The 1990s were a wild time when it came to kids' TV shows, with many of the most popular entries pushing the boundaries of sense, sensibilities, and indeed what should be shown to children. For anyone who grew up in the 1990s, with these Saturday morning cartoons becoming a part of a routine, these shows potentially seem less wild, but looking back, it's hard to see how we missed it.
Between a dark and macabre sense of humor that often pervaded these shows, and on occasion even some adult humor or provocative messaging spliced into the stories, these shows can seem like a fever dream. It's hard to imagine any of them being made today, but in the 1990s, this is apparently what passed for quality kids' TV.
Cow and Chicken
Starting out gently, at least on the surface level, Cow and Chicken is a series that follows a cynical and highly critical chicken and a dim-witted cow, both of whom are introduced as siblings, and the children of an adult human couple who never have their faces appear on-screen.
There wasn't really a point to the show, but it served as an exploration of the surreal and bizarre lives of the titular cow and chicken, as they often faced off against the nameless antagonist, The Red Guy. This character was obsessed with not wearing pants, and they were established to be some sort of devilish demon who antagonized the main characters.
How this gets past the pitching stage is a complete mystery, but somehow, in the 1990s, it was produced and released as kids content. Baffling.
Street Sharks
Next up is the rather more tame (by comparison) Street Sharks. Street Sharks essentially feels like a rip-off of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and not a subtle one either. Four brothers wind up with hybrid human-aquatic life DNA, and they find that they possess abilities that surpass ordinary humans.
They have a rival, Dr. Paradigm, who seeks to exterminate them, and in response, they, along with their mutant father who was transformed before them, fight back while also protecting the city and saving people. However, this is arguably a weaker concept, with the characters becoming sharks who survive out of water and become crime fighters.
Sure, neither concept is rational, but it feels like a cheap attempt to recreate something else that gained popularity, and the execution only served to highlight how outrageous the whole story really is. Especially considering their rival, Dr. Paradigm, turns themselves into a Piranha hybrid, despite transforming these brothers to get rid of them, thus becoming an inhuman mutant himself.
Mighty Ducks
Continuing on with the trend of superheroic crime-fighting anthropomorphic animals, Mighty Ducks took a grounded live-action movie trilogy and turned it into a wild sci-fi adventure series that barely resembled the material that gave it its name. The duck-like humanoids who star in this series actually hail from another planet, Puckworld, where hockey is an essential part of life.
Traveling to Earth, the ducks put these incredible sports skills to use in efforts to defeat and overthrow an evil reptilian warlord, and they call themselves "The Mighty Ducks."
For anyone who watched the movies, this show is sure to be an absolutely insane reimagining of the source material, but even without the context of the original films, the show remains a wild ride that just seems to smash together different elements to create something that possesses no real logic or reasoning.
Toxic Crusaders
At least with Toxic Crusaders, there was a very intentional purpose behind the story and the way it was told, even if that became something that felt extremely disconcerting and potentially terrifying for young audiences. Toxic Crusaders revolved around a team of grotesque heroes, whose powers connect to pollution, led by Toxie, aka The Toxic Avenger.
If that sounds familiar, it's because this character is from an earlier R-rated film from 1984, which gained a cult following and was recently remade with Peter Dinklage in the leading role. So, the choice to take this strictly adult film and turn it into a kids' show that tries to spread a message of awareness about pollution felt like an odd choice at best.
Unfortunately, despite the intended messaging, the series is remembered for the horrifying heroes, the bizarre storylines, and generally being something unlike most other cartoons of the time, despite so many odd cartoons existing simultaneously.
CatDog
Next, CatDog remains a show that just feels like an idea that should never have made it out of the initial brainstorm. A cat and a dog are fused, with both having a head, front quarters, and front legs. Evidently, they need to find ways to coordinate to function, and being two species that are often at odds, this is felt throughout the show.
Cat is clever and impatient, Dog acts entirely on instinct and has very little room for thinking, and together, they do something. Again, this is a show that doesn't really have a point. You might think that the motive of the series would be for these characters to try and find a way to separate and live independently, but that really doesn't enter the story.
Instead, the show just leans into the chaos, and every episode explores a new misadventure that leaves the story back where it started, having gained nothing, and arguably losing steam with every new entry.
Biker Mice from Mars
Back to the crime-fighting superhero alien stories, but this time, instead of hockey-playing duck humanoids, we have ultra-buff mice from Mars (you can tell because they have little alien antennas), and they ride motorcycles. That's it. That's the whole premise, and every story extends from that central absurd premise.
Don't get me wrong, I watched this show as a kid, and the heroes were definitely exciting, but it just made no effort to do anything, and it all stemmed from a core concept that, once again, provides the audience with absolutely nothing. It's action-packed, and it sold toys, but it can hardly be called a story.
Van-Pires
Next up is a show that combines Power Rangers with Transformers to create a truly baffling series that seems to operate with no firm rules. Van-Pires is another effort to create a show with an environmental message, but the execution is pretty atrocious.
When a meteor strikes, four teenagers hanging out in a junkyard are transformed into car hybrids that can transform between their human and car forms. At the same time, several other cars and previously inanimate objects come to life, with an intense thirst for fuel and fully formed identities that see them behave like vampires, but for gas.
It's a wild show, with live-action interspersed with some of the most basic computer animation to ever release commercially, and it ultimately adds up to a wild ride full of puns and inconsistent storylines.
Aaahh! Real Monsters
Aaahh! Real Monsters feels almost normal by comparison, with the series following a group of small creatures who embark on various misadventures. That being said, the fact that these characters are horrifying monsters that fuel the nightmares of a generation of kids, it just feels like a weird concept for a kids' show.
The central characters are sincerely haunting, and beyond that, it falls into a similar pattern to so many of the shows above, where it seems as though there is no real purpose or motivation, just a bunch of odd events that play out in each episode.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
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The name alone here should be a hint to just how out there this show was. However, this series actually spun out from an earlier movie of the same name, taking the concept of these monster tomatoes causing chaos.
The show also opted to break the fourth wall in odd moments, with characters turning and addressing the audience, and a literal censor character who would appear when things were about to get too grotesque and cut off the action from view. It leaned into this absurdity, which made it more engaging, but it remained a wild and nonsensical ride.
Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills
Again leaning into the idea of taking more popular ideas and turning them into something less fun, Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills takes inspiration from shows like Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but utterly destroys any semblance of sense about the story.
A bunch of rich kids are given a tattoo by a wise old alien that turns them into giant fighters, and then they battle evil agents of a terrible warlord. From the visuals to the storylines, or lack thereof, this show was an insane ride. But it really goes to show what qualified as a kids' show back in the 1990s, and what kind of insane ideas made it all the way to air.
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