(PCM) Cartoons are a huge part of popular culture and just about everyone’s childhood while growing up. We all can list our favorites, depending upon one’s particular generation. Some cartoons have withstood the test of time and continue to air, with new episodes and reruns both, to this very day.
Many of us shared love for certain cartoon characters in specific such as Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, He-Man, the Thundercats, The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, Mickey Mouse, and many, many more. However there were quite a few times when animators decided to introduce a new character and he or she just didn’t connect with audiences and sadly, these ill-fated characters were rarely, if ever, seen again.
Let’s start with Scooby-Doo’s annoyingly energetic nephew Scrappy-Doo. Poor Scrappy-Doo received so much audience backlash and negative reception that he is even sometimes called the most hated cartoon characters in fiction. He has not appeared in a Scooby-Doo production since 1988. The character has been referenced, sarcastically, a few times over the years, with in one Scooby-Doo movie the gang runs over a trucks containing stuffed Scrappy-Doo toys and in another episode of the cartoon series Fred and Daphne discover a sculpture of Scrappy-Doo and remind each other that they all vowed never to speak of him again!
No one really knows why Scrappy-Doo was so hated, but he was truly a turn off for audiences. Maybe it was that annoying “Puppy Power” or “Let me at em” phrase! Don’t even try and tell us you don’t remember rolling your eyes at least a few times when he would come on the screen.
Next up would have to be Great Gazoo, that annoying little alien creature that could only be seen by Fred and Barney on The Flintstones. Talk about a character that made no sense! He would always refer to Fred and Barney as “dum-dums” and we still have no real reason why he would have even shown up in the stone age era in the first place, other than the silly explanation that he was banished from his home planet and had to do good deeds, but only ended up creating more headaches in the long run.
The Great Gazoo only showed up in the final season of The Flintstones and received mostly negative criticism. He was a bizarre character who served no real purpose and led to The Flintstones being one of the first cartoon series to be accused of “jumping the shark”.
Another cartoon character that really appears to get under peoples skin is Dora, The Explorer. Dora is a more recent cartoon, but there is just something about her behavior and the story lines of the show that really tend to rub people the wrong way. Children still appear to love her, but parents on the other hand, truly can’t stand the show.
It might be the talking backpack or the fact that Dora seems to have to repeat the same instructions three times in a row, or maybe it is the fact that she never lets her parents know where she is going, but it is definitely a character that will begin to drive you insane. Definitely relatable for children, but totally irritating to adults.
The Smurfs have been a popular cartoon series for a good many years, however there is definitely a ton of hate for Brainy Smurf. Mostly because he is so darn arrogant and very self-centered. He has literally only managed to save The Smurfs once over the course of the series and several movies and usually his ideas end up causing them more trouble in the long run.
The Smurfs are always trying to throw him out of the village and the only one who seems to have any love for him at all is Smurfette, but that is apparently just in her nature to try to love everyone. Brainy Smurf shows no purpose in the village other than to be annoying and while he can still create spells and potions, he thinks he knows to much and usually ends up messing up the recipes and creating a disaster that the other Smurfs in the village much come through and fix.
Going way back in the day of hated cartoon characters is Olive Oyl, who portrayed Popeye’s love interest in the Popeye cartoon series which launched from the comic strip created back in 1919. She was always putting Popeye in positions when she was kidnapped by Brutus to see who would woo her with their affections the best. She would always be incredibly angry with Popeye whenever anything went wrong and would always leave him to care for her possibly adopted child Swee’Pea.
Majority of the time Popeye would come to her rescue and win back Olive Oyl’s affections in the end, but the game never seemed to cease, therefore leading her to make this list of an incredibly hated cartoon character, as people tired of the damsel-in-distress routine.
Finally, one of the last annoying cartoon characters that we are going to mention at length is Elmyra Duff from Tiny Toon Adventures. She was the perfect example of everything people get annoyed a children for, right down to her whiny voice and inability to properly take care of animals. She managed to not only ruin one cartoon series with Tiny Toon Adventures, but also wrecked episodes of Pinky and The Brain as well! So irritating!
Some other honorable mentions of other hated cartoon characters include Barney the Purple Dinosaur, Annoying Orange, Pearl Krabs from Spongebob, Snarf from Thundercats, Calilou, Alvin and the Chipmunks, D.W from the Arthur series, Nermal from Garfield, and Mr. Garrison from South Park. Let us know if we missed any or if there are some other characters you think should make the list and why!