5 Sad , Sad facts about Johnny Test

"And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.  And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven."



If this had been a real test, I, or some replicator blog copying me that isn't BestGeekEverPR, would be blogging about other shit.


In the year 2005, disaster struck. Into our world, a heinous, destructive force was unleashed, and it has wreaked havoc on the hearts of men everywhere. I am, of course, talking about the kid's cartoon show "Johnny Test"

Johnny Test: truly a cancer upon the world of animated shows, kid's shows, and television in general. It has been properly been declared the #1 TV show to cause dumbness in kids. In it's wake, good shows and bad shows and terrible shows and great shows have come and gone. But the Test remains.



I'm still bitter.

The show, about a wannabe cool kid who is experimented on his twin sisters, is, rest assured, well named. For the show itself is a measure to how widespread can a terrible show be. In order for future generations to understand the wretchedness that it is after all masters are inevitably burnt, here's 5 key facts to understanding the awfulness that is Johnny Test.

5)Johnny Test has never done anything original



Bore than Beets the Bye!

You like the Bible quote up there? It doesn't have that much to do with Johnny Test. It's just that by attaching myself to something most of the Western World knows, I gain more visibility and recognizably.

Understand, even good shows take from other shows. Often in  he form of parody or homage. Johnny Test, though, can barely get out of bed to find humor, let alone a parody of something. Which means that each "parody" episode feels exactly like what it is: a crude exploitation of something you know. Take  "Johnny's Pink Plague", the episode where the titular boy uses an experimental cream shot from a gun to cure acne all over town. The lowest common denominator would balk if such  material was implied to be meant for them, so to spice it up, the show decides it wants to be a Ghostbusters parody. Even with a terrible  "we have to cross the streams" reference. 



All of them is Winston.

Far be it from me to discuss the plausibility of a cartoon where zits can become sentient monsters, but what would  crossing a cream with the SAME EXACT CREAM accomplish? It doesn't make sense, and if I call it funny, humor can sue me for libel. This isn't just a thing that the show did. This is what the show does. If you can remember it, Johnny Test is awkwardly trying to shoehorn it into it's badly scripted  so called plots.



4)Johnny Test knows not humor



"This here be the funny switched. Hasn't worked in  many moons."

"What is this...Hue-Moar you speak off?" would reply this show  after being asked why it causes tumors in the funny bone. In it's six year history, Johnny Test has never even run into laughs, not even by accident. If it ever did, though, I'd like to think it would pull out a gun and yell that he killed them.

As a key piece of evidence, I present this episode, there Johnny is unable to buy a game because it is rated M. His parent don't want him to get the game, so the stage is set for scenes of Johnny Test doing stupid things to get a videogame. At the end, he eventually gets it, plays it, and declares that it gives him nightmares and that hjs parents where right. In pretty much those words. Yep. That's the punchline. He might as well have said "Running time achieved. Cowabenga."





"Here's the key to the cyanide case.  Bring for everyone."

There are many elements to comedy, such as timing, tone and playing with expectations. Johnny Test knows. It's spent  whole existence escaping from those. But if Sitcoms and Inspector Gadget(1997) taught us anything is that funny sounds make drab comedy tolerable by telling the audience, "yeah, we know it's not funny". And so, Johnny test scrounged up the meager sounds it could: whipping noises. Every time something poignant(more like repugnant) happens, the ghostly sound of a whipping noise can be heard, making me think the forced jokes that comprise this show are literally forced by whipping.

3)Johnny Test is inferior to it's most likely inspiration
Okay, say you got high as hell and watched a bunch of Boomerang shows. And then the mafia showed up and said they where gonna kill your family unless you weaponized yawns using Illustrator, you still could not come up with a more uninspired show than Johnny Test.



A head of fiery...waitaminnit!

The makers actually probably thought to themselves: "What if Dexter's Labs was rule 63ed, and whatever of value of that show was traded by failed catchphrases and abhorrent stereotypes?" It really is a gender swapped scenario for Dexter, except since now that it's the boy wrecking the experiments he's the hero.



Charted!

Except that Dexter's Lab was pretty groundbreaking, smart, and funny, Johnny Test is avenging it's parent's death's at the hand of mirth.

 2) Johnny Test exist because it's funded by you
And by you, I mean you, if you're Canadian. Apparently the show is granted continued, torturous existence because it's made in Canada, where subsidies to local animation people allow it to be produced and sold cheaply to Cartoon Network. So CN can run it at any time with less risk of losing funds, and the makers are at less risk. This terrible, terrible show has a chance of outlasting well animated, fun shows like Adventure Time and Thundercats because those people had to put "effort" and "money" and "talent" into their shows, while Johnny Test can shit out 20 new "Wacky Races" ripoff episodes on the cheap. There has never been this little a need for talent over exposure since  Paris Hilton.There hasn't been this effective an outdated parody outlet since Hoodwinked. Except Hoodwinked wasn't paid for by the people of Canada.



But they payback in hate.
Here's a lesson for the kids: If you work hard and put your heart into it, you will be less sucessfull than those who don't give a fuck and put no effort in it.

1) Johnny Test has one animator:



Moar By-Boll Refrences LoL!


Here's the IMDB  Cast for Johnny Test. You will notice it has two people under "animator", and they didn't even work the same years. I wrote this list because of that. See, once I knew a single human being worked on animating this show I understood. The doors opened.

See, traditional animation, even though it's mostly now done with computers, is still a relatively painstaking process that costs money. But Canada's paying the bill on this one, so I guess we can make a higher quality on this one? Nope. Johnny Test's people decided that it doesn't matter if the characters have pointy claws for hands and move like a pop up book, as long as the show gets to CN on time.

Johnny Test animates like a bad flash porn game. Each snappy move actively defies what "animation" is. Each Background is worst than the last. But what do you want, you couldn't fill a hatchback with all the people working, and you couldn't fill a bathroom with all the people who care.



Hm-mm!

So yes, a single solitary man animates this show. And if IMDB is to be believed, since 2008 no one has actually animated it.

Whoa. Didn't see that coming.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Johnny mixes a cream with a very similar but slightly different cream!

Anonymous said...

It truly pains me that this abomination still plagues CN and is a major reason of why so many avoid CN. It's 2013 and it's still attacking CN with worse episodes! When will it end?

Anonymous said...

Nice article, man. Even though I acknowledged how original the show is, I never thought of the Dexter inspiration with the hair on fire scene. It's actually more humorous how this show still airs and how uninspiring it is. Again, nice write up.

What are you guys watching?