Handicapped people are just like you and me, except for one minor difference: they suck at being cartoon characters. To prove this, I've dredged the annals of cartoon history and exhumed the five least popular handicapped characters of all time. Can you guess who they are? Well, of course you can guess who they are, dipstick, but you won't know if you're right unless you read the article. So click the jump.
Daredevil
Daredevil was the first blind man to become a superhero, and his Marvel comic book was well-received. But when he began making guest appearances on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, children failed to adore him like his seeing-endowed peers, and a planned Daredevil cartoon series was scrapped.
Unloved Because:
Most kids like to fantasize about having their favorite superhero's powers. But I can't think of a single kid who wishes he was blind; even if it gave him super hearing and smelling abilities that could detect Dr. Doom in a urinal three blocks away and determine what urinal cake he was using. Daredevil is clearly more of an adult-oriented superhero, which is why he's much better suited for movies (as long as those movies don't star Ben Affleck).
Wheels
In 1990, Burger King introduced the BK Kid's Club, a multiracial group of kids who were the marketing equivalent of carpet bombing. They included a member of pretty much every demographic you can think of, and some you probably can't, like Kid Vid, who as near as I can tell was either an animu kid or a cyborg from the distant future.
Wheels, a redhead in a wheelchair, was the least popular Kids Club member. He seldom appeared in commercials, and when he did it was only for a second or two; which is weird, since you'd think the cartoonists would've loved how easy he was to animate: if you can draw two circles, you basically don't have to worry about his lower body at all.
Wheels must've been a crushing disappointment for Burger King, since they clearly spent so much time developing his character: the arduous "naming him Wheels" process alone must've taken several weeks of focus-testing to determine the absolute least offensive name for a handicapped kid – I assume it narrowly beat out "Crutches" and "Gimp".
Unloved Because:
If you're selling fast food to kids, you want to paint as rosy of a picture as possible. Wheels might've had a winning attitude and a tricked-out wheelchair, but his health problems eerily foreshadow what happens if you eat Burger King food every day; and that's the last thing you want to think about while rocking out to the BK Kids Club theme.
Pelswick
Pelswick was created by cartoonist John Callahan, who was quadraspazzed in a childhood accident and (get ready) can only draw by clutching a pen between both hands. I'll give everyone a minute for the tear-shedding required by that sentence while I check my Facebook.
All done? Okay, good. Callahan pitched Pelswick to Nickelodeon as an off-the-wall satire that dealt with real-world issues (because we all know how hilarious those are in a Y-7 kids format). He wanted to portray pelswick as a normal teenager while still acknowledging his disability, which I think is commendable, especially when there's wheelchair slapstick involved. Unfortunately, "Pelswick" never found an audience, and went off the air after 2 seasons in 2002.
Unloved Because:
Pelswick was like that kid in 8th grade who just started reading Mad Magazine, and goes around making half-formed sarcastic jokes about everything. Sure, he's smarter than some of his friends, but way dumber than anyone who knows what the hell he's talking about. John Callahan's satire might've worked in an adult format, but as a children's cartoon it was way too heavy-handed (Oh crap, I just realized I put heavy handed; it's a coincidence, I swear; even I'm not that mean).
Garrett Miller
In addition to being the only handicapped Ghostbuster, Garrett Miller (from the 90s revival/rehash, EXTREME Ghostbusters) was also the only Ghostbuster to never get their own action figure. Even Janine, the Ghostbusters' secretary, was made into a kid's toy – twice. Just think about that for a second: Janine Melnitz – the woman who did nothing but answer the Ghostbusters' phone, and was played by one of the stars of Designing Women – was appraised as more toyetic than this guy. In other words, if you're a cartoon character who wants to become a hit action figure, you're better off in a dress than in a wheelchair.
Unloved Because:
If you're a disabled person, there are plenty of jobs you're conceivably qualified for. But being a Ghostbuster - a job requiring you to save the world from badass demons, while wearing a mini Chernobyl on your back - definitely isn't one of them. I don't care how much you train every day, or how empowered you must feel doing with no legs what I dreamed of doing pretty much every day of my childhood; there's still no way I'm calling you if my walls start bleeding. Go ahead and sue me for ableism. The judge will acquit me in two minutes, and thank me for saving the Goddamned universe.
It says on Wikipedia that Garrett is claustrophobic too, which made me think of another frightening scenario: what if he goes to the bathroom one day but the handicapped stall is taken, so he loses his mind and throws a ghost trap in the urinal, causing it to malfunction and suck our reality into some horrible nightmare dimension? We're lucky that never happened, or this might be a list of the 5 Sexiest Eldritch Gods or something.
Waynehead
Waynehead is a black boy in a Harlem Ghetto, who suffers from clubfoot. I wrote about 600 hilarious and inoffensive jokes about that, but can't decide which one I like best, so I'm withholding them for now. Suffice to say, it's easy to see why the The Kids WB greenlighted this hilarious premise so quickly.
Unloved Because:
Being the black kid on Kids WB is like being the white guy on In Living Color: everyone hates you and (unless you're Jim Carrey) you never become popular. When it came time to promote Waynehead, the network fudged promos like this one, where the hook is that Waynehead (get this) has a really big head. Either a copy writer shot that one off in 10 seconds because he had a meeting to attend, or – and I like this explanation much better – he had some popular myth about black people backwards.
