Mutant League

A mid-1990s cartoon based on the infamous Mutant League Football and Mutant League Hockey games by Electronic Arts depicting monsters playing pro sports.

An earthquake at a football stadium reveals a cache of illegally dumped toxic waste which mutates all the spectators into half-human abominations. Soon a pro sports league springs up around the mutants, and rather than make the big bucks, rookie athlete Bones Justice decides to play for his dad's team, the last-place Midway Monsters.

Despite surprisingly graphic violence for being aimed at young viewers, Mutant League managed to last two seasons, the second longer than the first.


 * Broken Aesop: A moral of the show was that regular people wouldn't survive the things that happened to the mutant athletes, because "norms can't mutate". The hole in that argument is all the mutants in the show (from the players to the refs, coaches, team owners and other league officials, in addition to civilian mutants) were ordinary humans once upon a time.
 * How is that a hole in the argument? Is there any chance a norm would deliberately try to mutate?
 * Catch Phrase: Two, spoken by Bob Babble: "UN-BEE-LEEEV-able!" and "OOOOH! That's Gotta Hurt!"
 * Christmas Episode: Same thing as A Christmas Carol, but no ghosts.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: Commissioner Zalgor Prig constantly tries to kill Bones for not agreeing to play for his team, the Slaycity Slayers.
 * Disappeared Dad: Bones' father mysteriously disappeared, and a subplot that never really went anywhere was Bones' quest to find him.
 * Good Thing You Can Heal: Although players' arms, legs and heads were frequently knocked off, they could usually come out good as new by bathing in a machine called the rejuvenator. As Joe Magician showed in the second season, though, there was a limit to how far this went...
 * Large Ham Announcer/Everything's Better with Bob: Especially one game commentator with a high-pitched voice.
 * Merchandise-Driven: There was an almost-unknown line of action figures released based on the show. Had there been a third game in the series, GamePro magazine implied it probably would've been based on the show rather than the games already in existence.
 * Pokémon-Speak: Moe and Spewter. Of course, they are so dumb that all Moe can say is "Eat dirt," and all Spewter can say is "Dead meat."
 * That's Gotta Hurt: Often shouted out by Bob Babble whenever a player gets injured.
 * Vocal Dissonance: Bob Babble, the game commentator, who can describe the events of the games the teams play, all the time that his voice is always high-pitched and sounds like the vocal screams of game commentators when they cheer. Mostly the best part is that whenever one player gets injured in a gross way, Bob would often shout out his famous Catch Phrase: "OOOOH! That's Gotta Hurt!"
 * With My Hands Tied: Discussed and parodied in the Season 2 episode "Enter the Skeletoid", when Razor Kidd tells the strong Badass, "I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back!" Of course, the strong guy rips off Razor's arm as a literal response, and the latter snaps back, "Hey! I said tied!" Razor even tries to kick the strong one, who quickly rips off his leg as well!
 * Your Head Asplode: The unfortunate side effect of a machine in one episode that makes players super-strong. Not that it's worse than anything else that happens to the mutants, mind.