Dear god. I grew up watching Mr. Peppermint, but somehow I had suppressed the memory of Jot for more than forty years.
I’d have to go with the original Baby Huey cartoons from Harveytoons. Even as a little kid I couldn’t stand these.
Mr. Wizard the Lizard.
“Drizzle Drazzle Druzzle Drome
Time for this one to come home.”
Damn your eyes for reminding me of this.
Mr. Peppermint ranks behind only Mr. Rogers in my esteem for children’s TV hosts. I can forgive him for almost anything. But JOT is like asking me to forgive LBJ for Vietnam.
Ew. Pass me the brain bleach, wouldja?
To each their own. I thought Caillou was actually rather charming.
Didn’t we do this recently? Ah, here it is…
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=854168
ETA: I still love Cecil.
heres my worst cartoon list
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=864437&highlight=cartoons
but the first few seasons of the alf carton was rather sophisticated then they retooled it and it disappeared ……
and you want a convoluted cartoon? the story of “lazer tag” the series
I glanced at this once or twice as a child, and even my infantile brain was insulted by the stop-motion animation. Apparently the puppets were repositioned twice for each second of film time.
Despite my love of toons, you make me glad I usually stayed in bed until noon on Saturdays because I was out partying the night before.
you know the wuzzles were created by Disney? it was their 2nd tv cartoon after the “adventures of the gummi bears”
I took a course in voice acting years ago. We covered everything from straight reads to character voices. For the latter, the men were encouraged to do all kinds of things (accents, growls, and so on), but not to “go high.” In other words, not to try to imitate women or children, whose voices are naturally higher-pitched.
The women in the class, among other things that they could learn and accomplish with their voices, had to learn to speak like little boys. A little research indicated that many of the little boys in cartoons were indeed voiced by women. I’ve never seen Caillou, but I’d bet that they either got a man who could do a “fake kid falsetto voice,” (heck, I can do one, but I’d never put it on a demo) or a woman who didn’t know how to do a boy’s voice.
That’s a bit extreme of an article; basically they’re not saying the cartoon is pro-genocide, but rather that particular biblical passage isn’t particularly appropriate for teaching the lesson that they’re trying to get across.
Oh, **kunilou **and Maserschmidt- fun fact about Mr. Peppermint! Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers is his son. (back when he died, it seemed like every news article had to mention that, so it stuck in my head.)
I had the misfortune of seeing an old Bozo cartoon (remember Butchy Boy?) a year or two ago. Oh. My. God. was that stupid.
Milton the Monster. You’ve been warned.
ETA: Why did Hercules jump all the way down from Mt. Olympus, but have to run all the way home?
Oh, if we’re going there, and to Brother Bear, then I really don’t like the current PBS Curious George cartoon. Mom likes them, just to pass time as white noise, because she’s sure noting will come on and trigger her.
But that Curious George cartoon, man, I loved those books as a kid. But George doesn’t speak in the books. Now, somehow, he has to monkey squawk “uh-huh uh-huh” to everything. A dialog with an immature chimp? Damn you. Damn you all to hell.
No disrespect to the voice actor, they’re just doing their job. But why do this? I learned just fine from a mute Curious George.
Like Bart Simpson, for instance.
And we could devote an entirely new thread to PBS cartoons, I think. It’s subjective though, in many cases (of course). George didn’t bother me so much in the cartoon and I know he didn’t speak in the books because of his role as a silent observer of the human condition and/or a mischievous outsider who kept getting into trouble. Adding a voice in the cartoon provides an audio cue for him and makes him more of a participant in the story, I guess.
I appreciated Magic School Bus but I never liked it that much. I liked the lessons and all that but the animation was kind of cheap and I could tell that Lily Tomlin recorded her lines separately. Those two shouldn’t really be a knock against a cartoon but there you go.
My wife never liked Martha Speaks but I always thought it was kind of clever and well done. Again, it’s subjective. I also liked Word Girl as well for similar reasons. We both disliked Sid the Science Kid – if given the opportunity my wife would love to throat punch Gerald. Our two children are beyond PBS Kids age range now (17 and 11) so we don’t see these shows anymore.
Speaking of Davey and Goliath, Gumby was surprisingly lame considering he had something of a cult following.
Gumby’s appeal was due to its weirdness and surrealness even if the show’s plots could’ve been conceived by a five-year old. It also helped if you watched the show while herbally-enhanced which likely accounts for its unexpected cult following during the 60s.
Dick Tracy. Probably the only cartoon whose title character only made cameo appearances.
Every episode started out the same way: Tracy, at his desk, would be speaking on the phone and say, “Right, Chief, I’ll get on it right away.” He would then put his wrist radio over his mouth (conveniently saving on animating his lips) and call one of his detectives. The rest of the episode would show one of the four (Joe Jitsu, Go Go Gomez, Heap O’ Calorie, and Hemlock Holmes) comically investigating a crime. Halfway through, the detective would say “Hold everything!” and all will freeze, and then “Calling Dick Tracy.” You’d see a little bit of Tracy asking a few questions. Then the call would end and the action would resume.
After the criminal was caught (and they used a few of the actual comic strip villains), the detective would call Tracy again, who’d congratulate them on a job well done.
It also didn’t help that the detectives were stereotypes that wouldn’t fly today.
The “Hold everything! Calling Dick Tracy” line did become a catchphrase among kids, but the show itself was awful