Top Ten worst animated child characters of all time.

[AZLD4Candidate]

This will be something I do or will try to do every week. A top ten list of things in pop culture. The list is subjective to my opinion, but feedback and entries you list could be used in future lists as long as the feedback is relatively polite. Now, on with the list.

Cartoons are fun. Cartoons can be enjoyable. But there are characters that drag a good cartoon down with their mere presence and grind the show to a halt until they disappear. This list looks at child characters that I believe ruin shows, so Family Guy’s Herb the Perv will not be on the list (that joke lasted about three seconds).

To make the list, there are some rules.
1: It must a series, so no “one time specials” like Frosty and Rudolph or Dr. Seuss specials do not qualify.
2: If the character appears in shorts, they must be more than a one time character.
3: The character MUST be a child. Pepe Le Pew is pathetic, but he is an adult character.

Here are the top ten with an honorable mention:

HM: Dee Dee - Dexter’s Laboratory. While a good foil for Dexter, she was beyond annoying and watching Dexter run around trying to fix or clean up the things Dee Dee broke or destroyed became tiresome and boring after three or for episodes. No one can be THAT stupid.

10: Hadji Singh - Jonny Quest. To be perfectly honest, I HATED the Jonny Quest series, from its original well animated version, to its cheap turn to childhood hijinx, to its 1990s revival on cartoon network. But Hadji was the worst. The stereotype of Indian children with mysterious powers of “Singh-Singh, Salah Bing.” Ugh. If he were Chinese, he would be able to fly and run on walls, something I’ve asked my wife for years to show me how to do since she’s Chinese. See, stereotypes suck.

9: Charles and Mambo - Duckman. Duckman is a really under-rated USA Network cartoon. I loved every minute of it until either Aunt Bernice or Charles and Mamdo spoke. Two (well, three since Charles and Mambo are conjoint twins) unlikable terrible characters that look down on everyone, think they are perfect, and should get their asses kicked each time they speak.

8: Lisa Simpson - The Simpsons. I LOVE The Simpsons. I’m glad in season four the changed the focus from Bart to Homer and made him twice as stupid. It solidified the longevity of the show as you can do more with Homer than you can with Bart. But Lisa has always driven me nuts. Haughty, aloof, with a Goddess complex, maven characters that take themselves too serious are a drag. Marge would be on this list too but this is child characters only.

7: Eugene Belcher - Bob’s Burgers. Don’t get me wrong, I love Eugene. But he’s nothing more than an older version of Ralph Wiggum with a more annoying voice that couldn’t zip up his fly without ripping his pants. His non-sequitir dialogue is amusing in doses, but when he’s given too many lines, the show become tedious. Bob and Louise should be the focus on most episodes. Eugene heavy episodes are a slog.

6: Nermal - Garfield and Friends. Good God do I loathe the world’s cutest kitten. While Garfield is highly unlikeable, this character is there just to make Garfield feel like he’s crap on a cracker. The character serves absolutely no purpose and adds nothing to an otherwise inane and humorless cartoon.

5: Shelley Marsh - South Park. Talk about a girl destined for prison. She hates everyone. She abuses her younger brother. She insults her parents. She beats up anyone she wants and she never gets in trouble or faces punishment. Quiet frankly, this character is awful and the less we see of her the better. Cartman may be a prick but he’s used like Gary Trudeau uses Duke. Shelley has no purpose except cruelty.

4: Huey, Dewey, and Louie - Disney shorts and Quack Pack. As children in the shorts, they were obnoxious disobedient, violent, disrespectful, and just plan sociopathic. They would make Donald angry or take Donald’s prank too far, then turn is life upside down, win, and show children at the time it’s okay to be a prick to people who take care of you. Every time Donald got even with them, I cheered.

3: Godzuki - Godzilla animated series. More Hanna Barbera bullshit. The animated series shat all over the campy Japanese monster, but to give Godzilla an bumbling, useless offspring was just one of the worst decisions ever. Godzuki was an animated Gilligan where the humor in the hijinx was muted by the fact that show was GOD AWFUL. Also Godzuki could fly. WTF???

2: Scrappy Doo - Scooby Doo. Scrappy Doo added nothing to the formula. It was fine without him. Then the executives though a child character would bring something younger (what, three years old?) viewers could relate more to than five hippies and their great dane. Scrappy is one of the worst characters ever on many lists and he is #2 on here. As awful as he is, the hands down #1 worst child character is:

1: Lucy Van Pelt - Peanuts. Good grief, what can I say about this harpie of a character. She’s cruel, manipulative, insulting, aloof, violent, dismissive, aggressive, rude, self-centered, and treats everyone, especially her younger brother Linus and Charlie Brown (a character I relate to perfectly) especially terrible, working to effectively ruin whatever self worth and self-esteem Charlie Brown could try to develop. At least, in Family Guy, Peter Griffin finally gave Lucy what she all but deserved by kicking her ass for not letting Charlie Brown kick the football. There is absolutely nothing likable about Lucy Van Pelt, so she goes down as the worst animated child character in TV history.