The Worst Drug Trips Ever Animated

Back in the 80s, Nancy Reagan led the charge to keep kids drug-free. I was a child of D.A.R.E., but even without that, my television made sure to teach me that “Drugs Are Bad.” I don’t have any of the experiences that these cartoons warned me of, so I’m not sure how successful any of them would have been in keeping me from trying pot, crack, or Crystal Twist. I’ll be the first one to admit that when I was a kid, I never did drugs or had any desire to. No one I knew did drugs, and no one ever offered me any.

Not every series had a drug episode, but the ones that did had to walk the tightrope of making them too scary yet scary enough. I’ve compiled a list of episodes, and I wanted to list them by just how traumatizing they were to watch. Did someone try a drug once and see monsters? That’s scary but not too bad. Did someone straight-up overdose? Yeesh. Bob Forward was the king of the drug episode, having written two of the episodes on this list and one more I didn’t include (GI Joe: The Greatest Evil, because DIC’s GI Joe is horrible), and Sandy Fries followed that up with two of his own episodes. So let’s look back at the scariest lessons that we had to watch on Saturday mornings.

8. A Friend in Need – He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

Teela’s cousin Elena shows up at the palace and goes riding through the geyser field. Some wizard sets off the geysers, and Elena’s too scared to do anything, even when Teela’s hurt while trying to save her. A woman gives Elena a potion and a ring to call for more. Elena gets brave enough to go flying and almost kills Adam because he’s not wearing a seatbelt. She doesn’t show any other side effects besides passing out from withdrawals. Later, when she shows bravery by capturing the bad guy without the use of the drugs, no one acknowledges how brave she was.
Worst moment – Adam gets mad at Elena and storms off when she says she can’t tell him what’s wrong.

7. Brain Blaster – Galaxy High School

Doyle’s failing classes and may not take part in the big game. He’s approached by a dealer named Punk McThrusters and starts doing Brain Blasters, which is a headset full of drugs like (insert examples here). Using the drugs looks painful as heck since it turns him into a chicken, a dragon, and fireworks, but then it gives him knowledge he couldn’t realistically know. He starts taking it more than he needs, and even the dealer tells him not to overdo it. To pay for his drugs, he steals everyone’s stuff, including Amiee’s car, and goes to a scary planet to find a second dealer since he bought out all of Punk’s inventory.
Worst moment – Doyle still has to pay for the 200 pizzas he promised for his last hit instead of having the second dealer arrested.

6. The Case of the Lowest Crime – COPS

Buttons McBoomBoom gets stiffed at a store when collecting their protection money because the store was robbed by Crystal Twist addicts. He runs into the dealer, Addictem, and takes him to Big Boss to set up a deal. Big Boss kicks him out because crime is okay, but drugs are not. During a burglary, his nephew Berserko falls into a crate of Crystal Twist and overdoses straight into a coma. Wanting to stop the dealer, Big Boss teams up with the COPS to stop him. The good guys and bad guys split into teams, but they don’t interact much during the search. They chase him to the hospital Berserko is in, and he wakes up right in time to catch Addictem, who goes to prison for life.
Worst Moment – Buttons tells Addictem, “I get my kicks from crime.”

5. Prescription for Disaster – The Littles

The Littles visit a friend with a bunch of pies and a human that’s addicted to pills. The drugs are not named but look like ordinary capsules. When the mom drops a pill while taking them, it falls into the vent and opens, spilling the drug onto a pie that Dinky devours. He immediately starts to hallucinate, but it’s mostly treated as comic relief. The daughter in the apartment is treated like crap by her mom before she passes out, making the daughter think she needs to take the pills as well to talk to her. They make the mom think she’s hallucinating, and she catches her daughter about to take the pills. It has a real “I learned it from watching you” vibe.
Worst moment – The mom didn’t look particularly drugged out, but the humans just looked weird to me.

4. Alone Again – Jem

Laura arrives at the Starlight Mansion a month after her parents died. When Jem sees she has a guitar, she offers to let her play with the band. Laura doesn’t have faith in her abilities, and Kimber even belittles her because of it. Feeling even worse because of Kimber, she’s down at school and is offered drugs by a charismatic boy. After taking just one pill, she’s hallucinating enough that she almost jumps out of a window thinking she can fly. She gets into a fight with Ashley and is even madder when the dealer hits on Ashley with the same lines he gave Laura. During the song “Nightmare,” Laura is chased through a carnival, but I can’t tell if that’s more drug hallucinations or just the video. She goes to rehab, and then she and Ashley make up and get the dealer arrested.
Worst moment – Not a particular moment, but through the whole episode, Laura is animated to look older than anyone else, including the adults, even before she takes the drugs.

3. Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue

Corey’s piggy bank goes missing, and all of her toys and posters and books come to life to save it. Alf, Garfield, the Smurfs, and Winnie the Pooh work together to find the culprit, her big brother Michael, who needs to buy some weed. A living cloud of smoke pushes Michael to take more drugs, but Bugs Bunny shows up in a time machine to show when he started doing drugs. More cartoon characters show up, including the Muppet Babies, who take Michael on a roller coaster through his brain, and Michelangelo, who drops him into a sewer of melted rainbow sherbet.
Worst moment – Instead of hanging out and playing games with his favorite cartoon characters, they sing a song about saying no to crack.

2. Mind Pollution – Captain Planet

A teenager buys a drug called Bliss from Verminous Skumm, that turns him into a red-eyed zombie and almost gets him hit by a car. The teenager is Boris, Linka’s cousin, who comes to visit him in Washington, D.C. Boris tells Skumm about Linka’s ring after she used it to put out a fire he started, and he demands Boris bring her to him for more Bliss. Boris contaminates some pastries with Bliss, and Linka becomes addicted as well. Linka starts taking the drugs and stops the Planeteers from summoning Captain Planet, even when Skumm orders his addicts to kill them. Escaping the crowd, Boris jumps through a windshield and cuts himself badly, bleeding profusely in a cartoon. To top that, Boris dies on screen after collapsing onto the ground.
Worst moment – Instead of having a random character show up to get addicted to drugs, you have to watch one hero get high and strung out.

1. The Price – Bravestarr

A dingo in a white suit comes to Fort Kerium and finds three kids, Brad, Jay, and Daisy, and offers them a drug called Spin. Brad and Daisy leave, but Jay tries it out after forcing Brad to agree not to tell anyone. Meanwhile, Bravestarr and 30-30 are having trouble holding back a Spin-Addict and later we see the addict wheeled out on a stretch with a sheet over his face. Jay steals his mom’s purse to pay for more Spin, and Jay finds him in their clubhouse. Jay makes the absolute worst face as he’s riding his high and demands again that Brad doesn’t tell anyone. When Brad decides he can’t keep the secret any longer, he misses his chance to tell Bravestar when he leaves to find the factory Spin is made in. When Bravestarr returns, it’s too late, as Brad takes him to the clubhouse only to find Jay had died of an overdose.
Worst moment – Hearing the mom wailing after finding out her son had died.

For more cartoon awesomeness, the third book in my Old School Evil trilogy, Our Darkest Hour, is available to pre-order on Kindle for $ 0.99 and will be released on October 29. Pick it and the first two books, Old School Evil and Old School Evil: The Rejects on Amazon. Welcome Home, a prequel story, can be downloaded for free from my website.