As the title of the post says, does anyone remember any animated series that have killed characters during their run? Even aside from Pilots and Finales, which can “bend” the standard of tv norms a little? (Even “Darkwing Duck”, a Disney series, mentioned a character being “eliminated” during it’s pilot)
The only series I could think of was a little show called “Mighty Max.” Cheap syndicated spin-off from a toy line and all, they still had the guts to kill off THREE guest characters during one episode. And they were “Good Guys,” too.
And, for the purposes of this question, Anime doesn’t count. Too easy.
I’m pretty sure i’ve seen animated footage in a Superman cartoon that showed his origin, including the explosion of the planet Krypton. That’s a few billion deaths, right there.
Interestingly, different version of an animated Spider-Man have resorted to different vague euphamisms to weasel their way through the crucial “Uncle Ben has been murdered” element. Of all the versions I’ve seen, the original late-sixties Krantz animation was the most direct. The later cartoons have long vague silences and a lot of conclusion-jumping:
Cop: I’m sorry, Peter, your Uncle Ben… (ten second pause)
Peter Parker: What? Has something (brief pause) happened to Uncle Ben?
C: (pause) Yes, I’m afraid (pause) so.
P: Oh, no! Uncle Ben! Uncle Ben!
All right, already! By this point in their lives, your 8 year-old viewers have already seen hundreds of dramatized murders on TV. Stop sugar-coating it! We can take it!
You don’t have to show Ben getting his head blown off, but at least admit what happened. Who the hell concluded that children were so damn fragile?
Transformers, both original (Movie killed…well…everyone. ^__^) and Beast Wars/Machines (Dinobot, the mantis ray whose name I can’t remember, Inferno, Scorpanok, Terrorsaur, Rhinox/Tankor, Megatron and Optimus Primal.)
Close but no cigar: G.I. Joe was supposed to kill off Duke in the movie, but outrage over Optimus Prime’s death caused them to change the ending in post-production.
Gargoyles killed off a bunch of characters. Hakon, Thailog, the Archmage (twice, sort of*), Gilcomgain, King Duncan, and the Captain of the Guard were all killed off. Even a few good characters died - the Magus, King Kenneth, and Macbeth’s father die, and in the first episode, a whole bunch of gargoyle “extras” are shattered. There’s even an episode where Demona uses a spell that turns people to stone at night, and she’s shown walking around shattering the “statues.”
*In one episode, he gets thrown off a cliff into a deep chasm, and it’s pretty clear he’s supposed to be dead. Much later, it turns out he was rescued when his future self came back to save him (really), but he’s definitely killed off after that.
Which is extra ironic because the reason Hasbro decided to kill Optimus Prime in the first place was because of Duke’s planned death in the G.I. Joe movie. See this blurb for the details.
Ironically, we can see a man get the gas chamber in a modern cartoon while the relatively trivial blast-of-gunpowder-to-the-face gets clipped from every old Daffy Duck cartoon.
The CG animated version of Starship Troopers involved the sergeant being dragged underwater by a bug while clutching a live grenade during the climactic battle for San Francisco. There were a huge number of “implied” deaths as well: empty, cracked helmets and missing soldiers never seen again. Another character ends up in a wheelchair too, IIRC.
In the Rugrats Chuckie lost his mother. Although you don’t see her death and it all happened in the past you do experience it through flashbacks. Very sad. He also lost his pet bug Melvil.
The only other one I can think of is not animation but definately aimed at children and that is Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street. Of course he did actually die in real life.
My wife and I watched Atlantis the other night. Folks were croaking right and left in that thing. About 200, all told, several deaths happening on-screen.
Daria. They kill off Tommy Sherman, a former football player from Lawndale High back to visit, in The Misery Chick episode. You can’t see anything, though.
