Guest Blog: 90s Cartoon Network Classics

Standing in for your regular blogger, I am Nick, otherwise known as Blogging Nickster. You can catch my blog, The Unofficial Cedar Point Blog, which is a blog all about the world-class amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio! You can also follow me on Twitter and like my blog’s Facebook page!

As a kid in the latter half of the 1990’s, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon ruled my weeknights. Johnny Bravo, the Angry Beavers, Rugrats, and Dexter’s Laboratory ruled the land of cartoons, before the world of Spongebob-reruns and cheap knock-offs of the classics. Although both networks were amazing at the time, Children of the 90’s has sort of neglected Cartoon Network shows. To solve this, as a guest blogger, I will be peering into the fascinating cartoons that used to roam Cartoon Network in the mid-to late 1990’s.

Dexter’s Laboratory

The theme song was scary; the main character was a tiny carrot-top; and the protagonist was extremely annoying. What other cartoon could that be besides Dexter’s Laboratory? In a nutshell, the show was about an extremely short kid with a giant laboratory somehow shoved into his family’s standard two-story house.

Dexter’s parents were so stereotypical that it almost made me sick: a businessman dad and a stay at home mom, complete with an everyday outfit of an apron and yellow rubber gloves. However, Dexter’s sister, Dee Dee, was quite… um… different. Dee Dee had really long legs, with these giant combat boot-like feet that would make a funny stomp noise as she stumbled about. To this day, I still don’t know how that girl could even pick her feet up!

Mandark was this annoying enemy of Dexter that also created his own secret laboratory, too. (I’m sorry, but there really only needs to be one mad scientist per town…) But anyway, Mandark inherited the worst laugh in history. It was this high-pitched, pinched “Mwuhahaha, mwuhahaha, mwuhahaha, mwuahahaha!” (See video below to remember the annoyance!)



In between each episode, these little segments would pop up called “Justice League” and “Dial M for Monkey.” Both of the segments annoyed me. I didn’t really care about this stupid monkey that had superpowers; I thought it was a dumb idea. The Justice League bit was just as bad. I just wanted to get back to watching Dexter!

Cow and Chicken

By far, the most bizarre (Hey, that rhymed!) cartoon on the network was Cow and Chicken. Amazingly, two humans managed to produce a cow and chicken as children, creatively named Cow and Chicken.

We never really got to see the upper halves of Cow and Chicken’s parents, but there was obviously something genetically wrong with one of them. They both must have some recessive traits that were lining up somewhere, or their upper halves were extremely screwed up...


The Powerpuff Girls

Growing up, my older cousin’s favorite show was The Powerpuff Girls, and I never wanted to watch it because the show was centered on three girls. And, as we all know, girls have the dreaded cooties, and these three girls were especially toxic because they were created with “sugar and spice and everything nice.”

But, once the cooties phase ended, I caught an episode or two of the Powerpuff Girls, and was automatically scared of Mojo Jojo. He just… looked so… evil! I had a nightmare after I watched my first episode of the Powerpuff Girls involving Mojo Jojo pushing me into this mysterious fire-filled pit. I hated tly monkey-looking thing. And I never understood that hat/helmet thing he wore.

Just now, during a little research, I found out that Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were kindergartens! They could really kick butt for kindergarteners, now that I think about it!

Courage the Cowardly Dog

Ah, the pink little puppy: one of my favorite Cartoon Network shows. Sure, it could really scare me out of my mind sometimes, but nowhere near Mojo Jojo, somehow.

So pretty much, in every episode, some sort of weird monster or creature attacked Courage and his elderly owners, Eustace and Muriel. My personal favorite of the creepers that showed up was Katz the Cat, a homicidal red cat that cooked up several schemes to kill or manipulate Muriel and Eustace, such as a spa that turned Muriel into a washing machine and Eustace into a wrecking ball. Freaky Fred, Muriel’s nephew with an obsession with shaving heads, was another notable and scary villain. Let’s just he was very “naaaaaaaawtieee,” as he would say.

Johnny Bravo

Johnny Bravo… I’m not even sure how to describe this cartoon. There was a big blonde guy that really wasn’t all that bright, and he still lived with his “Mommmaaaah,” as he said in an Elvis Presley-like tone. That’s about all you need to know. It was a primarily simple idea...

2 Stupid Dogs



Believe it or not, the theme song was probably the most complex part of the show...

The short-lived 2 Stupid Dogs was amazing show about… two stupid dogs. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the most creative name. Although we never knew their names, the dogs were a dachshund and a type of shepherd dog. The bigger shepherd dog had a low-pitched, unenergetic voice (which was actually Brad Garrett voicing him!) that was the complete opposite of his dachshund counterpart.

About the only episode I remember watching was when the dogs had to swim across this ridiculously large ocean, and somehow ended up at the San Andres fault line. I’m not really sure what happened after they reached the fault line, because my dad took the remote! (Didn’t you hate when your parents did that!?)

Technically, the show is a way toned-down version of fellow 1990’s cartoon “The Ren and Stimpy Show.”

Mike, Lu, and Og

The adventures of Mike, Lu, and Og always confused me. How did they get on that cool island? Why is only Mike wearing “normal” clothes? Why was Lu such a brat? And what is a wombat?

Well, I found out that Lu and Og were cousins, and inhabitants on the island, but Mike landed on the island after being asked to be an exchange student. In the issue with Lu’s problem with being a brat, she’s the governor of the island’s daughter, so naturally she believes that she is the princess of the island. She even had a turtle named Lancelot, and she tortured that poor thing. And according to Wikipedia, Lancelot is actually a girl! Whoa! Finally, a wombat is some sort of weird squirrel-looking animal. There’s everything you need to know about Mike, Lu, and Og!

Overall, Cartoon Network was great back in the day. But nowadays, they hardly even show cartoons anymore! I mean, with a name like CARTOON Network, you’d think that they’d show CARTOONS! But, just like Nickelodeon, it will go down in the books as a “used-to-be cool and original” television network.

I miss the 90’s. (insert sad face here)