Entertainment
10 Bonkers Animated Shows That No One Remembers Today
Animation is a medium, not a genre, and it’s a medium perfectly suited for some of the most bonkers, wildly over-the-top TV shows that the small screen has ever seen. After all, the fact that animation throughout history has allowed creators almost infinite visual creativity has obviously resulted in several creators taking full advantage of that fact to deliver some truly wild shows.
Whether it’s an animated series for kids, like the aptly-titled Bonkers; or one that’s definitely not for kids, like Frisky Dingo, the most bonkers animated TV shows in history are proof of why cartoons are worthy of significantly more respect than they tend to get nowadays. What other medium could possibly be able to deliver experiences this delightfully wacky? Even though these shows have been forgotten over the years, they should all be considered essential viewing for fans of over-the-top television.
10
‘Bonkers’ (1993–1994)
There are very few shows in the Disney Channel’s catalog more fittingly titled than Bonkers, a spin-off of Raw Toonage‘s short series He’s Bonkers. Heavily inspired by the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, this is just as bonkers an animated experience, telling the story of the titular out-of-work toon, who joins the Hollywood Police Department to help his partners catch animated criminals.
Virtually anyone who loves Roger Rabbit is pretty much guaranteed to love Bonkers just as much. Blending surreal slapstick with elements of the detective procedural genre in ways as kooky as they are entertaining, it’s one of the most irresistibly fun cartoons in the Disney Channel’s history. It has heart, it has some fantastic animation, and it has plenty of exquisite cartoonish world-building.
9
‘The Maxx’ (1995)
MTV broke plenty of new ground in adult-oriented animated television during the ’90s. This included the creation of Oddities, a label for Eric Fogel‘s The Head and Sam Kieth‘s The Maxx. As great as the former is, it’s the latter that’s one of the best animated shows you’ve never heard of, based on Kieth’s own exceptional comic book series. It’s about The Maxx, a superhero trying to protect his friend from an omniscient serial killer both in the real world and in a subconscious fantasy world.
Disguising a profound, admirably mature psychological drama about trauma behind a gritty superhero narrative, The Maxx is one of the most criminally underrated animated superhero shows in history. That psychological depth that makes it feel like a deep dive into the human subconscious comes with an air of surrealism that makes it a must-see for all those who love head-scratchingly bizarre shows.
8
‘Mr. Pickles’ (2014–2019)
There are some shows whose bonkers nature becomes abundantly clear from the moment one hears their premise, and the Adult Swim forgotten classic Mr. Pickles is definitely one such show. It’s one of the best body horror and slasher shows that animation has ever produced, about a family who lives with a deviant Border Collie with a secret Satanic streak.
Thankfully, Mr. Pickles lives up to the wildness of its premise at every turn of each of its four seasons. It was always the intention for the show to combine the charm and nostalgia of a ’50s family sitcom with some of the most subversive shock humor, gore, and surreal absurdity imaginable, and for people who love that kind of thing, Mr. Pickles should hit the spot easily.
7
‘Sym-Bionic Titan’ (2010–2011)
Even though it was created by Genndy Tartakovsky, one of the biggest names in the history of televisual animation, Sym-Bionic Titan has somehow still managed to slip under most animation fans’ radars as the years have passed since its cancellation. It’s one of those obscure animated shows that became cult classics, one that everyone who loves animation—regardless of whether they love Tartakovsky—should consider checking out. In it, three young aliens with the ability to form a giant robotic warrior try to blend into suburbia.
“Bonkers” is a word that would very fittingly describe a decent majority of Tartakovsky’s work across television and the big screen, but it applies to Sym-Bionic Titan with particular glee. Part mecha action extravaganza, part John Hughes-esque high school teen drama, it’s a genre-bending trip full of fast-paced animation and mature themes.
6
‘Frisky Dingo’ (2006–2008)
Those who love bonkers animation should already know that Adult Swim is typically the place to go when looking for one such show. But even by the network’s sky-high standards of hilarious absurdity, Frisky Dingo is particularly bizarre. Even the synopsis of this sci-fi farce is hard to explain, but in broad strokes, it’s all about a philandering billionaire playboy who moonlights as a superhero, as he faces his nemesis while balancing his business and his superhero life.
It’s one of the best animated series for adults, a gleeful deconstruction of the pre-MCU superhero genre that feels even timelier and more relevant today than it did back in the late 2000s. With its frantically paced, hilariously nonsensical plotlines, its absurd visuals, and its rapid-fire dialogue, it’s one of the most chaotic comedies that animation has ever produced for the small screen.
5
‘Turbo Teen’ (1984)
From the moment one hears Turbo Teen‘s mere synopsis, it becomes abundantly clear why it’s one of the most bonkers cartoons of the 20th century: It’s all about a teen who gets into an accident and then gains the ability to transform into a crime-fighting sports car when it’s hot. It’s a genuinely wild premise to make a show out of, so (perhaps needless to say) the show failed to capture an audience.
Even still, its brief 13 episodes are worth watching today if only to admire how anyone could have come up with an animated show so bonkers. It’s a Knight Rider rip-off that almost borders on qualifying as kid-friendly body horror, and as if that weren’t enough reason for an animation fan’s morbid curiosity to be piqued, there’s also the writing so nonsensical that it’s practically surreal.
4
‘Freakazoid!’ (1995–1997)
Executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, Freakazoid! is one of those forgotten cartoons that are still worth watching. It follows the adventures of Washington, D.C.’s brand-new defender, a geeky teenager who absorbs the entire cyberspace after a freak accident and gains superhuman cartoon powers. It’s the sort of premise that would feel right at home in even the wildest of Looney Tunes stories.
Clearly a response to the chaos and mayhem of the early rise of the Internet and the digital frontier during the mid-’90s, Freakazoid! is as surreal, absurd, manic, and eager to break the fourth wall as any fan of a character like Deadpool could possibly hope for an animated superhero show to be. Written like a stream of consciousness and full of meta humor, it’s the peak of what superhero comedies had to offer during the ’90s.
3
‘The Pirates of Dark Water’ (1991–1992)
Produced by Hanna-Barbera, The Pirates of Dark Water is a dark fantasy swashbuckling adventure like no other. In it, a young man learns that he’s a prince, one with an urgent quest to save his world by finding 13 magical treasures. What ensues is one of the best forgotten fantasy shows of the ’90s, a highly ambitious serialized story with some of the most groundbreaking animation of any ’90s cartoon.
It was also a genre-bending and incredibly bonkers show, though, an unprecedented mixture of high fantasy, swashbuckling pirates, cosmic horror, and science fiction. The world of Mer is wonderfully surreal and full of over-the-top world-building, inhabited by a delectably odd ensemble of characters who never fail to get into all sorts of entertaining situations.
2
‘Megas XLR’ (2004–2005)
The slacker genre, spanning both cinema and music, peaked around the mid- to late-’90s. Megas XLR is both an homage to and a parody of not just the slacker genre, but also the mecha genre. Its story follows two teenage slackers who find a mecha from the future that had been lying in a New Jersey junkyard for almost 60 years.
Megas XLR is one of those classic 2000s cartoons that is ready for a reboot, but for the moment, the original should be more than enough to satisfy fans of animated sci-fi and bonkers comedies. Also inspired by video games and heavy metal, Megas XLR feels like a delightful hotchpotch of styles, tones, and influences that always blend together in all the most enjoyably over-the-top ways.
1
‘Æon Flux‘ (1991–1995)
Premiering on MTV’s experimental animation showcase Liquid Television, Æon Flux instantly cemented its place as one of the greatest experimental animated shows of the ’90s. Today, those lucky few who have actually seen it still tend to regard it as one of the best of all time. This avant-garde masterpiece follows a secret agent from an anarchic society who repeatedly infiltrates a heavily surveilled neighboring state.
It’s one of those sci-fi shows that gets better every episode, though it also gets more bonkers every episode. Created by Peter Chung as a very intentional subversion of every established rule of 1990s American television, Æon Flux has aged like fine wine. Visually surreal, psychologically tense, and masterfully genre-bending, it may be disorienting at times, but it’s also an undeniable masterpiece.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login