FIVE AWFUL CHARACTERS THAT ALMOST RUINED GREAT FRANCHISES

Great stories need great characters. Across all types of genre there are absolutely stand-out series that tick every box. But sometimes a franchise becomes too awesome, and threatens to implode the universe, which is when universal-balance-wizards have to step in and create a character that levels things out (seen below using their trade mark spell).

I've scoured their archives and brought you their greatest work in creating characters that almost destroyed great franchises, across the mediums of Cartoons, Films, Games, TV and Comics ('The Quintrangle of Nutrition' as I call them). 
The results suprised me! Actually they didn't.

CARTOONS:
UNI

Dungeons and Dragons was a cartoon from the 80s. And every single second of every episode was insane. The premise of the story was that a bunch of kids went on a roller coaster and got sucked into a magical universe because NOTHING. There was never any explanation as to why they ended up in a different world. As it was a show about magic it would have been pretty easy to throw in a line about being summoned by a mage, but I guess the writers were too busy failing to open their schizophrenia medicines.

The opening scenes were a heady mix; a five headed dragon, half-demon riding a flying horse and cryptic dwarf. Oh, and a useless little pile of white shit with a horn.

Just as viewers thought they had stumbled across the perfect recipe, the final ingredient was a rat turd. Uni was a baby unicorn that did nothing but cower, repeat her own name and alert monsters to where the heroes were hiding.

She did in one episode possess the power to teleport, but this made her at least a tiny bit useful and angered the balance-wizards. Plus, utilising this power again would have gone against the production staff's strict rules about not having any kind of continuity, therefore her power was dropped.

It's worth noting that Uni beat off stiff competition from Orco and Snarf to excel in her category, because at least they NEVER had the potential to be arousing.

GAMES:
NAVI

GOOD. LORD.

Navi is the leading argument for legalising suicide in Singapore and the reason the Taliban hate western civilisation.

For those of you that never bothered playing the best game ever made, or are a girl, Navi is the name of a ‘helper’ fairy in ZELDA: THE OCARINA OF TIME. You play an elf called Link and Navi is given to him to help him on his quest with useful advice and information. Unfortunately, in fairy culture being given to an elf is our equivalent of being sold into sex trafficking, meaning that Navi decided to substitute ‘help’ for ‘being the most fucking annoying thing in the universe’.

Most characters have a loop of stock phrases that they'll randomly repeat throughout a game. Navi had two and holy crap did she use them.

'Hey!'. 'Listen!'. Over and over and over again. You see, Navi was meant to keep you on track by reminding you of what you were doing next in the game. Unfortunately for everyone who didn't like hating life, the programmers had done their testing on how often people needed reminding on a gibbon with Alzheimer's disease.  What this effectively meant was that for every 10 seconds you played the game, you heard this phrase for eleven seconds. 

To this day if a high pitched voice ever says 'Hey' and 'Listen' within 30 minutes of each other around me I hit the owner until we're both crying.

Navi is the only reason I stopped playing this game for breaks and didn't fail my A-levels. 

Actually it was because my dad hid the console, but my point stands.

COMICS:
ROBIN

Let's get one thing straight: there's nothing wrong with being gay. Let's get another one thing straight: there's so much wrong with being a creepy little weirdo in shiny pants and elf shoes.

Robin is the worst thing ever to appear in pictorial form, and I include the Mein Kampf colouring book. Everything is wrong. Batman is one of the best American comic characters ever, but he also requires the most suspension of disbelief. He has no powers! You can just about get through believing his stories are real by imagining what a gruelling life he's had and that he has infinite money to back up his mental illness. Add Robin to the mix and it just pushes the books into ridiculous; there is just NO WORLD where Batman would want to hang out with Robin! THINK ABOUT IT! It's like Clint Eastwood calling up Jedward to talk about how much his vagina was aching.

In the 80s DC comics had their first phone-in to let the readers decide the fate of a major character. They weren’t sure if many peope would call – it was the first time something like this had been done with a comic character. Let's just say if it had been a phone-in for something useful like curing stuff, we'd have had to bring spores back from Mars to invent new diseases. People called in their thousands to beg for the teenage orphan to be murdered. And the result? Robin got battered to death with a crowbar two issues later. As you’re probably figuring out, there was no real winner here.

FILM:
JAR JAR BINKS

Haha! It's playing a funny game! Still, we have a job to do firing squad.

For a generation, Star Wars represented the apex of entertainment. Original characters, an endlessly quotable script and state of the art special effects made this genre-busting box office smash a winner for the entire family. Fans of the trilogy waited almost two decades for the next in the series and flocked to its opening like pigeons on a chip.

As the film progressed the sense that something was wrong was easily ignored for the first 30 minutes with plenty of lasers and spaceships to take our mind off the dreadful dialogue. But then, around 45 minutes into the film we were introduced to a vaguely racist cartoon rabbit thing called Jar Jar Binks. And suddenly the dreadful dialogue became very noticeable indeed.

This is the point that the Star Wars franchise became damaged beyond repair and started a downward slide into disastrous ridicule. The only slight positive was to focus on the fact that never again would George Lucas be able to take a beloved product and turn into such an abomination.

Oh.

TV:
Everything to do with HEROES after series 1.

What did they do?

WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY DO?!!!

THE GREATEST FILMS NEVER SEEN part 1

Are you sick of rubbish films? 
Ten years ago I was. I remember it exactly: I was sitting in he cinema trying to watch Oceans Eleven, and every time I looked at the screen my eyes punched me in the face. 

Now, watching films that are more predictable then the outcome of Vanessa Feltz seeing an ice cream is all well and good, but what about when you need something new and unusual?

So my trawl began. Chinatown, flea markets and soon-to-be-bankrupt video shops were the locations. The targets were VHS tapes with drawn covers promising scenes of such mind-blowing madness that owning them would get you fired from being an educator, in any capacity. 

And now I’m going to share my findings with you.

How do you know if you’ll like them? Here’s the test:

Question: Which is the more awesome end to a movie?

A)   Bad guy gets hit so hard that he reverse-explodes into a dog*

B)   Richard Gere

If you answered B then hurry away - Jedwood Let Loose isn’t going to skyplus itself!

But if you answered A then buckle up kid, coz not only have you come to the right place, but you and I are now best friends.

THE SEVENTH CURSE



PLOT SUMMARY:
This film starts with some academics chatting about a past adventure. Then, in a remarkable twist worthy of a 15 year old film students' first project, we transition into that adventure. It's like a Chinese Indiana Jones but with more emphasis on naked women having sex with men to cure them of demon curses.
It doesn't work in the TRADITIONAL sense of logic, sure, but if it did they'd have to cut out the part where a skeleton turns into a flying dinosaur beast and slices peoples heads off.

One memorable scene is a kung fu fight on top of a giant buddha statue. Another memorable scene is a mutant fetus monster, umbilical cord still attached, that flies around biting peoples faces off. I guess what I'm saying is that The Seventh Curse really has something for everyone.

There are versions which cut out some of the boobs to make the film more 'family friendly', though this is basically the filmic equivalent of painting a smile on a bottle of rat poison to make it more 'baby delicious'.

TRAILER:

If this trailer had subtitles, you'd actually understand less.



WILD ZERO



PLOT SUMMARY:

N/A
Guitar Wolf are in the Guiness Book of Records for having recorded the loudest album ever. And Guitar Wolf have lost their damn minds.

In the late 90's this cult Japanese rock band decided they wanted to be in a film. It was filmed on location in Bali because the director 'likes Bali food'. As far as I can tell, the script involved throwing all the best words into the dictionary into a ceiling fan.

What this film lacks in any basis in sense, it makes up for in tits, zombies, guitar picks being used as throwing stars, every scene ending with somebody jumping out of a window, fire coming out of all vehicles exhausts and a transexual love story.

TRAILER:

If this was the trailer to every film, maybe people would go to the cinema once in a while

THE STORY OF RICKY

PLOT SUMMARY:

It depends which version you get. In some he's a highschool dropout that's scared of his powers. In others he's an orphan that wants to play the flute. Another has him in prison for being invunerable to bullets.
There are a couple of consistants throughout each version however; the scene in which he gets his wrist slashed then just ties his veins in a knot to stop the bleeding is one. The scene where a disembowelled man uses his intestines to strangle somebody to death is another.

The first time I watched this film there was so much flying and exploding heads that I thought it was a documentary about Chinese prisons. It turns out it's not, as at the end Ricky decides to leave and just punches the wall down. In real Chinese prisons people only get out by commiting suicide to admit they were wrong to have an email account.

TRAILER:

Keep in mind it's impossible to unsee things.

*BONUS! That actually happens in this film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqAZWXCXcBM

THE MOST INSANELY UNBEATABLE BOSSES EVER

These days when you want to beat a computer game, you just play it until you win. That or you get your 6 year old niece to download a cyber code from the matrix on her kindle or something. But it hasn't always been like this...Beating a video game used to require an ability to focus purely for an entire day and be fully willing to kick your mum in the face if she tried to make you go outside.

The games were designed to beat you. In computer programmer culture, beating a game they've designed is the worst kind of insult which is why many early end screens were just a pixelated picture of your family on fire.

Looks pretty cute doesn't it? You'll never ever get off this screen. I promise.

The difficulty level was off the scale. If any child completed a game first time then their computer sent a secret message to the government to come and retrieve and freeze them for the eventual future wars against the machines.

Added to this, the programming was hopeless. In my first edition of OPERATION WOLF for the Commodore 64, you could get halfway into the game until you came across a communist wearing a bulletproof vest. Killing him required a headshot. Getting a headshot required him having a head, which he didn't. Every time I'd play, I'd get halfway through and then a headless Russian would jump up and axe me to death. At the time it seemed unfair, though in hindsight I now understand that it's amazing.

Getting through a level was a buzz, but facing off against the boss at the end of that level filled you with a cold, cold adrenalin fear that can only be replicated by initiating a break up conversation with somebody who thinks you're going to marry them.

Some bosses were beatable. Some were just total wankers. This is my list of total wanker end of level bosses:


THE GAME
Mortal Kombat (Megadrive)


Men remember the date they first played Mortal Kombat in the same way they remember the day they lost their virginity. This is because for most males, the end result was much the same - screaming in shock, pain and pleasure while sex fluids exploded from your body.
Everything about the game was hilarious and disgusting, which again ties in with the first time I had intercourse.

THE BOSSTARD
SHAO KAHN

Shao Kahn was just a stone cold bastard. Every thing he did, from his ham fisted punches to his arthritic kicks took off about a quarter of your energy. But at least he didn't have a massive hammer that materialised from nowhere and exploded your head.
He did really.

HOW TO WIN
The only way to beat him was to uppercut him, wait for the computer to start the animation of him standing up and uppercut him again while he was halfway up, and helpless. It was kind of cheating, but I'd have a hard time thinking of when I gave less of a shit.

THE GAME
Two Crude Dudes (Megadrive)


This was similar two Streets Of Rage with two very important differences. One was that you could pick up almost all of the scenery and throw it. The other was that dogs constantly tried to shag you. Basically one of those Japanese games that somehow slipped through the net, it was riddled with bizarre traits that made the player feel unhappy inside afterwards.

THE BOSSTARD
ALL OF THEM



There aren't many pictures of this game around...

The end of level bosses for this game were really hard. One was a spider that flew down from beyond the top of the screen screaming. If you were under it, then you lost all your life. One hit, dead. It was just total bullshit in it's purest early gaming form. There were seven levels, each with an end of level boss created from broken childrens dreams.

The last level was a bit different because there wasn't an end of level boss. There were seven. Every single fucking boss you'd already beaten, in a row, with no break and no power ups. And then after that, the final boss. What a joke.

HOW TO WIN 
Just play it. I'd never kissed a girl at this point and somebody told me that vaginas looked like the Predator without it's mask on, so I had nothing else to do.

THE GAME
Diddy Kong Racing (N64)


Diddy Kong Racing was Nintendo's answer to Mario Kart. An odd answer, as it had already made Mario Kart. It was easy and colourful with cute characters and an adventure mode. Work your way through the different zones, beat the bosses, collect the coins and then you get to Wizpig. Basically a big running pink bastard. He was hard. Really hard. But hey, your 14, what else do you have on? With practice, he was beatable.
And that was the game done! Or was it? Drive down to the beach and beep at the old lighthouse, it turns into a rocket and blasts you into space to beat four more levels. Do THAT and you have the real showdown with Wizpig, who is now sitting on a rocket.

THE BOSSTARD

WIZPIG

WizPRICK more like! AMIRIGHTLADS?

HOLY. FUCK. They just went way WAY over the top with this one. He was unbeatable. You had to have a flawless race. If it wasn't utterly flawless, down to every nudge of the joystick, you were effed. I first got Diddy Kong Racer when I was 17. I beat Wizpig when I was 27. That's a solid decade of not being able to win a game that was advertised for six year olds.

HOW TO WIN
Get dumped by your long-term girlfriend, move back in with your parents, wear an old hoody and shorts and play the game all day, everyday for two weeks while knowing that you need to win this...You really need to.  There might be other ways to do it, that's just what I did.


THE GAME
Splatter House (Sega Megadrive)

Look how awesome this box is. A man with an angry skull head is kicking the crap out of Alien and an octopus. They knew what to do...how could you not want that?
The game itself was IMPOSSIBLE. Every single second of it was totally nuts. Demons flying all over, pirahna maggots climbing out of the floor, deformed babies screaming in your face. There wasn't a single safe place to stand on the screen, it was all designed to kill you. Look at the picture below, that's the first end of level boss. It's a plant that sprays acid at you while demons drop of the ceiling at you. There's no pattern to be learned, no powerups, no shield, nothing. If you finally win and stand next to the plant, WHERE YOU HAVE TO BE TO HIT IT, then it splits open and acid pours out which instantly kills you. Thanks, dicks.

Kids are gonna love this! My next project is a maze with no exit. After that a birthday cake with glass in.

HOW TO WIN
Fuck knows.

WORST TOY VEHICLES OF ALL TIME

Creators of toylines have a curious job. They are faced with a constant predicament; how to make more figures and accesories without letting the products becoming an absurd pack of nonsense? This is, of course, a trick question and any toy creator that attempts to answer it is sacked instantly. The screams of devastated children who have just had christmas ruined feeds the ancient cantarion demon that controls all toy companies, which is why you get products like: 

THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES PIZZA THROWER

I remember the first time I saw TMNT, and so does my babysitter as it was the first time she had witnessed a screaming eight year old boy start to enter puberty. In England it was called ‘Hero’ turtles as ‘Ninja’ was seen as too violent. Also, all of Michelangelo’s nunchaku scenes were cut as British equality laws mean that severely mentally incapacitated people are allowed to decide censorship. But none of this mattered, because at the end of the day it was a load of mutated amphibians beating the crap out of a brain in a robot suit under the watchful eye of a karate rat. It had the perfect mix of ingredients for an 80’s cartoon – a plot that seemed as though it had been screamed into your face by a schizophrenic on a bus, and weapons.

The toys were great too. All the characters you wanted, plus Irma.





Christmas 1987: "Fuck you, mum and dad!"



So what the actual shit is this?

That’s a tank that fires pizzas at it’s enemies. There are lots of questions regarding this design, perhaps most pressing is "what the fuck?" Why? Why would the Turtles make a machine that fired their favourite thing all over the place? That's like me going into battle with a crossbow that shoots softcore Japanese pornography.

  

THE HULK COPTER

 

The Hulk is famous for two things. One is unlimited strength and the other is being dumb as a rock. Another is not now, or ever, for being able to fly a helicopter. 

Someone, somewhere however, decided that the Hulk is a qualified pilot. And just to be subtle, painted his helicopter bright green, because the Hulk is known for having problems getting attention.

 

Seen here obliterating an asteroid twice the size of earth with one punch

Why does the Hulk want a helicopter anyway? He can jump across entire countries in one leap, and based on the fact that his answer to every problem he faces in life is to hit something as hard as he can, he probably can't land that thing for shit!

THE SPIDER-CAR





One of the main issues that designers of these vehicles seemed to have is that they assumed it would be a good idea for the vehicle to do exactly what the superhero does without the vehicle. Here is a classic example of this. Spiderman can fire webs from his wrists, has the proportional strength of a spider (which equals out to about one tonne per whateverheneedstointhatstory) and the agility of an acrobat. What better way to capitalise on these powers then to drive around in a massive car with a net on the back? This way, whenever he sees a thief, rather than directly target them, he can hope that they fall into the exact area needed to bounce off his net and land on the back of his head.



AQUAMAN AQUA SUB



Aquaman has always been the worst superhero. His powers are useful underwater, sure, but since most of the heroes breath oxygen, the majority of their adventures take place on the earths surface.

The only thing Aquaman can do that other members of the Justice League can't is translate fish screams whenever they walk past a pet shop.

Why does he want a submarine? That's like The Flash having an oxygen tank to go to the shops. I assume that he uses the sub as a holding pen for octopuses he's trying to seduce.

SUPERMAN MOTORBIKE WITH WONDER WOMAN SIDECAR

There just isn’t any logic to this on any level.

WONDERWOMAN: Clark, we're getting an incoming distress call!

SUPERMAN: SWEET! I’ve been wanting to test a little something out. Trust me you’re going to totally love this. Close your eyeesssssss...

One of the reasons these products are so odd is that they're all officially licensed - someone with control of a brand signed off on them.
But let's imagine there's a magical world where copyright laws don't apply, where one in one products is a bootleg and 'Top Quality' equals 'stuffed with only semi-live snakes'. For arguments sake, let's call this wondrous place 'China'. What then, would 'China' make of a toyline, free from all the padlocks of basic rules of trademark?



THAT is Darth Vader riding a police bike. Good night.

SUPERHEROES LOVE TO KNOCKOUT DINOSAURS

There are several basic characteristics of being a comic book hero. A love of justice, respect for liberty and desire to be basically bare at all times being three.

Essentially, this is a picture of a naked woman that has been coloured wrong

During the course of my studies on the subject, I have come to observe an interesting phenomena: no matter how good of heart or gentle the character may be, anytime a comic book hero meets a dinosaur that isn't knocked out, there is only one outcome. And that outcome is a knocked out dinosaur.

Case Study: Dynamo

When the United Nations discover a belt and hat designed to turn a man (it was the 60's, women weren't allowed to be superheroes yet in case it made them want to vote) into a superman, they did the only logical thing and gave them to a low level administration assistant, rationalising that if the lowest man on the pay grade wasn't worthy of god-powers then maybe they should stop having neat gin for breakfast.

Enter agent Dynamo. Dynamo spends most of his time saving people from earthquakes and communists, the two leading causes of death in 70's males. He's not particularly violent man, but like most cape and boots heroes, conscious dinosaurs are like ruddy catnip to him.



Case Study: Martian Manhunter

J'onn J'onzz is a staple of DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE, and like most DC characters, he is absurdly overpowered to the point that almost all of the comics are spent finding reasons for him not to fight. He's the last of his kind, which makes him particularly sympathetic to endangered species. Until he sees a not knocked out dinosaur.



Case Study: The Thing

Big hearted Ben Grimm went into space on an experimental rocket flight, got hit by cosmic rays and turned into an indestructible pile of orange rocks because of science. He's a pretty easy going guy, in fact the only thing that really annoys him is when a dinosaur is being alive.

Case Study: Skaar
Skaar is the son of the Hulk and as such possesses enough strength to do what he likes. And what he likes is upper-cutting Tyrannosauruses. 



Case Study: Superman

If Superman ever has to displace a bear or squid during the course of his adventures, he finds some way to do it humanly. If he ever has to move a dinosaur he punches it straight in the face.

Case Study: Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel was designed as an exciting bright character for younger kids. Here he is punching a dinosaurs head clean off.

 

Case Study: The Hulk

Holy crap does the Hulk like to punch dinosaurs. The Hulk is the third best theory for dinosaur extinction after 'meteor' and 'time travelling Hulk'. The hulk has punched so many dinosaurs that anytime he goes to a natural history museum the fossils start screaming.

Earlier I mentioned that there weren't too many women supermen. A main fear was that they'd get things wrong, I mean how would a female superhero ever defeat Doctor Doom if she was busy laughing at all the jokes from the Sex and the City movie? Also, a fat woman in lycra would be unsightly. Wonder Woman was one of the first tough ladies. By the time she came around, the only real rule to being a lycra-clad mutant was 'beat the shit out of dinosaurs'? How wrong could she get it?

HOLY SHIT!