Worst Cartoon Sidekicks EVER!

Surprisingly, one of the many cartoons who got it right.

For those fortunate enough to actually want to wake up early in the morning and rush out to watch cartoons while eating copious amounts of Cocoa Pebbles because, after you were done, you got to drink leftover "chocolate" milk, this is for you. Nowadays there are hundreds of cartoons ranging from mildy-humorous to just flat out noise that makes you want to yell "It's a goddamn clue Steve. Do you think we are retarded? I hope you die of gonorrhea you dickless wonder." However back in the day, there were good cartoons (most live action rip-offs, er, spin-offs) which were absolutely ruined by some unnecessary "comedic relief" character. Most of these characters had magical powers that mainly resulted in fucking up an evil plot by doing something unmagical like sneezing while sneaking around the hero's secret base or by revealing the protagonist's one weakness to their adversary because everyone knows there isn't a magical spell to prevent the asshat side kick from retardedly screwing everything up. Regardless, of being magical or not, ALL sidekicks had the power to annoy the shit out of you so much that you HAD to hit your brother in the balls to relieve it. Here is a list of cartoon sidekicks (in no real order) that will assuredly incite physical violence and ruin all wonderful childhood memories.

1. The Great Gazoo, "The Flintstones".

As if corny puns using stones in names of things weren't enough, "The Flintstones" would occasionally make an episode, in surprisingly it's last season, about an alien who crashed on earth...in the stone ages and only Fred, Barney, and kids could see him. Much like all the sidekicks on this list, he served no real purpose but to annoy Fred and Barney and screw up every time he tried to help them. The only thing Gazoo got right was accepting a job for promoting Marshmallow Mania Pebbles ...mmm, marshmallow Pebbles.

2. Orbity, "The Jetsons".
Ok, so apparently having a robot maid, nor a talking dog that spoke broken English, weren't enough for the Jetsons family. During the 80's, Orbity was added to the cast of the "The Jetsons" as a way to even out the negative Astro as even he wasn't immune to all the cocaine that was around back then. Orbity was a super smart alien who was always positive and could help out Elroy more than an stupid dog with his normal limbs and stupid lisp and wasn't as bitchy as Rosie. Orbity was just so darned nice, you sort of hoped that George would have punted that little bastard down an elevator shaft, or at least kick him off of the balcony since those homes seemed to elevate miles above the Earth (maybe because African-Americans rule the land and property values plummeted because, honestly, has anyone seen a black guy on "The Jetsons"?). If the creators were smart they'd followed "The Flintstones" formula and put some stone age dinosaur into the future to ruin "The Jetsons" too.

3. Uni, "Dungeons and Dragons".

"Dungeons and Dragons" the cartoon was awesome. Every kid was pretending to be either Hank or Bobby, because Eric was an puss and only had a shield and Presto sucked as a magician. What made this cartoon even better was that Hank, who had a magical bow and arrow, was voiced by Willie Aames and Presto was voiced by Adam Rich, both of who also were on "Eight is Enough " (a show despite being watched by every kid, in retrospect, sucked) and Eric the Cavalier was voiced by THE Donnie Most. Now Bobby the Barbarian was great because all he had was guts and a club, but his downfall was some silly unicorn, Uni, that would follow him and the rest of the group around, snorting, and talk like a baby. Uni was scared shitless of everything in "The Realm" and only seemed to bumble around like a moron in a room full of facts. She served no purpose but to show kids that being a pussy is a fact of life and being annoying enough WON'T actually get you killed, despite the fact that she could teleport once per day.

4. Glomer, "It's Punky Brewster".
Don't act like I was the only one who watched this turd. But honestly, how could it have sucked back then? I mean the real life "Punky Brewster" is about an orphan and her dog Brandon taken in by some old dude Henry and by continually saying "Punky Power" while trying to accomplish anything. The hilarity practically wrote itself! However, creators of "It's Punky Brewster" didn't think it lacked the punch as it added, I shit you not, a leprechaun gopher with retarded powers to the cartoon. Not only could he teleport Punky and her friends anywhere in the world, but he could make you steal money from your mom's purse with his annoyingly hypnotic suggestions such as "Glomer needs drug money". However the kids decided to keep Glomer a secret which was a better kept secret that Punky was named after a real-life tomboy girl that NBC programming head Brandon Tartikoff had a crush on indeed named Punky and still creepily pined after. Punky Power indeed...


5. Snarf, "Thundercats".
Imagine this premise: a lion-like person who possesses a magical sword, a tiger who has mental powers and a bolo whip, a panther who uses nunchucks and drives a tank, a cheetah who is fast and uses a bo staff and two kids who have hoverboards and capsules full of mischief. Call it the Thundercats and let the cash flow in. The only way to drag this awesomeness down is to add a nursemaid to Lion-O, the young prince of the Thundercats, who is overly motherly (I already have a nagging mother, why does there have to be one in my favorite cartoon too?), has a voice more annoying that Mrs. Garrett, and has the vocabulary of a goddamn smurf. Snarf not only is the worry wort of the Thundercats, he is the most useless, and by useless I mean his only power was to communicate with Third Earth animals...animals who DON'T use nunchucks! Not only does this turd say "snarf, snarf" as an sigh, but he went to Snarf College on fucking Planet Snarf! Somehow creators thought so highly of Snarf that they added another character alongside Snarf... his nephew, Snarfer! In yet another lucid decisions, when the Thundercats returned to their newly reformed (not reformed as in wasn't bad and now is good, but reformed as it blew up but then magically reformed into a planet again), the Thundercats main contacts on Thundera were Snarf Oswald and Snarf Eggbert. So, to summarize, the creators left Snarf and Snarfer on Third Earth and PURPOSELY made two new snarfs when the series shifted to another planet. What a bunch of assholes...

6. Gleek, "The All New Super Friends Hour".
"Super Friends" was the first cartoon with superheroes, such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman battling a group of villians comprised of Lex Luther, Bizzaro Superman and Solomon Grundy hellbent on taking over the world. Added to the traditional DC superheroes are the multicultural Hanna-Barbara characters such as Black Vulcan, Apache Chief, Samurai and El Dorado. But for every ounce of awesomeness, there is a quart of suck. The Wonder Twins and Gleek are that. Sure Jayna could turn into an animal and sadly Zan could only form water based things, such as a puddle, but Gleek's superhero power? The ability to get a bucket to carry Zan. Whoopie! Not only that, he couldn't even tell the Super Friends that Hall of Justice as being infiltrated by people of the Legion of Doom because he couldn't talk; all Gleek could do was make annoying monkey noises and play charades...and he was shitty at it. Gleek was such a crappy sidekick, he made Wendy, Marvin and Wonderdog look useful.


7. Orko, "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe"

You want to know what makes a shitty sidekick? If there is ever an episode that revolves around the sidekick wondering if he is worthless and during that episode it is revealed that in by not fucking everything up, such as revealing He-Man's true identity, that he has worth, then you are a shitty sidekick. Let me repeat that: In managing not to screw up everything he does, he manages to show his worth. That's like saying you are employee of the week because you refrained from drinking on the job and making photocopies of your ass all day long. Orko is yet another sidekick that wasn't part of the He-Man toy line nor part of the He-Man comic books. His only talent is screwing up everytime he tries magic, a hat that stores various things, and knowing He-Man is really Prince Adam, who looks exactly like He-Man, and the inability of restraint to tell even Skeletor who He-Man is. By the power of Greyskull, Orko sucks!!!!

8. Slimer, "The Real Ghostbusters".

The last few examples of how to ruin a good premise for a cartoon and, in turn, insulting the comedic understandings of children worldwide, take movies and TV shows and adds the sidekick twist regardless if they make sense or not. In "The Real Ghostbusters" the idea is relatively simple: Take badly drawn version of the Ghostbusters and put them in weekly adventures of, well, busting ghosts. Seems simple and relatively endless. But apparently without Bill Murray and Dan Akyroyd, how can cartoon writers make this as funny as its movie counterpart? Add Slimer, the ghost that was caught in the original Ghostbusters movie. But how to make it over-the-top funny? Run the same gag as done in the movie: Slimer flys around sliming people....hardy, har-har. Slimer even tries to talk which is a combination of noises Gleek would make and the old man who has congestion problems. The only hilarity from this is the neurotic need to clear your throat out of necessity from all the snot sounds produced from Slimer. "But surely the focus of the show is the Ghostbusters and Slimer is just a background character" you might exclaim. Well, in an effort to draw more viewers, "The Real Ghostbusters" was renamed "Slimer! And the Real Ghostbusters" because they made several episodes that centered around only Slimer and his crazy misadventures. Screw you ABC!

9. Godzooky, "The Godzilla Power Hour".

If it's not obvious by now, the TV executives in charge of Saturday morning cartoons hated you. It may not have be obvious to our underdeveloped brains when we were kids, but after this list I am becoming more convinced by it. Take "The Godzilla Power Hour". You have Godzilla, who is comical in his own right, and all he does is battle other creatures to SAVE the humans. There is even a cast of inept people who do nothing but cry for Godzilla to save them after their own feeble attempt to thwart a giant moth from destroying the world. Cartoon GOLD if you ask me. But then you add Godzooky, the nephew of Godzilla (presumably because Godzilla's son would raise to many questions about who Mrs. Godzilla is and where Godzooky's inherited his pussy gene) who could fly using a small flap of skin under his arms and could only produce a puff of smoke when trying to breath fire. He was best friends with Pete, a kid who was a nephew of a member of the scientific team aboard their research vessel. Godzooky wasn't completely annoying, but he was completely unnecessary because if the 80's taught us anything, it was that it is ok, and maybe even cool, to be a complete coward and buckle under the pressures of the world. And we have Godzooky to thank for that.

10a. Mr. Cool, "Fonz and the Happy Days Gang".

10b. Doyng and Sgt. Squeal, "The Mork and Mindy/Laverne and Shirley/Fonz Hour"




There is one obvious conclusion about the live action counterparts of the cartoons that one can draw. Happy Days and their spinoffs, Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Mindy, had a pretty flimsy,mundane premise that even the cartoons try hard to overcome. And in the 80's there is only one sure-fire way to spice up a cartoon....unnecessary sidekicks. Come on, admit it. You could never get enough of Fonzi saying "Aaaaaahhh". The only way to make it better is by making a talking dog, call him Mr. Cool, and have him also use the Fonz's catch phrase...over and over again. At least Laverne and Shirley changed from being broads who work in a beer factory to broads in the army, but on the funny scale, it falls WAY below "what you talkin bout Willis". Well thank God for the addition of Sgt. Squeal, the talking pig who outranks both Laverne and Shirley and has more wits than Squiggy and Lenny. Furthermore, have you ever wondered how Mork could feel more like an alien other than just acting like a freak, freezing time and saying "Shazbot" or "Na-Nu Na-Nu"? How making a prequel cartoon in which Mork stalks a teenage Mindy and adding a zany Orkean dog, Doyng, as Mork's sidekick. To be fair, the disasters of these cartoons weren't due to the sidekicks, they are just a the product of a mass produced cartoon formula meant to be the visual tits they wanted us kids to suckle from.

Dishonorable mention: All the Planeteers on "Captain Planet and the Planeteers", Too-Much, "Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos", Einstein, "Back to the Future: The Animated Series", Spike, "Mr. T", Deputy Fuzz, "Bravestarr", Kowl, "She-Ra: Princess of Power", Twink, "Rainbow Brite", Bumper, "Gilligan's Planet", and Nikko "The New Kids on the Block Animated Series".