CARTOONS: Cartoons That Never Should Have Been: #4: New Kids On The Block - The Animated Series

I’ve been grabbing a lot of episodes of “cartoons that never should have been” lately. Not for watching, but mostly for having. And laughing at. And fast-forwarding through. And getting a feel of how bad they were. I present you with screenshots from “New Kids On The Block:TAS”(1990) (imdb).

Let me just state for the record that, so far, no “Cartoon That Never Should Have Been” has terrified me quite as much as this one. I loathe New Kids On The Block, and I’m pretty sure that 99% of people visiting this blogpost feel the same way.

Additionally fueling my hatred is that Jen Harper, my first girlfriend and my first kiss (hers too), had, at the time, over $1,200 of New Kids On The Block memorabilia. Suffice to say, it didn’t last. (Incidentally, there was a second Jen Harper who was a year older than me, who would blow in my ear during Spanish class. She was too much woman for me to handle back then, but I probably should have pursued Jen Harper #2 and not Jen Harper #1.)

First off: You know it’s going to suck because it’s NKOTB! Second off: The theme song is “The Right Stuff”, but changed to be more instrumental and less vocally. It features the band members singing on stage, live-action, and then turning into cartoons as they sing. I managed to capture a frame (to the right of this paragraph) where one has turned cartoon, but the other is just starting to.

The entire show is full of live-action clips, to make sure that it ties into the actual New Kids On The Block, and to make sure that people realize this is something real that you can buy. It also employs an “80′s letterboxing” format, where the show shrinks down and has NKOTB-mercandise-styled borders (featured in some of these screenshots).

It also starts off with a live-action mini-interview with NKOTB-member “Jordan”. He is so fucking sensitive! He talks about how he just wants to find a girl who will love him for who he is, and not because he’s a New Kid. Oh POOR JORDAN! I wonder if he finally found his happiness?

Now, the main theme of the show seems to be – New Kids On The Block kick ass, and that they are so popular that they have to spend all their time running away from their rabid fans. It’s quite self-aggrandizing, and quite repulsive. The secondary antagonist in every show is YOU, the FANS. “Buy our stuff, but remember you make us miserable. “Observe:

^^ Even the “book worm” girls go crazy for New Kids On The Block!

In this particular episode, they dress Arabian to try to disguise themselves from their fans (see “Book Worm” picture above):

Somehow, they get mixed up with an actual evil Arab, with swords and everything! In America!

NKOTB are badass! Swords wont stop them! Neither will Al Queda!

And of course, the mandatory anthropomorphized animalian companion…. Extremely surprisingly not played by Frank Welker! This is probably because it was all about getting money for NKOTB, not quality voice acting. Instead, they went with a voice actor who managed to appear in one episode of “V” and one episode of “Automan”:

Think they are still making money off this? Very frickin’ doubtful! So why not watch some of it here:

Laughable “music video”, followed by (after a minute or so) actual animation from the Shiek episode….

Horrible live-action music scenes with screaming girls

Other YouTube videos of this show may be found HERE.
For other postings in my series, “Cartoons That Never Should Have Been”, click HERE. Look for a new one every Tuesday and Friday.