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zakruti.com » Humor, fun and entertainment » MsMojo
Top 10 Cartoon TV Characters with the Saddest Backstories

Top 10 Cartoon TV Characters with the Saddest Backstories

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Rating: 4.0; Vote: 1
These cartoon characters have surprisingly sad backstories. For this list, well be looking at our favorite animated characters with tear-jerking pasts. Our countdown includes SpongeBob SquarePants, DuckTales, Rugrats, and more! What do YOU think is the saddest cartoon backstory?
Date: 2023-11-20

Comments and reviews: 30


My opinion on these ten tragic characters.
10. I think if he hadn't argued with Mr. Krabs, I think they would have still been best friends. If only that Krabby Patty didn't kill the customer. Remind me, have we ever seen Spongebob's parents?
9. It's one sad thing to see your parents disappear before your very eyes. Seeing them head to space for an unexplained reason is a whole new level of sadness.
8. A character with two tragic backstories for the price of one. I don't think we often see that in a character.
7. I have seen how Star Vs. The Forces of Evil's series premier and series finale, but I did not see the backstory of this character. I thought she was just some merciless villainess who wanted to turn rebellious princesses into stereotypically perfect ones.
6. Timmy Turner deserves better parents and a better babysitter. If it weren't for his fairy godparents, this show would have just been pure tragic.
5. I just feel bad for him. He didn't deserve to have his mom die of a terminal sickness.
4. I would have asked about Huey, Louie and Dewey's dad, but I doubt he's alright, what with the firecracker under his chair. How'd the firecracker end up under his chair, and where were the triplets during all this? I guess Huey, Louie and Dewey's dad is just one Ducktales mystery that will never be solved. At least they have a cool mom.
3. I think if Stanley hadn't accidentally destroyed Stanford's perpetual motion machine, the story would be drastically different.
2. Honestly, Doofenshmirtz's backstory makes him one of the pettiest and most sympathetic evil cartoon scientists. Most of his inventions are either to resolve first world problems and minor inconveniences he has or are used for good, like the time he used his Waffle-inator to distract the Marvel baddies.
1. Although I am familiar with the Ice King, I was not as familiar with his tragic backstory. I didn't think a crown would make a man so insane.
My opinion on the honorable mentions
1. Losing your parents is sad enough. Losing your offspring is sad on a whole new level.
2. I wonder what would have happened if Harley didn't give up her career.
3. From losing a mother to losing a son to losing a limb. It's easy to sympathize with someone who suffered through dismemberment. I hope he gains a replacement. Come to think of it, I never really question why he only had one arm to begin with.

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They may not have backstories per se, but I think Kenny and Butters from South Park and Joel Robinson, Mike Nelson and Jonah Heston from Mystery Science Theater 3000 deserve to be on a top 20 saddest TV show characters
Kennys drunk parents cursed him with immortality. Every time he gets killed, he ends up back in his bed like nothing had ever happened. The worst part is that no one can remember him dying, even when he dies right in front of them. This makes me hope I see an episode Kenny dies, everyone remembers it, but Kenny DOES come back oh wait, I think there was.
Butterss mom nearly drowned him in a car, his dad repeatedly grounds him and he was rejected from Kyle, Cartman and Stans friend group after Kenny seemingly died for good.
Joel Robinsons bosses didnt like his so they shot him into space and turned him into their lab rat. They forced him into watching movies so bad, he repurposed the parts used to control when/where the movies begin and end just to make robot friends.
After Joels escape, his bosses were left without a subject to keep the experiment going, so they conked Mike Nelson on the noggin, shot him into space and performed the experiment on him. The experiment was eventually passed to Mike and Joels bosses mother, Pearl, who mercilessly hunted Mike across the universe with her minions to keep the experiment going. Eventually, they all end up back on Earth where Pearl settles in her castle. As the season 10 song went, from her castle below, she sets her sights above, just to torture all the captives on the Satellite of Love.
The good news is the aforementioned Satellite of Love (the spaceship Mike and the robots were on) crash landed on Earth. The three lived happily ever after, watching The Crawling Eye.
The bad news is that despite Joel and Mikes efforts to stop the madness, their bosss daughter, Kinga, found a way to keep the experiment going. She and her henchman Max (not me, sent a fake distress call to Jonah Heston at half past noon and trapped him on the dark side of the moon. There, he was sent to a reconstructed Satellite of Love where the experiment continued.
This all came to a happy ending as Jonah rigged Kinga and Maxs cheesy movie contraption (I forget what it was for) and trapped them in a theater where they played the movies and short films from the original show. They even pointed it out. I wonder if they ever made it out.

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I think that Spinel from Steven Universe had a pretty sad backstory, back then she was like an innocent child who looked up to & adored Pink Diamond, the one she was created to be the best friend of and always try to make happy, but Pink(who herself was still young & naive at the time) thought of Spinel as more of an old toy that she outgrew & got bored with, so Pink tricked Spinel into staying in a single location and not to move from that very spot, and Spinel blindly obeyed Pink because she was programmed to do so, she then stayed like that all alone for over 6000 Years, only then did she learn that Pink no longer existed and a lot has changed over the millennia without her, Spinel then realized that she was abandoned by her best friend & had been forgotten about by everyone, this event tore Spinel up inside to the point where she had the Gem equivalent of a Heart Attack & poofed her form, then she reformed in a way that made her look more sad & villainous(a form that she was ashamed to look like by the way, this lead Spinel to out of anger, jealousy & hatred seek Revenge against Pink by attacking her son Steven, reset the Crystal Gems back to their Original Forms with no memory of who they had evolved into over the centuries, and try to poison the Earth to rid it of all organic life, sure that seems a bit extreme, but Spinel's situation seems understandable & even relatable, one of the worst feelings one can have is to be abandoned, left all alone, and ultimately forgotten about by all, especially if it happened to a child(or in this case a Gem who is a lot like a child.
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Some other honorable mentions:
- Helga Pataki (Hey Arnold): Her parents were not the best with her tough but distant father, her possibly alcoholic mother, & her older sister being seen as the favorite.
- Raven (Teen Titans): Her father is a literal demon who uses her as a pawn to take over the world. Because of this, shes distant from everybody, even her friends.
- Zuko (Avatar The Last Airbender): Mother disappeared, scarred by his father, banished from his home to search for the Avatar, became a fugitive after failing, & struggled with believing that what his father ordered him to do was right.
- Kevin Levin (Ben 10): Abusive father, ran away from home as a kid, became obsessed with his absorbing powers to the point that it made him go insane.
- Fiddleford McGucket (Gravity Falls): Was a promising scientist & assistant to Ford Pines who became a crazy old man after overly relying on a memory erasing device to help him forget about what he saw through Fords portal.
- The Delightful Children from Down the Lane (Codename Kids Next Door): Originally the missing members of Sector Z of the Kids Next Door, the Delightful Children were taken by Father & brainwashed into what they became.
- Rex Salazar (Generator Rex): Parents were killed during the Nanite event that infected all the population of Earth with nanites, brother was sent 5 years into the future, & Rex himself suffered amnesia due to the incident.

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Other characters with devastatingly sad backstories:
- Helga (Hey Arnold): She had a troubled childhood with an aggressive dad and neglectful mom whos implied to be an alcoholic, and is a victim of sibling favoritism as shes in the shadow of her older sister.
- The Brain (Animaniacs & Pinky and The Brain): He was once an innocent field mouse who was abducted from his home by Acme Labs scientists and subjected to horrific experiments, and is motivated to take over the world so he could gain control over his life again.
Fiddleford McGucket (Gravity Falls): He was once a brilliant scientist who became traumatized after going into the portal, and created a machine that messed with his mind and eventually became the town fool.

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What about Kevin 11 from the Ben 10 franchise? When he was five years old, his father was murdered by an alien criminal, and throughout his childhood, he got bullied and abused because of his powers, leading him to run away from home and live on the streets, he got mutated into a freakish monster on multiple occasions, he got imprisoned in an inter dimensional prison, and while they were escaping, his mentor at the time was murdered by the prison warden, and then he got abducted by an evil alien organisation that used him as a living weapon, so I really think that he deserved a spot on this list.
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Honestly, I think Catra from She Ra 2018 should be on the list for top ten characters with saddest backstories. Shes whole life, she was abused and mistreated by Shadow Weaver, while Adora was her favorite child. Catra had to grow up stuck in Adoras shadow her whole life with Adora being the only person who loved and accepted her. And then when Adora left Catra for Bow and Glimmer, Catra felt betrayed by the only friend who ever did show her love and fondness. I think Catra has one of the saddest most tragic and painful backstories in all of cartoon history
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You mention Splinter, but not the 2012 version, who arguably has the most tragic backstory of the 3 Splinters.
Betrayed by one he saw as brother, suffered knowing his wife died in the fire of their home because of said brother's jealousy, thinks for 15 years that his baby daughter died in the fire too only to learn his brother had raised her on the lie Splinter killed her mother and to hate him, and to end up dying shortly after finally properly reuniting with his daughter.
80s and 2003 Splinter ain't got nothing of that Splinter

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Kirsten: Master Splinter
Me: Ahh! I didn't expect my heart to break THAT hard!
No, seriously. It really does hurt.
Kirsten: Scrooge McDuck and the whole family
Me: cat screech
Kirsten: Dr Heinz Doofenshmirtz
Me: Ahh! Not again!
Kirsten: Uncle Iroh
Me: Ack! (But seriously, you can't just play Leaves from the Vine and expect me not to cry)
Alright, it's over now. I went into this expecting to be fine, but after the Rugrats, it was all downhill from there.

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Dr. Doof- none of his parents loved or cared about him, he was raised by wild cats, his only friend flew away, he celebrated his own birthday and NO ONE showed up, etc-inator. This guy's is basically calling his hell home. and that hurts
Ice King/Simon- lost his mind, his loved ones, and his sanity ever since he put on the crown. his heart was cold and his loved ones couldn't stop nor save him. it's really sad to think about.

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I think that the Plantar family from Amphibia deserved an honorable mention. Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the series.
Sprig and Polly's parents were eaten alive before either of them could truly remember them, Hop Pop blamed himself for their deaths and still hasn't forgiven himself, and their family name is a laughing stock in the eyes of their community (at least until Anne starts living with them.

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Nox from the Wakfu show would be my mention. Once a honest worker with a wife and kids, an artifact known as the Eliocube slowly driven him mad with power. His family moved to a separate island where the Ogrest Chaos that caused the entire world to flood, killed them. Filled with grief, Nox was planning to use his resources to travel back in time and save his family. Spoiler alert, he wasn't even close.
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I feel like a few characters from Steven Universe should have been on this list. For example, Pearl spent thousands of years fighting right beside the love of her life (Rose) in a war. She spent most of her life doing everything for her just to see her fall in love with someone else and give up her physical form to have Steven.
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Stolas from helluva boss he has a very tragic backstory he was forced to marry someone who wanted him dead, he augured with his wife and his daughter is always sad, and ruined his marriage and I think he was also abused by his dad and he was tormented by his ex wife Stella
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You guys should've included Sam I-Am from Green Eggs and Ham. While he spends most of the first season acting like a happy, optimistic person, his backstory (and true intentions) are actually much darker than anyone would believe.
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I know old man mcgucket's backstory in gravity falls was 99% similar to ice king, but c'mon, he could've at least been an honorable mention, his story was just as sad(but more horrifying and disturbing than) as stan's.
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Leaves from the vine
Falling so slow
Like, fragile tiny shells
Drifting in the foam
Little soldier boy
Come marching home
Brave soldier boy
Come March home.
-RIP Mako(General Iroh)

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I definitely cried during the I remember you episode of Adventure Time. Actually, ever since they've told Ice King's back story, I ended up becoming emotional in almost every Ice King-centric episodes.
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What about Arnold on Hey Arnold I know it gets resolved in that terrible movie but the episode about his parents disappeared still makes me cry. Helga and Mr Hyunh should at least have honorable mentions!
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And Zuko doesnt exist
your dad treating you like garbage
the only person that he loved left him
his sister also treats him like garbage
his dad gave him a scare
not really sad

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I kinda disagree with Iroh. Sure it was sad, but his son died in a war their nation started. He led the siege on Ba Sing Se do he was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people.
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I think you should Arktos's backstory. He lost his mother because she committed suicide and now blames it all for it Greenlanders. It doesn't justify what it does, but his story is sad
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No offence to uncle Iroh but I think his life was extremely brilliant because of Zuko but I think Zuko had a worse life before he ran off with his uncle he was burned by his father!
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11: 54 I feel like theres only ONE thing about doofenshmirtz we DONT know:
How did he actually become an evil scientist? Like how did he become so good at making inators?

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I knew Stanley had a rather sad backstory Unlike Eda who she gets a Pass Stanley's life was Sour and definitely makes a very depressing character within this Wonderful show.
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The Ice King has a very sad backstory he was originally a successful genius turned insane by the unstable magic of the crown and was forced to live in a war ravaged world.
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Ice kings backstory is exactly why he my favorite the adventure time character ( besides being voiced by Tom Kenny ) and why Finn and Jake are my very least favorite
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dude, you should have put stan pines on number 2 doof backstory is a parody and suppose to be funny in dark humor stan backstory feels more relatable and thus sad
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Honestly Simon&Marceline story arc, is what make me watch cartoon again, I'm just watch the episode remember me while babysit my nephew and I'm 19 at the time.
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Bitsy from Central Park tv show. Her parents disowned her because she wasn't a boy when they wanted her to be. Incuding her brother and kids at school.
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