There was a BattleToads cartoon

...and it was terrible.


Battletoads has a place in many an elder gamer’s heart as one of the true challenges of 1991. Loathed, revered, and certainly infamous for its difficulty, gorgeous graphics, and surreal finishing attacks, Battletoads was nothing short of a genuine success. My own childhood frustrations aside, Battletoads proved to be a fairly bankable title after its release, spawning a game boy version, an arcade edition, and even a Double Dragon cross over in which the Battletoads have to team up with Billy and Jimmy Lee to take down their now colluding enemies. Needless to say, it was awesome stuff and everybody knew it.


It was only a matter of time before DIC Entertainment, responsible for such childhood hits as The Real Ghostbusters,C.O.P.S., and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures, smelled blood in the water. With the recent successes of both theSuper Mario Brothers Super Show and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, Battletoads seemed like a top candidate for Fox Kids’ Saturday morning lineup in 1992.


Planned as a prequel to the games, the cartoon was intended to provide a revised origin story for the Battletoads that had been left otherwise unseen outside of the comic books. Unfortunately for DIC, the show was a complete failure. For whatever reasonthe rather absurd tale of three humanoid frogs named after unwanted skin conditions whose hands turn into cinder blocks never struck a chord with, well, anybody. Poorly animated, unfunny, and a little too gross for parents to endorse, the show ultimately floundered. Battletoads never made it past the pilot.