The Kids' TV Shows That'll Be the Memes of Tomorrow

What will be the Mr. Krabs swirling hole of doom five years from now?

August 9, 2017, 11:32am

Memes, by their very nature, are unpredictable. They come into existence suddenly and without warning. Most of them draw on news and current events, dead gorillas, shit like that. But many draw on kids TV, mostly Spongebob Squarepants and Dora the Explorer. Spongebob because its ludicrous animation style lends itself to a melange of self expression, and Dora because its ultra-purity makes people want to project their sick perversion onto it.

So yes, memes are unpredictable, but bear all this in mind and it's fair to assume that the kids' TV of now will be where future meme makers mine their inspiration. So let's take a look at some kids' TV shows and see how memeable they are, because it's August and the news is slow.

'LITTLE ROY'

Roy is apparently Ireland's only cartoon boy. Little Roy follows Roy around in his infancy and tracks the hilarious scrapes and borderline misdemeanours he manages to get himself into, inhabiting – as he does – a human world, with human people, even though he is merely a little Irish cartoon child who says "deadly" as the Irish do.

The Irish internet is currently notable for its woke ket-head and after-party-loving personalities Humans of the Sesh, so perhaps Little Roy can fit into this vibe somehow?

Perhaps. But no: sadly for Roy, he's just not that interesting to look at.

Meme potential: 2/5

'HARVEY BEAKS'

Nickelodeon cartoons all look very similar these days. I know that's quite an "old" thing to say, but over the course of the minimal amount of research I've done, it looks like half of these shows all have the same animator. All cutesy colours and squat characters with perfectly round eyes. I'm not mad at it, it just seems a little weird. Anyway, old Harvey Beaks, a cancelled Nick' show, is much better fodder for memes than Little Rasclart Roy because he is capable of making more than one facial expression. And from what I've seen of the show (not a lot), it seems like they're capable of not purely making their characters completely rigid and stale.

Meme potential: 3/5

'LUDUS'

I don't really know what the fuck Ludus is meant to be, but I do know that I've seen something similar to him when I was coming-to in the Torture Garden after a violently ribald nipple singeing. Ludus is some kind of games master and super villain who guides children around a space ship type of thing. It's a bit confusing. Anyway, the guy looks like Kevin Nealon's character "Tit-head the Gatekeeper" from Little Nicky and thus is visually hilarious – but is he memeable?

Yeah, actually, that works pretty well.

Meme potential: 4/5

'BOTTERSNIKES AND GUMBLES'

Yes, you're right, these do sound like swearwords from a Terry Pratchett novel, but lo they are merely CGI creatures who loosely resemble lizards and rabbits, and live in a kind of desert area abandoned by all human life, with but a few remnants of civilisation lasting to provide shelter for these disturbed creatures. Unfortunately for the BS&Gs, CGI is not great fodder for memes unless it's depraved late 90s / early 2000s CGI, or Shrek (but that's only cuz of that fucking song).

Meme potential: 2.5/5

'WELCOME TO THE WAYNE'

Another Nickelodeon show in that identikit animation style. But in fairness, this singular image and its construction has more memetic potential than anything else on this list, purely because it appears as if three people have snuck into the mission control room of something deeply important and complicated and then triumphantly ejaculated onto all the surfaces. That's what we like to see.