Top 20 Unexpectedly Dark Episodes in Kids Cartoons
#20: “It’s a Wishful Life” “The Fairly Odd Parents” (2001-17)
Top 10 Unexpectedly Dark Episodes in Kids’ Cartoons
When our buck-toothed main character is berated for every good deed he’s done that day, he decides to teach everyone a lesson by wishing he didn't exist. Timmy is then transported to an alternate timeline where it turns out everyone is better off without him. What’s worse is that Jorgan tries to send him to what is conceptually similar to hell. When Timmy is able to steal Jorgan’s wand, he laments, wondering if everyone else's sadness is worth his existence. He decides it’s not and accepts his fate. It all turns out to be a test, but it’s still a pretty shocking plot.
#19: “The Ultimate Enemy” “Danny Phantom” (2004-07)
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Ever since Danny Phantom was granted ghostly powers, he’s tried to use them for the betterment of the people around him. Which is why it was so surprising to find out in this TV movie that he was the one who destroyed the world. During an experiment gone wrong, all of Danny’s friends and loved ones died. As a result, Danny asked Vlad Masters to remove his pain, i.e. his ghost side. This resulted in Vlad and Danny’s ghosts fusing to create Dark Danny, where it’s implied they killed human Danny. This darkness is brought even further when you see this evil fusion then attempting to kill all the characters we love.
#18: “Are You Happy Now” “SpongeBob SquarePants” (1999-)
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Squidward has always gotten the short end of the stick, but no one expected the show to insinuate him ending it all! Squidward realises that he doesn’t have a “Happiest Memory”, prompting SpongeBob to try and create one for him. Unfortunately his efforts fail, sending Squidward into a deep depression, locking himself away for weeks. It’s here we see one of the darkest images ever drawn in the series. Squidward takes a rope and ties it up, implying that he’s decided life isn’t worth living. It may have been a bait and switch, but by the end of the episode, Squidward has a mental breakdown, leaving his depression unresolved. At a certain point, his pain is no longer funny.
#17: “To Catch A Falling Star” “Ben 10: Ultimate Alien” (2010-12)
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Ben Tenneson has battled all sorts of monsters, but battling a toxic partner is something we don’t think the Omnitrix is kitted out for. When famous actress Jennifer Nocturne helps break her former kidnapper, Carl Nesmith, out of prison, Ben can’t figure out why. As the two escape together, Carl commits atrocious crimes while Jennifer remains unphased, even almost killing Ben herself! Jennifer has pitted all of her dreams of a normal life on Carl, who only reciprocates her feelings when she’s useful to him. This episode tackles the very real issue of manipulation in toxic relationships, which is a bit different to fighting aliens.
#16: “The Same As It Never Was” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (2003-10)
The 2003 series of TMNT has a couple of dark episodes throughout its run. However none of us expected our heroes in a half shell to die on screen! When Donatello is sent to the future, he discovers things took a turn for the worse in his absence. Splinter was killed, the brothers split up, Mikey lost an arm and Shredder has taken over the world. In a last ditch effort to stop this horrible timeline from happening, the turtles charge Shredder’s HQ, dying off one by one. The saddest part is seeing Raphael crawling over to his estranged brother Leo to spend his final moments with him. It’s the: Teenage Mutant Ninja Dead Guys!
#15: “Web World Wars” “ReBoot” (1994-2001)
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Sometimes the internet can feel like a black hole that destroys everything it comes into contact with, and for the people of Mainframe, this was literally the case, as seen in this dark episode of “ReBoot.” “World Web Wars” served as the season two finale of the hit show and ended on one of the darkest cliffhangers of all time. Bob was betrayed by Megabyte and launched into the dangerous storm of the world wide web, leaving the question of his fate unanswered until the third season premiered.
#14: “To Heck and Back” “Rocko’s Modern Life” (1993-96)
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Even though it aired on Nickelodeon, Rocko’s Modern Life liked to push what they could get past the censors. In this episode, Heffer finds himself choking to death after swallowing a chicken's rib-cage. While Rocko tries to revive him, Heffer meets Peaches in what is quite obviously hell. Despite Heffer’s food habits being played for laughs, the cartoon gets quite dark as Heffer is exposed to his various glutinous sins and how he would be tortured. It gets even scarier when Peaches starts appearing out of nowhere when he thinks he’s safe. The cartoon likes to play with adult jokes from time to time, but the cartoon went a little far for a watershed timeslot.
#13: “Elephant Issues” “Tiny Toon Adventures” (1990-92)
There is a reason why this episode got pulled from the air. The segment “One Beer” follows Buster, Plucky and Hamton as they come across a beer in the fridge. Buster peer pressures his friends into taking a sip. The trio go on a bender, stumbling around, clearly drunk, and alienating their friends. If underage drinking wasn’t enough, the characters take a police car for a joyride and fall off a cliff to their deaths. While the episode is very self-aware that it’s supposed to deter kids from alcohol, it still shocked people enough for the episode to be banned from Fox Kids.
#12: “Heavenly Puss” “Tom and Jerry” (1940-92)
The adventures of this cat & mouse duo is filled with endless violence, but the characters have only ever died a handful of times. “Blue Cat Blues” sees the two characters await a train to run them over after losing the girls of their dreams. However, “Heavenly Puss” pulls no punches. After Tom and Jerry engage in a typical chase, Tom is crushed by a piano and ascends to heaven. But once he gets there, he is rejected for how he’s treated Jerry. It’s here we find Tom pleading with Jerry to forgive him before he gets sent to the red hot place down below. Turns out it was all a bad dream and Tom has never been happier to see Jerry.
#11: “Jimmy” “Static Shock” (2000-04)
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In the lead up to a community centre Halloween party, shy kid Jimmy gets relentlessly picked on by Nick and his friends. After some violent pranks, Jimmy disappears, worrying his peers. Virgil and his dad go to Jimmy’s house, where they discover that he’s stolen his father’s gun and plans to confront his tormentors. At the school, we see Jimmy bursting into tears or anger as Richie tries to talk him down. But just as Jimmy lowers his gun, he gets tackled by Nick’s friends, accidently shooting Richie in the process. It wasn’t fatal, but it was a frighteningly real situation none-the-less.
#10: “Phineas and Ferb Get Busted” “Phineas and Ferb” (2007-15)
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Imagination is a wonderful thing to have, though not everyone would agree, as seen in Disney’s hit cartoon, “Phineas and Ferb.” In this episode, Candace finally catches the titular pair in performing their usual dangerous antics, leading them to get sent to reform school. The story takes a dark turn when the pair have their imaginations forcibly removed from their brains through intense brainwashing, a concept that gets even darker considering it serves as a disturbing metaphor for growing up. Though the whole thing turned out to be a dream, that didn’t save the episode from being incredibly dark.
#9: “Way of the Dee Dee” “Dexter’s Laboratory” (1996-99, 2001-03)
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Being cooped up in a lab all day is no way to go through life, despite what Dexter might think. Luckily, this boy genius had his sister Dee Dee to free him from the clutches of his stressful work, resulting in his spiritual awakening as he finds inner peace. However, that peace goes as quickly as it came after Dexter destroys his own lab before promptly returning to his life of scientific solitude, resulting in one of the most downbeat endings of any episode in the series.
#8: “Perfect” “Courage the Cowardly Dog” (1999-2002)
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This show always bordered on the scary, with plenty of episodes using chilling ideas to drive the comedic situations Courage gets himself into. But the series finale haunted many children’s dreams. During this episode, no matter how much he tries, he can’t seem to do anything right. His feelings of inadequacy manifests in the hallucination of a school teacher called “The Perfectionist”, who berates him throughout the story. It all comes to a head when Courage starts having bad dreams, where a CGI creature soothingly tells Courage “You’re not perfect”. The sudden animation switch is weird enough, but this one, among many other moments, makes the entire episode nightmare fuel.
#7: “Mind Pollution” “Captain Planet and the Planeteers” (1990-96)
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Captain Planet is a wise cracking superhero who works with his team of young environmentalists to tackle issues that beset the plant. With a kid friendly set up like that, everyone probably ended up scarred after this episode. When Verminous Skumm introduces a new drug called Bliss, the entire town gets hooked including Linka and her cousin Boris. Skumm convinces the two to attack their friends, who can’t summon Captain Planet because Linka’s mind is polluted. But then, Boris collapses after taking more Bliss, dying in Linka’s arms. With her mind now cleared, the Planeteers summon Captain Planet, who isn’t slinging puns like he usually does, incredibly angry with Skumm for going too far. They defeat the villain, but the trauma remains.
#6: “Twisted Sister” “The Powerpuff Girls” (1998-2005)
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This episode of the Cartoon Network original series is as memorable as it is heart-wrenching and tragic. When Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup want a new sister to help them fight crime, they haphazardly recreate the professor’s experiment and make Bunny, who comes out a bit off. After Bunny messes up crime-fighting and is sent away by the girls, she eventually returns to beats up every criminal in Townsville before exploding from her body’s instability, saving the day for the first, and final time. Admit it, just the description of this episode was enough to bring a tragic tear to your eye.
#5: “Holly Jolly Secrets (Part I & II)” “Adventure Time” (2010-18)
The Ice King is easily one of the most interesting characters in “Adventure Time,” as well as one of the most tragic, as seen in this two-part episode. After discovering the Ice King’s hidden video tapes, Finn and Jake learn the dark story behind the mad ice wizard: that he was once Simon Petrikov, an antiquarian who discovered the Ice Crown. As the crown corrupted his mind, Simon was driven mad, causing him to drive away the love of his life, leaving him a shadow of his former self. This tragic origin story made “Holly Jolly Secrets” one of the series’ darkest episodes, even more so than “Evergreen.”
#4: “Haunted” “Teen Titans” (2003-06)
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Obsession can drive a person insane, and in “Teen Titans,” Robin was that person. In this episode of the hit series, Robin ponders over Slade’s defeat and wonders if he is truly gone, a question that begins to haunt him as he starts to see the villain everywhere he goes. Robin is driven mad by the hunt for Slade, who turns out to be nothing more than visions caused by a hallucinogenic chemical. The whole affair serves as a metaphor for paranoia and PTSD, which is what made this episode one of the darkest in the series.
#3: “Failsafe” “Young Justice” (2010-13, 2018-)
“Failsafe” is easily one of the most relentless and horrific episodes of a kids’ cartoon in recent memory. The episode kicks off with the death of the entire Justice League following an alien attack. To make matters worse, The Team is forced to take League’s place and defend the Earth themselves. But, after Artemis dies, the rest of The Team is picked off one by one, before suddenly waking up and finding that the whole scenario was a simulation made real by Miss Martian’s powerful psychic mind, leaving everyone devastated by these real emotions for a fake experience. We know “Young Justice” was supposed to be mature, but not that mature.
#2: “The Puppetmaster” “Avatar: The Last Airbender” (2005-08)
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One of the most dangerous forms of bending in the world of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is bloodbending, the act of bending the water within a person’s blood to control their movements. It was first introduced in “The Puppetmaster,” which told the story of Hama, a former prisoner of the Fire Nation who escaped by developing this dark technique, which she continued to use to harm innocent civilians. Desperate to stop Hama and save her friends, Katara is forced to use bloodbending herself; an act that leaves her in tears. With such a dark premise, a tragic villain, and a horrifying technique, “The Puppetmaster” was perhaps the darkest – and creepiest – episode of “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions. Drab City, “Care Bears” The Bears Slowly Lose Their Colours as a Depressing City Sucks Away Their Happiness Angelica’s Worst Nightmare, “Rugrats” (1991-2004) The Fear of Replacement Is Very Real Neighbors, “We Bare Bears” (2015-19) Friendly People in the Neighborhood or Is Something Else Afoot?
#1: “Dark Harvest” “Invader Zim” (2001-06)
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This episode is, without a doubt, the most messed up thing ever to be aired on Nickelodeon. When Zim fears that his alien biology will reveal his origins, he attempts to make his body appear more human and the episode quickly devolves into a full-blown horror movie as Zim harvests organs around the school, replacing them with everyday objects, until his hunt finally ends when he steals Dib’s lungs. Seriously, how did this one make it past the big-wigs at Nick? An alien harvesting human organs doesn’t exactly make for great children’s television, but it does make “Dark Harvest” our choice for the number one unexpectedly dark kids’ cartoon episode.
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