7 Horrifying Things Snuck Into Famous Children's Cartoons

Ah, but all children's cartoons have that one episode full of suicide innuendo, right? Even Mickey Mouse did it. In SpongeBob's case, however, this is more of a running theme -- in another episode, SpongeBob travels in time to the Middle Ages probably just so we can witness a guard trying to find the courage to off himself:

And then there's the one where SpongeBob's boss, Mr. Krabs, spends weeks mentally torturing his nemesis, Plankton, until he decides to lie down on the street and wait for a car to run him over. He spends practically the whole last third of the episode there. Krabs' reaction when he finds out is "LOL."

SpongeBob writers just ... really, really like suicide jokes. On second thought, spending 16 years writing the same dumb characters isn't as cool as we thought. If this is a cry for help, SpongeBob writers, reach out. We're here for you.

Well, that changed in Pokemon Origins, the recent miniseries intended to serve as a more faithful adaption of the first Pokemon game ... as played by 4chan, apparently. In the first episode, there's a fight between Squirtle ("Blue Turtle" according to your mom) and Charmander ("Baby Dinosaur with Tail on Fire") that quickly takes a turn for the horrifying:

Cute little Squirtle pins Charmander down and bites his fucking face, resulting in Charmander letting out a blood-curdling scream while writhing on the ground in agony. His owner, Red, just stands there in shock, like a kid watching two dogs boning for the first time:

The scream goes on for 10 eternal seconds -- Charmander even pauses for breath in the middle. It's so bad that when they dubbed it for America they removed the audio, possibly because there was no way to replicate that scream without hitting the voice actor in the balls with a hammer.

Still, this was to be expected on a grittier, more mature Pokemon series, right? Actually, after this one Mortal Kombat-level fight, the rest of the series goes back to "aw, he got tired" battles. Somebody just decided that for one scene, shit needed to get real.

If you think that's one random hidden joke, it isn't -- the Transformers simply can't stop saying the name. And trust us, knowing the context doesn't make this one any better. In the episode "Thief in the Night," two rogue Decepticons take refuge in Carbombya and meet the country's leader, Commander Gadda -- er, Fakkadi, who, as proudly indicated above, owns a shitload of camels.

Fakkadi has the Decepticons steal several world monuments in exchange for oil, but they eventually betray him and take over his country. When the Autobots roll out and liberate Carbombya, they make Fakkadi promise he'll never steal Earth's landmarks again. His response: "I swear to you on the grave of my mother's camel and my uncle's goat and even my sister's donkeys and ..." -- you get the idea.

To be fair to the writers, the script called the country "Karbomia" which ... is still terrible, but at least they're trying to hide it. The animators weren't so subtle. One person who didn't think it was so hilarious was Casey Kasem, who voiced several Transformers until he quit over this stupid bullshit.

In one episode, Gumball is responsible for breaking up two of his friends who were dating: Alan the balloon and Carmen the cactus (it seemed like a doomed relationship anyway). Gumball feels bad when he finds Alan crying in their middle school's bathroom stall and tries to cheer him up, but the little balloon says he just doesn't "have the strength to inflate" ... if you catch his drift.

That drift being, he's emotionally blackmailing his friend into blowing him.

Next we see the content and satisfied balloon leaving the bathroom while cheerfully thanking Gumball, who walks the other way, clearly traumatized -- look at his freaking face. That is the face of a cat who will never trust another person (or random talking object) again. What the oral underage kitty fuck, Cartoon Network?

The Teen Titans are the kids' version of the Justice League, or what happens when a comics writer says, "Hey, what if we had a super-team where Robin is the most badass character?" As seen in the Cartoon Network show, besides Robin, the team is made out of Beast Boy (a kid who can turn into animals), Cyborg (a cyborg), Starfire (a happy alien princess), and Raven (the witch daughter of the king of hell).

Yeah, one of those things isn't like the others.

But don't worry, being Satan's kid isn't the creepiest thing that ever happened to Raven in the cartoon: That would be the time a one-eyed pervert stripped her down. After dying and coming back to life, the villainous Slade goes after Raven and redecorates her wardrobe like this:

This grown-ass man literally tears a teen girl's clothes away and then forces her to stare at her worst nightmares, saying "Yes, look at it, drink it in" -- standard dialogue for a comic book villain, sure, but also for a sex offender. The Teen Titans cartoon essentially turns into its own fan-made porno fan fiction, without warning.

And the most fucked up part? Slade is doing this on behalf of a demon lord called Trigon -- Raven's dad.

Nope, that's not an animated, direct-to-DVD sequel to David Cronenberg's The Fly -- it's from the '90s Spider-Man cartoon, which, for a show that banned punching and went out of its way to avoid harming pigeons, sure loved putting poor Peter Parker through brutal transformations. During the "Neogenic Nightmare" storyline in the second season, we find out that the whole "does whatever a spider can" bit goes further than we all thought: Because of his radioactive blood, Peter is slowly turning from a man with the powers of a spider into a spider the size of a man.

First, Spider-Man spends a full episode rolling around in pain like he's passing a kidney stone, which of course doesn't stop him from delivering even more painful quips (actual dialogue: "It feels like I'm getting massaged by Wolverine ... from the inside!"). Then the extra arms pop out, and the screaming continues until this finally happens:

The episode then ends with the now complete Man-Spider lunging straight at the camera. We're sure every kid who slept with a Spidey plushie or action figure had pleasant dreams that night.

Eventually, Spider-Man is cured. We assume. We never saw the show again.

What about the comically absent-minded Mayor? Oh, that guy is dead. Also, his once hot assistant has turned into a Gollum-like creature who hates the girls.

It's the same all over town: Everyone's dead or insane. Him, the effeminate devil, shows up and explains what happened: When the Powerpuff Girls reached superspeed, they traveled into a future where the whole world has gone to hell, and ... hey, isn't this the plot to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey?

Anyway, the girls beat the crap out of Him with tears in their eyes, but he just turns into his true devil form (basically, Satan from South Park) and summons the tortured souls of Townsville to blame the girls for this bleak future. There are no jokes or clever innuendos. The damned people of Townsville morosely chant that this is all these little girls' fault for ... going straight home after school?

In a desperate move, maybe to kill themselves in guilt, the girls fly to outer space and fall back to Earth in superluminal speed, creating another wormhole. They find Townsville back to normal, with the lesson that if they ever leave the stupid city for so much as a weekend, everyone they know will suffer for all eternity. So remember kids: Make sure to take your time when you walk home from school, or the same thing will happen to you.

For more cartoon jokes that flew over our heads, check out 6 Creepy Things You Never Noticed About Famous Kids Cartoons and 5 Grossly Inappropriate Jokes Hidden in Children's Cartoons.

Are you on reddit? Check it: We are too! Click on over to our best of Cracked subreddit.