This week, I'm diving into an under appreciated selection from the Kids' WB family. Wormy heroes, monster puppies and mad scientists with monkeys for a forehead? Yes, it's all zany fun and I love every second of it.

It’s weird the things you remember from your childhood. There was a kid-friendly radio station in Indianapolis my mom had us listen to while driving us to school. The station did regular call-in contests for kid-friendly stuff, and I won two times over the years of listening to the station. The first prize was a CD from the soundtrack of the now-forgotten Flipper movie, starring pre-Hobbit Elijah Wood. The second prize was a VHS tape of Earthworm Jim. And I loved it.

Earthworm Jim the show stemmed from Earthworm Jim the video game, which was released a year earlier in 1994. The game was a 2D platformer — for those of you who not in the video game “know,” that means you move the character through two dimensional levels, almost always from left to right (think Super Mario Brothers). The game’s challenging but learnable game play was distinct compared to the Mario-clones of the time, but what made Earthworm Jim the game special was the bizarre character and world designs, which were quirky and dark with a giant dose of satirical humor. I wasn’t surprised to discover that game (and later show) creator Doug TenNapel and the rest of the EJ team were listening to comedy albums like Monty Python and Weird Al during development. EJ’s developer Playmate Interactive had always planned to build a multimedia franchise, but it was the game’s financial and critical success that gave them to go ahead to make the cartoon, which premiered on Kids’ WB in 1995.

The basic concept of the cartoon was pretty similar to the game’s: Earthworm Jim is a … worm — a worm who is given superhuman strength and reflexes when he finds a mechanical super suit. Jim has a slew of oddly detailed villains, including Evil the Cat (from the planet Heck), Bob the Killer Goldfish, Psycrow and Professor Monkey-for-a-Head. I absolutely love the literal names for these characters, especially Monkey-for-a-Head since his character design is so spot-on. I love how the 2nd act of the show always began with one of the villains having their own story, which let you enjoy them sans-Jim. Jim’s allies include Peter Puppy (a mild-mannered anthropomorphic dog who goes Hulk when angry or scared) and Princess What’s-Her-Name (the game’s Princess Peach parody).

What’s great is that every single character I’ve mentioned above is directly from the game. I really admire TenNapel and the production for making a fairly faithful cartoon adaptation of their game’s universe. Granted, the backgrounds are little brighter and less harsh than in the game, but the character designs are close to identical. I also like that they kept in the irreverence and non-sequitur humor of the game, while letting the humor be more-or-less kid friendly. And any show that can break the fourth wall and make the jokes clever is A-OK by me. Best of all, Earthworm Jim the show had that great old-school superhero narration by Jeff Bennett. Speaking of Jeff Bennett, he and the rest of the cast represent some of the best voice actors of the time — Charles Adler, Kath Soucie, Andrea Martin and Jim Cummings, to name a few. Did I mention that Earthworm Jim is voiced by Homer Simpson himself, Dan Castellaneta? Totally awesome. I’m also a sucker for a good cartoon theme, and Earthworm Jim has a doozy. I sang along to it gleefully when the show would come on.

The show only lasted 2 seasons and 23 episodes, and I really think this is one of the truly under-rated shows of the decade. I would say I’d highly suggest checking the series for yourself, but unfortunately it’s a little hard to come by. While I’ve found a few episodes posted on YouTube, the series can only be found on DVD in Australia. So, Aussie CliqueClack readers can go wild (check out the Amazon link at the bottom). Everyone else … it’s a little harder. In fact, even on VHS there are only a few collections and none of them are complete collections. It’s a real shame, and I hope Universal will put out the complete series soon. Until then, warm up your old VHS and try to nab some of the tapes.

Photo Credit: Universal