There was a time when MTV was home to some of the most striking animation on television. Before reality TV took over but after the age of actual music videos, MTV had its own brand of weird animated shows. Often they were even more strange and outlandish than what the likes of Comedy Central or Fox have to offer these days.
Weird isn't always bad though. Some of the weird MTV animated series were great. Cartoon Sushi, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Æon Flux all had Liquid Television to thank for their inception. In many ways, this televised showcase for absurd animation predicted the shows of Adult Swim.
Some of the weird MTV cartoons aren't even really MTV's. Shows like The Ren & Stimpy Show and Rocko's Modern Life may have aired on MTV for a while, but ultimately they belonged to Nickelodeon, so you won't find them here. Still, in their surreal madness, they typified the MTV animation philosophy.
Take a trip down nostalgia avenue with the most bizarre MTV animated shows and be sure to vote up the ones that were strangest.
The Weirdest MTV Animated Shows,
Beavis and Butt-head
Beavis and Butt-Head is the most well-known of the weird MTV animated shows. This show essentially took every weird thing about teenage boys and amplified it tenfold. The highly inept main characters are lacking in just about every measure of humanity from decency to compassion and that's where most of the comedy is derived.
If you're so used to BEavis and Butt-Head that it no longer sounds strange, just remember that it used to have video interstitials in which these two morons talked over '90s videos.
Cartoon Sushi
The name itself should tell you all you need to know. With segments like "A Day in the Life of an Oscillating Fan" and "Broccoli's Taxicab Confrontations," this show really earned its weird title. Of course, that weirdness is also what gave Cartoon Sushi its charm. In a lot of ways, this one is sort of a forerunner to the surreal brilliance of Adult Swim.
Celebrity Deathmatch
An irreverent oddity in an age that worships celebrity, this one featured claymation versions of popular celebrities battling it out in wrestling rings. The deaths were usually gruesome and epic. Some of them where enough to give Mortal Kombat a run for its money. If only the show would make a come back so the world could see Justin Bieber and Kanye fight it out in gloriously violent claymation.
Clone High
If you don't know the premise of this show, its about a high school that is entirely populated by the clones of famous historical figures. How incredibly cool/weird is that? It was the only show on TV were you could watch Abraham Lincoln, Cleopatra, and Joan of Arc all stuck in a love triangle.
Liquid Television
Liquid Television is the locus classicus of MTV animation. It gave birth to a slew of other oddball shows such as Beavis and Butt-Head, Aeon Flux, and Cartoon Sushi. With some recurring segments that focused on characters that were just footprints or stick figures, it's a wonder how this show got past the testing stage.
Spider-Man: The New Animated Series
An animated Spider-Man show might not sound so weird, but the voice of Peter Parker is what lands it on this list. Neil Patrick Harris provided the voice for the webslinging superhero but the show was ultimately not very successful. It ran for only one short season, which wasn't nearly enough time to get used to Doogie Howser's voice coming out Spider-Man's mask.
The Brothers Grunt
Not all weird shows are good. The Brothers Grunt was one of the shows that just had you scratching your head most of the time. It centered around some not-quite-human brothers who wandered around mostly naked, eating cheese, and trying to find of their friends. It wasn't exactly a masterpiece.
The Head
When it comes to bizarre twists, this show takes the cake. It's about a man named Jim who wakes up one morning with a suddenly massive head, and that's not even the weirdest part. After a week of giantheadedness, a little purple alien pops out of Jim's head. The alien's name is Roy and he now lives in Jim's head. Yep.
The Maxx
The weirdest part of this animated MTV show (of which there are many, many weird parts) is how it switches between styles frequently. Unlike most shows which rarely, if ever switch styles, The Maxx does so frequently, sometimes repeatedly in an episode. One moment the scene will be crisp and filled with remarkable details, the next it's just another plain cartoon.
Oh, and the protagonist is a homeless man who has adventures in a fantastical alternate reality.
Aeon Flux
Aeon Flux is one of the many animated MTV shows that got its start on Liquid Television. The odd, avant-garde, occasionally pervy sci-fi show was a definite cult hit, one that continued with different iterations after its short run including comic books, a video game, and even a live-action movie starring Charlize Theron.