Toon Heads ranks the best of the worst, and gets it wrong (2003)

 Cartoon Network's primetime series, Toon Heads, had a few episodes that didn't make it to air. This 2003 episode, chronicling the best of the worst cartoons ever (at the time), is one of them, due to it being chock full of errors made by narrator-producer George Klein.

For starters, Klein gets his Tom & Jerry chronology wrong.

Hanna-Barbera acquired the award winning duo in 1975, then relinquished the rights, which were then picked up by Filmation in 1980, not the other way around. Klein also screws up by claiming Filmation honcho Lou Scheimer was the voice of Droopy in the 1980 series. Wrong again. Frank Welker had that gig, while Scheimer and his family (wife Jay, son Lane, and daughter Ericka) voiced supporting characters.

Even though Ruby-Spears was name checked at the start, Klein fails to make the distinction between R-S & H-B in discussing two segments of 1979's Plastic Man anthology package---Rickety Rocket & Mighty Man & Yukk, and 1984 bomb Turbo Teen, which Klein does acknowledge owes its existence to NBC's Knight Rider, which was entering its 3rd & final season.

Finally, Klein, while claiming Trollkins was a Smurfs knockoff crossed with The Dukes of Hazzard, fails to note that Smurfs & Trollkins debuted the same year---1981. All this being said, CN made the right call in cancelling this episode. Should've sent Klein to the nearest library to get his facts straight.

A big reason why it was pulled was supposedly because they didn't want to upset any remaining H-B executives. Yeah, sure, but there were a lot of screwups in those days.

Rating: C--.