The Peanut Gallery’s Top 10 Nonessential Cartoon Superheroes

Superheroes have certainly taken the spotlight lately. Whether it’s the impending appearance of characters like Thor, Green Lantern, and Captain America on the silver screen, or the debut of newest Batman cartoon to gobble up the attention of children nationwide, the worlds of comic books have for the past decade reclaimed the attention of the masses. It has suddenly become not only okay, but academically encouraged, to discuss the excellent works by Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, Jeph Loeb, Neil Gaiman, Mark Millar, and Alex Ross.

Armed with this fact, and mentally prone to huge tangents, I decided to reminisce a bit about the good ol’ days. No, not the days of being an awkward comics fan with no one to talk to! I’m talking about the cartoon years where the success of Darkwing Duck, Batman Beyond, and X-Men: The Animated Series caused non-superhero cartoons to take notice and create their own spoof heroes.

The following is a tribute list to the 10 best nonessential spoof heroes found throughout television history. Key word: nonessential. This means no Hong Kong Phooey, Duck Dodgers, Freakazoid, or the aforementioned Darkwing Duck. These are the unimportant, the silly, the dumb, the UNSUNG heroes of all animation land!

10. The Coon (South Park)

Leave it to Cartman to create a single episode hero that perfectly captures all the nonsense inherent in being a superhero. Of course, this is Cartman we’re talking about, so The Coon naturally becomes a villain before the show ends, teaming with ‘honorable mention’ list members Professor Chaos and General Dissarray to rid the town of true hero and fan favorite Mysterion. Given the success of this episode, I’d have to imagine this isn’t the last we’ve seen of The Coon.

9. Mermaid Man (Spongebob Squarepants)

Only a show as rampantly stoned and homosexual as Spongebob would cook up a character like Mermaid Man. Dressed like Aquaman, spoofing Adam West’s 1960′s Batman, and wearing a set of Ariel’s boob shells and my grandmother’s slippers, Mermaid Man is a nursing home resident convinced to un-retire by diehard fan Spongebob. Many old man jokes ensue.

8. Valhallen (Dexter’s Lab)

The “Viking God of Rock” is everything you’d ever want out of a mock hero: Bitchin’ guitar, trendy speech patterns, and kick ass hair! When teamed with the unflinchingly American Major Glory and the Infraggable Krunk, the trials of everyday will be defeated…ish.

7. Powdered Toast Man (Ren & Stimpy)

His alter ego is that of a youth-friendly deacon and he flies by either launching himself from a toaster or unloading an ungodly-powerful fart. What teenage child isn’t going to find this to be hilarious?

6. Bionic Bunny (Arthur)

A sentimental pick, this Superman knock-off is the favored hero of Arthur Read and Buster Baxter. What made the character so cool was the sneakers. Suddenly, I didn’t feel silly running around wearing blue long johns, skiing gloves, a red sheet, and my Converse high tops while in public. Why? Because a anthropomorphic superhero did so, too.

5. Duff Man (The Simpsons)

Narrowly beating Radioactive Man and Bartman for a spot on this list, Duff Man wins because of one word: THRUST.

4. Ambiguously Gay Duo (Saturday Night Live)

Here’s a fun fact I just discovered: Adam and Gary were voiced by the two greatest Steves all-time, Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrell. This only makes this cartoon skit featuring one supervillain’s obsession with outing his two arch-enemies as gay that much more hilarious. Additionally, if I may be serious for a second, this show made it okay to be gay and possess super powers. Prior to this, gay super heroes were taboo. After this show, heroes and their sidekicks were free to proclaim their unadulterated love of each other. Friend-of-friends unite!

3. Super Cow (Cow and Chicken)

God bless this flying, oddly Spanish, heroic Cow. Armed with her udders of justice and a pro-wrestling moveset, she has on countless occasions rescued the scrawny Chicken from the evil clutches of the Big Red Guy…I feel like I just experienced a fever dream. I definitely took too much peyote.

2. Gizmo Duck (Duck Tales)

Who knew that all it would take to turn a lame-duck accountant into Iron Man is the phrase “blathering blatherskite”? The great protector of Scrooge McDuck’s vast wealth, Gizmo Duck is completely inept at his job, but his costume is AWESOME.

1. Quail Man (Doug)

Perhaps the most-used nonessential superhero costume come Halloween (just ahead of Duff Man and the Ambiguously Gay Duo, of course), Quail Man is tops on this list because of what he represents: The desire of every young child to create a heroic alter ego for themselves. Quail Man proved you didn’t need awesome gadgets or a bad ass tailor. All you really needed to do was misplace a few pieces of clothing. A cute dog also helps.