After years wandering the wilderness, Princess Adora and her bad-ass alter ego—She-Ra, the Princess of Power—is starring in a series of new adventures on Netflix. While I’m thrilled to binge the new show, I’ll always have a soft spot for the original 1980s series—partly because of the amazing sidekicks that tagged along her adventures in Eternia. This got me thinking about some of my favorite sidekicks from across the varied landscape of 1980s kids’ cartoons, which, naturally, resulted in a ranking list post.
THESE ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS. IT’S OK IF YOU LIKE SNARF.
I mean, I think you might want to talk to a therapist, but it’s probably OK, cosmically speaking.
But by all means tell me about your faves in the comments.
#16 Scrappy Doo, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, etc.
Even as a tiny child I knew that Scrappy Doo was some bullshit. He lives at the bottom of not only this list, but of all lists, forever, until the mountains crumble and the sun is a black husk.
#15 Godzooky, The Godzilla Power Hour
Why do great cartoon heroes have such garbage nephews? The Gojipedia refers to Godzooky as a juvenile kaiju—which is honestly all I aspire to, myself. He’s low on this list because among his powers are: spewing black smoke from his mouth, flapping his tiny wings real hard, and “summoning his uncle Godzilla,” which is a thing the human characters can also do, and which only makes the hapless Godzooky look weaker.
At least try to solve your problems yourself, Godzooky!
#14 Chomp-Chomp and Sour Puss, Pac-Man: The Animated Series
Gaze into the faces of Pac-Man’s pets! Chomp-Chomp is the dog, Sour Puss is the cat, neither of them do too much, although Sour Puss does come out for a hike through the snow in “Christmas Comes to Pac-Land” and Chomp-Chomp helps Pac-Man drag Santa’s bag of toys back to the Pac-Home. And Sour Puss is always angry for some reason? There’s not much happening here.
#13 Snarf, ThunderCats (Ho!)
Ugh, Snarf. Snarf is a malformed Hellbeast who followed the ThunderCats around and prevented them from being as awesome as they might have been. He just keeps yelling his own name, and getting into scrapes from which other, better ThunderCats have to rescue him. And OK, fine, he’s older, and took care of Lion-O when Lion-O was a ThunderKitten, but still—being older just means he’s had time to learn not to scream SNARF! constantly. Which he has not done.
On the plus side, he probably inspired Smarf from “Too Many Cooks.”
#12 Relay, He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special
The Manchines are a race of tiny Etherian cyborgs who appeared in the He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special, where they rescue a pair of humans who have been trapped in Etheria due to Orko’s stupidity. Rather than simply coast on the Manchine concept, the show gave them their own adorable sidekick, a puppy (???) named Relay (????). Relay appears to be a regular organic puppy, with no visible mechanical parts. In what stands as the greatest sequence in He-Man and She-Ra’s history, the puppy softens the heart of Skeletor himself.
#11 M.A.D. Cat, Inspector Gadget
He does NOTHING. But he is super fluffy, and he strengthens the show’s James Bond riff (exactly what you want in a Saturday Morning Cartoon?) and whenever Claw pounds his fist on his desk he jumps up and hisses.
#10 Nero, Danger Mouse
So Baron Silas von Greenback is an evil toad, Danger Mouse’s nemesis, and he, like Dr. Claw, is also based on Blofeld. (What was with kids TV and James Bond?) Since he’s a toad and not a human, he needed a diminutive pet, and since Danger Mouse is flipping brilliant, they gave him a furry white caterpillar called Nero. Nero may actually be hyperintelligent, and more of a partner to the Baron than a pet, but this is left ambiguous.
#9 Spike, My Little Pony
Spike is a dragon among ponies. Much like Spike on Buffy, he’s trapped between two worlds: driven mad by his love for the ponies, and feeling like an outcast in the dragon world. In one episode a young knight shows up and tries to slay Spike, but the ponies talk him into finding a good deed that doesn’t involve stabbing their sentient friend to death. Spike gets a serious upgrade in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, where he becomes the coolest thing anyone can ever be: a dragon librarian.
#8 Kowl, She-Ra: Princess of Power
In my notes I had Kowl down as “that owl thing from She-Ra.” Kowl seemed to be an attempt to recreate that Orko magic, except She-Ra already had Madame Razz, a witch who knew Adora’s secret identity as She-Ra. So Kowl is a flying koala/owl, who also knows Adora’s secret, and who doesn’t have magic, but who does have ears that are also wings! He flaps around being cute and snarking on all the other characters. According to Wiki Grayskull “most of his relatives are dead.” Bummer.
#7 [shudder] Orko, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
Orko is a great example of why comic relief characters don’t really work in sword-and-sorcery stories. Orko is a Trollan (you know, from Trolla) who got trapped in Eternia during a terrible cosmic storm. He saved Prince Adam and his pet tiger cub, Cringer, and was then made court jester, but spends his life desperately trying to recapture his old magic…which of course backfires every time and puts all of his loved ones in terrible danger. Repeatedly. Like, every week. And this could be cool, but it clashes so starkly with the rest of the show, which is already a weird hybrid of epic fantasy and technobabble, and then Orko never gets any better, and then you learn that other Trollans are actually good at magic, and maybe it’s because he lost his magical pendant, but come on.
He does make for a great Halloween costume, though.
#6 Glomer, Punky Brewster
Like a lot of successful TV shows and movies of the 80s, Punky Brewster got an animated spinoff. This allowed the writers to add a fantasy element that wouldn’t work in the live-action sitcom, which meant that Punky’s longtime canine companion Brandon is busted down to second-tier sidekick status in favor of one GLOMER, a raccoon I guess? magical creature from the land of “Chaudoon,” a tiny community at the foot of a rainbow that disappears when the rainbow does and is totally its own thing and not a Brigadoon rip-off at all. The theme song explains that Glomer, having been left behind by his rainbow and separated forever from all that he knows and love, must secretly live with Punky in Chicago. He uses his magic (yes, of course he’s magical) to transport her all over the world. In one episode, his magical intervention causes Social Services to rip Punky away from her guardian Henry, and leave her with a woman who owns a candy factory who uses foster kids as slave labor! (Saturday Morning Cartoons FTW!) Realizing his error Glomer says, and this is a direct quote: “Glomer boo-booed—Punky friend in hot soup!”
#5 Uni, Dungeons and Dragons
If you’re going to turn D&D into a TV show, you damn well better make it with the magical creatures. 1983’s Dungeons and Dragons did not disappoint, and in the pilot episode Bobby—the party’s Barbarian and youngest member—adopts a baby unicorn named Uni. Uni could kind of talk (mostly echoing Bobby’s words) and could teleport using her horn, but as she was a tiny adorable baby, she could only do this intermittently. And of course, since Bobby was the youngest, and very attached to her, she could easily become a liability for the evil Venger to exploit.
But who cares, look at her! She’s so cute.
#4 Slimer, The Real Ghostbusters
In the 1984 hit Ghostbusters, Slimer is a kind of B-level antagonist. He’s a big sloppy ghost who just wants to eat everything he can fit into his mouth, he coats Peter Venkman in ectoplasm, and he’s explicitly based on John Belushi.
In the cartoon spinoff of Ghostbusters, Slimer is suddenly the Ghostbusters’…pet? He hangs out with Janine in the office, he goes along on cases and helps the guys bust fellow ghosts, and for this complicity he is spared the horrors of the holding tank. This show was already called The Real Ghostbusters to appease Filmation, who had its own animated show called Ghostbusters, based on a television show from the 1970s. Later on, after producers noticed that children freaking loved Slimer, he took over the show Webster-style. Suddenly we lived in a bizarro world where Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters was a thing, as though Slimer had always been the true founder of the Ghostbusting franchise, and the Real Ghostbusters were but his human sidekicks. Slimer also fought his own nemesis, mad scientist Professor Norman Dweeb, who also had an animal sidekick in the form of a pink poodle called Elizabeth, but that’s just too damn many sidekicks and she’s not getting her own entry.
My main discovery in writing this article is that the world of children’s cartoons is a mine field.
#3 Cringer/Battle Cat, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
Cringer is a classic children television character because if you look at him, he should be terrifying: a huge green and yellow tiger with long, human-eating-sized fangs! But instead he’s a neurotic, literal scaredy cat, cowering behind Prince Adam and avoiding conflict harder than an annoyed Minnesotan. But! When Prince Adam transforms into He-Man, he zaps Cringer with a bolt of lightning from his sword, transforming his pet into Battle Cat—bigger, be-muscled, and outfitted with a nifty red saddle and face horned face plate. Cringer speaks in a frightened, Scooby Doo-ish voice, but Battle Cat snarls his lines, because he is All Business.
#3 (Yes, it’s a tie!) Spirit/Swift Wind, She-Ra: Princess of Power
Spirit is a lovely white horse who proved that he was awesome by remaining loyal to Princess Adora when she defected from the evil Horde. When Adora was transformed into She-Ra, Spirit becomes Swift Wind—a unicorn/pegasus hybrid (easily the coolest fantasy animal) with rainbow wings and a fabulous bisexual pride mask. He also spoke in a startlingly deep and sonorous voice. In a world of garish Lisa Frank unicorns, Swift Wind is an icon of strength and subtlety.
#2 Brain, Inspector Gadget
Inspector Gadget was already kind of a hard sell? A cyborg detective parody of Inspector Clouseau crossed with James Bond’s Q—except spectacularly unintelligent—is locked in an eternal battle with a criminal organization called MAD, headed up by one Dr. Claw, himself a Dr. No/Blofeld pastiche. Add in that the fact that Gadget’s tween niece, Penny is the one who actually solves the crimes, and you have a deeply weird show. But then the writers decided to blow everything straight to hell and give Penny a hyper-intelligent dog (referred to as her “adopted brother” by the show’s Wikipedia page) and make him the one who does the legwork of thwarting Claw, usually while wearing disguises that make Gadget think he’s a MAD agent. And he can kinda talk? And clearly understands spoken and written English?
#1 Penfold, Danger Mouse
Some of you may not agree with my choice of Penfold for number one sidekick. And yet! He is the perfect blend of bumbling-and-cowardly, but also sometimes surprisingly brave. His comic relief gags are actually funny. He has a variety of catchphrases, ranging from “Cor!” to “Oh, crumbs!” that are incredibly British and inoffensive, but he can make them sound like swears if he’s distressed enough. The scrapes he gets into are borne out of a desire to help, and to be a great secret agent like his mentor/employer/life-partner, DM. And every once in a while he pulls off some heroics!
Plus? He wears a suit to work.
How many of you wear a suit to work?
So there you have it, a pile of technicolor cartoon sidekicks! Who’s your favorite? Did I forget any beloved childhood icons? Let me know below!
“#1 Penfold, Danger Mouse“: this is a good list. No aggrieved comment necessary.
Warlock, from Blackstar. Because winged draconic horses are cool.
How is Gleek from the Super Friends not on this list?
Being a sixties/seventies kid, not an ’80’s one, I lean to Sherman as the best sidekick. (Clearly, it was ALL ABOUT Peabody)
Here is where I admit I was far too old, and busy on Saturday mornings, to have watched any of these, and haven’t heard of most of them.
“avoiding conflict harder than an annoyed Minnesotan” is a great line.
@2 — Also from Blackstar, for worst I’d nominate all of the Trobbits, who were like Hobbits if Hobbits were actually Smurfs.
Completely agree with your opinion about Scrappy. He is the worst.
Also for the Hall of Shame (although this might’ve been late 70s?): In the second season of Flash Gordon when they gave him a pink baby dragon.
Snarf inspired Neelix from Star Trek Voyager, for this reason he deserves to burn in hades for all time.
I object to Kowl being so far down the list, Kowl is pretty competent for a sidekick. Especially since there is a far worse sidekick in She-Ra than Kowl, and that is Bow. Bow is the worst.
…avoiding conflict harder than an annoyed Minnesotan.
Oh yes… In a very rare never before seen deleted clip from Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s revealed that Major Toht’s face melt is actually caused by a Minnesotan telling him EXACTLY how they feel.
I’ll throw Tooter from The Snorks in as an annoying sidekick.
Slimer also gave us Ecto Cooler.
Also, no love for Sparkplug and Spike Witwicky?
You sure watched a lot of crappy cartoons as a kid.
I’m really glad that I’m too old for most of these!
No Timber, Polly, Junkyard, Freedom from G.I. Joe?
When I first glanced at the (second) #3 item my brain got ahead of itself and thought it was going to be the fox Swift from David the Gnome. I loved Swift as a kid.
I’d switch Scrappy and Snarf. Maybe I was the perfect target audience for Scrappy, as I liked him when I was a kid. Going back to rewatch them later… not so much. But still better than the simpering whine of Snarf.
Orko is exactly the same character as Bat-Mite from Filmation’s 1977 The New Adventures of Batman — a small, levitating creature from another dimension, possessing magical powers but bumbling in their application so that his efforts to be a loyal and helpful sidekick usually backfire, and having an unrequited crush on the female lead (Batgirl/Teela). Plus they both had exactly the same voice, provided by Filmation co-founder Lou Scheimer. Bat-Mite originated in ’50s DC Comics, of course, but Filmation blatantly recycled their version into Orko.
As for Inspector Gadget, you left out the main character he’s based on besides Clouseau — bumbling spy Maxwell Smart from Get Smart. Gadget was originally voiced by Get Smart star Don Adams reprising his Maxwell Smart voice for the character, and later by Maurice LaMarche doing a Maxwell Smart impression.
@2/Paul: Yes. Warlock was a gorgeous dragon-horse.
You put Penfold first, which automatically makes the list perfect. Bravo!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I loved the sound of Penfold’s feet as he walked, something about the quick clacking sound worked really well for me.
@Aaron/#3 Gleek debuted in the 70s, and if I’m figuring the list is for sidekicks who originated in the 80s…Yes the Scooby gang originated in 1969, but Scrappy didnt enter the scene until 1980
I might add Azrael from the Smurfs, Ariel and Ookla from Thundarr the Barbarian, Scott and T-Bob from MASK, Daisy and Kuma from Pole Position…Only thing I remember about Kowl (didn’t even remember the name) was for doing the commercial intros/outros..
Godzooky was also from the late ’70s. (He’s often mistaken for Minilla/Minya, the Son of Godzilla introduced in the film of that name in the ’60s, but he’s a distinct character, much smaller than Minilla and able to fly.)
Oh, yes, Mad Cat. Just hearing Dr. Claw saying, “Ma-a-a-ad Cat!” gives me chills.
<whisper, whisper, whisper.> Going back in time, a ways, one of my favorites is Leonardo, the assistant Clyde Crashcup.
But my all-time favorite is Bullwinkle the Moose, staunch side-kick of Rocky the Flying Squirrel.
Came to add Scott and T-Bob from Mask, definite candidates for the worst side and acting as kid standins.
Voltron had some superintelligent mice flying mouse sized war machines in a number of episodes.
Also on the better side, Sancho and Pedro from The Mysterious Cities of Gold, who do a great job of incompetent comic relief.
In the early nineties, I worked security at an amphitheater near Pittsburgh. One night Howie Mandel performed there, and during the show this man approached the stage and told Mandel that his dream was for someone to make a cartoon teaming up Bobby from “Bobby’s World” with Punky Brewster’s Glomer. It was probably the first and last time Mandel was rendered speechless. It was also one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.
@24
YESSSS. The Mysterious Cities of Gold was the best cartoon I ever watched. Sancho and Pedro were hilarious. With faces like these, what’s not to love? “EEEE, he’s NOT nice to us!”
Throw your number one in the trash.
That place actually belongs to Swift the Fox from David the Gnome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnuD1Opu9oI
I mean come on, he deserves an Oscar nod for this performance!
what, 7-Zark-7 from “Battle of the Planets” didn’t make the list? Before I got my hands on the Japanese original series “Science Ninja Team Gatchaman” (in which Zark does not appear – he was inserted to pad episodes where a lot of the original episodes were hacked apart to remove scenes considered too violent for US cartoon fare) I used to pause the VCR whenever he appeared in an episode…
@29/Pat: The new scenes with Zark were added not only to pad the episodes, but to turn the Earth-based Gatchaman into an interstellar show with a cute robot, in order to ride on Star Wars‘s coattails.
I finally just got around to looking up pictures of 7-Zark-7, and I’ve realized I’d totally forgotten what he looked like. The mental image I had in mind for the character, I now realize, was actually IQ-9 (Analyzer) from Star Blazers (Space Battleship Yamato). Who was, I might, add, a far superior robot. Heck, even Peepo from Space Academy was better than 7-Zark-7.
Oh God, 7-Zark-7! But 1-Rover-1 was worse!!!
No love for Oon, the Robot Squire from the awesomely … bizarre Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors? I loved that show, with its “our civilization has fallen to a race of vegetable evil sentient vehicles fused with Black and Decker power tools, trying to find a safe haven” vibe (picture Battlestar Galactica, only if Cylons were cabbages with buzzsaw-based weaponry) and a small band of an 80’s hunky main character (the aforementioned Jayce), the wizard Space Gandalf (Gileon, with his astounding tripartite papal crown), a little girl with flower powers (Flora) and her huge rideable flying fish that can levitate (Broc) and… Jayce’s wonderful sidekick Oon, the Robot Squire, who is evidently a representative of an entire species of Robot Squires(?)
Man, if I wasn’t able find any reference to this on the internet, I’d swear hallucinated the whole thing when I was home with the chicken pox as a kid.
@33/LadyBelaine:”I’d swear hallucinated the whole thing when I was home with the chicken pox as a kid.”
What a coincidence. The only thing I remember about Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors is that it was one of the cartoons I watched when I was stuck in the hospital for a week in 12th grade getting radiation treatment for a retinal melanoma. The hospital room’s TV was this little box on a hinged arm hovering over the bed, and I watched a bunch of TV on its tiny screen to pass the time, and thus watched a lot of cartoons I normally wouldn’t have bothered with. I don’t remember much about this one, though I recall thinking it was very weird and kind of dumb. I’m surprised to learn, looking it up on Wikipedia now, that it was developed and largely written by J. Michael Straczynski in between his stint on She-Ra and his development of the smart, innovative The Real Ghostbusters. But he admits that he was limited by the concepts he had to work with (since Jayce existed to promote the Wheeled Warriors toy vehicle line and thus had to be built around it).
How about Niddler from “The Pirates of Dark Water”? He always kind of annoyed me…
@35/ViewerB: Niddler is an odd case. In the original 5-episode miniseries, which was just called Dark Water, Niddler was voiced by the great Roddy MacDowall, which was of course terrific. But when it was picked up for a full season (the original 5-parter plus 8 new episodes to add up to a whole 13-week season), MacDowall asked for a raise they weren’t willing to give him, so not only did they replace MacDowall with Frank Welker in the new episodes, but they went back and had Welker redub his lines in the first five episodes, presumably so they wouldn’t have to pay MacDowall residuals for reruns of his work (which seems like a petty thing to do). I think they also trimmed some of the violence from the initial miniseries. Dark Water was an attempt by the new head of Hanna-Barbera at the time (David Kirschner, who created the show) to take the studio in a more sophisticated direction, so the original miniseries was an ambitious alternate-world fantasy adventure (with design work by comic book legend Gil Kane) that was more dramatic and intense than most cartoons of the day. But it was pushing against the expectation that kids’ cartoons had to be lightweight and fun, so it was toned down after the first 5 episodes, and I think those episodes were recut some to tone them down too. All in all, I much preferred the original miniseries to the later series.
@36 — Interesting — I had no idea about the MacDowall/Welker thing.
Cringer would be my #1, and Orko wouldn’t get quite this much shade.
But my #2 would be…
Bronx!
@38/JLaSala: You’re getting into the ’90s there.
Good list, but
I always thought that Inspector Gadget was more based on Maxwell Smart from Get Smart (who was himself a parody of Cold War spies such as 007), especially since it was Don Adams that voiced the character. And that made MAD a more CHAOS analog, at least in my younger mind, though there was definitely some Dr. No/Blofeld vibes going on as well.
@40/gadget: Well, Get Smart‘s KAOS was a direct parody of Bond’s SPECTRE and The Man from UNCLE‘s THRUSH, but yeah, there’s definitely Smartian DNA in Inspector Gadget. In addition to Max himself (Don Adams) doing the voice, both Max and Gadget had more competent female co-stars who generally did the work while the man got the credit — Agent 99 for Max, Penny for Gadget. Also, both characters had long-suffering bosses called “Chief,” and Chief Quimby’s custom of popping out of strange hiding places was probably a nod to Agent 13 from GS, or perhaps they were both parodying something earlier. The secret messages that blew up in Chief Quimby’s face were an homage to Mission: Impossible, though.
Max had a dog sidekick too, Fang, but that might be reaching too far for parallels.
@41/ChristopherLBennett: So I guess Snarf does have his moments because he was far less annoying in the Thundercubs saga.
Without Penfold, there is no show.
Zozo, Waldo and the Kiwi Kids from The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers. I mean, they got an entire episode to themselves (“Mothmoose”).
Special mention to the Cybersteeds, too.
I can’t really argue with most of your list, but up with Swift Wind should be Starlite, from Rainbow Brite. Despite the self-proclaimed “most magnificent horse in the universe” narcissism, a horse who can run on rainbows, talk, and repeatedly save others deserves to be near the top of a best sidekick list!
well about Slimer, in Ghostbusters2 he’s friendly and takes Rick Moranis to the museum by bus :D
I hate 7-Zark-7 even more than I hate Scrappy!! X___x The episode where we found out the main villain was a woman (big surprise, given the bright lipstick) was especially grating, since it was obvious the team KNEW this woman from their reaction to the first sight of her. And right then in busts 7-Zark-7 to say something obvious and infuriating like, “Gosh! So-and-so is a woman, kids! How about that?” (I’ve forgotten the masked villain’s name). Also hated the way he would cross just a few feet of floor by fluttering that cape of his and somehow flying.
@46/Powermaranza: I think the “taming” of Slimer in the sequel was kind of a reaction to his domesticated role in the cartoon. Heck, it was the cartoon that named him Slimer in the first place. The sequel didn’t acknowledge the continuity of the TV show in any other way, but I guess Slimer was big in the merchandising by that point, so the studio would’ve wanted to capitalize on that.
I’m way too young to give any insightful commentary on this list. So I’ll just say that it sure was interesting to read!
The list lacks Launchpad, and yes, he counts, since Duck Tales was started in 1987.
I never liked the stupid idea of a side kick for the protagonist(s). But that’s US society and their conditioning.
@51/Bearhug67: Sidekicks a US thing? Tell that to Dr. Watson. Or Captain Hastings. Or Little John.
You forgot Oon from Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. I always identified with him. He also an outcast from the Eternal Squires, because in spite of him being nearly immortal he was afraid of his own shadow. However, he always had the best intentions when serving his master, Jayce.
What I hated most about so many of the cartoon sidekicks was the high pitched squeaky or whiny, extremely annoying voices. Either get actual children to do the voices or find adults who can do convincing kid voices.
Even worse was how most of the sidekicks were idiots, constantly getting into trouble or causing trouble for everyone, and never learning a thing.
For the worst it’s a tie between Snarf and Scrappy Doo. Add in the 70’s and it’s a 4 way tie with them, Wonder Dog and Gleek from Superfriends. Oh, may as well make it a six way tie with Marvin and Wendy.
Fortunately, Marvin, Wendy, and Wonder Dog were given the boot after season one. Why let a couple of normal kids and their dumb dog hang around to get in danger? Zan and Jayna at least had super powers, but unfortunately came with space monkey Gleek whose purpose seemed to be to say his name a lot and pull a bucket from… somewhere for Jayna to literally carry her brother’s water. If only Zan had gotten drunk (What’s wrong with being drunk? Ask a glass of water!) then burst out of an alien space monster’s stomach.
@54/Gregg Eshelman: Ooh — actual children who do voices in animation are often quite bad at it. There’s a reason grown women usually play child characters.
Besides, hardly any of the characters on the above list are meant to be juveniles — just Scrappy-Doo, Spike, the barely verbal Uni, and the non-speaking Godzooky. Most of them are adults or pets. So I don’t see how your comment is relevant to the topic.
As for Wendy and Marvin, there was a comic-book tie-in that explained why they were with the Super Friends, making some very deep cuts into Golden and Silver Age comics continuity:
https://www.cbr.com/super-friends-marvin-wendy-reasons/2/
It’s very sad that among the many things said about Orko it has not been pointed out that he is not gay. Not that it would be anything wrong with it. Still. Not gay.
@56 If there really is nothing wrong with it, then it doesn’t need pointing out.
Gloop and Gleep from the Herculoids, and Bandit from Jonny Quest!
@12: Correction. All cartoons WERE crap when people my age were kids. Welcome to the post-Reaganism of the mid-‘80s through mid-‘90s.
@54, 55
The other main reason for casting adults to voice children is that they have consistent voices over a long time period.
Children grow faster than you might realise, and their vocal cords shift a lot in pitch and timbre, let alone when puberty kicks in and the voice breaks. Training one to maintain a consistent voice is far harder and less useful than just hiring a woman with a midrange who can be around for the long haul.
Also you might hate the squeaky voice (I certainly do!) but it was intentionally chosen, often to represent the pitch and tone of even younger children. It’s another reason why sidekicks often come off as annoying.
@60/Mayhem: Avatar: The Last Airbender had to contend with the changing voice of its young lead actor, Zach Tyler Eisen. His voice was starting to change in the final season, and I believe they did some processing to conceal its deepening pitch.
Then there were the various Peanuts TV specials and series over the decades. They always cast real children in the roles (often sacrificing competent acting for authenticity), but they had to recast them every few years. Although they did manage to maintain pretty good consistency with the sound of each character’s voice.
#59: I don’t know about that; the first half of the ’90s brought us Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?, which was unusually well-written and supplied a good deal of actual character development for Carmen, not to mention Disney’s Gargoyles, which I’d rank as one of the best Western-produced animated series of all time. Good cases can also be made for Darkwing Duck (also from the Disney Afternoon), Tiny Toon Adventures, Mighty Max, Dungeons & Dragons, and Phantom 2040, and I am likely missing a handful of other above-average series from the mid-’80s to mid-’90s.
@62/John C. Bunnell: The makers of Phantom 2040 had previously made The Legend of Prince Valiant. Both shows had pretty awful animation but very smart, sophisticated, semi-adult writing and excellent voice casts.
And of course, the early ’90s brought us Batman: The Animated Series and the FOX Kids X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons, all of which raised the game for TV animation and comic-book adaptations to a whole new level. Before that, 1986 brought The Real Ghostbusters, which was a pioneer in bringing more intelligent, sophisticated writing to TV animation, even though it got dumbed down in later seasons.
I actually enjoy most of what is in the first season of Ewoks. Not the Duloks, they were stupid. But for that first season, they did some reasonably intelligent episodes. They treated the characters like a believable fantasy culture; that thing about the soul trees was pretty good. The Ewoks lived in the trees, so the trees would be vital to them, and linking every member of the tribe to a tree would keep them close to the forest. Wicket and his friends were young ones close to becoming adolescents, becoming independent and finding their roles in the tribe. They even did an episode explaining the absence of Princess Neesa’s mother; she was killed by a predator.
Then came the second season and destroyed all that. They made Wicket and his friends kids, and although his friend who became the shaman’s apprentice still had that responsibility, now he was a complete klutz and an idiot. I suppose he got stuffed into the sidekick mold.
I remember reading a fanfic once called “The Were-Hamster of London”–it was a cross-over between The Professionals and Danger Mouse, and it explained why one so rarely saw Penfold during the full moon. (author Deborah Hicks? I think that’s the name). And there really needs to be a fanfic where it’s all out war between Peeves and Slimer. (and Janush, the newest member of the Ghostbusters–still paying off his debt to MOMA, who was *not* amused–and his reaction to a whole school full of talking portraits…).
Ahem.
Two notable additions:
No-No from Ulysses 31. A robot that was comic relief but was incredibly strong. He got Telemachus and Yumi out of as much trouble as he got them into.
The best sidekick has to be 30-30 from Bravestarr. Transport as a cyborg horse and transforms into humanoid form with a bad@@@@@$$ shotgun! (suppose Deputy Fuzz would fall into this list of more annoying characters though).