Lurker > RySenkari

MegaWentEvil posted...

Also, TC should specify that people should based on what they think the characters would do if they had the same powers, so planet destroyers won't have an unfair advantage.

I'll mention that in the rules.

Oh yeah

Yawgmoth (Magic: The Gathering)

So far...

Six nominations:

Allied Mastercomputer (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream)

Four nominations:

Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men)
Art the Clown (Terrifier)
Carnage (Marvel Comics)
Frieza (Dragonball Z)
Judge Holden (Blood Meridian)
Michael Myers (Halloween)
Ramsay Bolton (Game of Thrones)

Three nominations:

Alex DeLarge (A Clockwork Orange)
Biff Tannen (Back To the Future)
Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls)
Bondrewd (Made in Abyss)
Calvin Candie (Django Unchained)
Chris McLean (Total Drama series)
Dahlia Hawthorne (Ace Attorney)
Dolores Umbridge (Harry Potter)
Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars)
Eric Cartman (South Park)
Frank Booth (Blue Velvet)
Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)
Homelander (The Boys)
Johan Liebert (Monster)
Judge Claude Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
Kefka (Final Fantasy VI)
Light Yagami (Death Note)
Li'l Z (City of God)
Lord Voldemort (Harry Potter)
Luca Blight (Suikoden II)
Morgoth (The Silmarillion)
Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)
Pennywise the Dancing Clown (IT)
Randall Flagg (Stephen King)
Stormfront (The Boys)
Ted Faro (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
The Antagonist (Hatred)
The High Evolutionary (Guardians Of The Galaxy 3)
The Joker (DC Comics)
William Afton / Purple Guy (Five Nights At Freddys Series)

Two nominations:

Asami Yamazaki (Audition)
Asdrubael Vect (Warhammer 40K)
Baron Scarpia (Tosca)
BOB (Twin Peaks)
Captain Vidal (Pan's Labyrinth)
Count Dracula
David (The Last Of Us)
Davros (Doctor Who)
Griffith (Berserk)
Hans Landa (Inglorious Basterds)
Harry Powell (The Night of the Hunter)
Jack (The House That Jack Built)
Jody (Preacher)
Lex Luthor (DC Comics)
Mephistopheles (Faust)
Other Mother (Coraline)
Sauron (Lord of the Rings)
Scar (The Lion King)
Shou Tucker (Fullmetal Alchemist)
The Beast (Over the Garden Wall)
The Coachman (Pinocchio)
The Wicked Witch of the West (Wizard of Oz)
Ursula (The Little Mermaid)
Vladimir Makarov (Call Of Duty)
Vukmir (A Serbian Film)
Wild Bill (The Green Mile)
Zoran Lazarevic (Uncharted 2)

One nomination:

Aiden Hall (The Lodge)
Angelina Meyer (Manifest)
Anthony Fremont (The Twilight Zone)
Aurora (Fate Grand Order)
Black Hat (Villainous)
Bughuul (Sinister)
Burgermeister Meisterburger (Santa Claus is Comin' to Town)
Chainlink Shackles (Fallout: Equestria - Murky Number Seven)
Charles Montgomery Burns (The Simpsons)
Chernabog (Fantasia)
Cioccolata (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)
Cruella de Vil (101 Dalmarians)
Daniel Plainview (There Will Be Blood)
Darkseid (DC Comics)
Dio Brando (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure)
Donquixote Doflamingo (One Piece)
Dr. Eggman (IDW Sonic Comics)
Emperor Belos (The Owl House)
Erebus (Warhammer 40'000)
Ganondorf (The Legend of Zelda)
George Harvey (The Lovely Bones)
Ghetsis (Pokemon Black and White)
Gilberte (Frontier(s))
Giovanni (Pokemon)
GLaDOS (Portal)
Gunter (Adventure Time)
Hans Gruber (Die Hard)
Iago (Othello)
Imhotep (The Mummy)
Immortan Joe (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Jafar (Aladdin)
Judge Doom (Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
Junko Enoshima (Danganronpa)
Kid Buu (Dragonball Z)
King Paimon (Hereditary)
Kromer The One Who Grips (Limbus Company)
La Femme (Inside)
Lalo Salamanca (Better Call Saul)
Lil Slugger (Paranoia Agent)
Lionel Starkweather (Manhunt)
Lucifer (Supernatural)
M. Bison (Street Fighter)
Mademoiselle (Martyrs)
Magase Ai (Babylon)
Mother Gothel (Tangled)
Mr. Scratch (Criminal Minds)
Nibiru Entity (Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated)
Nick Naylor (Thank You for Smoking)
Officer Tenpenny (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas)
Princess Malty S. Melromarc / Bitch (The Rising of the Shield Hero)
Professor Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes)
Raymond Lemorne (The Vanishing)
Reinhard Heidrich (Dies Irae)
Reverse Flash/Eobard Thawne (DC Comics)
Revya The Devourlord (Soul Nomad And The World Eaters)
Ricky Spanish (American Dad)
Shang Tsung (Mortal Kombat)
Sideshow Bob (The Simpsons)
Steamboat Willie (Saving Private Ryan)
Suguru Kamoshida (Persona 5)
Terumi Yuuki (Blazblue)
The Ancestor (Darkest Dungeon)
The Child Catcher (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)
The Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate 3)
The Lich (Adventure Time)
The Man in Black (LOST)
The Practical Incarnation (Planescape: Torment)
The Prince (Bullet Train)
The "Stay Away From The Summoner" Lady (Final Fantasy X)
Valens van Varro (Final Fantasy XIV)
Zamasu (Dragonball Super)

Forty spots filled, 24 left!

Frank Booth (Blue Velvet)

Bump again, considering moving forward with the two nom ones as well.

34 slots are filled, 30 to go!

Vladimir Makarov (Call of Duty)
The Antagonist (Hatred)

Been on the megaprojects side of Youtube again and I was curious to see which of these insane megaprojects you think will get built first.

And no, "neither will ever get built" is not an option in this poll. It's certainly a possibility neither ever gets built, but I deliberately excluded that option because I wanted to post a fun poll, not a buzzkill fuddy-duddy realistic poll. Pick one, even if you don't think it'll ever happen until 3500 when we're all living gods who can create virtual universes with our minds.

As a huge Turning Red fan, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the voice actresses of Mei and Miriam have multiple roles in the game. Most notably, Mei and Sona have the same voices, and Miriam shares a voice actress with the girl on Cydonia who wants you to put up Space Frog posters.

Oh, I see, thanks for letting me know. I'll fix in the next list.

So far...

Six nominations:

Allied Mastercomputer (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream)

Four nominations:

Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men)
Art the Clown (Terrifier)
Michael Myers (Halloween)
Ramsay Bolton (Game of Thrones)

Three nominations:

Alex DeLarge (A Clockwork Orange)
Biff Tannen (Back To the Future)
Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls)
Bondrewd (Made in Abyss)
Carnage (Marvel Comics)
Dahlia Hawthorne (Ace Attorney)
Dolores Umbridge (Harry Potter)
Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars)
Eric Cartman (South Park)
Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
Frieza (Dragonball Z)
Homelander (The Boys)
Johan Liebert (Monster)
Judge Claude Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
Judge Holden (Blood Meridian)
Kefka (Final Fantasy VI)
Light Yagami (Death Note)
Lord Voldemort (Harry Potter)
Luca Blight (Suikoden II)
Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)
Pennywise the Dancing Clown (IT)
Ted Faro (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
The High Evolutionary (Guardians Of The Galaxy 3)
The Joker (DC Comics)

Two nominations:

Asami Yamazaki (Audition)
BOB (Twin Peaks)
Calvin Candie (Django Unchained)
Captain Vidal (Pan's Labyrinth)
Chris McLean (Total Drama series)
Count Dracula
Davros (Doctor Who)
Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)
Hans Landa (Inglorious Basterds)
Jack (The House That Jack Built)
Morgoth (The Silmarillion)
Scar (The Lion King)
Shou Tucker (Fullmetal Alchemist)
Stormfront (The Boys)
The Coachman (Pinocchio)
The Wicked Witch of the West (Wizard of Oz)
Ursula (The Little Mermaid)
Vukmir (A Serbian Film)
Wild Bill (The Green Mile)
William Afton / Purple Guy (Five Nights At Freddys Series)
Zoran Lazarevic (Uncharted 2)

One nomination:

Aiden Hall (The Lodge)
Angelina Meyer (Manifest)
Aurora (Fate Grand Order)
Baron Scarpia (Tosca)
Black Hat (Villainous)
Bughuul (Sinister)
Burgermeister Meisterburger (Santa Claus is Comin' to Town)
Chainlink Shackles (Fallout: Equestria - Murky Number Seven)
Charles Montgomery Burns (The Simpsons)
Chernabog (Fantasia)
Cioccolata (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)
Cruella de Vil (101 Dalmarians)
Daniel Plainview (There Will Be Blood)
Darkseid (DC Comics)
David (The Last Of Us)
Dio Brando (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure)
Donquixote Doflamingo (One Piece)
Dr. Eggman (IDW Sonic Comics)
Emperor Belos (The Owl House)
Erebus (Warhammer 40'000)
Frank Booth (Blue Velvet)
Ganondorf (The Legend of Zelda)
George Harvey (The Lovely Bones)
Ghetsis (Pokemon Black and White)
Gilberte (Frontier(s))
Giovanni (Pokemon)
GLaDOS (Portal)
Griffith (Berserk)
Gunter (Adventure Time)
Harry Powell (The Night of the Hunter)
Imhotep (The Mummy)
Immortan Joe (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Jafar (Aladdin)
Jody (Preacher)
Judge Doom (Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
Junko Enoshima (Danganronpa)
Kromer The One Who Grips (Limbus Company)
La Femme (Inside)
Lalo Salamanca (Better Call Saul)
Lil Slugger (Paranoia Agent)
Lionel Starkweather (Manhunt)
Lucifer (Supernatural)
M. Bison (Street Fighter)
Mademoiselle (Martyrs)
Magase Ai (Babylon)
Mephistopheles (Faust)
Mother Gothel (Tangled)
Mr. Scratch (Criminal Minds)
Nibiru Entity (Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated)
Nick Naylor (Thank You for Smoking)
Officer Tenpenny (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas)
Other Mother (Coraline)
Princess Malty S. Melromarc / Bitch (The Rising of the Shield Hero)
Professor Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes)
Randall Flagg (Stephen King)
Reinhard Heidrich (Dies Irae)
Reverse Flash/Eobard Thawne (DC Comics)
Revya The Devourlord (Soul Nomad And The World Eaters)
Sauron (Lord of the Rings)
Shang Tsung (Mortal Kombat)
Steamboat Willie (Saving Private Ryan)
Suguru Kamoshida (Persona 5)
Terumi Yuuki (Blazblue)
The Antagonist (Hatred)
The Beast (Over the Garden Wall)
The Child Catcher (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)
The Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate 3)
The Judge (Blood Meridian)
The Lich (Adventure Time)
The Man in Black (LOST)
The Prince (Bullet Train)
Valens van Varro (Final Fantasy XIV)
Zamasu (Dragonball Super)

30 spots filled, 34 left!

My five for today:

Homelander (The Boys)
Calvin Candie (Django Unchained)
Chris McLean (Total Drama series)
Hans Landa (Inglorious Basterds)
David (The Last Of Us)

You can include whatever arguments you like, I'll hold off on allowing trades for now but maybe later if more noms are needed

Bump

Biff Tannen
Alex DeLarge
Bill Cipher
Jafar (Aladdin)
The Coachman (Pinocchio)

So far...

6 nominations:

Allied Mastercomputer (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream)

4 nominations:

Art the Clown (Terrifier)
Ramsay Bolton (Game of Thrones)

3 nominations:

Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men)
Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
Johan Liebert (Monster)
Judge Claude Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
Judge Holden (Blood Meridian)
Kefka (Final Fantasy VI)
Lord Voldemort (Harry Potter)
Pennywise the Dancing Clown (IT)
The High Evolutionary (Guardians Of The Galaxy 3)
The Joker (DC Comics)

2 nominations:

Asami Yamazaki (Audition)
BOB (Twin Peaks)
Bondrewd (Made in Abyss)
Captain Vidal (Pan's Labyrinth)
Count Dracula
Dahlia Hawthorne (Ace Attorney)
Davros (Doctor Who)
Dolores Umbridge (Harry Potter)
Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars)
Eric Cartman (South Park)
Frieza (Dragonball Z)
Homelander (The Boys)
Light Yagami (Death Note)
Luca Blight (Suikoden II)
Michael Myers (Halloween)
Morgoth (The Silmarillion)
Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)
Scar (The Lion King)
Ted Faro (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Ursula (The Little Mermaid)
Zoran Lazarevic (Uncharted 2)

One nomination:

Aiden Hall (The Lodge)
Alex DeLarge (A Clockwork Orange)
Angelina Meyer (Manifest)
Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls)
Bughuul (Sinister)
Carnage (Marvel Comics)
Chainlink Shackles (Fallout: Equestria - Murky Number Seven)
Charles Montgomery Burns (The Simpsons)
Chernabog (Fantasia)
Cioccolata (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)
Cruella de Vil (101 Dalmarians)
Darkseid (DC Comics)
Dio Brando (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure)
Donquixote Doflamingo (One Piece)
Dr. Eggman (IDW Sonic Comics)
Emperor Belos (The Owl House)
Erebus (Warhammer 40'000)
Frank Booth (Blue Velvet)
Ganondorf (The Legend of Zelda)
George Harvey (The Lovely Bones)
Gilberte (Frontier(s))
Giovanni (Pokemon)
Griffith (Berserk)
Gunter (Adventure Time)
Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)
Hans Landa (Inglorious Basterds)
Harry Powell (The Night of the Hunter)
Immortan Joe (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Jack (The House That Jack Built)
Jody (Preacher)
Judge Doom (Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
Junko Enoshima (Danganronpa)
La Femme (Inside)
Lalo Salamanca (Better Call Saul)
Lil Slugger (Paranoia Agent)
Lucifer (Supernatural)
M. Bison (Street Fighter)
Mademoiselle (Martyrs)
Mephistopheles (Faust)
Mother Gothel (Tangled)
Mr. Scratch (Criminal Minds)
Other Mother (Coraline)
Professor Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes)
Randall Flagg (Stephen King)
Reinhard Heidrich (Dies Irae)
Shou Tucker (Fullmetal Alchemist)
Stormfront (The Boys)
The Antagonist (Hatred)
The Beast (Over the Garden Wall)
The Child Catcher (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)
The Coachman (Pinocchio)
The Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate 3)
The Judge (Blood Meridian)
The Man in Black (LOST)
The Prince (Bullet Train)
Vukmir (A Serbian Film)

Still 51 spots left!

Judge Claude Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
Frieza (Dragonball Z)

That's my 15 for today.

It's an HP Envy 16 with an i9, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. I don't plan to do much gaming, I just needed something to replace my 11-year-old Toshiba that kept overheating and was running slow AF.

Good lord, I've forgotten how fast a new computer is supposed to go. I'm babying this thing to keep it running well for a long ass time XD

Cavedweller2000 posted...

I would love to see a blurb before each match to highlight what makes each entrant evil

I'll definitely be posting write-ups before each match. Each day will feature a single match only.

Lalo Salamanca (Better Call Saul)
Mother Gothel (Tangled)
Eric Cartman (South Park)
Kefka (Final Fantasy VI)
The Joker (DC Comics)
Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars)
Count Dracula
Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Pennywise the Dancing Clown (IT)

I'll start things off with a few nominations of my own:

Emperor Belos (The Owl House)
Ted Faro (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
The High Evolutionary (Guardians Of The Galaxy 3)

It's time for me to run another tournament, and I figured I'd bring this classic back after doing it a couple times around a decade or so ago.

This is a single-elimination tournament where Board 8 decides the Most Evil Fictional Character of All Time. This is intended to be an "objective" tournament, in other words, you vote for who you genuinely believe is the most evil character in a 1 vs. 1 matchup.

This will be a single elimination, 64 character tournament. I'll allow 15 nominations per user, with 5 more every 24 hours. The first 64 characters to get three nominations will make it into the tournament, with seeding done by nominations received.

No real-world religious figures allowed, though fictional versions of said figures can get in. I'll make the final call on those.

Hopefully this tournament does as well as the first of these I ran back in the day!

I know Billy Bob Thornton is ashamed of doing Armageddon but he was so good in it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JTDcJK1irU

A 2D-HD Chrono Trigger remake with Live-A-Live/Star Ocean 2 remake level graphics, full voice acting, and two new sidequests: a full Ayla Singing Mountain sidequest that revamps the Lost Sanctum quest into a proper quest for her and eliminates all the backtracking, and a quest that allows you to save Schala from the Darkness Beyond Time and put her in your party.

I go to an Emagine theater with heated reclining seats in all the theaters. They've got food that they bring to your seat but I haven't tried it yet because I always go eat at the shopping center next door afterwards.

BTW, I've got the entire list (#100-#1) posted here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y6p5DoR7HmnqY3oFZ4eLKnW_lRcvTWKA/view?usp=sharing

The pictures/captions are gone but all the text remains for an easy read.

I was going to see Oppenheimer and Barbie both on Friday, but I withheld from caffeine that morning so I wouldn't have to pee during Oppenheimer, and by the end of Oppenheimer I had a mild headache and had to go home. I'll see Barbie on Monday.

This was nuts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs2sI1sBupY

I read that as "BO" for a second and had to do a lot of thinking.

I want Bella Ramsey to win so bad

Azula

Thanks to everyone for all the support, I didn't think this list would become so popular but I'm glad it did and that I decided to post it here :)

I'd be really excited to see someone do a 100 Dumbest list for any medium! A video game list would be awesome to see.

Azula

#1: The Reign Of Dan Schneider

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/0/7/AAAG8cAAEpN_.jpg
How could Nickelodeon have let this guy go for 25 years without realizing that something was afoot?

In 1988, a young, somewhat obscure sitcom actor named Dan Schneider co-hosted the Kids' Choice Awards, where he met Albie Hecht, who was then a development executive for Nickelodeon. Several years later, Hecht, who'd been promoted higher up in the company, hired Schneider to help develop a sketch comedy show called All That. From that point on, he became one of the company's most important and influential creative minds, working on All That, Kenan and Kel, The Amanda Show, Zoey 101, Drake And Josh, iCarly, Victorious, Sam and Cat, Henry Danger, and Game Shakers. Most of these shows were massive hits for the network, and many of the kids who starred on these shows went on to even bigger and better things in the industry. Schneider seemed to have his finger on the pulse of what kids wanted to see and hear, and his work brought in billions for Nickelodeon, making him practically untouchable. Unfortunately, this may have enabled him to perform unthinkable and unspeakable acts on his young actors and actresses, though these allegations remain only rumors at this point, and there's a few things about him we know for sure. We know from Jennette McCurdy's book that he can be somewhat of an on-set tyrant, working young actors for long hours and belittling them during show production. These allegations are related to the reason Schneider was let go from Nickelodeon in 2018, but they're not even close to the worst allegations about him. We know that Schneider seems to have a fixation on feet that most of his critics have identified as a fetish. He's frequently filmed and posted pictures of the feet of his young actors, and more than once on social media, he's asked his young fans to send him pictures of their feet. While it may be possible to dismiss this as just being a quirky facet of Schneider's sense of humor, it's still intensely disturbing that he has such a fixation on young people's feet, even in the unlikely event that it's simply an innocent fixation born from his comedy stylings. He's also known to have employed adults who later have turned out to be sex offenders at his "acting camps", where he sent many of his young actors after hiring them. We've seen numerous instances of sexualization of young female actors, a bit on iCarly but mostly on Victorious, including some disturbing behind the scenes footage where Elizabeth Gillies scrambles to cover up her co-star Ariana Grande before Schneider can sneak a peek under her skirt. There are rumors surrounding both Jamie Lynn Spears (who left Zoey 101 after becoming pregnant at 16) and Amanda Bynes (who has had well documented mental health struggles in the years since she appeared on Dan Schneider's shows) that are too vile (and potentially libelous) to mention here. Dan Schneider, unlike many of the figures on this list who are here because of personal scandals, has not been in any way confirmed to be a sexual predator, but the evidence of and testimones from numerous former employees who came forward paints a picture of him that's as ugly as just about anything else on this list. Even if Dan Schneider's bizarre behavior can all be explained away by a mental health quirk, it would still be disturbing enough to require an explanation that we've never fully received. The most likely story is that Schneider is a pervert who, even if he never got "physical", still has to account for his disturbing actions, if only to clear up these terrifying rumors. The fact that Nickelodeon gave the keys to the kingdom to this man for nearly a quarter of a century is disturbing, horrifying, and well worthy of being called the dumbest event in the histoy of children's television.

#2: American Networks' Treatment Of Anime In The 1990s/Early 2000s

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/7/5/AAAG8cAAEpNf.jpg
Calling this "Saban Moon" is an insult to Haim Saban.

In the early 1990s, stories began to pop up in the entertainment dirt sheets that anime was generating a massive profit outside of Japan, as countries such as Mexico, Brazil, and Italy began airing certain shows, setting record ratings on their various kids' networks. American networks had been eyeballing anime even longer, and plenty of shows had already made the jump to our shores, including Speed Racer all the way back in the 1960s. Now, mega-hits like Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z were making headlines all over the world, and localizing them was a stone cold no-brainer... but at the same time, the country was still in the grip of a post-1980s Satanic Panic, and with the talk show circuit and 24-hour news networks all too eager to fill their airtime with aggrieved "soccer moms" calling for bans and boycotts of any shows that stepped over the line, these networks were caught between a rock and a hard place: importing these anime shows would win them millions of viewers, but would also subject them to boycotts and lawsuits from powerful pro-censorship political groups. So, what did the networks that wanted to import anime do? All sorts of things, hardly any of them good. Before Sailor Moon even came to the United States, a group called Toon Makers tried to produce a live-action pilot that would air in lieu of the anime, but their pilot was quickly shelved and when it was finally dug out of mothballs, it became the product of immediate infamy and arguably a top 10 entry on this list in its own right. The official dub wasn't much better: entire episodes were cut, the music was changed, the voice acting was spotty, and many Japanese cultural references were excised. Dragonball Z was treated somewhat better, but even that show had to deal with the fact that no one could ever "die": either they'd be sent to "another dimension", or in one infamous case, after a plane was blown out of the sky, Tien remarked that he could "see their parachutes" and that they'd be "okay". Other shows had names of characters Anglicized, digital bikinis awkwardly painted on, blood awkwardly censored, characters' entire personalities changed or characters given terrible accents, awkward jokes forced into scripts, and characters' motivations completely altered from their original context. One Piece, a later example, had some infamous changes in the dub, including a character's dead mother being "thrown in a dungeon", amongst other ill-advised alterations. While some of these changes were ultimately necessary (nudity would've been out no matter what the current political climate was, and some blood and gore did need to be censored for kids' networks), most were overreactions to perceived complaints, with scripts and action scenes being altered simply to remove "imitatable behavior". In one particularly infamous example of LGBTQ+ censorship ultimately making things even MORE scandalous, the characters of Haruka and Michiru, known to be lovers in the original Sailor Moon dub, were changed to COUSINS to explain their affectionate behavior (which itself was censored very little), which is... quite telling of certain American values. The mistranslations, overly aggressive censorship, and outright butchering of popular anime not only defaced the original work, but tore a massive rift in the American anime fan community that has yet to fully heal to this day: purists who objected to any censorship of anime and who rather would've had these shows not localized at all, versus fans of the censored anime who were just happy to be seeing these shows in any form and found themselves in the awkward position of defending these ridiculous cuts. The treatment of anime by American kids' networks set anime back more than a decade in the United States, and only with the advent of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block finally allowing for minimally censored anime to air on basic cable did the wounds inflicted begin to heal, though anime only started to truly recover in the mid 2000s or so, once localization companies finally began to figure out how to air anime with only minimal censorship while still meeting broadcast standards for kids' networks. There are still some poorly localized anime to this day, and though many of us have fond memories of watching the butchered versions of our favorite shows back in the 1990s, it's with tremendous gratitude and a sigh of relief that anime no longer faces aggressive censorship like it used to when for most of us, the heavily censored versions were the only option.

#3: Scrappy-Doo

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/7/6/AAAG8cAAEpL8.jpg
Does he get too much hate these days? Maybe, but he still set his IP back 20 years.

Back in 1979, Scooby-Doo was in trouble. After a decade on the air and numerous spinoffs and specials, the show had seemingly run its course, and was on the verge of cancellation. To save the franchise, a new character was introduced, by the name of Scrappy-Doo. Scrappy stood in stark contrast to his uncle Scooby. He was brave, aggressive, assertive, almost reckless, charging into danger and taking everyone around him with him. He was just what the doctor ordered to mix things up, and ratings actually improved during the season he was introduced. Scrappy-Doo, on his own, was not the problem that almost killed the Scooby-Doo IP. The problem with Scrappy, and what led to the 1980s being the worst period in Scooby-Doo history (with the exception of the 13 Ghosts Of Scooby Doo series, which was great DESPITE Scrappy), was that once he saved the show, everything began to revolve around him. Fred, Velma, and Daphne were jettisoned, and the show shifted its format from a grounded mystery show about normal human criminals in masks to a show about the supernatural, with real ghosts and real vampires and real monsters... and here Scrappy was, still charging in at them, much to the annoyance of viewers. You know that classic Simpsons episode, when Poochie showed up on Itchy and Scratchy? That was Scrappy-Doo during many of the 1980s shows that featured him. "Whenever Poochie's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, 'where's Poochie?'" That was Scrappy-Doo. His personality evolved throughout the various 1980s shows, but executive meddling made this evolution inconsistent at best, and with such a polarizing character now the focus of the show, Scrappy became the focal point of not just the on-screen action, but a lot of the off-screen action as well. The series became more formulaic than it ever had even during the doldrums of the 1970s, with Scrappy continuing to shout his catchphrases, charge at villains, and get Scooby and Shaggy (or sometimes the others, but mostly Scooby and Shaggy) into trouble. Even when they succeeded in mellowing Scrappy out, it just didn't work, because a lot of the comedy of the show was lost as a result. Try as they might, with spinoffs and movies and specials, it just wasn't possible to make Scrappy Doo work, and most fans still preferred the classic cartoons before Scrappy came onto the scene. If they'd been able to integrate Scrappy into the full cast and develop his character in concert with the original five, it might've taken, but instead, Scooby-Doo took on a life of its own, with Scrappy as the focal point of just about everything, until eventually new writers began working on Scooby-Doo projects in the late 80s and early 90s and wrote Scrappy out of the show. It wouldn't be until 1998's Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island that the IP was fully revivified in a way that even made the use of supernatural creatures fit in, but Scrappy was nowhere to be seen, and the 2002 live-action film put the nail in his coffin for good. There's been an effort to rehabilitate Scrappy-Doo in recent years, and to anyone who enjoyed his character, that's totally fair. Scrappy wasn't the problem, but the lazy writing he enabled and the overly aggressive revamping of the original formula to accommodate him nearly killed the franchise. The 1980s Scooby-Doo writers failed Scrappy-Doo, and they're the ones to blame for his demise, not the haters. In the end, Scrappy-Doo became a symbol of too much change, too quickly, and that's a recipe that can doom even the most beloved children's IPs.

#4: CN Real

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CN Real is going to shred!... the ratings. Whenever any of these shows are on.

The year was 2009, and Cartoon Network was still reeling from the effects of the 2007 writer's strike, as well as just being in a down time in general. Imports of Canadian cartoons like Total Drama Island and 6teen had managed to stem the bleeding a bit, but the channel was still way down compared to rivals Nickelodeon and Disney, which were dominating the ratings with iCarly and Hannah Montana. Cartoon Network execs had been noticing for some time that live-action sitcoms on those channels had been doing quite well, and they'd even tried their hand at a live-action/animated hybrid of their own (see #61) to no avail. So, with live action surging and animation seemingly waning, Cartoon Network began to put together a block of their own live-action shows to challenge Nickelodeon and Disney. Enter... CN Real. And did this block consist of sitcoms too? Perhaps digging into their stable of voice actors with live-action experience (Liliana Mumy, Sean Marquette, Tara Strong)? Actually, no. It was a block consisting entirely of reality shows and one game show. And... all of them were atrociously bad, with the possible exception of the ghost hunting show The Othersiders which was merely okay. The rest of them? Survive This was a Canadian reality show about kids trying to survive in the wilderness with a dollar store Bear Grylls. Brain Rush was an awful game show with kids trying to solve quiz questions on a roller coaster. The less said about Bobb'e Says, the better. Dude, What Would Happen? was a horrible Mythbusters ripoff starring teenagers. Destroy, Build, Destroy was a competition show involving two teams of kids who had to smash up objects and rebuild them into a vehicle to compete against each other, hosted by Andrew W. K. Speaking of Andrew W. K., he was the informal "mascot" of CN Real, and even performed a two and a half minute rock song to promote the brand, complete with stunt bikers, fire breathers, and massive speakers blaring awful music while he screamed about these shows as if they were the second coming of "Must See TV". This video, along with probably three or four of these shows, could each be top 100 list entries on their OWN. Together? CN Real was a hideous, massive flop from the moment it debuted in the summer of 2009, with ratings plummeting almost immediately in the first few weeks. Rarely has a network's experiment in brand expansion been so thoroughly and decisively rejected by viewers so soon into its lifespan, but within weeks the shows were all moved to a single block so as to isolate them from the rest of the network, and though a couple of them would linger into 2011, they'd be gone from the network within a few years, just in time for an animation renaissance led by Adventure Time to save Cartoon Network and consign CN Real, mercifully, to the dustbin of children's television history.

#5: Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue

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I'm pretty sure drugs were involved in the CREATION of most of these guys.

The 1980s and early 1990s were the height of anti-drug preaching aimed at children, and that anti-drug advertising quite possibly reached its zenith on April 21, 1990. Prior to that date, advertisements hyping a cartoon crossover special permeated the airwaves and elsewhere, including McDonald's (which financed the special itself). Kids were hyped that many of their favorite cartoon characters would be teaming up for... something, something they didn't know but it had to be big! Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Looney Tunes, the Muppet Babies, Garfield, ALF, various Disney characters... it was easily the biggest animation event since Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and it was going to air EVERYWHERE... all the broadcast stations and several cable channels as well, and President George Bush (Sr.) was going to introduce it. So, what were all these cartoon characters teaming up to do? Go on an exciting adventure? Take down the Soviet Union? No! They were going to teach kids... not to do drugs! That's right, all this hype and hullabaloo was for a 30 minute special where dozens of cartoon characters team up to save a young boy (and his sister) from drugs, represented by a smoke creature voiced by George C. Scott. Because that's a good message to teach kids, if you take drugs all your favorite cartoon characters will come to life. Also, some of the cartoon characters mention marijuana by name. I'm honestly not surprised that Simon knows what marijuana is, and I'm DEFINITELY not surprised that Bugs Bunny knows what it is, as I'm pretty sure he's familiar with much stronger stuff. Actually, Jim Cummings successfully lobbied to have Winnie the Pooh NOT be familiar with drugs, since he's too "innocent" to know about them, I guess. Also he spends much of the special locked in a drawer. This special even had a song composed by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, and... hoo boy, is it bad. And, as Howard Ashman was dying of AIDS when he helped write the song, it's one of the last ones he ever composed. So, there's that I guess. The song is called "Wonderful Ways To Say No", and one of the lines is "those drugs are so boring!" Which... I mean... I guess? Seriously though, the last thing kids needed after being bombarded with years of anti-drug commercials, "lessons of the day", and DARE classes is EVEN MORE anti-drug propaganda. They got all those cartoons together and this is what we got out of it? A laughable waste of time, and probably one of Saturday morning's lowest points.

#6: The Death Of Optimus Prime

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This was Generation X's Kennedy assassination.

When The Transformers: The Movie came out in 1986, the series' young fans were stoked to see their favorite robots on the big screen, and the robot they were most excited to see was Optimus Prime. Leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime was one of the most prominent animated heroes of the 1980s, with some even giving him the nickname of "Robot Jesus". Meanwhile, Hasbro saw the movie as an opportunity to introduce a brand new line of toys, and how would they generate sales for their new line of Transformers? Why, by killing off the old ones, of course! In particular, Optimus Prime was to be killed near the start of the movie, as the aftermath of a battle with Megatron. This would make way for the new leader of the team and the flagship toy of Hasbro's new toy line: Rodimus Prime. When the film's head writer saw what Hasbro was planning to do, he begged corporate to allow him and his writing team to change Optimus' fate, or at the very least, to bring him back at the end of the movie. Hasbro refused, saying that they had "great things planned" (i.e., their 1986 toy line), and so, Optimus' fate was sealed, and millions of unsuspecting kids went to the movies, unaware that their hero was doomed. The reaction, needless to say, was not what Hasbro expected: kids were crying in the theater, storming out, one kid locked himself in his room for two weeks... they were also sending lots of hate mail to both Hasbro and the film's production staff. About the only thing they weren't doing was buying the new toys: the death of Optimus made a lot of kids want to give up Transformers all together. Ultimately, Optimus' death would be reversed during the next season of the cartoon, and the Transformers IP survived, but not before an indelible memory was left in the minds of millions of Gen X kids, who will never forget the moment their hero Optimus Prime was killed. Oh, and despite traumatizing millions of young kids, the film was STILL a box office failure, opening at 14th in its first weekend. In other words, in order to upset millions of kids, pretty much everyone who saw the film would've had to have been pissed off. Pissing off the people who buy your toys is not a good marketing strategy.

TeamRocketElite posted...

Why did the theatre get raided?

Vice cops sometimes did raids on establishments like that, specifically to catch people doing what Pee-Wee was doing.

#7: Pee-Wee Gets Busted

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"Heard any good jokes lately?"

In 1991, Paul Reubens, best known for his performances as Pee-Wee Herman, had been finished with his hit children's TV show Pee-Wee's Playhouse for several months, and was taking a vacation in Florida. After deciding to visit an adult movie theater, that theater was raided by police, and Reubens was caught exposing himself while viewing a movie. He would be arrested for indecent exposure, kicking off one of the biggest scandals in children's entertainment history. Almost immediately, reruns of Pee-Wee's Playhouse were pulled, and wouldn't be seen on television again for more than a decade. Reubens was scandalized immediately in the media, with tabloids and talk shows launching all kinds of allegations against him. Despite overwhelming public support, nearly all companies associated with Pee-Wee Herman ended those associations, including Disney and Toys 'R' Us. Ultimately, Reubens was given community service for the charge, leading to his appearance in anti-drug commercials, including the infamous Pee-Wee Herman "this is crack" commercial, one of the most bizarre anti-drug ads of all time. This was a scandal that was blown WAY out of proportion... he was exposing himself in an adult movie theater? What are you supposed to do while watching adult movies, sit quietly and reverently like you're in church? Now, I will say that there is a "what were you thinking?!" factor to all of this, that Reubens had no business watching porn in public so soon after Pee-Wee's Playhouse ended. To paraphase Saul Goodman: "Why don'tcha do it at home like the rest of us, with a big screen TV, 50 channels of pay-per-view?" It was probably a bit ill-advised for Pee-Wee Herman to be doing such things at that time, maybe wait a couple years until the show's been off the air a while? At the same time, this was blown INCREDIBLY out of proportion by a newsmedia increasingly hungry for scandals and drama, and dragging Pee-Wee Herman's good name through the mud for something millions of people have done is obviously really, really stupid. It led to Pee-Wee's Playhouse being pulled from syndication, meaning that if you're a millennial, chances are you had no chance to watch one of the best children's TV shows of all time until it ended up on Adult Swim in the 2000s. It also killed off any chance of the character being brought back if Reubens ever got an inkling to perform as Pee-Wee again. This was one of the biggest celebrity scandals of the early 24-hour news cycle era, and it really, really shouldn't have been.

#8: The Power Rangers Peace Conference

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"You know, Zordon, McDonald's is an awfully weird place to hold a world peace conference. And these registration forms look a lot like job applications..."

In the fall of 1994, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers was riding high. It was the #1 kids' show on TV and only getting more and more popular, especially with the special episode inaugurating Tommy as the White Ranger. As the show's second season went on with more and more exciting episodes and higher and higher stakes, it seemed as if nothing could bring the show down. It was raking in billions of dollars between ad sales and merch, and creator Haim Saban was rolling in dough. Surely he could spare some of those billions to give his actors a raise when their contracts came up for renewal, right? Well... the thing is, Power Rangers was initially a non-union production on a shoestring budget. The actors playing the Rangers made just $600 an episode, and were forced to work long hours for long stretches, along with making appearances and all sorts of other commitments of their time. But, you know, back then no one would imagine the show would turn into the biggest success since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and now it seemed poised to surpass the Turtles in popularity as long as the show continued its rise, so surely there had to be some money for the actors who'd helped make the show such a big success, right? As it turns out, there wasn't. The actors playing the Rangers were only offered a modest increase in their pay, not nearly what they were asking. When they began to play hardball, with Austin St. John, Thuy Trang, and Walter Jones holding out particularly stubbornly, Saban decided to cut those three actors loose and proceed with all new ones, using the excuse of a "worldwide peace conference" to explain their departure and replace them with Steve Cardenas, Karan Ashley, and Johnny Yong Bosch respectively. In other words, over a minor pay dispute that would've only required him to pay his actors a pittance of the billions of dollars his show was making, Haim Saban instead chose to jettison half his cast and hope the kids wouldn't notice. Well, they did notice, and though Power Rangers remained popular for several more years, it was at this point that the show's popularity began to plateau, before gradually starting a slow and steady drop the following year. When Power Rangers: The Movie came out in the summer of 1995, it opened to about a third of what Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' movie did just five years before, when adjusting for ticket price inflation over those five years. Saban's short-sighted move to save a few bucks caused the popularity of Power Rangers, which to that point had been rising meteorically, to level off and then start to fall away. Kids aren't dumb, they know when something's changed, and believe it or not, the interactions between the teen characters outside the Power Ranger suits were a big part of the show. Kids loved Jason, Trini, and Zack, and though the new Rangers performed their jobs ably and were good characters in their own right, it was a major blow to lose half the cast barely a year into the show. Why get attached to the human characters if there's a chance they get replaced within a year? Though it didn't end the Power Rangers craze overnight, it certainly limited the show's potential. Perhaps it can best be compared to when the Oklahoma City Thunder traded away James Harden to save on paying the luxury tax: they never contended for a title again, and firing three of the original actors over a pay dispute proved to be one of the shortest-sighted moves in the history of children's television.

#9: Bronies

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That's not actually Applejack, but I don't think that's the most relevant thing here.

Before I begin, I just want to say that when I say "bronies", I don't mean all bronies. #NotAllBronies The vast majority of My Little Pony fans, even adult ones, are creative, harmless, normal people, and they're not the ones causing the problems. But, unfortunately, bronies wouldn't be so high on the list if there weren't a small but VERY noticeable minority causing a lot of problems, and that's what we're discussing here. My Little Pony returned for its fourth generation in 2010, and almost immediately, the show became a massive hit, revivifying the franchise after years of stagnation. Directed by Lauren Faust, the show achieved both critical and commercial success, and became The Hub's biggest show, winning millions of fans worldwide. But a small subsection of the show's adult male fanbase, known as "bronies"... let's just say they've gone way too far. Like all other cartoons, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has had obscene fanart drawn and posted, but unlike most other cartoons, this fanart is regularly posted in areas kids (the show's target demographic) regularly have access to, untagged and un-gated. These bronies frequently made thirst posts about the ponies on Twitter, to the point where it became pretty much impossible for kids to search My Little Pony online without turning up something disgusting. There have been exceptionally violent fan videos posted of the ponies being brutally murdered, sometimes by other ponies (example: the "Smile" video). Other fans have appeared at conventions, asking inappropriate questions to the show's cast and crew in full view of young attendees, or even making inappropriate passes at cosplayers. A substantial radical right-wing contingent of fans also attached itself to the show, drawing Nazi ponies and other right-wing memes. And there are even a few fans who have gone so far as to commit violence in the name of the show, from simple assault and battery to... *sigh* another mass shooting, this time at a FedEx distribution center, claiming eight lives. While there are plenty of horror stories in numerous other fandoms, this subset of the brony fandom has become infamous even amongst other toxic fandoms, and has pretty much become the modern standard-bearer for "toxic fandom" in general. Amongst shipping "antis" who have attacked people for their ships, art, and writing, many of these cite the My Little Pony fandom and lingering trauma from seeing inappropriate art as the reason why they're so aggressive against the proship side, claiming that they don't wish to see their own fandoms become like the My Little Pony fandom. In other words, bronies may have been the supervillain origin story for today's toxic ship discourse. Again, most bronies are totally fine, and are merely enthusiastic for a really cute and fun cartoon... but it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the bunch, and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic's toxic fandom is as bad as it gets.

#10: Jerry Falwell vs. Tinky Winky

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I'm not sure where in the Bible it says not to watch Teletubbies, but I'll take any excuse I can get.

Long before Charlie Kirk was looking for "woke" condiments in his fridge, social conservatives were scouring the media for anything they could possibly get mad at as they riled up their flocks. We had the Satanic Panic and the crusade against Dungeons and Dragons in the 1980s, and in the 90s, a whole new generation of beloved characters were in the crosshairs. Teletubbies was a British children's show imported to America and broadcast on PBS, and if you've ever seen it, you know just how mindless it is. Four baby-like creatures known as Teletubbies explore the world around them with simplistic dialogue and childlike wonder. The show was pretty much designed to appeal only to infants and toddlers, and to practically everyone else, it was a massive nuisance, almost on par with Barney before it. But to one televangelist, Teletubbies posed an existential threat to America's moral fiber. Jerry Falwell in 1999 declared war on Tinky Winky, the purple Teletubby, claiming that "purple was the gay pride color", his triangle-shaped antenna was "a gay pride symbol", and he carried around a red purse. He even went on various morning shows to decry Tinky Winky and claim that he represented an attack on Christian values. Falwell's words were immediately lampooned on shows like Saturday Night Live and on late-night TV, and the whole incident let to ridicule of both Tinky Winky and Falwell, but mostly Falwell. Of course, in England, even before Falwell declared war on the purple Teletubby, some cultural commentators had been pointing out Tinky Winky's potential homoerotic undertones, but largely in a tongue in cheek way, and it's rumored that after Falwell's rants became public knowledge, Tinky Winky's actor began playing the character even more effeminately just to mess with him. So, in the end, not only did Falwell become a laughingstock, but Tinky Winky just became even more effeminate, and with LGBTQ+ characters now becoming commonplace on children's television, it's clear that Falwell and his ilk have lost the culture war they wasted so much time fighting.

Toph

Crescent-Moon posted...

Because they thought the animals would potentially make people more willing to watch because cute animals. Saturday morning pretty well turned into the ultimate deadzone of television, something they were forced to make that nobody watched. I would have the TV off before I'd bothering listening to whatever those shows would drone on about.

Sometimes I like having Mo Rocca and Miranda Cosgrove's shows on as background noise. They both have fun, pleasant voices.

#11: The Children's Television Act And The Slow Death Of Saturday Morninghttps://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/2/5/AAAG8cAAEo-p.jpg
Pictured: The famous educational television program, Hannah Montana.

In October 1990, the Children's Television Act was signed into law. Advocacy groups had been campaigning for such a law for years, claiming that regulations were needed to stem the rising tide of violent content and commercialization on children's television. In 1996, an even stronger regulatory bill was signed into law, requiring that stations air three hours of "educational" content per week, and that such content be labeled with an "E/I" station bug designating it as such. These laws, of course, didn't apply to cable television networks such as Nickelodeon, and were passed into law right as these channels were growing massively in popularity with kids. Contrary to popular belief, the laws didn't kill Saturday morning kids' shows immediately. While NBC soon jettisoned its Saturday morning cartoon block in favor of live-action shows such as Saved By The Bell and California Dreams, ABC and CBS kept right on with their cartoons, as did FOX Kids, which saw its greatest success in the 1990s. Kids WB also aired plenty of cartoons during this time. Indeed, the Children's Television Act only started a bit of a regulatory war between the government and the networks, primarily over what counted as "educational". For years, networks just slapped the "E/I" logo on anything they wanted to. Even before the logo was mandated, you'd see tons of cartoons slap on 30 second "lesson of the day" segments at the end of their shows, where the characters would talk about some real world issues like studying or smoking. Many of these "lesson of the day" segments were silly and became meme material, but even after they faded out, networks would often stick random social or educational content in shows just so they could apply the label. In the case of shows like the pictured Hannah Montana, for example, they just didn't care. Even as networks pushed back against government regulation, more and more of them began cutting Saturday morning programming entirely, until only syndicated blocks like Qubo and 4KidsTV remained, and then those went as well by the early 2010s, leaving only live-action general audience blocks such as "One Magnificent Morning" and "The CBS Dream Team". These blocks air genuinely educational content, most of it fairly generic and inoffensive, disproportionately featuring animals for some reason... and many kids just tune in to Nickelodeon. The Children's Television Act and subsequent regulations ultimately succeeded in their goal of "purifying" the network Saturday morning airwaves of commercialized content, but also failed in their goal to make television more educational, because, let's face it, after a tough week of school, the last thing kids want to be doing on Saturday morning is more learning. Kids just flocked to cable networks or played video games instead, and with the "Kid Vid" laws finally on the verge of being repealed, will we get our Saturday mornings back? No, because most networks plan to fill those slots with news or sports. The laws mostly just led to a quarter century of back and forth rules lawyering between networks and the government, ultimately resulting in cartoons just moving from networks to cable, billions of dollars wasted on one of the most pointless political battles in modern American history.

#12: Soupy Sales Tells Kids To Steal Money From Their Parents

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Beating Twitch streamers to the punch by half a century.

Soupy Sales was a legendary comedian whose signature shtick was taking a pie to the face. He parlayed his talents into a long career in comedy, both the general audience kind (where he sometimes did late night shows) and the kids' kind (his career lasted so long that he was briefly considered to host Nickelodeon's Double Dare in 1986). For the most part, he enjoyed great fame and affection, and when he died in 2009, he was fondly remembered for entertaining millions of people. However, there was one particular incident that could've cost him everything while he was at the absolute height of his career: back on New Year's Day 1965, on an episode of his long-running kids' show Lunch with Soupy Sales, he was a bit annoyed about having to work the holiday, so toward the end of the program, he said this: "Hey kids, last night was New Year's Eve, and your mother and dad were out having a great time. They are probably still sleeping and what I want you to do is tiptoe in their bedroom and go in your mom's pocketbook and your dad's pants, which are probably on the floor. You'll see a lot of green pieces of paper with pictures of guys in beards. Put them in an envelope and send them to me at Soupy Sales, Channel 5, New York, New York. And you know what I'm going to send you? A post card from Puerto Rico!" Yep, he actually asked millions of impressionable young viewers to steal money from their parents and send it to him. And while millions of those kids didn't do it, either because they took it as a joke or because they were obviously scared of getting in trouble, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, actually mailed him money. While some of the money was Monopoly money, a decent amount of it was real, and soon Soupy was under investigation, with the threat of CONGRESS getting involved. He ended up getting what amounted to a relative slap on the wrist, a two week suspension, and he went on to have a mostly incident-free rest of his career, after his bosses concluded that he was indeed just joking. It was an early indication of the power of television, and that one should be very careful about what they joke about in front of millions of people... a lesson that sometimes even the funniest among us have to learn the hard way.

#13: The Anti-Barney Crusade

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Didn't Barney play basketball that one time? Maybe he just hit three shots in a row.

Barney and Friends was a children's show that debuted on PBS in 1992, about a purple dinosaur and his friends, involving lots of singing and dancing about love and friendship. The show exploded in popularity that year like few things before or since, and came back down to Earth fairly quickly, though it went on for about 20 years and remained at least decently popular until it finally went off the air. The show itself wasn't all that good... it lacked the wit of Sesame Street or the wisdom of Mister Rogers, and honestly could've been a borderline honorable mention for this list with its all-too saccharine antics and just how silly that dinosaur got sometimes. It naturally attracted an enormous hatedom... and I do mean enormous, with dark nursery rhymes about violently killing Barney and even a tabletop RPG campaign called The Jihad To Destroy Barney. There were anti-Barney parodies, all sorts of those in the media... but, again, those were all harmlessly poking fun at a hated character. This entry on the list is about the people who made it personal. Countless death threats and violent letters sent to the show's creators and staff, kids who chose to keep watching Barney and Friends being relentlessly bullied, and all over a dumb purple dinosaur who never did anything to hurt anybody. Seriously, apart from a few small nitpicks about kids doing dumb stuff in the show (catching stinging insects, a bit of name-calling), Barney's about the least problematic IP that ever existed, and yet the show's creators had to deal with so much real-life violence and hatred that a literal documentary called I Love You, You Hate Me was made to chronicle it all. This isn't about a shipping war, or problematic fanart, literally all these people did was put an annoying character on a screen for thirty minutes a day. That's all it took. As annoying as Barney could be at times, no creator deserves that or anywhere near that, and it's definitely telling when a dinosaur who only wanted us to love each other became the target of so much hate that it spilled into the real world.

#14: The Odyssey Of Greg Weisman

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He smiles to hide the pain.

Greg Weisman is a writer and director of comics and action cartoons, and he's widely considered to be one of the best animation writers of all time. In fact, some consider him to be one of the greatest television writers of all time. So, tell me, if the man is so good at his job... why does he keep getting fired from almost all of them? Weisman is widely known as the creator of Disney's animated classic Gargoyles, and while that show was able to come to some sort of conclusion, it's widely known that the show could've gone on longer than it did, and ended before its time. Then there's the ill-fated Spectacular Spider-Man, considered one of the best animated superhero cartoons ever, two seasons and then *poof*, gone! He would later go on to produce and write for the excellent DC animated show Young Justice, which got two seasons, was canceled, came back for two more seasons, and then in 2022 got canceled again (thanks to #18 on this list)! Greg Weisman is considered one of the tragic figures of animation, with so many beloved shows canceled before their time... even projects he's worked on but didn't create, such as W.I.T.C.H., have suffered the fate of cancellation, making some wonder if this man is cursed. Whether it be low ratings, periphery demographics, or poor merch sales (the excuse given in the case of Young Justice), network executives keep coming up with excuses to cancel this man's shows, despite fans being ready, willing, and able to support them. Perhaps his mature and complex storylines are too grown-up for the kids that network advertisers are targeting, but at the same time, so many people claim to have grown up on his shows as kids, so... maybe it's the networks themselves who just aren't ready? Time and time again, Greg Weisman has elevated children's animated television, and time and time again, the networks have been there to knock it back down to Earth. His talents remain in high demand, so there's no doubt he'll be back to direct more animated shows, but whether or not network execs will wise up and let him cook remains to be seen.