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In the 1990s animated TV shows were freed from their Saturday morning shackles and allowed to entertain older kids, adults even, leading to a change in industry attitudes toward the medium of animation.

Companies like Disney claimed TV cartoons were just for kids and should be kept "wholesome" so they don't warp young minds, then along came a show called Ren & Stimpy to dispel that myth.

Ren & Stimpy changed the cartoon game by bringing elements of the surreal and utterly bizarre to the mainstream, as well as a renewed appreciation for old timey "noodle limb" style character animation.

As you peruse this collection of 10 of the strangest animated TV shows made in the 1990s you'll definitely notice some similarities to Ren & Stimpy, and lots of shows that are simply one-of-a-kind!

1. Life With Louie (1994-98)-

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Louie is just like every other kid on the playground, except for the fact that he basically looks like the little person version of Louie Anderson, complete with the comedian's hairdo and sense of style.

Louie comes off as the child equivalent of Garfield the Cat, and despite the fact that his show may have singlehandedly led to the current obesity crisis (I kid, I kid) it had a lot of fans and lasted four seasons.

Life With Louie was endearing, strangely relatable, and full of delightfully surreal moments, like the time Louie was inspired by his conversation with a cow (skip to 17:30):

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2. The Brothers Grunt (1994-95)-

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The Brothers Grunt is about five (albino?) humanoids who run around in their underwear, make strange grunting noises and eating cheese while they search for their lost brother.

The Brothers Grunt didn't do so well from a critical standpoint, and didn't last long as a result, but it did help launch the career of Ed, Edd n Eddy creator Danny Antonucci, so it wasn't all bad!

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Super Mario Bros 3 quickly became a fan favorite when it came out in 1988 because of one main thing- the Tanooki Suit! The addition of a suit that allowed Mario to glide through the air and look like a cute raccoon at the same time made gamers grin with glee, and gave Mario a unique sense of style he never had before.

The Frog and Hammer suits are pretty cool too, but did you know Mario was originally going to have access to a Centaur suit?

Apparently the game designers felt Mario dressed up like a raccoon and a frog was all the horsing around gamers could handle! *kneeslapper*

Read 13 Things You Might Not Know About Super Mario Bros 3 at Gamma Squad

Every bunch of bananas takes a mighty long trip to get to its final destination, and sometimes little critters hitch a ride like creepy crawly little stowaways aboard the SS Banana, taking them to see faraway lands...like Wales.

A man from Wales recently picked up a bag of banana from his local Tesco supermarket and brought a severe case of arachnophobia home for his wife.

She opened the bag of bananas and discovered to her horror that the bag held a cocoon full of spider stowaways- Brazilian Wandering Spiders, which look like this when full grown:

The Brazilian Wandering Spiders, or Banana Spiders as they’re commonly know, are considered the “world’s most venomous spider”, and their venom is known to cause painful erections that last far longer than a dose of Viagra.

The spiders started to hatch right before her eyes, so she threwthe bag in the freezer and called Tesco for some answers. The company requested she return the cocoon and fruit to the store so they could be investigated, still no word on whether the husband kept a few of the spiders around for the couple's next date night.

-Via TDW

The Castle Homes neighborhood in Akron, Ohio is currently in the midst of a crapstorm- a serial crapper has been leaving steaming piles of hatred on parked cars and, in at least one incident, on toys left in the front yard.

The man is currently wanted for 19 different illegal dumps in Castle Homes, but Akron police believe he may be responsible for dropping over one hundred smelly deposits in the last two years.

Thanks to a time lapse camera set up by a resident whose car has repeatedly fallen victim to the serial pooper we now have a face to match the feces:

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If you know this man you probably won't admit it, but for the sake of decency call the Akron Police and help them bring this crappy citizen to justice!

-Via Gawker

The Doctor has been assisted by some mighty fierce female companions over the last five decades, and Doctor Who has helped make strong female characters into a sci-fi staple. But does Doctor Who, with all of his powerful female friends, pass the Bechdel test?

The Mary Sue’s Sarah Barrett decided to find out how the 21st century episodes of the show rate according to the Bechdel test, and not surprisingly it scored a pretty darn high 80%!

Graphic One contains data per series, per writer, per showrunner and per companion, while Graphic Two contains data color-coded data per episode (click links to see full size versions)

The Bechdel test is an extremely simplified way to determine whether a show or movie contains gender bias, but it’s an entertainment type test used on entertainment type stuff, so just go with it!

Read more about Doctor Who's Bechdel test results here

He’s a willy, nilly, silly old bear with an extremely diverse group of animal friends who lives in a dark and foreboding forest called the Hundred-Acre Wood. He’s Winnie The Pooh, and ever since A.A. Milne brought his son's stuffed bear to life in a wonderful series of stories every kid who meets him instantly falls in love with him and his sugary sweet tales.

Our old pal Stacy Conradt put together a rather interesting collection of fluffy facts about Disney's version of that honey lovin' little bear, including this tasty tidbit- Winnie the Pooh has his own star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame! Not bad for a bear with a head full of fluff!

Read more facts about Winnie The Pooh at mental_floss

We recently posted an article featuring photographer David Williams' series that revealed the rather ordinary looking men who defy the crazy cat lady convention and prefer the company of cats to dogs.

Well, allow us to present the antithesis of that series focused on normalcy, because this photo series by Andréanne Lupiens is all about the crazy.

Crazy Cat Lovers reveals the madness feline fans experience when they let too many cats into their homes, and the fantasy of being surrounded by kitty pals becomes a nightmarish reality.

Okay, so Andréanne's photo series is supposed to be whimsical rather than scary, but having your home overrun by bratty cats who don't give a flying hairball about trashing the place seems like a nightmare to me!

-Via Beautiful/Decay

Animation lovers (or more likely the animation obsessed) are constantly looking for ways to make their lives feel cartoony without actually abandoning their flesh and bone body for one made of ink and paint.

Generally this means wearing clothing and accessories featuring their favorite cartoon characters, and maybe the occasional pair of Mickey gloves or puffy slippers shaped like Minnie’s shoes.

Now, thanks to this incredible new line of bags made by Jump From Paper, we’re one step closer to a total toonification of our lives.

The SS 15 collection looks like the kind of bookbag our favorite schoolbound cartoon stars would carry, with strong contour lines, simple shapes and bold colors that make these bags seem too toony to be real!

-Via Boing Boing

The creative folks behind the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game system have a knack for blending their own original content with that of their mythological influences. They’re able to take creatures from mythology such as elves, dwarves, demons and, of course, dragons and create new breeds/races/types that fit right in with their mythic counterparts.

Dragons are still the most popular and enduring species in the game, and although most campaigns don't involve fighting a dragon the addition of a draconian presence can quickly change a group's tone from "we own this quest!" to "we'l! never survive this encounter!"

Add one of the bizarre breeds that made io9's list of The 16 Strangest Dragons in Dungeons & Dragons to your campaign and watch player characters flee with terror when faced with the mindless horror of the Brainstealer Dragon or the undying stench of the rotten Zombie Dragon!

We all know that nature is full of horrors, and we've all seen When Nature Attacks to confirm that animals can easily take out a human with a flurry of hoof blows. 

And then there are those animals that don't need brawn to get the job done, those amazingly adaptive animals who learn to protect themselves in the most terrifying ways.

These critters lurk around just waiting for someone, or something, to mess with them so they can show off their amazing adaptations and scare the fur or feathers off a would-be predator.

Some, like the Horror Frog, actually cause themselves harm when in defensive mode:

Others, like the bravely defiant Fulmar, have learned to spit in a predator's face to avoid becoming a Fulmar McNugget, using their own special sauce to make that predator lose its appetite:

See the 17 Things In Nature That Just Shouldn't Exist Because They're Terrifying here (Some entries contain NSFW language)

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The world of digital media is wide open for new creators to share their vision with the world, and many people are choosing to self publish their stories these days instead of dealing with a publisher.

Putting your story out there by yourself is great, but choosing to also create your own cover art, which is still a big factor in whether people will buy your book or not, can negatively affect sales.

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If the cover art is lousy, offensive or too minimal it may turn customers off, but if it’s a total disaster it might end up on a Tumblr called Kindle Cover Disasters!

Like purveyors of fine literary cheese, the folks behind Kindle Cover Disasters are giving these bottom of the barrel works of cover art a home and an audience, so we can all savor the flavor!

-Via Dangerous Minds

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Living in the Information Age means hearing about stuff happening all over the world the minute it hits the news, and with access to so much info comes the realization that life is full of utter lunacy.

We hear stories about crimes and lives lost on a daily basis, but for every ten (hundred?) terrible news stories there are those other stories that make us smile and scratch our heads in wonder.

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These are the true life tales of the truly bizarre, the stories of strange crimes committed by even stranger people and events so bizarre they sound like an urban legend.

BuzzFeed's 23 Stories That Are Wild From Start To Finish seem too ridiculous to be true, but all most totally check out, and every story on the list is just begging to be made into an episode of Law & Order!

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Read 23 Stories That Are Wild From Start To Finish here

(Girafarig by Mokuyo Cosplay/via AkiJet)

When you hear the words "sexy" and "Pokemon' used together it’s easy to assume that the costumes in question are of Ash's pal Misty or Jessie from Team Rocket, but those have been done to death. In this case we’re talkin’ about full blown sexy versions of pocket monsters, and boy will they ever make you wanna catch 'em all!

Dorkly put together a list of 35 Attempts At Sexy Pokemon Cosplay…That Totally Succeeded, proving that strange can be good when it comes to sexy cosplay.

(Lugia by Rising Moon Cosplay/via Sweet Sensation Photography)

If you’d rather not think of Raichu, Espeon or Dugtrio as sexy then by all means pass this one by, but if you’re intrigued by the idea of sexy Pokemon then take your eyeballs for a walk on the wild side!

See 35 Attempts At Sexy Pokemon Cosplay...That Totally Succeeded here

Having a bad day is a subjective experience- for some hitting too much traffic on the way to work is enough to put them in a funk, while others keep smiling until they’re almost crushed to death by a wall of beverages.

We’ve all had a day we thought was the absolute worst possible, but the people in this terrifying collection of GIFs survived some really bad days, and they have the scars to prove it.

There’s no subjectivity in this collection, these are simply scenes from terrible days converted into GIFs and shared with the interwebs to help us put our bad days into perspective.

See 20 Times People Have Had Worse Days Than You here

Trash collection is one of those luxuries many of us take for granted- we put the trash out on the specified day and let the collectors come and haul it away in their big, stinky trucks, knowing the whole process will repeat on a weekly basis.

And yet we know so little about those valiant folks who usher our waste off to its final resting place- do they hold it against us when we call them garbage men/women, and how do they feel about picking up our trash?

According to the dozens of professionals interviewed for 14 Behind-The-Scenes Secrets of Garbage Collectors calling them garbage men/women is just fine, and most truly enjoy their dirty job. So what do they hate? Poor quality trash bags and the autumn leaf-pocalypse.

Read more secrets of garbage collectors over at mental_floss