Drawn Together is a Comedy Central cartoon that I remember with a little fondness, but also with some cringe. Like The Simpsons, Family Guy, and especially South Park, it helped prove that animation was not just for little kids. It took that idea one step further by creating a cartoon that was sometimes even more outrageous than Comedy Central’s flagship show, South Park.

The show was a parody of reality house television series like Big Brother or The Surreal Life, a genre I do not particularly care for. This cartoon was different, though, because it was not the real thing. It was a mockery of it.

The cast of characters was truly wild and wacky. Captain Leslie Hero was obviously inspired by Superman and shares many similarities with the later character Homelander from the Amazon series The Boys. Spanky Ham was clearly a parody of Porky Pig, as well as various Flash animation characters from the early internet. He can be described as a thirsty, crude humored, obnoxious, and greedy anthropomorphic pig, not unlike his voice actor, Adam Carolla

At the time, I think I was most sympathetic to Princess Clara. She is a parody of Disney princesses, with Princess Ariel likely serving as the main basis for her face, at least. I guess she was my type back then.

Now, my type would have been these two, lol. Xandir P. Wifflebottom is a parody of Link from The Legend of Zelda and Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. Toot Braunstein is an obvious parody of Betty Boop, whom I have never really cared for, then or now. That said, I actually think Braunstein is the more likable than Boop, despite her twisted personal issues.

I really did not like the character Foxxy Love. I understood that she was a parody of a character from Josie and the Pussycats, but I was never a fan of that cartoon. Her feisty, sharp personality just rubbed me the wrong way.

Then there is Ling Ling, a likable and very obvious parody of Pikachu from the Pokémon series. I am kind of surprised Nintendo never tried to sue Comedy Central over it. Finally, there is Wooldoor Jebediah Sockbat, who appears to be a merged parody of SpongeBob SquarePants and Stimpy from Ren and Stimpy. Instead of being like either of those characters, he is just kind of an abomination, a yellow mess.

The show has its obvious flaws, but it was pretty clever back in the day. It is very unlikely the show would work well in 2025. A lot of the humor has not aged well over the past 20 years, including jokes that would probably make Generation Z faint.