7 Horrifying Things Snuck Into Famous Children's Cartoons
When most of us were kids, the adults never watched a cartoon for more than two seconds: They just glanced at the screen every once in a while and, as long as no one was getting a rimjob, the show was probably OK. Of course, we all know that they were wrong -- when you look at your favorite cartoons through the cynical eye of a grown-up, you see some pretty disturbing shit the writers threw in there:
SpongeBob SquarePants -- Tons Of Suicide Jokes
SpongeBob SquarePants has been producing new episodes, movies, and merchandise since 1999, officially becoming the most successful franchise David Hasselhoff has ever been involved in. The secret to its success? Suicide, apparently.
For a show that is ostensibly about the happiest goddamned sea creature ever to exist, SpongeBob relies a little too heavily on suicide humor. We've already covered how they had an entire episode dedicated to Squidward, who is basically Charlie Brown-meets-Eeyore in terms of emotional stability, getting depressed and seemingly trying to kill himself. Here he is, sticking his head in the oven:
Get it? He was just checking on the brownies. Double twist: The brownies are laced with cyanide.
Ah, but all children's cartoons have that one episode full of suicide innuendo, right? Even Mickey Mouse did it. In SpongeBob's case, however, this is more of a running theme -- in another episode, SpongeBob travels in time to the Middle Ages probably just so we can witness a guard trying to find the courage to off himself:
And then there's the one where SpongeBob's boss, Mr. Krabs, spends weeks mentally torturing his nemesis, Plankton, until he decides to lie down on the street and wait for a car to run him over. He spends practically the whole last third of the episode there. Krabs' reaction when he finds out is "LOL."
"I embrace death with tiny but open arms."
SpongeBob writers just ... really, really like suicide jokes. On second thought, spending 16 years writing the same dumb characters isn't as cool as we thought. If this is a cry for help, SpongeBob writers, reach out. We're here for you.
Pokemon has had some out there moments, from Japanese Clint Eastwood waving guns in kids' faces to a teen girl getting shamed by a dude with giant inflatable tits, but it could be much, much worse. Despite the central premise essentially being about electrocuting creatures to unconsciousness, the cartoon has always politely avoided eye contact with the brutality of cockfighting -- the worst injury any Pokemon ever suffered is looking exhausted and sprouting @ signs.
Well, that changed in Pokemon Origins, the recent miniseries intended to serve as a more faithful adaption of the first Pokemon game ... as played by 4chan, apparently. In the first episode, there's a fight between Squirtle ("Blue Turtle" according to your mom) and Charmander ("Baby Dinosaur with Tail on Fire") that quickly takes a turn for the horrifying:
"SAFE WORD! SAFE WORD!"
Cute little Squirtle pins Charmander down and bites his fucking face, resulting in Charmander letting out a blood-curdling scream while writhing on the ground in agony. His owner, Red, just stands there in shock, like a kid watching two dogs boning for the first time:
The scream goes on for 10 eternal seconds -- Charmander even pauses for breath in the middle. It's so bad that when they dubbed it for America they removed the audio, possibly because there was no way to replicate that scream without hitting the voice actor in the balls with a hammer.
Still, this was to be expected on a grittier, more mature Pokemon series, right? Actually, after this one Mortal Kombat-level fight, the rest of the series goes back to "aw, he got tired" battles. Somebody just decided that for one scene, shit needed to get real.
Transformers (Original Series) -- Bizarre, Random Racism
One of the biggest criticisms against Michael Bay's Transformers is the use of racism disguised as comedy. You could argue that the other flaws -- unrealistic action, convoluted origin story -- are just the result of the animated source material. But the dumb racism? That sort of stuff never happened in the '80s cartoon!
Except for that time the original Transformers traveled to the little known Arab nation of ... "Carbombya." Get it? Because Arabs = terrorism?
If you think that's one random hidden joke, it isn't -- the Transformers simply can't stop saying the name. And trust us, knowing the context doesn't make this one any better. In the episode "Thief in the Night," two rogue Decepticons take refuge in Carbombya and meet the country's leader, Commander Gadda -- er, Fakkadi, who, as proudly indicated above, owns a shitload of camels.
Fakkadi has the Decepticons steal several world monuments in exchange for oil, but they eventually betray him and take over his country. When the Autobots roll out and liberate Carbombya, they make Fakkadi promise he'll never steal Earth's landmarks again. His response: "I swear to you on the grave of my mother's camel and my uncle's goat and even my sister's donkeys and ..." -- you get the idea.
To be fair to the writers, the script called the country "Karbomia" which ... is still terrible, but at least they're trying to hide it. The animators weren't so subtle. One person who didn't think it was so hilarious was Casey Kasem, who voiced several Transformers until he quit over this stupid bullshit.
The Amazing World of Gumball -- Gumball Clearly Gives A Blowjob To A Balloon
The Amazing World of Gumball is about a bunch of anthropomorphic items, such as a peanut, a balloon, and whatever else the animators had in their pockets. It's a pretty innocent cartoon, especially compared to thinly disguised shows for stoners that seem to make up most of Cartoon Network's current programming (Adventure Time, Regular Show, Tom & Jerry, etc.).
However, when one of your characters is a balloon, it doesn't matter if the show's primary audience is younger than the iPod -- someone, somewhere is gonna slip in a joke about "getting blown." Gumball, despite starring a 12-year-old talking cat, is no exception.
In one episode, Gumball is responsible for breaking up two of his friends who were dating: Alan the balloon and Carmen the cactus (it seemed like a doomed relationship anyway). Gumball feels bad when he finds Alan crying in their middle school's bathroom stall and tries to cheer him up, but the little balloon says he just doesn't "have the strength to inflate" ... if you catch his drift.
That drift being, he's emotionally blackmailing his friend into blowing him.
Next we see the content and satisfied balloon leaving the bathroom while cheerfully thanking Gumball, who walks the other way, clearly traumatized -- look at his freaking face. That is the face of a cat who will never trust another person (or random talking object) again. What the oral underage kitty fuck, Cartoon Network?
Teen Titans -- Raven Gets Stripped For Her Satanic Dad
The Teen Titans are the kids' version of the Justice League, or what happens when a comics writer says, "Hey, what if we had a super-team where Robin is the most badass character?" As seen in the Cartoon Network show, besides Robin, the team is made out of Beast Boy (a kid who can turn into animals), Cyborg (a cyborg), Starfire (a happy alien princess), and Raven (the witch daughter of the king of hell).
Yeah, one of those things isn't like the others.
She's the only teenager who's ever had a legitimate reason to be emo.
But don't worry, being Satan's kid isn't the creepiest thing that ever happened to Raven in the cartoon: That would be the time a one-eyed pervert stripped her down. After dying and coming back to life, the villainous Slade goes after Raven and redecorates her wardrobe like this:
"You're not leaving the house dressed like this!"
This grown-ass man literally tears a teen girl's clothes away and then forces her to stare at her worst nightmares, saying "Yes, look at it, drink it in" -- standard dialogue for a comic book villain, sure, but also for a sex offender. The Teen Titans cartoon essentially turns into its own fan-made porno fan fiction, without warning.
And the most fucked up part? Slade is doing this on behalf of a demon lord called Trigon -- Raven's dad.
"You know shirts are against our religion. You're making me look bad here."
Spider-Man (The Animated Series) -- Straight-Up Body Horror
Spider-Man is the hero everyone wants to be. Sure, his loved ones tend to get killed by criminals, but his powers are awesome: super-strength! Agility! Spider sense! Four extra arms that painfully emerge from his torso! Wait, what?
Nope, that's not an animated, direct-to-DVD sequel to David Cronenberg's The Fly -- it's from the '90s Spider-Man cartoon, which, for a show that banned punching and went out of its way to avoid harming pigeons, sure loved putting poor Peter Parker through brutal transformations. During the "Neogenic Nightmare" storyline in the second season, we find out that the whole "does whatever a spider can" bit goes further than we all thought: Because of his radioactive blood, Peter is slowly turning from a man with the powers of a spider into a spider the size of a man.
First, Spider-Man spends a full episode rolling around in pain like he's passing a kidney stone, which of course doesn't stop him from delivering even more painful quips (actual dialogue: "It feels like I'm getting massaged by Wolverine ... from the inside!"). Then the extra arms pop out, and the screaming continues until this finally happens:
"AAAAIIIIEEE -- wait, where did two of my fingers go?"
The episode then ends with the now complete Man-Spider lunging straight at the camera. We're sure every kid who slept with a Spidey plushie or action figure had pleasant dreams that night.
Eventually, Spider-Man is cured. We assume. We never saw the show again.
The Powerpuff Girls -- The Powerpuff Girls Go To Hell
If you never saw The Powerpuff Girls, don't worry: Every episode was pretty much the same. Every episode ...except one. The one called "Speed Demon" begins with the titular superpowered preteens deciding to race each other home after school -- only to find, once they get there, that their beloved Professor Utonium has turned into a miserable old man trying to recreate the accident that brought the girls into existence, but failing every time because he forgot the formula.
What about the comically absent-minded Mayor? Oh, that guy is dead. Also, his once hot assistant has turned into a Gollum-like creature who hates the girls.
While showing them the decrepit visage of her side boob.
It's the same all over town: Everyone's dead or insane. Him, the effeminate devil, shows up and explains what happened: When the Powerpuff Girls reached superspeed, they traveled into a future where the whole world has gone to hell, and ... hey, isn't this the plot to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey?
Anyway, the girls beat the crap out of Him with tears in their eyes, but he just turns into his true devil form (basically, Satan from South Park) and summons the tortured souls of Townsville to blame the girls for this bleak future. There are no jokes or clever innuendos. The damned people of Townsville morosely chant that this is all these little girls' fault for ... going straight home after school?
Hell is other people -- stinking, seborrheic, poop-stained other people.
In a desperate move, maybe to kill themselves in guilt, the girls fly to outer space and fall back to Earth in superluminal speed, creating another wormhole. They find Townsville back to normal, with the lesson that if they ever leave the stupid city for so much as a weekend, everyone they know will suffer for all eternity. So remember kids: Make sure to take your time when you walk home from school, or the same thing will happen to you.
For more cartoon jokes that flew over our heads, check out 6 Creepy Things You Never Noticed About Famous Kids Cartoons and 5 Grossly Inappropriate Jokes Hidden in Children's Cartoons.
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