Animation has been a staple of pop
culture for years. During that time, we’ve progressed as a race with what we’re
capable of and have reached a level of scientific understanding only dreamed before. All
thanks to the influence of our favorite cartoons… right? From cloning to space travel,
many on this list have quite the resume of accomplishments… But not every
cartoon scientist has the IQ of Einstein. I’m Brad with WickedBinge and this is Cartoon
Scientists: Dumbest to Most Brilliant. There are a few rules that affect the ranking.
We’re going to eb weighing the scope and scale of their inventions and creations. The
scientist will be ranked on not only the reputation within their show but what we
actually see them accomplish on screen. And of course, if they only produce
prototypes or unsuccessful final projects, they will lose major points for that. And they’ll
also lose some points if they totally lack common sense, which is a bit of a trope for
otherwise brilliant cartoon scientists. With that said, let’s start at the bottom with
the least intelligent and work our way up… First up, Doctor Weird and Doctor Fritz
Huhnmorder are worth mentioning briefly though they aren’t too widely known. At least
not in the same way the others on this list are. Weird is the one who is featured at
the beginning of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and normally indulges in very destructive methods.
He gets himself hurt a lot in the process and while his monsters and robots are formidable, they
do enough damage in the lab that they never leave. Fritz on the other hand is the doctor
that features on Robot Chicken, and gets a low ranking because all he is seen
doing is re-animating the chicken. Both are mad scientists, but to the point they’re only
concerned with their immediate surroundings. Next from the bottom is Doctor Zoidberg. There’s
some divided opinion on how well he does his job. It’s been stated in the show that he only
struggles with working on humans and that he’s an excellent doctor to alien species,
but we don’t get to see much of it. While he does make some good calls, helping the
professor from turning into a yeti and helping get Hermes his body back, he also
is proven to be clueless on how to act. He lives in a dumpster eating garbage, allows
himself to be treated as less than dirt, and will throw away pretty much
anything for a decent meal. Doctor Otto Scratchansniff was one of those
recurring characters on Animaniacs. He’s an educated man and would be a successful
psychiatrist if he wasn’t trying to help some of the most ridiculous characters in
animation. He takes social events seriously and tries to build a reputation
that he can rely on. He’s easily taken advantage of when he’s on screen which is
unfortunate because he does try to help others. There is a theory that the Brain may not be the
actual brains of his operation, but we don’t delve into the possibility of Pinky being the smart one.
Brain is seen as the powerful force of the duo, but none of his plans work. He talks about taking
over the world but has no reason for wanting to do so. His inventions are only to help himself
and he only wants to be in charge of a situation because he has a massive ego. He spends the
majority of his time berating everyone, including the only other creature that tolerates him, and
only lets up when asking for romantic advice. Next is Plankton. Rival to Mr Krabs his only
goal in life is to get the Krabby Patty formula. But even with having experience in engineering, inventing and robotics, he was
unable to take a simple recipe in a bottle. His plans always backfire, but he
manages to do some impressive work. Making robots that could disguise as a patty or destroy all of
Bikini Bottom, being able to use a mind control device on Spongebob and creating a self-aware
program in his wife Karen. Still he becomes too sidetracked when he feels he’s already succeeded
and that’s typically what trips him up in the end. Jack Spicer was dubbed a boy genius and,
weird antics aside, this wasn’t much of an exaggeration. But he had trouble using his
intellect effectively when taking on the enemy. There were actually many times he gave up
his leverage to be freed from a bad situation. Doctor Drakken was one of the main villains of
Kim Possible, but let’s be real: he’s nowhere near as successful as he could be. In fact a
lot of the times he does manage to be a threat it’s because Shego was leading him through
the project and calling him out on mistakes. His robotics were impressive and tech such as the
mood device was entertaining to see in action, but he didn’t really seem
to use his full potential. Bling-Bling Boy had the
money and smarts to dominate at least a small country but he would get
way too distracted by Susan. He was far more invested in using his connections and gifts
of time travel and genetics to woo the Test sister than he was to actually make much
of a name for himself. We’re pretty sure this is a flaw he’s aware of since he starts
almost every interaction by stating his name. Next we have Doctor Alphonse Mephesto.
He was the creepy madman of South Park, and that is a strange honour to have considering
how many strange people reside in the mountain town. He’s obsessed with cloning and is the man
people go to if they want something strange done. He was the one able to reveal Eric’s real father
and is often the voice to explain why an idea will or will not work. Making mini elephants is
cool and all, but do we really need them? Or a monkey with more than one rear end? We have to
rank him higher because of all he manages to do, but at the same time, we have to place
him here due to his odd motivations. Princess Twilight Sparkle, though royalty,
was also a sharp mind. In her world, magic and science often come together and Twilight used
her knowledge of magic to find solutions plenty of times. She also managed to become experienced
in how the minds of her fellow ponies worked, often interviewing people on how they
felt about her approach to friendship and peaceful resolutions. She was regarded
as a top student in all her classes and even the human version of her was
gifted in science and equations, quickly being granted the right to study
in an independent lab even in high school. Professor Oak deserves being mentioned. His main
work focuses on pokemon and how to breed and care for them while still preserving their lives,
but he’s also knowledgeable in meteorology and genetics. His expertise often comes up in
times of crisis such as in the 2000s movie, but since his focus is pokemon care, we can’t
rank him much higher as a man of science. Professor Frink was one of those Simpsons
characters around since the beginning. He was deemed one of the brightest
members of the community for his robots, making a chess playing arm and device to
call all the school children for snow days. But he also had a lot of weird and fairly
useless devices such as a sarcasm detector and hamburger earmuffs. Though we will
ask, Professor, what is the pickle matrix? Doctor Thaddeus Venture is likely not to be
voted the world’s best dad, but this isn't a list on morality. From a young age, he was
raised to place intellect and ability to use it above all else. He’s cunning and always
finds a way out of whatever jam he’s in. He’s used time travel, built vehicles
and weapons, but is pretty clueless when it comes to everyday life. He becomes
confused at times such as checking his email and mixing up spam in his real messages
and giving poor dating advice to Rusty. Mr. and Mrs. Fenton were known as the ultimate
ghost hunting duo. Though their methods were extreme at times, they did make a decent living
out of their obsession. They lose a lot due to being oblivious to what’s clearly in front of
them. While Vlad had a somewhat decent disguise, the voice made it clear it was still him. And
not recognizing their own son? We don’t drop them lower since evidently no one was able to
figure out that the two people who looked and sounded the same were the same person. That seems
to be a weird trait with heroes, ghosts or not. Doctor Doofenshmirtz had a rough life, but he
uses the energy he spends frustrated at the world to make some interesting machines. He managed
to make a variety of successful clones until he deleted them all by accident and he almost
had a very successful slave empire of monkeys forever doing laundry. His worst fault
is that he doesn’t seem to take all the variables into account and winds up failing.
His worst habit is putting a self destruct button on everything he builds which
is almost always used against him. We’ll mention Mojo Jojo next.
The very first time we see him, he’s nearly successful in taking over the world
with the bust of Anubis’ head. He’s been defeated by the girls more than a few times, but he’s shown
to have experience with gaining powerful allies, using mind control and creating a variety of
threats to use against the Power Puff Girls. He’s one of the most well known villains
simply because of all his near-successes. Dexter and Mandark we’ll put together.
Not just because they’re in the same show, but because they’re both young
boys with a very narrow mindset. And formidable foes to one another. They
thrive on being able to show each other up, and they feed off of their rivalry. They lash
out at others when things don’t work out and will do anything to manipulate a situation and bend
things to their advantage. They’re both able to build some pretty incredible labs and inventions
right in their family homes with anyone knowing. Princess Entrapta is high energy
and often overwhelming to be around. She is almost always seen with goggles on her
head, ready to be plunged into an experiment. While some of her research does backfire on
her and sometimes her over zealous nature can cause more harm than good such as trying to
demonstrate sound for a sound-motivated threat, she’s always quick to roll with the punches. Next we have the resident of Superjail simply
known as The Doctor. Deranged and driven, he delighted in being able to use the prisoners
for human experimentation. He creates machines, monsters and all sorts of abominations he
affectionately shows off. He stays in the jail so he can submerge himself in work that in
any other setting would dub him a war criminal. But as horrible as his work is,
you have to admit it takes skill. Asami Sato worked alongside Avatar Korra
and made quite an impact for their team. She was considered formidable and ruthless, even
taking out her father to fight for her cause. She uses everything she’s given in an almost
effortless way, making her a challenging opponent. She adapts to each citation quickly and is able
to think steps ahead of everyone she faces. Jimmy Neutron was a young boy genius. Much like
Mandark and Dexter, he was more invested in his own projects and surroundings, making a lot
of gadgets and tools that would make his own life easier. Such as having a robot dog so
he could have a companion without having to get shots for his pet, making so he didn’t
have to style his hair by himself every day, and be praised by his teachers. We rank
him higher than many on the list, however, because he had a lot of experience dealing with
multiverses such as during his adventure with Timmy Turner and dealing with aliens such as when
Carl was carrying an exterrestrial offspring. Professor Utonium was the creator of the
Power Puff Girls, making superhuman kids when all he was trying to do was make a family
for himself. The guy was clearly successful, being regarded by the community and
working from home before he created his daughters. He was also the one to
lead to Mojo Jojo’s intelligence and, while limited when interacting with women, is well
aware of what to do to raise his kids with powers. Zim was said to be a scientist before he was
tasked as an invader. Even in the show, we see him build a variety of things from new eyes for Keef
to trick the kid into thinking a squirrel is him to being able to remove organs out of a living
thing and replacing them with inanimate objects. He’s seen adapting his PAK in a few scenes
and is always experimenting with the life he finds on Earth. We don’t understand
why he’d launch a chicken into the sun, but we will say figuring out to cover himself
in glue to survive the rain was resourceful. Megamind has earned our next spot. Being an alien,
he was outcast for looking and acting differently. He didn’t easily impress others and so used a
lot of his energy to make weapons. We see from his later interactions when training Titan that he
only wanted someone to present a challenge to him. He wasn’t able to show a lot of his potential
for a good portion of the movie because he simply wasn’t driven to give his full. But what he does
manage when he’s successful is impressive. Able to use holograms to disguise himself, dehydrate
and rehydrate living organisms and using his quick wit to take down the power hungry Titan
are just a few of the shocking feats he managed. Next is Doctor Nora Wakeman. Known for her
passion in robotics, she built J-10 to help keep people safe. She made a self-aware
teenage robot which is quite the feat. On top of that, she aided Jenny in being able to
utilize new information and take on new threats. Jenny was her pride and joy, being a massive step
forward for everyone in AI and robotic technology. Peridot was another alien that was just trying
to adapt to what resources she had on Earth. She was stubborn to adapt at first, but
once she got a hang of the Earth technology she had access to she was able to use her
past experience as an engineer for Homeworld to create a drill to go all the way to the
center of the Earth in order to face the Cluster. Jumba was deemed mad, but he was one of the
most successful scientists of the galaxy. He was able to create Stitch and his many cousins, each one with a unique ability of their own on top
of their great feats of strength and endurance. Jumba was able to make various weapons and was
considered a threat by the Galactic Federation. Had he stayed a shady character,
he would be a scary super villain. Vlad Plasmius was once an aid to Jack, but once
he was cursed to be half ghost he used it to gain success. He was always a top student, having been
friends with Jack initially due to their shared interest in ghosts and science. He is seen to
be able to seperate Danny from his phantom half and, though the lashback was not pretty,
that couldn’t have been an easy thing to do. Princess Bubblegum not only managed to rule a
kingdom, but became one of the most advanced minds of the land. She created Lemongrab and his
brother, made guardians for the candy kingdom and was constantly researching trends to seek
out possible oncoming threats. She’s also one of the few scientific minds on this list that,
while still struggling with certain interactions, had a good grasp on human behavior and
interaction. She was able to easily reject people, calling one in particular out for
only loving “the idea of her.” Susan and Mary Test rank far above Bling
Bling Boy. They were way more ambitious, finding solutions to world hunger and making
a variety of vehicles, genetic modifiers and a time traveling tea house. And admit it: when
you saw the super backpack, you wanted one. Hange Zoe was crazy at times, but her work with
Titans was essential to learning how to take them down. The woman risked being flat out devoured
more times than we feel comfortable counting. She’s high energy when it comes to discussing
her research and is relentless when gathering information. Her sheer drive and passion
alone makes her formidable. Factor in that she’s nearly killed every time and you have
a mind the human race should be grateful for. Stanford Pines and his research actually
resembles Twilight Sparkles in that they both wound up heavily relying on a combination of magic
and science. He used Bill’s abilities to know how to build the portal and made a lot of headway on
researching the odd creatures of Gravity Falls. His journals wound up being as helpful as
they were harmful. It was because Ford was smart enough to find out why Gravity Falls
attracted so many oddities that kept Bill in place. He was able to use the leverage to buy
time and eventually, with Stan’s help, defeat him. Of course Ford wouldn’t have gotten
far without our next ranking, Fiddleford McGucket. The engineer that made the
portal possible, he went on to create the memory eraser and make things such as a voice changing
elixir and a robotic version of a lake monster. He may have had a few screws loose for most of
the time we see him, but he comes through during the conflict with Bill to make the Shack into
a formidable foe. At least, for a little while. Bronze of brilliance goes to Professor Membrane.
Like him or not, he’s done things that should be impossible. Creating an energy source that didn’t
require fuel, tackling issues like world peace, creating scopes to look into other dimensions, and
surviving more than horrible explosion. He’s not the most attentive father, but his children
are also an example of his intelligence. It’s been stated that had the series continued,
fans would have learned that Dib was created in Membrane’s lab and was likely a near clone of the
scientist, meant to take on his father’s empire. That explains why Membrane was always
pushing Dib to study “real science.” Professor Farnsworth was known for sharing “good
news” while frequently leaving off the good. Now the man could be clueless at times, but there
are a lot of moments where he shows off why he was so honored through his life. He manages to
make a machine that shows possible futures, saves the flow of time after
Leela and Fry almost break it and creates a way of space travel that moves
space around the ship. The fact that this man makes a living from making the impossible
possible is nothing short of remarkable. Our most brilliant scientist should not come as a
surprise to anyone. After all, he’s been stated to be the smartest man in the universe. We have to
give the gold medal to Rick Sanchez. He’s been called overpowered, full of himself and downright
insane. But the man has accomplished a lot. A portal gun to easily travel the multiverse.
A set of robotic limbs that pop up when he loses an arm or leg. Super robotic suits. And
taking down two government powers in one day just because they both crossed
him? The man is to be feared. But what do you think? Who are the most
brilliant minds of the fictional world? Let us know in the comment section.
Don't forget to hit that notification bell and binge our Good-to-Evil playlist.
Where we break down the morality of the characters in your favorite cartoons, shows
and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked!
