The Awful World of Cartoon Endings 

Huge props to Gravity Falls for having one of the best, plot-wrapping ending in all of western animation

Crazy how a bad cartoon ending can pivot a general opinion so strongly

I like how Genndy low key admitted he fucked up Samurai Jack's ending, and immediately retconned it the first chance he got.

Gravity Falls and Avatar the Last Airbender had great endings. Fairly Oddparents felt like it could have ended with Channel Chasers, and Danny Phantom felt like it could have ended with the Ultimate Enemy, just with Danny revealing his identity to his parents. It genuinely does feel like a bad finale can really poison the well.

The worst thing about the terrible ending of Star vs the forces of evil is that this was planned from season 1, it wasn't made out of a rushed decision or because Disney forced them too. The creators thought it was a legit good idea to end the show that way.

BoJack Horseman is a rare case. Even though the show itself was canceled, the creators still delivered a pretty perfect ending imo.

A bad ending can poison an entire franchise.

Gravity Falls, Avatar TLA and Over the Garden Wall to this day have the best endings in animation history. They're simple, concise and wrap up the main plots perfectly with just enough left over to warrant a continuation. It pains me that not a lot of writers don't take notes from these shows.

"Star commits genocide to avoid a genocide" Isn't that just the AoT finale?

To be fair, Star didn't kill "millions", she potentially killed an infinite amount of people considering infinite universes. If half of the universes survive on magic, half of infinity is still infinity, so those universes being destroyed means every living being in those universes were killed by Star.

Nothing beats Ed Edd n' Eddy going out with one of the best movies of all time on Cartoon Network.

Former SVTFOE fanfic writer here (was heavily involved in the fandom back in the day and my stories about the show have 300k+ reads) and all I can say is that the show started going to shit halfway through season 2. I initially got Nefcy's (the show's creator) attention on Tumblr back in the day (she upvoted several artists who wrote fanfiction or made art, and it was no secret that she was following the more popular ones) since I had initial praise for the show in season 1 and partway through season 2. However, as soon as I started pointing out glaring flaws the show had and openly mocking some of the plot elements, character arcs, overall bad pacing and nonsensical subplots, etc. I got blocked by her and the people involved with the show, not to mention that the fandom quickly became a hive of shippers willing to attack one another over nonsense. For example, there were certain shipping weeks where people who were fans of certain ships could contribute art and stuff, and I remember being commissioned to write prompts for a few of them (you'd be surprised how much people are willing to pay for you writing about their favourite ship...) and getting attacked for it. For example, Jarco (Jackie+Marco) and Starco (Star+Marco) were the two 'main' ships for the longest time. I honestly didn't care either way and just wrote stuff for both, and when I contributed to the Jarco week, I got actual death threats sent by Starco fans and vice versa. Needless to say, I quit Tumblr since I was the site going to hell, and I stopped writing SVTFOE fanfics altogether since the fandom had become insufferable, and the show's writing only made it worse since 90% of it had become shipper fanservice instead of storytelling.

The Spongebob movie pretty much stands at the peak of satisfying endings and no other cartoon took notes.

SVTFOE really should be used as the prime example on how not to write a show.

I’m so glad I’m not alone when it comes to Danny’s friends being assholes. I currently rewatched the series and I couldn’t believe how negatively they reacted towards him or tried to take advantage of his powers.

I really think one of the biggest missteps in the Samurai Jack ending is the fact that him and Ashi just leave. Like I understand they had little time in the original writing, but I feel like it would have been incredibly poetic to have Jack with the help of his friends over the years kill future Aku, have everyone say their goodbyes, then Jack goes into the past to fight him one on one. It always just felt weird to me they bothered to bring everyone back but never let them say a proper goodbye, even if it was like a few words from the more notable characters

imagine how EASILY they could make a less shit ending for star just by making the magical characters not DIE and just... turned into a non-magical version of themselves or something

I'll never forgive Disney for cancelling Wonder Over Yonder

I would love to say thank you to ATLA for being such a fulfilling cartoon series, being better then most series being publish to this day.

In recent years Rise of the TMNT was very satisfying to me. The show was canceled in the middle of production on s2. But they still had the movie. So the crew did an amazing job, both visually and story wise. Gravity Falls and Transformers Prime are the ones that live on in my memory to this day. I just love when the show lets the characters be. There’s a whole world that they can explore off camera. It doesn’t matter if we revisit them or not.

I feel like the ending to Star Vs would have worked if Toffee had remained the main villain of the series and been the one responsible for destroying magic. It could worked perfectly as his final revenge against Star and her family.

I find animes have the same problem as well, always a fun journey but never really a fun ending but that still doesn't make me hate the show any less

Adventure Time is probably one of the best examples of a good ending to its story. Wrapping up everyone's conflicts and while still hinting the future for them. Additionally, releasing "Obsidian" to wrap up the fan service with what happened with Marceline and PB was a good move. But the cheery on top is "Together Again", perfect way to bring everyone back in the show, dead or alive have their last part in the episode. Perfect way to tie loose ends and give the two brothers a final goodbye. As far as I know it was cancelled/rushed or anything like that so that might be the reason why it did the finale so perfect.

The last episode of Teen Titans might have been very frustrating to the fans, I still remember the finale as being very poignant. Ending with the message that things inevitably change and you don’t always get a resolution is a crazy note for a cartoon to end on, but it’s remained one of the most memorable and impactful episodes of any series I watched growing up.

Fun fact about Teen Titans ending: The show was originally going to have 4 seasons and the Trigon arc was meant to be the series finale but the show got renewed for the fifth season for it's popularity. Edit: It's even funnier the similar situation happened with TMNT 2012. That show like Teen Titans was supposed have 4 seasons and name of the both season 4 finales is "The End" ( Owari means The End in English ) but Nickelodeon renewed TMNT 2012 for the fifth season. Edit again: Also Ciro Nieli the creator of TMNT 2012 is one of the directors of Teen Titans original.

If you want to see a cartoon's ending that definitely was the fault of it getting canceled/finished, yet it didn't felt rushed at all, look at the O.K. K.O. ending, it wasn't a big final battle against some evil or tried to conclude everything, it was a simple goodbye to us, watchers, and it directly thanks us for watching, not the best ending, but definitely a wholesome one

as someone who basically worshipped SVTFOE as a kid, I remember how my heart sank with that ending, not because it was impactful or amazing but because it was incredibly garbage

If this video doesn’t randomly change subjects, abandon every previous plot point and end abruptly im gonna be extremely disappointed for the lack of cohesion.

Fun fact! SVTFOE's final episode and GOT's final episode aired on the same day! I don't know why that day specifically was cursed to give us such awful finales but it is what it is.

For being cancelled mid season 2, The Owl House had a great ending for me at least.

Owl house has a shockingly good ending, when you take it’s insanely troubled production into account, Disney did NOT want that show to continue the way the creators wanted it to.

Summer Camp Island had one of the best endings to any cartoon and I wish more people talked about it. Its entire last season was an ending and they really gave the show a proper send-off

I definitely agree with the point that while the concept of Steven finally snapping after being used like a doormat is interesting, execution is what matters. Having him take his frustration out on his loved ones in a moment of stress is ALSO interesting, but stuff like that should be used more sparingly to enforce the feeling of "whoa, that's not like Steven, is he doing okay?".

Steven re-fusing with his "gem persona" was animated by James Baxter if anyone was curious. He's always brought in by famous animator studios for special parts they think need his recognized fluidity

I didn't know Gennedy retconned the season 5 ending, but it honestly makes me happy he did. I'm a sucker for shipping and so I was happy to see Jack and Ashi together, though it was still rushed. My deal was that Jack fought so hard for so long to get home and now that he's home, he's not aloud to have a happy ending. Props to Gennedy for retconning that.

Forcing Steven's family to be neglectful and oblivious isn't just infuriating for the character assassination. It even teaches a bad lesson. Kids and adults should know that a panic attack or mental breakdown can occur even when your family and friends are loving and attentive.

Bashing the SVTFOE ending will absolutely never get old. It should be a national holiday at this point. Dark Brandon, please make it happen 🙏

And there will always be Voltron legendary defender who's ending was so bad it managed to make every single person involved in shipping wars agree on something

The other terrible thing about the samurai Jack ending is that due to Ashi needing to fade away due to time travel, this means that everyone who jack met throughout the years of the entire show either is doomed in their timeline since Aku was never defeated, OR nobody in that timeline "ever existed" and thus every time jack decided to save others instead of returning home, it was all for nothing since they were going to disappear anyway. So either way Jack Doomed that timeline and everyone in it is dead.

At least Odd Parents got Channel Chasers, we can pretend that was the actual ending.

I honestly really love the Gumball ending because of the meta commentary it has, especially because of the network it's in. I feel like the entire episode is lampooning the whole "Live Action is in, Cartoons are out" era that CN had at one point, or just the dominance of Live Action remakes in cinema and television. I guess i just think it's cool how the ending may be intentionally abrupt, with things not being resolved properly, because, as this list proves, that's something that can happen to a cartoon show with no warning, and to take that existential horror into the cartoon itself where the characters don't know it's gonna happen, it's kinda genius, in my opinion.

I like to imagine that if both Sweet Victory had played at the Super Bowl and Star had a great ending in 2019, the Covid would've never happened.

“A plot line so thin it made Peppa Pig looks like Shakespeare” That line will break anyone’s ego if said at their work

The Steven universe diamonds thing could’ve been worked around if they showed white diamond as a manipulative abusive monster who was constantly harming the other diamonds for the sake of her own ego and narcissistic goals. Make the other diamonds victims and show how victims can just as easily become abusers themselves. Make pink diamond a victim too who tried to make things better but due to her own fractured view of reality. Sometimes people can’t be helped, sometimes people are just monsters, and sometimes trauma makes people ugly and hurt others.

I feel like when it comes to Butch Hartman shows, The Fairly Oddparents should have ended with Channel Chasers, Wishology, or Meet the Oddparents; and Danny Phantom should have ended with The Ultimate Enemy.

Ashi's death in Samurai Jack seemed like it was directly recreating Gurren Lagann. Right down to "girl who's existence is tied to now-dead main villain, manages to not fade away until after epilogue wedding to hero."

Gravity Falls will always be my favorite ending to a show. (Well, maybe not ALWAYS, but I’ve yet to see a better one). It’s an open ending that still fulfills all the characters, and uses so much from the rest of the show. They did such a good job.

The main writer of Danny Phantom left after season 2 and Butch took over the role of writer for season 3 (you can really tell by the drop of quality)

I'm gonna come clean here. As much as I love Genndy Tartakovsky and his works, if there was one thing I believe is his Achilles' Heel, it's trying to wrap up his shows. Samurai Jack Season 5 and Primal Season 2's finales have issues of rushing throw their stories just to reach their conclusions and Unicorn Warriors Eternal could follow in their footsteps is he isn't careful this time.

Makes me especially glad that The Owl House & Amphibia both ended in a satisfying way.

I think samurai jack had a good message in its ending. The hero doesn't always get what they want but he still has inner peace

I think the BEST cartoon ending is adventure time. They left it just the right amount of ambiguous to bring it back in different mediums but also tied the building plot into a nice bow and serve it to us perfectly.

Fun fact: Teen Titans was originally supposed to end with season 4, which makes sense because of how it was set up, with having Trigon, who is best known as one of the toughest and the most powerful villain the titans have to face; being the main antagonist, Slade coming back as the secondary antagonist, having the season being loosely based on the Terror of Trigon storyline, and the last three episodes of season four is literally called “The End”. After the season ended, CN renewed it for a fifth season because of the series’ popularity.

I will forever maintain that Ashi should have been a student/daughter figure to Jack, someone he felt responsible for as a mentor/pseudo-dad. And yes, have her die/disappear the moment she collapsed. Then cut to Jack reuniting with his family and rebuilding his kingdom, happy but bittersweet.

The ending to Angry Beavers comes to mind as well. As in...the network simply made it disappear because it was a meta commentary on the show being cancelled and the characters realizing they are in a cartoon.

To be fair, bad endings aren't a problem that only plague Western Cartoons. Asian Cartoons, live action stuff and stories in general often have bad endings.... It's like bad endings just plague media in general... The longer the story, the harder the ending...

Ponyhead was an extremely poisonous friend that I cannot imagine anyone liking (like the worst of Patrick's characterization in awful Spongebob episodes). The showrunner said she was based on her best friend irl so that is a yikes from me. Guess she likes having that kind of person around given how Ponyhead never learned any lesson, or was written with the intention of having lessons to learn. I'll never understand the show's fascination with Lars and trying to redeem him. They eventually just killed him and replaced him with a completely different character with the same name too, so that was a bust.

Amphibia actually had the guts to execute its consequences. The characters knew from the very start that their time together was limited, and they went through with it. It even leaves space for a possible continuation.

When I was a kid, I watched all the episodes of Sonic Underground on RU-vid and I remember the line “Game over, Robotnic” because that was the LAST line of the FINAL episode. The ending was so abrupt that the line still echoes in my mind a decade later. The fact that the series got cancelled so quickly that a proper “finale” wasn’t planned was so sad. At least SAT AM got some kind of ending, even if it were a cliffhanger.

16:35 the ending is Chanel chasers, We’ve been following an alternate Version of Timmy that wished to never loose his fairies, suffering the consequences ever since

I think that's the craziest part about how SVTFOE ended The fact that it wasn't canceled. This wasn't a rushed ending. There wasn't production issues they didn't have to scramble to get the ending out. This was PLANNED. This was apparently how they wanted this story to end and that's what baffles me and probably everybody else Hell, we've seen Disney cancel one of their more successful shows The Owl House had a NIGHTMARE production because of Disney Having episodes constantly leaked behind the creator's backs, Getting canceled and losing their final season, only getting three 40 minute "specials" to wrap up the story But despite that, Dana and her AMAZING team managed to give us a much more satisfying ending!

Honestly, the worst cartoon ending for me was Trollhunters. God, the movie's ending still boils my blood to this very day.

0:50 THIS MAN HAS THE BEST OPINION EVER

I was so disappointed seeing Phantom Planet. Danny Phantom has been my favorite cartoon since middle school, and I can't tell you how sad I was seeing the finale. At least the Phandom is still pretty decently active, and resulted in some of the best fanfics I've ever read for a cartoon.

A lot of people meme on Kirby of the Stars/Kirby: Right back at ya, but the show actually pulled off it's finale really well. It ran for 100 episodes and devoted the last 5 to being sort of a movie-like finale event. It raised the stakes in those episodes, it had the big bad in the background finally show up and get defeated, and then it ended on a 'life goes on, but not in a corny way' note. For a show that was basically monster of the week with occasional reoccuring characters and story arcs, it really pulled it off.

I don’t know if anyone else here watched it, but there was a Canadian cartoon called detentionaire that ran for 4 seasons and was such an amazing , plot driven show. It got cancelled and ended on a cliffhanger. The plan was to bring it to Cartoon Network to gain an American audience but CN basically screwed the show over by showing episodes out of order, with missing episodes. The show wasn’t picked wup by the US due to low views since it aired out of order. It’s unfortunate because it’s such an amazing show and the creators had plans for 8 seasons too. It’s gained some popularity in recent years and episodes can be found on RU-vid

I’m like 99% sure there’s way better options to stop a genocide than destroying magic and committing another genocide

This is why Im still annoyed at Steven universe, throughout the show we’re told that the gem empire is massive and the diamonds can’t be reasoned with, hence the rebellion, yet all it takes to defeat white diamond is saying “no you” basically? I expected action but all I got was disappointment

Agree on *Teen Titans* ending being Tolerable. I like the theme of Accepting *Things Change* but the episode feels like it left many things open. Like Slade didn’t need to be in the last episode, it felt like “Look at the shows most popular villain one last time”. But I love that *Beast Boy* kinda won against him.

While not technically a "series" finale, the season 5 ending for Miraculous (the one that wraps up the entire main premise of the show from seasons 1-4) fits on this list perfectly.

i heard sam and max "the office" in the background and now my life is complete

If I had a nickel for every time genndy make a good show with a rushed ending with a lover dying, I would have 2, which is not that much but weird that it happened twice

Credit to The Owl House for not losing its marbles wrapping up its loose ends in a respectable manner for the characters, in wake of Disney wanting to sniff out its flame

I'm so glad that The Owl House was able to give us a satisfying ending despite Disney knee-capping the 3rd season to have only like 140 minutes in total.

Love this video! Great points! Also the beginning gave me a good laugh. Thank you.

Steven Universe ended in a way that made perfect sense given the subject matter the show often dealt with. The whole series we saw Steven sacrifice his childhood and his innocence for the sake of other people, and Future was the aftermath of that. I thought it was beautiful, and ill never forget it.

I genuinely like the idea of Samurai Jack ending on a sad note where Jack ends up losing the one person who was able to claim his heart, but the way they went about it was really bad. The simple change of Ashi dying in Jack's arms right after he kills Aku, leading to that beautiful scene of Jack standing alone under the cherry blossom tree would be a powerful message that not all heroes get the girl, and sometimes winning against the villain has a cost that can't be avoided.

13:51 My biggest problem with the ending of Samurai Jack is I always assumed Jack would defeat Aku but stay in the future when he realizes that if he goes back in the past and kills Aku then the future, the world he's spent decades in and all the people he's helped throughout the years, they will all cease to exist, basically making all his actions up to that point pointless. Jack chosing to sacrifice his own personal happiness for the sake of all the friends and allies he's made over the years seems like the more appropriate way to end the series.

16:20 bruh whatchu mean, george be spittin straight facts through that show. Bro is mad deep

I feel like this video was made for me. There have been so many truly wretched endings over the last few years… and pretty much all of them are right here in this video! You are lovely, Cartoonshi. 💚

Audience: "your writing sucks" Author: "I'm an asshole, what's your excuse?"

star versus still upsets me, I remember how AMAZING like mid season 2 was, the mystery, story telling, how genuinely evil the villains were. I'm sad even thinking about the loss of such a dope show

Adventure times ending belongs here, those last 2 episodes just shoved so much into it and golb just shows up after being referenced like twice in the show and the Lich (a humongous pinnacle villain) isn't even existent, Finn and Jake do jack shit. The only good part about it was the fact that Betty and Simon's story was finally over with her sacrificing herself (even that felt a little stupid) I genuinely think AT was being canceled as well and they just needed an end that season and had to scramble a story line for the last 2 episodes in order to resolve multiple story lines that were being shown.

Steven Universe’s wasn’t really as bad as a lot of the others. The diamonds were also NOT redeemed, they were dethroned and taken out of power. Steven even fantasizes about shattering white diamond in future.

Gravity Falls, Avatar: The Last Airbender, BoJack Horseman, The Owl House, and Adventure Time (Before Distant Lands) prove that good endings are possible. I think a lot of times cartoon creators are in over their head and let ambition get in the way of good storytelling.

Thank you Amphibia and The Owl House for following Gravity Falls' example instead of Star's

I quite like the endings of both Steven Universe and Steven Universe Future to be honest, of course the ending of the shows original run does have the issue of being rushed they still were able to tell the story they wanted to tell and i think its a pretty damn good story especially in that very last episode. I totally get why people don’t like the idea of redeeming the diamonds but i never did see them as “redeemed,” maybe “on the path to redemption” would be more fair to say but even then Steven very clearly doesn’t like them so much as he HAS to work with them to fix all the bad that has happened. Their efforts to change are solely a result of grief over the loss of pink diamond which is not the right reason to be a good person, and while the show could have been more clear about this I don’t mind it remaining subtext with how much they had to cram into the ending. as far as Future goes, its an epilogue so it stands a bit detached from the original and its able to tell its own very interesting story about trauma and mental health. Steven’s reactions may be pushed to the extreme, but I don’t think anything he does or the way he reacts is unrealistic at all.

Samuria jack had me in deep post show depression absolutely hated the ending. With Ashi gone because Aku died in the past that means everyone Jack knew and helped in the future won't remeber him or worse wont even be born. I think him stayin in the fture would have been better. Would have taught a valuable lesson that you cant fix the past but you can change the future

One reason why writers end things on cliff hangers is because they think they'll get another season if they do. It almost never works and the writers should really not put all their eggs in one basket. Hopefully when the writers win the riot they'll get proper pay and more freedom in their writing so that they won't have to hope to get another season to wrap things up.

Wonder over yonder is a personal favorite of mine for, despite being cancelled, still had a pretty good ending.

Mad respect for Last Airbender knowing how to do an ending right ✊️!!!

I have CPTSD and have friends with BPD and PTSD, I found Steven's behavior in Future to be relatable and believable with his level of trauma and spiral into the realization that he was traumatized and was trying to pretend otherwise and force himeslf to be better. I can't speak for your experiences of course, but have found that the vast majority of people that find such behavior unbelievable and extreme, are the people that have not been in that mindset. When he accidently kills Jasper was a completely perfect moment of showing how something can seem rational when we are at the height of mania and then crazy when we calm down and are actually rational. Steven had CPTSD, years of repeated trauma and abuse, and Steven Universe Future has so far been the best representation I have found of struggling to accept that, recognize the behaviors, and try to heal.

It's been many years since I saw Sonic and Sally plow through everything in the series finale. And seeing it again here, only one thing crosses my mind..... TOGETHER WE CAN SHOW THE WORLD WHAT WE CAN DO

With Samurai Jack it probably hurt the most since I still remember watching the show on both cartoon network and boomerang back in the day. But hey unlike the others at least the video game Battle through Time kinda fixed the ending

1:04 Ok haven’t finished the video yet but MAN with the new Black Butler Arc being announced, I totally want to see your review of S2 cause the amount of…EVERYTHING wrong with it can already be heard from your tone alone 🤣

Star Wars the Clone Wars is a great example of how a show doesn’t need a “good” ending in order to have a *perfect* ending.

My biggest fear when it comes to my favorite story ever (One Piece), is that it will have a disappointing ending, but I always try to stay cautious. I do have some faith, since Oda has had the ending planned out from the very beginning.

I can't believe the fariy oddparents has ended with a generic episode that really didn't do well and yet after that ending there's two reboots, with the live action series was most likely ended. Although I wonder that the second reboot will go out.

“I am a child, what’s your excuse” sounds like something that someone would tell a Minecraft RU-vidr

I felt betrayed when Star Vs The Forces of Evil ended its run with a lackluster ending. Having it end with both Earth and Mewni becoming one is incredibly lazy and left too many loose ends and subplots unresolved. While I enjoyed that series from the beginning of its run, it was so underwhelming on how all of it played out.