The British Public Suck

It’s true. But not the standard reasons that we often bring up, oh no. Whilst the vast majority of the British people have gods-awful taste in music, television, newspapers, politicians (OMG TEH POLTICAL!!!11), films and food, you’d think there was one bastion of hope safe from the rampant idiocy that sweeps this green and sacred land.

Yeah. That’s right. Cartoons.

If you’ve access to British television, you’d notice that Channel 4 have been running a variety of “Top 100” shows over the past few months, quite probably because they’ve run out of Friends episodes and they refuse to show anything decent (Not that Friends was, anyway). So, as all things do, it rolled around to cartoons. And me being me, I watched it if only to see where Transformers would rank and if The Simpsons would actually win or if mankind had come to it’s collective senses and realise it stopped being funny four years ago.

Since there were 100 entries I’m not going to catalogue each and every entry and make hilarious comments about each. Mostly because no-one would read all of it and frankly I’d rather be playing World of Warcraft. Well, that, and a number of these are so obscure or just plain crap that to derive humour from them via mockery would be an exercise in futility.

Before I begin, no. Anime did get mentions, and whilst some did deserve it, a few certainly didn’t. You won’t find your Shitty Generic Dragon Moon X Hyper Spoon Guard Annoyingphrasesincrazymoonlanguage here. And good, because kids, I’ll make this clear. Just because something comes out of Japan doesn’t make it good. So please stop jacking off over maps of Nippon and at least try and appreciate that Western animation can equal and surpass whatever Japan throws out. This being said, it can also reach depths that the Japanese can never hope to reach, as evidenced by some the choicer examples I’ve decided to mock.

#95 Charley Says…
Public service messages with animation that makes South Park look classy, about some six-year old pillock who relies on a cat, called Charley, for moral guidance. Like not going with strangers to look at puppies, and not using matches to burn Mother into a firey inferno of pain and agony. What did make me laugh is that they’re still public service messages, so voting for this is akin to voting a New Labour party political broadcast as best comedy sketch (OMG TEH POLTICIAL!!!11).

#72 Legend of the Overfiend
Right. Let me get this straight from the outset I don’t hate anime, I don’t hate hentai, I don’t hate violence and I don’t hate titties. I don’t hate a combination of any of the above. But Jesus H. Christ, this isn’t entertainment. This is hentai. Hentai is wanking material. What kind of mind puts wanking material in the same league as, say, Watership Down or The Adventures of Tintin? Not the kind of mind I wish to have to converse with at parties. Not that I get invited to parties. But to be frank, I doubt anyone who voted for this does either.
The basic outline is that there are demons that come to Earth to start apocalypse. People die, demons cause havoc, young nubile girls are raped by tentacle-daemons, and giant penises the size of thermonuclear missiles burst through floors and absorb people. Throw in some shaky animation, excessive gore and titties and we have The Legend of the Overfiend. I mean, come on, the only reason it has any kind of standing at all in British society is the big hoo-hah over it being a cartoon with ultra-violence and knockers leading to it being banned for a period of time, then being only released after heavy editing. The fact is has cult status is simply because it’s incredibly unpleasant and just a terrible piece of animation. That, and there are better hentai films out there. They also don’t class themselves as anything other than wanking material.

#56 Fritz The Cat
70’s piece of British animation. Gist of it is you have this cat who shags furry chicks, and engages in the use of narcotics. That’s it. Since this was the 70’s, huge decency uproar and it was banned. This goes on to create a mythical cult following, like Legend of the Overfiend. Except, like Legend of the Overfiend, it’s utter crap. These two kinda show what censorship can do.

#52 2D TV
I don’t like 2DTV. I think it’s overrated garbage that is far outdone by Dead Ringers, because whilst Dead Ringers has amusing running gags and a production value, 2DTV looks like it’s made in Flash and takes the same old tired gags and plays them over and over again. Bush is dumb (OMG TE- Eh, forget about it). Blair is Bushes dog. Victoria Beckham is a cow. David Beckham is stupid. Repeat until YOU FAIL TO CARE ANYMORE.

#45 Pokemon
How? I mean, come on. It was shite. It was a very poorly made vehicle for an ungodly wave of merchandise put out by Nintendo to cover the fact the N64 was a cock-up. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t memorable. It’s finally dead, so can we please dump it over the Cliffs of Dover already?

#40 Rugrats
One of the K-List Celebrities they roped into making “hilarious” commentary between the segments claimed it was like “the Simpsons for the younger generation”. I think by that they meant it was ungodsly awful, a pain to watch and should have been put down years ago. I hope they did, as at least the Simpsons had a period when it wasn’t crap.

#37 Transformers
I love Transformers. Cut me and I’ll bleed energon (Actually, I won’t, so put down the knife). My shelf is inhabited by Transformer action figures that ousted my Great Cthulhu plushie. I have practically every comic Dreamwave published. But I’ll tell you this, the G1 cartoon was crap. It’s crap enough to be amusing and to poke humour from, but as animation goes, it was a glorified toy advert with some of the most inane plots crafted by Saturday morning cartoon writers.
It still did better than Thundercats, so that’s good. Because Thundercats was teh suck.

#34 He-Man and The Masters of the Universe
Same thing as Transformers, but oozing homosexual innuendo. I’ve nothing against homosexuality, but seeing burly blonde men who wear pink strip off into leather and wrestle other burly men isn’t something I want to do when I’m six and eating my Frosties, waiting for Transformers or DarkWing Duck (Which never ranked, sadly) to come on. That and the toys were crap.

#29 Dungeons and Dragons
I’m a geek. I have geek pride. I have a stack of roleplaying books (Various D20 Modern supplements, and GURPS if you care). But this still makes me cringe. It had the production value every other 80’s cartoon had (Which was the contents of my wallet – 27p in coppers and a college bus pass), but lacked any toyline to promote. I also recall it being incredibly strange, even by my standards today. The fact that this, which barely anyone remembers, ranks higher than Daffy Duck, Inspector Gadget and Transformers does make weep for nostalgia in this fine nation.

#9 The Incredibles
I liked the film. Really, I did. I just don’t think it’s a bloody classic. Give it time and I may change my mind, but it’s not even out on DVD yet. To say it’s better than MICKEY-FUCKING-MOUSE, Godfather of Cartoons, is just a bit… odd, in my opinion.

#4 Toy Story

I don’t like Toy Story. The films are carbon copies in terms of plot, the gags are craptacular, and I really can’t be bothered to finish this sentence in a meaningful way. I never saw the appeal when I was 12 and I still don’t now.

#1 The Simpsons
Yeah, who’s surprised? Yawn-yawn, British public ride on hype and fail to realise that the good episodes we see were made around four years ago and since Channel Four only just started showing them (If you lack Sky) because BBC2 was more concerned with Bowls, Snooker, Darts or other sports that aren’t really sports but just fat men in silly outfits.
The Simpsons is no longer funny simply because it’s too popular, a trap that Monty Python fell into. Get and group of geeks together and before long they’ll be quoting Python, and the great clichés of The Spanish Inquisition, The Dead Parrot, The Ministry for Silly Walks, the Quest for the Holy Grail and the Life of Brian shall be mentioned. This has led to Python no longer being amusing to me, simply because every bugger has quoted it to death.
The Simpsons is overquoted, maybe because it was a parody of Western society. Now it has become firmly entrenched into Western society, everyone quotes it, everyone mentions it, everyone buys the crap and whatever edge it had has been dulled to allow Fox executives to bleed the stone for even longer when they could focus on other shows that are actually still amusing, like Family Guy or Futurama. But that would be silly, when every pleb still watches this show, that whilst once brilliant, has fallen so far from grace it couldn’t see grace on a clear day with a telescope. And these plebs will buy the merchandise and say how great it is, and ask why our own shows can’t compare. Then I stab them and laugh with sadistic glee.

So, simply put? The British public are morons. Morons because classics like The Tick didn’t get a place when crap like Willo the Wisp and Bod ranked respectably. Though I must commend them on not succumbing to this anime obsession afflicting the great unwashed internet masses.

Still, I suppose I’m done. If you’re tempted to gaze upon the sheer insanity of man, click here to view the entire list.

Though to be honest I doubt without these shows Jimmy Carr would even have a job.

- Eastwood, wondering how The Tick never got a mention.