guy! Sue Storm became invisible! Ben Grimm became a muscle man! And HERBIE was... totally fine, apparently!" And he just waves and flies out of the DEMOLISHED COCKPIT. They even make Ben Grimm sound like he's a lucky dude, and not a hideous freak.
And how is HERBIE the group's "newest member," when he was obviously there WHEN THE GROUP FORMED. (In this bastardized alternate reality, of course.)
Was HERBIE ever in the comics? He was so much fun to write in TTT, and I would love to read some actual stories. I had a coloring book with him as a kid, but a storybook I got later in the early '80s had the Torch in it. (I will never watch this cartoon.)
Posted 01/14/2009 at 06:48:37 AMThanks for including Newton on this list. I would've been able to tolerate a stutter or stammer, but the way he said everything twice was singularly annoying. I'm sure Toot would agree with me if he had been able to speak instead of playing that flute.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 07:05:04 AMI thought Scrappy would have been number 1 let alone on the list. He is the god damned archetype of worthless assed comedic mascots!
Posted 01/14/2009 at 07:20:27 AMAlso, Glomer from Punky Brewster, Mr.Cool from Fonzie and the Happy Days Gang or whatever it was called, as well as the stupid mice from Voltron.
Dreadfully horrible, all of them.
I laughed my ass off. Why the HELL was there a bat mite, who the hell made these decisions? Might current day cartoons actually have redeeming features to them? I mean, i guess it's not the 90s, but holy balls.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 07:24:41 AMAnyone find it weird that in the Superfriends intro, powers are illustrated like this?
Superman: saves runaway train
Wonderwoman: flies invisible jet, uses lasso of truth
Aquaman: organizes army of sea creatures
Batman: gives junior Superfriends a lift?
Is Bats on dad duty?
Posted 01/14/2009 at 07:26:37 AMZach, John Byrne wound up introducing HERBIE to Marvel comics continuity during his early-'80s FF run ... he played a very minor role, if I remember correctly. I think sticking him in there was a joke on Byrne's part.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 07:30:37 AMByrne hasn't been that funny in 20 years and counting. Not intentionally so, anyway.
I'm going to join the "why no Scrappy?"-ers...or if Scrappy is too arguably necessary, what about Flim Flam from 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo?
Posted 01/14/2009 at 08:48:14 AMAll good choices ... but ... but ...
No Godzooky?
Posted 01/14/2009 at 09:17:20 AMscrappy? bullet to the head. that other f'in doo cousin the foofur looking puss? bullet to the head. and snarf had his own sidekick: snarfer. nuke'm til the glow then shoot'em in the dark.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 09:22:37 AMScrappy did suck and he is the worst of the worst when it comes to cartoon sidekicks, but I would have to say Scooby had another sideskick that ranked right up there with little Scrappy. This sidekick being Scoobys backwater inbread cousin Scooby-Dum. It's a Clue! dum dum Dum DUMMM!
Posted 01/14/2009 at 09:33:31 AMHERBIE's actually been in a bunch of comics recently.
That Calvin and Hobbes-y Franklin comic, Power Pack (where he gets killed at one point), and his design is apparently one of Reed's standard robot types, as a bunch of them appeared in the (excellent) Fin Fang Four.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 10:19:20 AMZach> HERBIE frequently appears in the comics now, though mostly as a babysitter for Franklin Richards.
Incidentally, I liked Snarf and Orko as a kid.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 10:22:50 AMAs a kid, I loved Snarf, but then again, I also liked "The Gods must be Crazy." Looking back at Snarf, it all seems a bit racist. Snarf is his name. It's also his race. He comes from the Valley of Snarf. Maybe it's just copmmentary on the Thundarian culture. They're bigots. It's simple.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 10:38:42 AMIf only we didn't have to blame Bat-mite on the comics...
As I recall, in the Herbie story in Byrne's FF, he eventually turned evil and had to be destroyed, so it's not all bad.
Snarf, now there's some example of inter-species sex gone horribly, horribly wrong. Sometimes, sometimes you get Spock, but mostly, you get Snarf.
But after going through all this stuff, my catch-phrase for today is, "how's your parrot?"
Posted 01/14/2009 at 10:53:06 AMi remember always- EVERY AFTERNOON- putting on toonami and think to myself "why don't i watch more thundercats?". then snarf came on the screen, and i would suddenly remember.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 12:52:23 PMThe thing is, I remember reading that Scooby Doo's ratings did improve with the addition of Scrappy. At one time he was actually popular.
Egad!
Posted 01/14/2009 at 01:04:53 PMUm, where's Wheelie?
Posted 01/14/2009 at 02:55:08 PMWhat about Ping and Pong the Pandas from The Brady Kids?
Posted 01/14/2009 at 04:28:17 PMOrko is better than all of you.!
Posted 01/14/2009 at 05:01:31 PMThanks very good ;)
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Posted 01/14/2009 at 07:25:37 PMUm... loathsome and wretched as he was, Gleek did, in fact, have a super-power of sorts: his tail was both prehensile and elastic. Trouble was, the writers, as often as not, forgot this little detail. Which makes perfect sense, since they could never keep the super-powers of the actual goddamn Super Friends consistent from episode to episode. Also, the hideous little bastard was blue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleek_(Super_Friends)
Don't think I'm proud of this....
Posted 01/14/2009 at 08:36:54 PMHow dare you slight the name of Newton?!? He totally kicked half horse half boy ass! Herc! Herc!!
That kid & his robot from M.A.S.K should be on this list. Spike from the Transformers should make an appearance too. And that cube from Rubix the Amazing cube; he totally ruined that show for me. Oh, and the dog (Ms. whatshername) from Spider-Man & his Amazing Friends.
Posted 01/14/2009 at 10:06:55 PMi agree that Scrappy Do is not on the list. as for the others. Herbie thankfully did not watch that cartoon. or Conan or Herc. as for Gleek and snarf proves the execs were thinking kids were not bright. baby Plaz less said. Bat mite always wondered if the ones who came up with him were smoking something. Orko his fig showed him as a blue rabbit thing. and 7ar7 thankfully ignored that version of BotP
Posted 01/14/2009 at 10:21:51 PMWow, just showing my nerdom here, but I’m pretty sure the phoenix-thing on Conan the Adventurer was actually called Needler. I liked the show way too much when I was 13 or so...
Oh, and I totally agree with the ABSENCE of Scrappy on the list. Unlike most of the characters on the list, he actually did work on my 8 year old self. Most of these characters I thought were horrible even as a youngster.
Posted 01/15/2009 at 04:31:01 AMWhat about Ping and Pong the Pandas from The Brady Kids?
Posted 01/15/2009 at 05:52:16 AMHands off 1-Rover-1 ! he Rocks!
Posted 01/15/2009 at 07:31:39 AMHerc! Herc! It's Helena! Helena!
Posted 01/17/2009 at 01:44:26 AMHow dare you slight the name of Newton?!? He totally kicked half horse half boy ass! Herc! Herc!!
That kid & his robot from M.A.S.K should be on this list. Spike from the Transformers should make an appearance too. And that cube from Rubix the Amazing cube; he totally ruined that show for me. Oh, and the dog (Ms. whatshername) from Spider-Man & his Amazing Friends.
Posted 01/19/2009 at 01:38:56 AMi agree that Scrappy Do is not on the list. as for the others. Herbie thankfully did not watch that cartoon. or Conan or Herc. as for Gleek and snarf proves the execs were thinking kids were not bright. baby Plaz less said. Bat mite always wondered if the ones who came up with him were smoking something. Orko his fig showed him as a blue rabbit thing. and 7ar7 thankfully ignored that version of BotP.
Posted 01/20/2009 at 02:20:00 AMThat bird's name is needle? In Mexico they called it Pheng Shi.
There is only one thing worse than Orko, Kowl, that flying creature from She-Ra
How about Uni from Dungeons and Dragons and its boy? Uh?
And don't forget the Ewoks...
Posted 01/21/2009 at 12:15:14 PMBat-mite only appeared in that animated series, none before or since.
Posted 01/23/2009 at 09:13:36 PMFunny. I love this post..
Posted 01/27/2009 at 02:43:39 AM