Keeping Villains Cartoony for Cartoony Shows

I was thinking of how to keep villains cartoony for children's shows that is based on TV-Y7-FV ratings (which is why I tend to dislike Power Rangers though I don't hate it).  Now for some of those rules:


He-Man's Skeletor was usually presented as a cartoony, bungling villain compared to his supposed inspiration from the Robert E. Howard villain Thulsa Doom.  While Thulsa Doom (no, not the movie version acted out by James Earl Jones) was a vicious and sadistic madman who menaced both Kull and Conan (that is in the comics), Skeletor was just hammy.  Skeletor however in the live movie was far too different from the cartoons version, being more scary and competent like even killing his own henchman due to a PG-13 rating.


For the evulz seems to be the rule of these villains that is evil just for the sake of evil with no real purpose.  If you've seen the 1985 movie Santa Claus starring David Huddleston as Santa Claus and John Lithgow as B.Z., you might want to take a look at B.Z.  The writers were probably genius in how they executed this cartoony villain.  So he's pretty cheap and just thought of it, it doesn't make sense why he a greedy toy executive would make a teddy bear filled with sawdust, broken glass and nails- it takes a concentrated effort to do it!  Also, his "uh huh" scene was damn funny and of course, it doesn't make sense that his final fate doesn't make sense.  After trying to evade arrest by the police, he eats some of the magic candy canes to fly and ends up in space.  So he's literally in outer space where there is NO AIR yet he's still heard screaming?!  He should have died from suffocation due to a lack of oxygen but instead, he's in space screaming to "Get me down from here!" even in outer space where it's obvious that there was no air already.  I guess his death if it ever happened (well it didn't since he's just a fictional character!) was by a meteorite or space shuttle hit him out of short notice. XD  My theory is that Santa Claus' reindeer can breathe in space if you sent them there, but Santa Claus will need to make his own air suit to do so if he wants to chill out in space.


Cobra Commander and Serpentor both had some adaptational villainy in the G.I.Joe cartoon.  Cobra Commander started out pretty scary, intimidating and not to mention over the top evil but later on, he was simply reduced from being an Osama bin Ladin villain type to that of Yosemite Sam.  Things got funnier when Serpentor was finally created by Dr. Mindbender to replace their already cartoony leader with a more cartoony leader considering that the latter is even more stupid than his predecessor- highly impatient, thinks he can't be vanquished and is very highly delusional.  In fact, Serpentor has tons of more comedy than Cobra Commander ever had especially when he had the guts to compose his own song which was really very funny.  The comics versions were far more lethal and Serpentor in the comics was far more competent and cunning than his cartoon counterpart who's overly cartoony.


The cartoon version of Conan makes the Snake Cult a HUGE JOKE compared to that of the adult versions or the Marvel Comics' version.  While the movie Thulsa Doom was presented as a cunning, manipulative adversary who could literally make any chick fall head over heels with him (in fact, he's dating Yasimina the sole heiress of Zamora after he seduced her to be his girlfriend!) who runs a cannibalistic cult that eats up people who oppose him or Thoth-Amon in the comics is a very dangerous and cunning adversary, Wrath-Amon in the cartoons is hardly close.  Wrath-Amon has Serpentor's hammy overreacting, frequently falling into mood swings and simply executes such ridiculous plans like "turning people into living stone" rather than just destroying them immediately.


Most Disney villains are kept less scary as much as possible.  I guess parents began to start complaining of the scariness of Maleficent, Jafar, Frollo, Aunt Medusa and some others.  Gaston was presented to be pretty boorish, stupid, self-obsessed and mostly I found his transition from a stupid self-obsessed guy into the cunning hunter to be too fast. =P


The Power Rangers villain are usually presented more cartoony and hammy than their Power Rangers counterpart though strangely, Super Sentai villains tend to be funnier as well.  Like for example, Rita Repulsa actually is made sillier than her original counterpart Bandora by repeatedly giving her more headaches than usual via repeated footage.  Only a few Power Rangers villains were extremely cruel like Trakeena and Bansheera.

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