Anyone remember The Mighty B?

[SmileyToonatic]

Back in the late 2000's, a Nicktoon called The Mighty B! premiered on Nick, which was about a rambunctious little 9 year-old named Bessie Higgenbottom who was led to believe that if she collects every badge, then she'll turn full-blown superhero! The Mighty B! was a cartoon I really liked when I was younger. I'd watch it all the time with my siblings! We'd wake up early on Saturday mornings and enjoy this show. It was a real treat to me, I REALLY enjoyed it. I treasure every precious childhood memory this show brings back. I used to even draw Bessie and Happy! But what I do remember is the show being REALLY underrated! Everyone would complain saying it's a SpongeBob/Ren & Stimpy knock-off, overuse of bathroom humor and lackluster animation. I disagree though, this show was extremely excellent to me. I just find it really compelling for some reason. It just has that Hanna-Barbera, Saturday morning cartoony feel that makes me love it so much. I still watch it now when I want to cheer myself up! I remember liking the first season more than the second season, though. The first season had more focus on Bessie earning badges, and only got off focus sometimes. The animation on the first season was tame. But on season 2 the show drastically changed and redesigned the entire cast and setting. Everyone looked more tan and the backgrounds were completely different and looked more urban rather than wooden. The animation on the second season got more energetic and wild, and less characters started coming (where was Rocky in Season 2?!?) It kinda reminded me when Chris Savino redesigned Dexter's Lab on Seasons 3-4. All in all, Mighty B was a great show and I really miss it! It's one of my favorite Nicktoons, along with El Tigre, Catscratch, ChalkZone and Teenage Robot! What are your thoughts on Mighty B?

 

[Lord Hater]

I used to watch it sometimes. It's an okay show; Bessie's adventures were interesting and it showed that girls can be crazy like boys.

 

[InvaderWeezle]

Back when it was out, I thought it was pretty bad for some reason. In retrospect, it's... fine, I guess. Probably one of the better post-Avatar Nicktoons. I guess it's kinda cool that Amy Poehler created a cartoon show, so I'll give it that.

 

[Dr.Pepper]

I have only seen it a few times, but I liked what I saw. I feel that it is vastly underrated. It felt like a show that boys could like even though the main character was a girl.

 

[Zanneck]

Sigh... I didn't like this show, despite the FACT that... YES - it showed us that girls can be written dynamically with a balance of intelligence and stupidity, just like any boy's show (EEnE). Dang shame I feel the way I do about it - it was one of the better efforts to come out after Avatar - I guess I couldn't get past the gross - out humor, for example (not like there was much of it, though...). Yeah - even though I didn't like it, I'm glad like EEnE it actually does have fans.

 

[jaylop97]

I liked it at first but later once it stopped airing in Nick I forgot about it and after that point im not a strong fan as I was back then, mainly because i outgrew it.

 

[Mikurotoro92]

i remember it but i wasn't really into it i was more into FOP & SBSP!

 

[Gear3dGryph0n]

I only saw it a few times, but I really enjoyed it. I found Bessie to be a sort of adorkable most times, especially with that lisp and rotund, bespectacled face (but would occasionally tip the line into annoying).

There were some occasional nuggets of goodness out of this show -- there was one episode that had a reference to Atlas Shrugged and the one with the robots was pretty funny.

Overall, I think Poehler did a good job creating a female character that could be entertaining and funny. Even if she did come off as derivative of SpongeBob, I'd say it was quite an achievement considering the overall state of cartoons at the time this show came out.

I still remember it to the point that I referred to a spoiled, snobbish character from another show that happened to be named Portia as "Portia Gibbons" and I often wonder what would happen if Bessie ran into Riley Anderson on the street one day, considering the Poehler/San Francisco connection.

 

[SmileyToonatic]

Even if she did come off as derivative of SpongeBob, I'd say it was quite an achievement considering the overall state of cartoons at the time this show came out.

You mentioned that Mighty B was good compared to the other cartoons they had in the late 2000's. What were some bad things about cartoons from that time?

 

[SmileyToonatic]

Sorry that I keep bringing this up, but did ANYONE notice the redesigns they made on season 2 that made the show look and feel COMPLETELY different from season 1? Here are some pictures to refresh your memory:

Season 1

Season 2

 

[Pac-Attack]

I never really understood the hate this show got, it was pretty good. It holds up pretty well, the animation was my favorite thing about the show.

 

[SaneMan]

It was a pretty enjoyable show all things considered

 

[SmileyToonatic]

My favorite episode of The Mighty B has to be "Bee Patients". Man, is that one a classic! It has to do about Bessie and Happy injuring themselves while playing and Happy goes to the vet and gets a cone around his head and Bessie has to take a booster shot! The way the episode builds up is so exciting and the fluid animation makes the fast paced nature of this episode in particular so fun to watch. It's just as fun and fast paced as a Tom and Jerry cartoon! It will always remain my favorite episode, it's just so cool and funny! The way the doctor and nurse chased Bessie and Happy around the hospital is just pure silliness!

 

[RandomMe]

I remember The Mighty B! from when I was 11. I liked that show (though not so much) yet the series itself had a pretty decent art style. My favorite episodes happen to be the one where Bessie goes into the mind of someone and one where her middle name is revealed to be "Kajolica". I even cited that episode (however in Portuguese) at school.

 

[Gear3dGryph0n]

You mentioned that Mighty B was good compared to the other cartoons they had in the late 2000's. What were some bad things about cartoons from that time?

TBH, there were some good ones, but there were a lot of very bad decisions being made around that time. Lots of good shows barely saw the light of day, franchise shows dominated as much as any time except the 1980s, and animation in general wasn't very popular on TV as it was before or after.

Disney Channel had all but abandoned animation by the late 2000s with Phineas and Ferb being the only exception, and Cartoon Network was beginning to phase in live action shows. The most popular cartoons at the time, that I can recall, are far and away Family Guy and SpongeBob, by the late-00s already perennial franchise zombies. The late-00s probably had some of the last action cartoons before that genre went into a drought.

Nickelodeon deserves some credit for bringing us Avatar and stuff like this, but it really was a slow time for TV animation. It's tough to find any cartoon that came between 2005 and 2009 not named Adventure Time (mostly considered a 2010s product), Phineas and Ferb, or Avatar that achieved any kind of major success.

That's also to consider the context, I was also describing Bessie as a character. A female optimistic screwball character was pretty rare back in those times. In the 2000s, a strong female character usually (only) meant a sort of Kim Possible who just kicked ass and looked good doing it just to prove that girls could do the same the boys could, which itself was an extension of a cliche that dated back to the late 80s. To some point, that trope still exists, but we're now more aware of how used it is. Nowadays, Bessie's character archetype is commonplace with Mabel Pines, Pinkie Pie, Unikitty, etc., and market research proving that girls like the funny stuff means these kinds of characters could have staying power.

 

[SmileyToonatic]

TBH, there were some good ones, but there were a lot of very bad decisions being made around that time. Lots of good shows barely saw the light of day, franchise shows dominated as much as any time except the 1980s, and animation in general wasn't very popular on TV as it was before or after.

Disney Channel had all but abandoned animation by the late 2000s with Phineas and Ferb being the only exception, and Cartoon Network was beginning to phase in live action shows. The most popular cartoons at the time, that I can recall, are far and away Family Guy and SpongeBob, by the late-00s already perennial franchise zombies. The late-00s probably had some of the last action cartoons before that genre went into a drought.

Nickelodeon deserves some credit for bringing us Avatar and stuff like this, but it really was a slow time for TV animation. It's tough to find any cartoon that came between 2005 and 2009 not named Adventure Time (mostly considered a 2010s product), Phineas and Ferb, or Avatar that achieved any kind of major success.

That's also to consider the context, I was also describing Bessie as a character. A female optimistic screwball character was pretty rare back in those times. In the 2000s, a strong female character usually (only) meant a sort of Kim Possible who just kicked ass and looked good doing it just to prove that girls could do the same the boys could, which itself was an extension of a cliche that dated back to the late 80s. To some point, that trope still exists, but we're now more aware of how used it is. Nowadays, Bessie's character archetype is commonplace with Mabel Pines, Pinkie Pie, Unikitty, etc., and market research proving that girls like the funny stuff means these kinds of characters could have staying power.

So would you say the animation industry is doing better now than it was from 2005-2009? It kinda goes into opinion because I thought cartoons were a LOT better in 2005-2009 than they are today, but that's just my opinion.

 

[SmileyToonatic]

I remember The Mighty B! from when I was 11. I liked that show (though not so much) yet the series itself had a pretty decent art style. My favorite episodes happen to be the one where Bessie goes into the mind of someone and one where her middle name is revealed to be "Kajolica". I even cited that episode (however in Portuguese) at school.

Oh man, I LOVE that episode! It's called Name Shame. Bessie's middle name was Kajolica and it was a cursed name, so when anyone would say it, a catastrophe would happen! I especially loved the ending, when Bessie and Ben use an annoying song from a commercial in order to hypnotize the townspeople from saying Kajolica! Great episode, just plain hilarious!

 

[RandomMe]

Oh man, I LOVE that episode! It's called Name Shame. Bessie's middle name was Kajolica and it was a cursed name, so when anyone would say it, a catastrophe would happen! I especially loved the ending, when Bessie and Ben use an annoying song from a commercial in order to hypnotize the townspeople from saying Kajolica! Great episode, just plain hilarious!

Come to think of it, and given the fact that I only watched it in Portuguese, it was plain hilarious in my language as well. The song here went like this:
"Levem a pastilha, lavem à vontade, pastilhas de limpeza Lago Azul! Frescas e limpas!"

 

[SmileyToonatic]

Come to think of it, and given the fact that I only watched it in Portuguese, it was plain hilarious in my language as well. The song here went like this:
"Levem a pastilha, lavem à vontade, pastilhas de limpeza Lago Azul! Frescas e limpas!"

Wow you've seen seen the show while living in Portugal? That's really cool! In the English version, the song Bessie and Ben sing goes like this:

"Take the cake, wash your make, Blue Lake River Toilet Cakes! Fresh and clean!"

Me and my friends used to sing that in fifth grade all the time! Priceless memories!

 

[InvaderWeezle]

So would you say the animation industry is doing better now than it was from 2005-2009? It kinda goes into opinion because I thought cartoons were a LOT better in 2005-2009 than they are today, but that's just my opinion.

I definitely think that the 2010-present era of cartoons is better than the 2005-2009 era. For Nickelodeon it's debatable which era is better or worse, but Cartoon Network is absolutely better than it was before, and Disney has been putting out some great cartoons on Disney XD.