As we all know, Cartoon Network has had some amazing original programs throughout the years. But as we also all know, not everything original that comes from Cartoon Network is going to be of Ed, Edd n Eddy or The Powerpuff Girls quality. So, looking back on Cartoon Network's past and present, which CN Original do you think is the worst of the worst?
For a refresher, here are some that often seen brought up in a negative light:
My Gym Partner's a Monkey
Squirrel Boy
Camp Lazlo
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi
Mike, Lu & Og
Problem Solverz
MAD
The Annoying Orange Show
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. Whether they have slipped my mind or I blocked them from my memory. There have also been some CN Originals that I really didn't like but I know they had a sizable fanbase (Kids Next Door). So which is the WORST?
For me, I'd have to say it's a toss-up between Gym Partner and Squirrel Boy. As far as I can remember, neither show had anything redeeming going for it at all. Ugly characters, ugly animation, painful writing. I can't think of anything in either show that I even remotely liked. I don't like Lazlo, but I've made it through episodes of Lazlo. I don't think I've ever made it through an episode of Gym Partner or Squirrel Boy.
The Annoying Orange is fast approaching the rank of worst CN original too. Oh, and Problem Solverz too.
Annoying Orange.
For me, as bad (and in the case of Lazlo, horrendously disappointing) as some of that mid-Aught's stuff was, at least there was some semblance of quality that went into that work; very little for the most part, but at least some. The animation was still nice to look at, in most cases; I actually kinda like Squirrel Boy's animation style, as it's very similar to Duckman due to Everett Peck's involvement (why he couldn't actually make the show worth watching is anyone's guess, though). So at least most of these shows, sans maybe MAD or Problem Solverz, had at least one redeemable quality or another to work off of (usually being nice to look at, if nothing else) even if the series themselves, as far as characters and writing and the real meat of it, were still garbage.
Annoying Orange, on the other hand, has absolutely no redeemable qualities whatsoever, and the sheer level of downright suck that this show assaults upon its viewing audience is a lot more offensive than anything Gym Partner or The Puffy Twins could ever manage. In fact, I really question why it even exists. I don't know why CN is taking a page out of Nick's book and reworking crappy YouTube web series into actual television series (or, in Nick's case, the Fred movies), but the end result is just lazy shit with no sense of heart or effort being put into at all. It's a quick cash-in with a (semi) recognizable and established brand, and nothing more. Oh yeah, and not to mention that the writing, voice acting, and pretty much everything about it is fucking terrible, but I digress.
So yeah, that's my pick for worst. Barely a few months into this, and it's already managed to make the mid-Aught's offerings look God-tier in comparison. Way to go, CN.
Totally forgot Mike, Lu, & Ogg was a thing.
It's a tossup between Out Of Jimmy's Head and Annoying Orange for me.
Quote from: Foggle on August 15, 2012, 01:04:55 AM
Totally forgot Mike, Lu, & Ogg was a thing.
It's a tossup between Out Of Jimmy's Head and Annoying Orange for me.
...are we counting live-action? Because if so, well... :>
Well, at least Out of Jimmy's Head/Re-Animated was part animation, so it kind of counts, unlike the CN Real stuff which has fallen off radar pretty quietly if I do say so myself.
Oh yeah, I completely forgot about Out of Jimmy's Head.
As for Annoying Orange, I agree, it's easily one of the worst CN Originals. I think I've seen maybe part of one episode? And that's all I could stand. If anything it delivers what the title promises. There's an orange. And he is annoying as fuck. But being loud, obnoxious, and annoying doesn't = comedy and I'd like to know who decided it did. Stupid YouTube series should not be given their own TV show.
MAD seldom makes me laugh, or even chuckle, but at least some of their segments (mainly the Spy vs. Spy ones) are nice to look at am. Annoying Orange makes me want to vomit.
...Yeah, you're actually making me rethink my answer. Annoying Orange is just pure shit.
Ugh, at MAD on the list. It's too good for that.
Besides Adult Swim drivel, I'd go with Mike, Lu & Og, I guess. Then Cow & Chicken would probably be my 2nd choice. :sly:
Yeah I've gotta go with Out of Jimmy's Head. It have live-action, but it's a hybrid, so I'm counting it.
But of all the others, I dunno. I haven't seen Annoying Orange or Problem Solverz, but Mad isn't really that bad. Spy vs. Spy is always fun, and the various animation styles are cool, but it does hurt from having nothing but bad ideas. It is what it is- Robot Chicken for kids. I do think it's a little better than it could be, but still.
Squirrel Boy and Camp Lazlo were distressingly annoying in that they were made by talented people with little effort put in. I don't know if Squirrel Boy had some of the other people behind Duckman, but Lazlo did have a lot of people from Rocko, even some of the ones who stuck around at Nick to work on SpongeBob with Hillenburg. And they were both just so... boring, and so... stupid. There's little love I can give them.
Gym Partner was one that I never thought was as awful as some people made it out to be, but it sure wasn't that good. Seeing some of it again has made me groan, enough to make me stop watching Cartoon Planet.
And Mike, Lu & Og really wasn't that bad. It wasn't that good, but it had its moments. Puffy was though. There's a reason they never acknowledge it anymore and that they stopped appealing to the girl's demographic like they did with this and PPG.
If we're including animation/live action hybrids, then my vote goes for Re-Animated/Out of Jimmy's Head.
This show had absolutely no idea what it wanted to be. On the surface, OOJH looked like Lizzie McGuire meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit, except that comparing OOJH to either Lizzie or Roger Rabbit would be doing a disservice to both shows. Many people hated OOJH because it was the 1st live action series to air on CARTOON Network, but honestly, the live action I could have dealt with, had the writing actually been good. No, OOJH failed because it was ill conceived, directionless and poorly written, not because it was live action. OOJH also failed because it was a clumsy attempt to merge several ideas/shows into one. The Appleday toons weren't even the focus of the show. It seemed like the Appleday Gang was only shoe-horned into the show in order to justify the shows' presence on Cartoon Network. OOJH tried to simultaneously be a school-centric tweencom, a kiddie cartoon with trouble prone kids and dopey adults, a sci-fi comedy (Jimmy's sister was a space alien, but she wasn't a toon nor was this in any way connected to the toon world; this was part of the "real" world), and a Roger Rabbit wannabe, and it didn't do any of them well.
I didn't see much of Squirrel Boy, but I didn't particularly like what I saw of it, despite the presence of Everett Peck, the creator of Duckman. Mike, Lu and Og wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either. Camp Lazlo mostly served to remind me how much better Joe Murray's other basic cable cartoon, Rocko's Modern Life, was and how I'd rather be watching that show.
Probably Problem Solverz for failing to even be coherent on top of having all the problems of the other shows.
I'd agree that Mike, Lu & Og isn't what I would call the worst of the worst. I mean, it wasn't THAT bad. It wasn't that good either, but it wasn't that bad. It kind of just existed. The theme song was pretty catchy.
Camp Lazlo was bad because of how dreadfully disappointing it was. After Rocko's Modern Life you expected anything from Joe Murray to be gold. But gold Lazlo was not. It was just a boring, dull show that played it safe.
Out of Jimmy's Head was terrible for the reasons already stated. It was poorly written, poorly conceived, didn't know what it wanted to be, and the cartoon characters were obviously put in to justify it being on Cartoon Network.
Puffy was pretty bad. For some reason I watched it, though. I kind of liked Ami, Yumi, and Kaz but that wasn't enough to save the show from its bad writing, sloppy animation, and hideous secondary character designs. Plus, it was annoying at how popular they portrayed the band in the show, as if they were The Beatles, and referred to them as a rock group. First of, they were never that popular. They became moderately popular for a short period of time for doing the theme song to Teen Titans. And they're a J-Pop group, not a rock group. But yeah, it was pretty awful. I'm too lazy to go hunt down the exact quote but Lauren Faust said, after she saw the Puffy pilot, that "it was pretty dull" and that if it "doesn't go well it's going to be blamed on the girl demographic and Cartoon Network will never try to do a "girl show" again."
And, what do you know? She was right.
Camp Lazlo I just don't get. Watch Joe Murray's three shows, and look back at Lazlo and it is the clear outlier. I wonder if there was some sort of meddling going on with that show because there is no reason it should have been as bad as it was.
Puffy was just a bad show. No idea what they were thinking with that one.
The crazy thing about Lazlo was that if you ask Joe Murray, he thinks it's about as good as Rocko, and he's just as proud.
It's his tastes, man.
Well, I wouldn't expect him to actively tear down his own work, but yeah, it is rather frustrating whenever you read his blog and he's got like five Lazlo posts lined up.
It'd be better if he just didn't talk about it. Like, it all. Nobody really seems to like it that much anyway, so I'm not sure who he's pandering to whenever he brings it up. Whatever, though.
Maybe it's like he views it as his magnum opus or something.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think that ML&O deserves a little credit as the first Cartoon Network original to be an out-right bomb. Granted, I Am Weasel didn't last for too long on its own, but I think that's more because they pretty much ran out of things to do with the characters back on Cow & Chicken and less to do with its own reception.
Nick didn't have their first failed Nicktoon until the following year. And that's if you count Pelswick as a Nickelodeon original, because I believe it was a collab with Nelvana or something.
Why does this matter? Mike, Lu & Og came out during a high creative point at CN, and proved that not everything would sell from them, and that they can make less ambitious shows alongside stuff like Courage and C&C. That deserves some mention, I believe.
Yeah, Mike, Lu & Og never really took off, did it? I know it wasn't for a lack of trying because CN advertised the hell out of it back when it was on. But seems like nothing could really save it. It certainly wasn't the worst CN original but it was just so forgettable.
Oh, you know, if we're counting ALL Cartoon Network originals, cartoon or not, I'd have to say the absolute worst has to go to Level Up. That show just makes me angry watching it.
I haven't seen Level Up, but it doesn't look like much of anything at all. I wouldn't be surprised if it really is the worst.
I saw five minutes of Level Up. It was horrifyingly obnoxious, and had less to do with video games than VR Troopers.
Could it be...? (http://www.toonzone.net/forums/cartoon-network-cartoon-forum/310468-starting-november-13th-annoying-orange-gets-pulled.html) :joy:
The worst CN original is one we never even got to see.....Team Toon.
It would've been another mixed media live-action/animation hybrid about 4 live-action kids who patrol the streets with cartoon characters' heads superimposed over their bodies.
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cartoonbrew.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fteam-toon-post.jpg&hash=eb05ff80498826ee8459cc4a458e8b62d88fae75)
Thankfully, this project was canned, so we dodged a bullet with this one.
I saw a couple episodes of Level Up after it's pilot movie. The movie was actually decent, but the main series was boring. It was really a slice-of-life high school show that focused way too much on the teen's lives getting temporarily disrupted by something from the Internet (not even from the game they play, various things like someone's dating profile avatar were used), as opposed to the much more fun premise the pilot movie had.
They really should have kept Maldark and have him try to run amok on Earth with a different monster. There are other ways the premise could have been expanded, but oh well. With Annoying Orange, I like the web series but the CN show was boring.
I look at it this way.
Out of Jimmy's Head would get a vote on principle alone. This was a live-action sitcom with animated elements. There were, IIRC, no all-animated segments at all. This was kind of like Roger Rabbit crossed with, say, Ned's Declassified over on Nick. That's what the CN idiots were aiming for. The writers' strike, coupled with poor reviews and writing, as noted, killed the show.
Sheep in the Big City aspired to be a homage to Jay Ward in concept & principle. It bombed because of poor writing. It had to be bad when the Ranting Swede was getting more attention than Sheep. OBTW, the Ranting Swede's voice was, IIRC, ex-MTV VJ Kevin Seal.
Mad makes the list because the 15 minute format doesn't do it justice. Period.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force ([adult swim]) gets on the list because of the "animated colorforms" used for the titular "heroes"---and I use that term loosely. That it somehow developed a following is a miracle.
Another [as] show gets on the list, too, despite its' fan following---Harvey Birdman. The satire was too mean to certain H-B characters of the past, and played to the internet in certain cases. You can probably guess which ones. That isn't satire or parody, that's just disrespect. Because of its success a true revival of Birdman will never happen.
For me it's Mike, Lu, and Og. Boring show with terrible animation and designs. It was a show for little kids and toddlers that didn't get greenlit until there was no real network to air it. It wouldn't have been out of place on Nick Jr. back in the early 90s, but it had no business being on Cartoon Network anymore than Hamtaro airing on Toonami.
Sheep in the Big City and Harvey Birdman are great.
Quote from: Do They Know It's Christmas? on November 28, 2013, 11:44:14 PM
Sheep in the Big City and Harvey Birdman are great.
:thumbup:
Harvey Birdman is basically a series in the style of Naked Gun or Anchorman where the fun comes from humor being so all over the place and crazy- yet still focused on a core story that it takes seriously (no matter how ridiculous it might be) in the process. It's one of the few AS originals I can still watch and enjoy as much as I did when it came out.
I loved Harvey Birdman because it made fun of Hanna Barbera cartoons (and Phil).
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on November 29, 2013, 12:58:47 AM
I loved Harvey Birdman because it made fun of Hanna Barbera cartoons (and Phil).
I loved it because it made fun of Hanna Barbera cartoons and was sharply written satire laced with multi-layered jokes and hilariously awkward characters. Plus Phil Ken Sebben. ;)
Ugh, FYE is doing a buy 1, get 1 for a buck deal on their used TV sets. If I wasn't poor, that would mean that I could get the first 2 Harvey Birdman sets for under $10.
Squidbillies
Assy McGee
How do shows like these even get off the ground? Got to admit they've given me a chuckle or two. But for the most part... WTF??! :e_confused:
And athf was a pretty good show.
It was alright for a couple seasons, but it got old pretty fast.
More like it took a nosedive after a few seasons. But i think the good seasons were solid.
Yeah, I still really like the first few season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but there's no denying it's been stale for quite some time (though there have been occasional brilliant episodes in recent years, imo).
I've always maintained that ATHF was [as]'s weakest original from their debut, but it had a solid start.
Quote from: Do They Know It's Christmas? on November 28, 2013, 11:44:14 PM
Sheep in the Big City and Harvey Birdman are great.
This.
Speaking of, have any of you guys ever played the Harvey Birdman game? It's basically a point-and-click that plays out almost as an extended version of the series. Pretty fun, if only a bit disappointing because they couldn't get Colbert to do Phil's voice for whatever reason.
I had the PSP version at one point in time. I honestly didn't play much of it though.
Yeah, Colbert doesn't seem to want to come back to [as]. They asked him to reprise his bit on Venture Brothers a couple of years ago, and his agent basically told them "no way".
I'm adding Amazing World of Gumball to the list. Animated colorforms is what it is a large chunk of the time. ABC Family had a show similar to that several years back called Da Mob, which lasted I think 3-4 months before it was dumped and never seen again. Yeah, it was that bad.
I disagree about Gumball. It's proven to be a very funny and creative show, and the second season was a great improvement on the first season, which was already good. And anyone who dislikes "The Sweaters" and "The World" is living their life wrong. :awesome:
I've seen a fair chunk of Gumball, myself. It's by no means a favorite of mine, but I can't really agree that it's nearly the worst thing on CN, or even that it's bad. For what it is, I think that it's an OK cartoon.
"The Sweaters" alone should automatically disqualify it from ever even being considered CN's worst. Though seriously the show has plenty of great episodes in my opinion (The Ape, The Remote, The Game, etc.).
I'm not even a big fan of the show, but I do find it entertaining more often than not. It's a good show with a few great and some excellent episodes, "The Sweaters" and "The World" being of the latter.
Quote from: Cartoon X on December 19, 2013, 12:56:15 AM
"The Sweaters" alone should automatically disqualify it from ever even being considered CN's worst.
Definitely :thumbup:
Quote from: VLordGTZ on December 19, 2013, 01:00:56 AM
Quote from: Cartoon X on December 19, 2013, 12:56:15 AM
"The Sweaters" alone should automatically disqualify it from ever even being considered CN's worst.
Definitely :thumbup:
Now this is something I can co-sign. Gumball is far from the worse thing Cartoon Network has ever made.
While I'm not into Gumball like I am with Steven Universe, Adventure Time, and Regular Show, I also wouldn't call Gumball terrible. I just didn't find it very funny.
Eh, there are some things about Gumball that I like and some things I don't like. Some of the individual gags can be pretty funny, but several of the stories and characters I either don't particularly care for or feel could be done better (though the mom on the show, Nicole, is awesome). Also, I don't like how everyone and everything in Elmore has to be some kind of anthropomorphic animal, living food product or weird thingamabob; it works for some of them like Bobert, Carrie and Tina, since they only work as a robot, ghost and T-Rex respectively, but a lot of them could easily be people and it wouldn't change the tone of the show at all. I'm just not big on shows with all anthro casts. (FTR, I saw "The Sweaters". It was funny, but I wish there could be more cartoon humans walking around regularly; I find the wall-to-wall thingies a little off-putting at times.) I wish so many of the episodes didn't take place at Gumball's school, though again I'm just not crazy about school-centric shows and stories. I'm also not wild about the live-action backgrounds, but I can deal with those.
Now Adventure Time and Steven Universe are the shows I can't get into. Regular Show, on the other hand, is awesome.
I like most of the shows on CN right now, myself. The only one that I consistently enjoy is Regular Show, though. Gumball is more hit and miss for me but, I think Beware the Batman and Ben 10: Omniverse are pretty good but all the same haven't watched them in a while, and Adventure Time, Teen Titans Go!, and Steven Universe bore me most of the time, though AT has in the past produced some episodes I'm quite fond of.
I don't see how any of them could be considered bad shows, and they are FAR from Cartoon Network's worst.
I find the visual style of Gumball very appealing. It's just that the writing is never up there. Most jokes are more miss than hit, and even then I can never tell if they were trying too hard to push a joke through or not trying hard enough.
It does have a few great moments though, like the edited comic book the giant had.
Just Regular Show for me.
Steven Universe is one the most overrated shows on TV currently. It's not bad, mind you, but I honestly don't understand why this show is so loved and why SU's fans treat this show like it's a gift from the gods. SU is a just OK series that people insist has a ton of potential. If anyone remembers or has seen the Duckman episode titled "Joking the Chicken" in which there was a comedian who King Chicken made to drink a formula which made everyone in the world love the comic except for Duckman, that's how I feel about Steven Universe.
As for worst Cartoon Network animated series, I guess for me that it would be a toss-up between Squirrel Boy and Hi-Hi Puffy Ami Yumi.
Heh, HHPAY is just one of those shows I have too much nostalgia for to ever hate. The worst CN original for mes either The Annoying Orange or Out of Jimmy's Head. Most of CN's other misses like Gym Partner and Squirrel Boy are just mediocre or boring, but I found AO and OoJH atrociously unfunny. I'm glad AO is finally off the air now.
Can we just say that the worst original is Out of Jimmy's Head and be done with it?
Also, I've found Gumball to be decent.
Quote from: Dr. Insomniac on December 20, 2013, 05:36:59 AM
Can we just say that the worst original is Out of Jimmy's Head and be done with it?
I'm okay with this.