When we sat down and started ranking out our list of the best cartoon characters of all time on Bullz-Eye.com, we weren’t necessarily looking for the trailblazers, though we wound up with a few of them anyway. Instead, our goal was to highlight characters that have become larger than life, the ones whose mannerisms, speech patterns and catch-phrases have found a home in the cultural lexicon. If you saw the character, would you know who it was? Could you do an impersonation or easily recall a favorite episode? In short, we were looking for characters who have withstood the test of time, who have contributed something lasting to the pop culture landscape, and who have become more than just drawings with voice actors.
Here’s a glimpse of what we came up with:
20. Beavis & Butt-Head
Here’s the bad news about Beavis & Butt-Head: they’ve aged terribly. The recent “Mike Judge Collection” was a major letdown, with glaring omissions (no “Fire! Fire!” episodes, and the few music videos they were allowed to use had neutered commentaries). Nonetheless, we must acknowledge the massive impact that B&B had on pop culture. Quite simply, they ruled MTV in the early ‘90s, and some have even suggested that they in fact saved MTV. In some instances, the careers of bands were made and broken by their cutting comments. That’s right, the opinions of two of the most socially retarded characters you’re ever likely to find actually held weight as a barometer of good taste; such was the hero worship that surrounded the B&B phenomenon. One other overlooked contribution that Beavis and Butt-Head made to pop culture was the spinoff show “Daria,” which was far wittier than its ancestor (and therefore widely ignored). Watching them now may not be as much fun as it once was, but we concede that Beavis & Butt-Head have a certain Zen-like simplicity that cannot be denied.
16. Fat Albert
Hey, hey, and, indeed, hey. He might’ve started out as the subject of a comedy routine by Bill Cosby, but our man Albert came into his own when he scored his own Saturday morning series on CBS. With the Cosby Kids in tow – Mushmouth, Dumb Donald, Bill, Rudy, Russell, Weird Harold and Bucky – Fat Albert and his gang…and make no mistake, my friend, they were a gang…stalked the streets of an unnamed city, learning from each other while they did their thing. Every episode of the show brought a new lesson, something which viewers were warned about up front (“…If you’re not careful, you may learn something before it’s done…”) just in case they didn’t want any stinkin’ education with their cartoons. If you remember the musical segments, you know that Parliament-Funkadelic didn’t have anything on the Junkyard Band, mostly because even Bootsy Collins’ funky-ass bass couldn’t compete with Mushmouth on birdcage. Even putting aside both the music and the morals, however, Albert was still a groundbreaker…and I ain’t talking about the cracks he made in the pavement when he was walking down the street (oh, snap!); his was the first animated TV series with an all-black cast. Basically, what we’re saying is that if you don’t like Fat Albert, you’re like school in the summertime: you got no class.
9. Stewie Griffin
Stewie Griffin isn’t the first cartoon character to dream of world domination, but he’s likely the first to hatch his diabolical plans while wearing a diaper. Stewie, the youngest child on the Fox hit “Family Guy” and the only one with a British accent, is one twisted, evil, conniving kid. He ruthlessly rags on his sister for being unpopular, beats and kidnaps his cute babysitter’s boyfriend and, when Brian, the family dog, hops into a cab in search of a better life, Stewie runs out to the curb screaming, “Wait!”…so he can spit in Brian’s face. Above all else, though, Stewie wants to off his own mother, and dreams of the day he can lay her out on the floor like a bearskin rug. As he says, “It’s not that I want to kill her, it’s just that I want her…not to be alive anymore.” And then there’s the mystery surrounding his sexual orientation. All signs point to Stewie being a switch hitter, though his fascination with sailors and show tunes suggests he may prefer one side of the plate to the other. With all these character quirks, it’s often easy to forget that Stewie’s just a kid, but then he flies to England to meet Mother Maggie, who stars in his favorite TV show, “Jolly Farm Revue.” Bottom line: There’s nobody else on television, animated or otherwise, like Stewie Griffin, and that’s what makes him so great.
5. Daffy Duck
There’s a great line in “Nixon,” where Anthony Hopkins, as Nixon, stares at a portrait of John F. Kennedy, and says, “They look at you, and they see who they want to be. They look at me, and they see who they are.” In Looney Tunes terms, Daffy Duck is Richard Nixon: we all wish we were as witty and as unflappable as Bugs Bunny is during the most trying times, but while we’re occasionally cool and collected, more often than not, we’re spastic, impatient and tongue-tied, like Daffy (“It’s not ‘He doesn’t have to shoot you now,’ it’s ‘He doesn’t have to shoot me now. ‘Well, I say he does have to shoot me now! [turns to Elmer] So shoot me now!”). Fortunately for Daffy, while the joke tends to be on him more often than not, he’s quite versatile; when he’s not taking lumps at Bugs’ expense, he has been known to play Foghorn Leghorn and Barnyard Dawg against each other, taunt Porky Pig from time to time, and has traveled as much Bugs has (Witness “Robin Hood Daffy’s” immortal “Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!” bit). As secondary characters go, Daffy has quite the résumé. That earns, at the very least, our admiration, if not our respect.
Click to check out the rest of the list at Bullz-Eye.com.
