Craziest Cartoon Episodes That Were Banned

Is there any better way to start a Saturday morning than with cartoons? But there are some episodes you aren’t gonna see on Nickelodeon or anywhere else! Some kids TV episodes proved too controversial for the small screen. From celebrity appearances that aged like milk to adult content that should never have got past the censors, here are the craziest cartoon episodes that were banned!

Pokémon: Electric Soldier Porygon

In 1997, Pokémania was in full swing in Japan. While the rest of the world wouldn’t get their first exposure to the anime TV series until the following year, it seemed the pocket monsters could do no wrong back home. That is, until the fateful day that the episode “Electric Soldier Porygon” aired. The episode itself was wholly uncontroversial.

Ash and the gang find themselves battling the villainous Team Rocket inside cyberspace with the help of the artificial Pokémon, Porygon. But then something happens which caused chaos across Japanese households. Near the end of the episode, some cyber missiles are launched at our heroes, which Pikachu heroically destroys using a thunderbolt attack. Only, when the missiles are destroyed, rapidly flashing blue and red lights appear to mark the event.

In certain people, flashing strobe lights of a certain frequency can cause an excessive response from the brain, triggering epileptic seizures. And because of the framerate of the TV show, the lights were at the perfect frequency for this. Yes, this Pokémon episode wound up causing the hospitalization of over 600 kids. Many suffered full blown seizures, while others reported seizure symptoms such as blindness, nausea and convulsions.

And that’s without mentioning the thousands of others with symptoms who didn’t go to hospital. The episode was never aired again, and never dubbed into English. This was obviously a stain on the brand, so the Pokémon Company needed to do something about it. Did they punish Pikachu for his actions? Not likely. Instead, it was poor old Porygon that got the shaft.

The creature and its evolutions were never given a featured role in the series ever again. Over a thousand episodes later, and Porygon is relegated to nothing more than occasional background appearances, all to cover up the crimes of the golden child. Porygon did nothing wrong!

Zac Walden

@zac_walden

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Can someone wifi battle me I've got a new team. My friend code is in my bio

9:17 AM · Nov 7, 2015

Dexter’s Laboratory: Rude Removal

If you grew up in the 90s, I’m sure you’re aware of how popular Cartoon Network’s Dexter’s Laboratory was. The show follows boy genius Dexter as he gets up to a whole load of science-y hijinks alongside his annoying sister Dee Dee. But one particular adventure of theirs was deemed far too shocking for TV: the infamous Rude Removal.

In this episode, Dexter invents the Rude Removal system, which splits him and his sister into two versions, one polite pair, and one very impolite pair. The nasty doppelgangers are crude, aggressive, and foul mouthed. The crass clones go on to smash up Dexter’s lab, berate his mom and even insult her cooking!

That’s a little much, but at least they didn’t have evil Dexter blowing chunks on his mom’s face. But that implied language is something else. And that’s exactly why the story got pulled from air. Cartoon Network thought that all the cussing was just too much. It’s definitely shocking, but it is censored. Even SpongeBob did a similar episode a few years later and it aired fine, although with some controversy!

But back to Dexter. If anything, the most shocking part of Rude Removal is the title card, which shows Dexter mooning the camera and Dee Dee flipping it the bird.

Dexter's Laboratory Rude Removal controversy

©Cartoon Network via Wikimedia Commons

Peppa Pig: Mr. Skinnylegs

Many of us don’t like spiders; there’s no way something should have that many legs. But a lot of the time, spiders are nothing to fear, something British children’s cartoon Peppa Pig tried to convey in an episode from 2004 entitled Mr. Skinnylegs. Only, it backfired, hard.

In the episode, Peppa befriends a spider. For context, UK spiders are highly unlikely to bite. Even if they did, there aren’t any deadly species in the country. But that’s certainly not the case somewhere else the episode was aired: Australia. Encouraging Australian kids to play with the many highly venomous and sometimes deadly spiders in the country is reckless and irresponsible.

What’s more, the episode even has Peppa playing with her arachnid friend and tucking it into bed with her. Just imagine a little rugrat watching this episode then running outside and stumbling on a Sydney Funnel Web, one of the deadliest in the world. After receiving complaints from angry parents, the episode was pulled off air and axed online. Makes sense because the last thing you want to do is encourage kids to get in danger.

South Park: Band in China

South Park is no stranger to controversy. Its crude and often offensive humor spares nobody! Naturally, this has led to the show getting a ton of flak, perhaps most notably, from the Chinese government. The episode Band in China aired in 2019 and took aim at the country’s penchant for censorship.

In it, one of the main characters, Randy Marsh, is arrested and subjected to Communist re-education alongside Winnie the Pooh. Hilariously, Winnie is censored across Chinese social media after jokes were made comparing the friendly bear to the country’s president Xi Jinping. Jinping, as you can gather, is a sensitive man. And this episode shines a light on the awful way China treats its citizens, makes fun of its censorship laws, and heavily features a banned character in it.

So, is it any surprise then that it was banned in China? No, it’s not. But things went even further! The episode was ultimately responsible for South Park being entirely scrubbed from the country. Even online, every mention of the series was removed. Episodes were taken down, forums were closed, and social media posts were hidden. Such a draconian response is par for the course in China’s heavily controlled society though. So frankly, it’s surprising South Park survived there as long as it did!

The Simpsons: Stark Raving Dad

The Simpsons is the longest running animated series of all time and, as such, has been no stranger to controversy. But one episode of the hit sitcom was entirely unproblematic the day it aired in 1991, only to be outright banned later, in 2019!

The episode is called Stark Raving Dad. In it, Homer gets sent to a mental institution where he meets Leon Kompowski, a man who believes he’s king of pop Michael Jackson. Hilarity ensues, and to make the scene funnier, Leon was actually voiced by Jackson!

The episode was actually one of the more popular ones, but in 2019, everything changed. The documentary Leaving Neverland was released, which took a supremely critical view of MJ and reignited some nasty allegations. After watching the doc, the brains behind The Simpsons opted to completely remove Stark Raving Dad from circulation. It was omitted from Disney +, axed from all box sets going forward, and pulled from re-run schedules indefinitely.

This seems like a cut and dry business decision to avoid association with controversy, but there may well have been something more to it. After finishing the documentary, Simpsons showrunner Al Jean came to the belief that Jackson used his appearance on the show as a tool to groom victims. There’s no outright proof of this, but Jean’s steadfast belief meant he stands by the decision to erase the episode from existence.

A decision which proved almost as controversial as the original Jacko controversy! The beloved episode’s banishment was bemoaned by fans, with some viewing it as totally unnecessary. Others expressed the importance of preserving media as a form of history, rather than erasing it. Then again, if Jean was on to something, then maybe it was the right choice to jettison Jackson’s episode?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Insane In The Membrane

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is awesome. Its kick butt action and dynamite storytelling has improved many a childhood. Although it nearly ruined a fair few too. The 2003 version of the show featured an episode called Insane in the Membrane. The ep follows an injured villain named Stockman, who clones himself a new body to inhabit.

Only, things go horribly wrong when it begins to rapidly decay, both physically and mentally. What follows is a horror movie-esque nightmare where the rotting madman rampages around the city, attempting to destroy the turtles’ ally, April O’Neil, all while hallucinating his dearly departed mother. When the staff at Fox Broadcast Standards & Practices looked at the finished episode, they were apparently horrified at what they saw.

The gruesome subject matter and scary visuals led them to lock the episode away from children’s eyes. Kids are impressionable, and seeing some of the disturbing stuff on display here could easily cause some sleepless nights. However, the episode was released in the UK, and appeared on the US DVD release too. It wouldn’t be aired on American TV until 2015 though. There’s no word on what exactly caused Fox to change their minds or how many kids were upset after watching it!

Tiny Toon Adventures: One Beer

If you’re a living fossil, you might remember the Public Service Announcements from 1980s kids cartoons. For everyone else, they were short sections aired after an episode to heavy-handedly explain the morals of the story:

By the 90s, they’d largely gone out of style, with one infamous exception. 1991’s Tiny Toons Adventures episode “Elephant Issues”. Rather than a normal episode with a PSA at the end, the WB network decided to make the whole episode the PSA, to disastrous effect.

Elephant Issues is composed of 3 segments, with one in particular, “One Beer”, really catching the ire of the censors because is all about booze! The idea was, by showing everyone’s beloved childhood characters getting absolutely off their faces, it would demonstrate the “evils of alcohol” to kids. So, after arguing over who should drink first, it’s finally settled on Buster.

Given that the characters in the show are all kids themselves, you can clearly see the issue here. Anyway, after they all down the brew, they drunkenly steal a police car, drive it off a cliff, and aren’t seen driving it back. The shocking and upsetting content of the segment caused the whole episode to be removed from syndication in the US, and it’s since gone down as one of the most well-known banned cartoons ever. Or at least, that’s what people say.

Turns out, the episode was never actually banned at all! YouTuber “poparena” did some serious sleuthing and not only uncovered a commercial for the episode, but also several TV guide listings up until 1997, a full six years after its first broadcast. The evidence says it all; we can’t be sure when, or why, but someone made the whole drama up and it spread online like wildfire.

Rocko's Modern Life: Leap Frogs

Rocko’s Modern Life is one of Nickelodeon’s all-time greats. One of the reasons for its massive popularity is its penchant for adult humor, something that would get its creators in serious trouble back in 1993! Enter Leap Frogs, an episode where main character, Australian wallaby Rocko, is seduced by his married neighbor.

Essentially, his neighbor, the toad Bev Bighead, feels neglected by her husband, and so sets her eyes on Rocko. What follows is a series of incredibly awkward sequences where she makes Rocko, and us, super uncomfortable.

Naturally, this is some pretty edgy content for children. So much so that parents went ballistic after catching their kids watching it. In fact, the episode drew so many complaints that Nick pulled it from air entirely. Given the premise, you can somewhat understand parents’ objections; maybe it did deserve the axe!

Pokémon: The Legend Of Dratini

Once more we venture into the world of Pokémon, for something decidedly less kid friendly than parents expected. 1997’s The Legend of Dratini follows Ash and pals as they enter the Safari Zone, a massive Pokémon preserve. What follows sounds like standard Pokémon fare, the gang catch a bunch of monsters, face off against the dastardly Team Rocket and ultimately save the titular Dratini from their clutches. But what’s so egregious about that? This episode has guns in it. A lot of guns.

Guns do feature in other Pokémon episodes, but fleetingly, or in a very over the top fashion. But in this episode, characters are threatened at gunpoint on seven different occasions! Too many for them to all be censored in a global release. At one point Ash even gets a revolver pointed directly in his face! Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Legend of Dratini never got an English dub, and was never released outside of Japan.

Pokémon The Legend of Dratini Craziest Cartoon Episodes That Were Banned

However, this created a pretty big plot hole for global viewers. See, Ash captures 30 Tauros in the Safari Zone. So, when he visits them all in a later episode it left a lot of kids confused about where the heck they’d come from! What’s more, the unaired episode was the anime debut of Dratini. Because of its removal, people outside of Japan wouldn’t get to see the creature in the show for another 200+ episodes! Fortunately, nobody aims an AR-15 at anyone when Dratini does show back up.

Pokemon Gems

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sleepy Dratini

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SpongeBob SquarePants: Mid Life Crustacean

Some cartoon episodes were perfectly fine when they released, only to be hit with a ban decades later! Enter the 2002 SpongeBob SquarePants episode Mid Life Crustacean. In it, Mr. Krabs feels his age and is desperate to recapture his youth, so he tags along with SpongeBob and Patrick on their big night out. It turns out to be a disappointing affair though, until he hears about the last activity they have planned.

They sneak into a “girl’s” house to steal her underwear, only to discover that the girl is Mr. Krabs’ mom! Just when you thought it couldn’t get any weirder. For decades the episode aired in the US, until 2021, when Nickelodeon announced they’d made the decision to pull it from broadcast, as well as streaming services in the country.

The network cited “storyline concerns” as the reason, but never elaborated. But we all know what the issue was. Why do SpongeBob and Patrick want to steal girls’ underwear? It’s totally out of character for these two goofy goobers to even consider something like that! So I can understand Nick’s thought process in ultimately choosing to can it. However, the show’s had way more adult jokes in different episodes.

The Simpsons: The City Of New York VS Homer Simpson

We’re heading back to the town of Springfield now, but not for long, because our favorite cartoon family are off to New York. In the 1997 episode “The City of New York vs Homer Simpson”, the family must travel to the Big Apple to retrieve the family car. But, after the 9/11 attacks on the city’s World Trade Center, the episode was pulled from air. The car is abandoned outside the twin towers, so a huge portion of the runtime takes place there. After the tragedy, the decision was made to take it from syndication, for obvious reasons.

The ban was eventually lifted in 2006, although re-runs would still occasionally have some content removed. Notably, a joke in the episode that, quote, “they stick all the jerks in tower one” has been sporadically cut in certain regions. Bans and edits like this one were commonplace in the years following the devastating attacks.

One more thing about this episode: it’s commonly cited as predicting the attacks themselves with this travel ad that appears to read “9/11.” However, it clearly didn’t. $9 was chosen as the price because it was ridiculously cheap, and the twin towers were simply shown to advertise the city’s landmarks.

Teletubbies: The Lion And Bear

The BBC kids show Teletubbies is a surreal jaunt through a psychedelic world with the titular tubbies. Episodes featured so-called “magical events”, but in 1997’s See-Saw, the magical event proved so terrifying it led to the episode’s ban. Enter, the lion and the bear. The episode starts as normal, then suddenly it gets weird.

It just feels wrong. And that’s probably the best way to describe the entire sequence. The stressful music, the uncanny wooden cutouts, they just don’t belong in Teletubbies. Parents complained ad nauseum, until the BBC pulled the episode. But the damage was already done. Then, a few years later, an edited version of the sequence was aired on TV.

This version had altered vocal performances, cut shots, and added artificial sound effects like squeaking wheels to tone down the uncanniness. It’s a bit better. But we still never want to see those two knuckleheads ever again.

Pingu: Pingu's Dream

As spine chilling as the wooden terrors from the Teletubbies are, there’s another kids show that gave us even worse nightmares: Pingu, the show about the little penguin. In the 1991 episode Pingu’s Dream, we follow Pingu on a trip to snooze-ville. His dream starts off innocently enough, with him riding his bed around a barren landscape. He’s having a great time, and so are we! Until, well, you better watch the clip below:

This thing in the cartoon is supposed to be a walrus, only it’s huge, has no tusks, and sports an unnerving set of human teeth. It torments Pingu and laughs maniacally at his suffering. The walrus was deemed far too chilling for kids TV, and the ep was banned in several countries, including the UK. But that wasn't the only controversial part of Pingu! There’s actually a whole slew of banned or censored episodes of the show.

Probably the most outrageous is Little Accidents, a 1990 story all about Pingu and friends going to the bathroom. It’s as weird as it sounds. Essentially, after Pingu drinks way too much, he desperately needs to pee, but shock horror, he can’t reach the toilet. With no other option, our penguin pal does the unthinkable.

From the color of that, Pingu still needed to drink more water. The focus on all that urine caused the episode to get banned in a heap of countries, including the USA. But if you ask me, the craziest thing is someone’s actual job was to create and animate Pingu doing a massive leak out of clay. For shame.

If you were amazed at the craziest cartoon episodes that were banned, you might want to explore more of our articles about cartoons. Thanks for reading!