Ugliest Cartoons of the Nineties

Note: Instead of compiling a list of the most wretched looking cartoons, I wanted to also focus on ugly cartoons that are stupid or unpleasant in their design. For example, shows like "Ren and Stimpy", "Rocko's Modern Life", "Rugrats", and "Home Movies", while ugly in their own ways, will not appear in this list because they've proven themselves with likable characters, clever premises, good writing, and/ or being hilarious. Instead this list is for ugly cartoons with no additional merit.

5. Doug (1991-1994, 1996-1999)
The makers of "Doug" seem to think that you can build a show around a dorky guy and his equally dorky friends. While the animation isn't awful, it is bland to the point of being ugly. Most characters are strangely coloured and outright horrible to listen to. You know a show is bad when the main character is smitten by a plain-Jane girl with a stupid name who sounds like she has a cheese grater lodged in her throat. Also, I don't recall the show ever having any serious conflict to move the story forward.

4. Beavis and Butt-head (1993-1998)
I know I'm asking for trouble because plenty of people really love this show (it was on the air long enough). But I personally couldn't stomach more than 5 minutes of these two social rejects without being repulsed. The show looks as if it were animated with a ballpoint pen in the margins of a textbook, and everyone was ugly to look at. If there was any clever dialogue to draw from this cartoon, it was lost on me since it seems 80% of the show was spent letting the two idiotic characters grunt, guffaw, and wheeze while quivering through a cycle of the same four cells of animation.

3. Aaahh!!! Real Monsters (1994-1998)
As far as I can tell, Nickelodeon believes that no matter what ... gross = fun. This show was about three hideously miserable monsters that live under a dump and learn how to scare people. Genius. The main monsters were a goblin-thing, a reeking hairy gnome thing that carried around it's eyeballs, and a black and white candy cane that could transform and remove her own guts. All I know is that it was 22 minutes of slime, garbage, and greasy armpits.

2. Pepper Ann (1997-2000)
The makers of "Pepper Ann" seem to think that you can build a show around a dorky girl and her equally dorky friends. In a world where everyone wears overly baggy clothes designed for psychedelic clowns, Pepper Ann deals with the daily trials of going to school and having a younger sister who sounds like Barry White. I always thought it was weird that the show seemed to be inhabited by Fido Dido's, and I only just discovered that the woman who invented that 7-up mascot was the one who pitched the Pepper Ann show. Cripes.

1. Hey Arnold! (1996-2004)
The makers of "Hey Arnold!" seem to think that you can build a show around a dorky guy and his equally dorky ... you know what? I think I'm starting to see a trend here. Why is that the eighties were filled with cartoons about warriors, dinosaurs, magical creatures, and giant battling robots, but the nineties gave birth to dozens of shows about regular kids? Ten years earlier any cartoon show would literally blow your mind with an epic opening theme filled with action, adventure, space wars, and lasers. But the shows I've listed might put you to sleep before they even starts. "Hey Arnold" begins with Arnold the football head kid and his ugly friends just walking around. That's it! And what ugly characters they are. It's like a grade school of circus freaks where everyone is jagged, gangly, uni-browed, and misshapen. If you're going to make a show that is hardly interesting enough to follow, why are you making the characters nearly unbearable to look at?

Best Action Movies of the Nineties

The term action movie didn't really exist until the eighties. Before that, there were lots of films with plenty of action but I would agree none of them would fit the definition of the term. I think of 1981's Escape From New York to be the father (godfather?) of all action movies. Then as the eighties continued, the genre was defined by crazy assaults like Rambo and Commando. The heroes were mostly one-dimensional and muscle-bound and the body counts were sky high.

When the nineties rolled around, the genre was evolving. Plots were becoming more intricate and characters more complex. People wanted "smarter" movies but they didn't want this to be at the cost of the action. Here are the movies that I believe succeeded the most in that during the rockin' decade that was the nineties.


5. Broken Arrow (1996)
Maybe this one surprises you. Maybe I don't give a %$#@. I'll admit there isn't any one spectacular thing about this movie. What makes it great is that it's just consistently good, start to finish. Christian Slater's character doesn't have much depth and isn't too unique but he's likeable enough. Samantha Mathis's spunky park ranger is just so adorable (my love affair with the actress began here) and Travolta's bad guy is quirky and menacing. I also really dig the music, particularly the main theme (which was inexplicably stolen and placed in Scream 2 as "Dewey's Theme). Oh, actually, this film does boast one really spectacular thing - the death of the main bad guy. Check it out.






4. Goldeneye (1995)
I almost didn't include this because I wasn't sure if it really fits my own definition of an action movie. I kept movies like Jurassic Park off this list because, despite all their action, I consider them Adventure films (like the Indy films of the eighties). Goldeneye can certainly be seen as an adventure film or spy/thriller or whatever but I finally decided it fits the action bill as well. Because, well, what action!

Plus this was an important film in the Bond franchise coming after the longest gap between movies in history (six years), being the first without a Cold War background, AND featuring a brand new guy to play Bond - Pierce Brosnan. Before it came out, a lot of people speculated it wouldn't work and the Bond franchise was as good as dead. Well, we all know how that turned out. Brosnan's Bond is witty, gritty and a true action star. Sean Bean was a great nemesis too. Like I said, I wasn't sure if I should classify this as a pure action film - then I remember the scene with Bond driving the tank through the streets of St. Petersburgh. Bravo.

3. Face/Off (1997)
Another movie with John Travolta as the bad guy. But wait - he's the good guy too? Huh?!?! People like to moan about this movie's preposterous plot as if there are no other movies out there with preposterous plots. Give me a break. I'll admit that when this came out, the idea of taking Hong Kong super action director John Woo and giving him an American movie featuring two American leading men wasn't necessarily the recipe for a hit. But it worked. The action is almost constant and the gun-fighting is sleek and stylish - not to be outdone until 2002's Equilibrium - which, to be fair, was a sci-fi film. Anyway, I stand by this flick as one of the best of the decade.





2. The Rock (1996)
People love to hate on Michael Bay. Some changed their tune after Transformers (2007). And I'm not really a fan either. But it bugs me that Michael Bay haters like to classify this movie in the same category as Pearl Harbor (2001) and Armageddon (1998) because it's really very good. Sure a lot of stuff blows up - that doesn't mean it can't be good too. So many people want to think of themselves as intellectuals or cultured or whatever to the point that they can't recognize a really stellar action movie when they see one.

And The Rock is a really stellar action movie. The plot is good and the actors are really good as well. Maybe none of it is Oscar material but you can sense Ed Harris's inner conflict - his sense of honour versus his sense of outrage. Nick Cage is neurotic but still heroic and Connery is just pure badass. There's a San Francisco car chase, a good, energetic score, lots of funny and memorable lines AND a crazy gas that makes people's skin melt off while they cough up their guts. What more do you want?

1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
No waffling here about whether this sci-fi movie can also fall under the category of pure action. The special effects were ground-breaking, Arnold was at his best and the bullets were flying. The chase through the fabled Los Angeles River is seen as a landmark moment in action movies (one could say that several scenes were, really) - eighteen wheeler vs dirtbike vs chopper. There's a breakout of a mental asylum with night sticks and syringes - you don't see that in too many movies, really. The bad guy is an unstoppable force and the hero is a reformed (er, reprogrammed) unstoppable force who wears a leather jacket and shades. There's shooting and explosions galore and even a few impalements. All action films look to this one as the mark to shoot for.

Top Reasons for Hurling a Video Game Controller with Rage

5. Cheap Enemies
Nothing boils the blood quite like a computer controlled opponent that defiantly sidesteps the logic of a game to beat you time and time again. Particularly in racing games where your competition is made faster than you at all times. Another way enemies can suck is when they come at you in a continuous stream, making defeating them a futile and unrewarding affair. Any person who has been knocked off a platform for the hundredth time by a floating Medusa head will agree.

4. Difficult Jumps combined with Crummy Camera Controls
In platformers and side-scrollers the key element of game play has always been jumping, and when you are forced to make leaps of faith because you can't properly see everything, well, it's enough to make you kick your dog in the face. Maneuvering in a 3-D environment with an unfair and awkward viewpoint is like running an obstacle course moments after someone has jammed a lemon wedge in one of your eyes.

3. Time Limits
For as long as there have been video games, there have been time limits, and it is nothing more than a cheap way to add challenge. Getting a 'Game Over' screen is bad enough, but when the failure was because of your speed and not your performance, that is aggravating beyond reason.

2. Status Ailments
Each year the amount of energy exerted by players thrashing about in anger because their character was poisoned, is enough to power Austria for seven weeks. Games have been raising blood pressure averages around the world with these irritating hindrances. While being poisoned is the most common, your character can also be burned, put to sleep, turned to stone, confused, beserked, paralyzed, weakened, cursed, frozen, charmed, shrunk, buried, knocked out, stunned, silenced, or transformed into an animal. Police records will show that being turned into a frog is a rising cause for stabbings in America.

1. Sparse Save Points
Including any older game that had no save points whatsoever, this infuriating aspect of games tops the list. Nothing has filled more gamers with explosive rage than dying in a game and not being able to remember the last time their progress was saved. In a game without enough opportunities to save, you are constantly on edge about moving forward. And instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment for beating a challenge, you are dreading the thought of losing your progress at any moment. Then as you're nearing a save point, if you miss a jump, run out of time, or happen to be cursed by some asshole monster, well, you might not only hurl a controller, you may very well take a human life.

Movies That Make You Want A Sword

5. Any Zorro Movie
The original man in black (take that, Cash) and original roof-hopping masked vigilante (and that, Batman) was a great rider. He was also a pretty nifty acrobat. But what made The Fox legendary was his swordplay. He was so deft and fancy he routinely made his opponents look like idiots. I don't think there have been any truly bad Zorro movies. Not mainstream ones anyway. The thing they all have in common is that after watching them, they leave me wanting to dance around like a fool: en guard! parry, parry, thrust!

4. Highlander (1986)
Mostly what this film taught me was that you just aren't going to get anything done without a sword. Guns are cool and all but you've got to decapitate to take care of business.

3. The Muskateer (2001)
Sure it's in no way historically accurate or realistic but it definitely makes swordfighting look awesome. The final fight, complete with falling ladders, is not to be missed.

2. Ninja Scroll (1993)
I guess everyone wants to be a ninja. I know I do. There are some dazzling shots of Jube's katana flashing in the sunlight as he battles his foes that really show skilled swordsmanship for what it is: poetry in motion. The battle in the bamboo forest with the blind warrior is pretty breathtaking. Always remember to have a thin cord attached to your sword's hilt so that you never lose it.

1. Kill Bill Volume 1 (2003)
This one really needs no explanation but hey, it's my job. Katanas are definitely the coolest kinds of swords. Even their sheaths are badass and play a part in the fighting. You've got to love how in this movie, being part of the Yakuza means that in addition to getting all the free pizza you want, you also get a katanna that fits right onto your motorcycle. Unfortunately it also means getting dismembered by The Bride and her superior Hatori Hanzo (spellcheck) sword. Like many movies before it, but perhaps in even better fashion, Kill Bill One drives home the point (sorry, couldn't resist) that there is no cooler or more personal a way to kill someone than with a sword.

Best Sandwiches With No Meat

5.
Toasted Tomato
The perfect sandwich for an afternoon snack, comprised of sliced tomato on toast with a slathering of mayo and ample fresh ground pepper. Guaranteed to latch onto your taste buds and headbutt them.

4.
Grilled Cheese
A classic in the sandwich world, it proves that sliced process cheese does serve a purpose, although real cheese does enhance the experience. The gooey melty goodness can be the foundation for many possibilities, such as adding tomato, olive, spaghetti sauce, mushrooms, onions, or sliced meat. Also, if your eating the plain grilled cheese without dipping it in applesauce, your doing it all wrong. Get with the program already!

3.
Apple, Cheddar, and Jam
Critically acclaimed as the perfect breakfast sandwich, it's was first put together in 1930 when a clever chef decided to make the perfect breakfast sandwich. The trifecta of deliciousness is simply strawberry jam, sliced apple, and sharp cheddar cheese on toast. Warning! If you skimp on the cheese and go for something low quality or of a 'whiz' variety, a portal will open and you will be drawn into a dimension of darkness.

2.
Holiday Defeat
Also known as the Super Carb Attack Sandwich, it's the one you make in the middle of the night comprised of the leftovers from Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner (turkey excluded). It's most delicious when hastily make in the dark and may include dressing/stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, sweet yams, and turnips.

1.
Peanut Butter and Jelly
Ranked as the most popular use of peanut butter with jelly, this sandwich is the only one in history ever to be knighted. Famous for being supremely satisfying and easy to make - even a one-armed man can do it in 40 seconds - it will go down in history as the poor man's steak.