''Evil Con Carne'' is an American

animated television series An animated series is a set of animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can have eith ...

created by

Maxwell Atoms Adam Maxwell Burton, known professionally as Maxwell Atoms, is an American animator, screenwriter, storyboard artist, and voice actor. He is the creator of the Cartoon Network series '' Grim & Evil'' and its subsequent spin-offs, ''The Grim Adven ...

for

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, ...

. The series centers on wealthy crime lord Hector Con Carne, who is reduced to his brain and stomach after an assassination attempt and subsequently implanted onto Boskov, a purple circus bear. Aided by scientist Major Dr. Ghastly and military leader General Skarr, Hector now oversees criminal organization Evil Con Carne, continuing his quest for world domination. The series first appeared on

during the show ''

Grim & Evil ''Grim & Evil'' is an American animated television series created by Maxwell Atoms for Cartoon Network. It consists of two segments which were eventually spun off into their own series, ''The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy'' and ''Evil Con Carne ...

'', along with sister series '' The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy''. Thirteen more half-hour episodes of ''Grim & Evil'' were produced in 2003 and 2004; the two series became separate programs later that year. While ''The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy'' went on to run for six seasons, ''Evil Con Carne'' only ran for thirteen full episodes (22 airings) and ended on October 22, 2004. After the show's end, its characters would frequently make cameo appearances in ''Billy & Mandy'', with General Skarr becoming a recurring character. An official

series finale A series finale is the final installment of an episodic entertainment series, most often a television series. It may also refer to a final theatrical sequel, the last part of a television miniseries, the last installment of a literary series, or ...

, titled "Company Halt" (which was also a crossover with ''Billy & Mandy''), aired on March 16, 2007.

Premise

Hector Con Carne (

Phil LaMarr Phillip LaMarr (born January 24, 1967) is an American actor, comedian and screenwriter. LaMarr was one of the original featured cast members on the sketch comedy television series '' Mad TV''. His voice acting roles in animated series include J ...

), a wealthy crime lord and evil genius bent on taking over the world and the League of Nations, was caught in an explosion initiated by his nemesis, Cod Commando (Maxwell Atoms), a soldier for the Secret Paramilitary Organized Response Kommand (S.P.O.R.K.). The explosion scattered most of his body across the world. He was rescued by the scientist Major Dr. Ghastly ( Grey DeLisle), who placed his living remains into two containment units: one for his brain, and the other for his stomach. These two units were later installed into Boskov (Frank Welker), a purple

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

n circus

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the No ...

, giving Con Carne's brain control over (almost) all the bear's actions and movements. Hector, Dr. Ghastly and his military leader, General Skarr (

Armin Shimerman Armin Shimerman (born November 5, 1949) is an American actor and author. Early life Shimerman was born into a Jewish family in Lakewood, New Jersey, on November 5, 1949, the son of accountant Susan and house painter Herbert Shimerman. When he w ...

), then created a secret laboratory on an island with a bunny-shaped mountain known as "Bunny Island" (a parody of

Ernst Stavro Blofeld Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a character (arts), fictional character and villain from the James Bond series of novels and films, created by Ian Fleming. A criminal mastermind with aspirations of world domination, he is the archenemy of the Secret In ...

's lair in the

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors hav ...

movies). Gathering an army, Con Carne resumed his quest for world domination and made a new goal: to find his missing body parts. The group's schemes typically end in failure, often due to the behavior and conflicts within the trio: Skarr is tired of being directed by Hector and wishes to overthrow him; Ghastly cares more about her unrequited love for her boss than world domination; while Hector is narcissistic, megalomaniacal, and generally abusive towards his henchmen.

Voice cast

Main

as Hector Con Carne * Grey DeLisle as Major Dr. Ghastly *

as General Skarr, Hector's Stomach *

Frank Welker Franklin Wendell Welker (born March 12, 1946) is an American voice actor. He began his career in the 1960s, and holds over 860 film, television, and video game credits as of 2022, making him one of the most prolific voice actors of all time. With ...

as Boskov the Bear

Recurring voices

as Cod Commando *

Maurice LaMarche Maurice LaMarche (born March 30, 1958) is a Canadian voice actor, comedian, and impressionist. He has voiced the Brain in '' Animaniacs'' as well as its spin-off '' Pinky and the Brain'', Big Bob in ''Hey Arnold!'' (1996–2004), and a variety of ...

as Estroy * Peter Renaday as Abraham Lincoln * Rino Romano as Destructicus Con Carne

Production

A viewer's poll to decide a new Cartoon Network animated series, titled ''

Big Pick This is a list of television programs currently or formerly broadcast by Cartoon Network in the United States. The network was launched on October 1, 1992, and airs mainly animated programming, ranging from action to animated comedy. In its ea ...

'', was held on the internet from June 16 to August 25, 2000. The three choices for short films to become animated series were '' The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy'', '' Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?'', and ''Longhair and Doubledome''. After the event, the ''Meet the Reaper'' short film won with 57% of the vote. While ''Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?'' became an animated series in 2002, ''Longhair and Doubledome'' appeared at another ''Big Pick'' event, but lost once again. Another original short/pilot titled ''Evil Con Carne'' had been produced in 2000, shortly after the ''Billy & Mandy'' short. The two ideas were ultimately combined into a single show, as Cartoon Network desired a show that had a "middle cartoon" as an in-between segment (a format found in the ''Dial M For Monkey'' and ''The Justice Friends'' shorts in ''

Dexter's Laboratory ''Dexter's Laboratory'' is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. It follows Dexter, a short, enthusiastic boy-genius with a hi ...

'', and the '' I Am Weasel'' segment on ''

Cow and Chicken ''Cow and Chicken'' is an American animated comedy television series created by David Feiss for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. It is the third of the network's Cartoon Cartoons. It follows the ...

'')''.'' The resulting show, ''

'', premiered on August 24, 2001, and was put on hiatus on October 18, 2002. In 2003, 13 more half-hour episodes of ''Grim & Evil'' were made, but aired when Cartoon Network separated the two series, and ''The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy'' and ''Evil Con Carne'' earned their own full-length series later that year. After production wrapped on both series' new seasons, the network gave

a decision to choose one show to continue, while the other would be dropped from production. Atoms ultimately went with ''Billy & Mandy'', and the final season of ''Evil Con Carne'' subsequently aired in 2004. He embraced the network's decision to drop one of the two series, as he considered being in charge of producing both shows difficult. After ''Evil Con Carne'' was cancelled, its characters appeared in ''The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy''. The first cameo was in the episode "

Chicken Ball Z ''The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy'' is an American animated television series created by Maxwell Atoms for Cartoon Network. The series originally premiered as segments of ''Grim & Evil'' on August 24, 2001. The segments were spun-out into the ...

" which ended with Mandy purchasing Hector's Bunny Island. General Skarr moved to Billy's neighborhood in the episode " Skarred for Life" after Bunny Island was bought out by an " entertainment corporation that didn't want competition in world domination". Since then, General Skarr went on to become a recurring character in ''Billy & Mandy''. In the episode " Company Halt", Con Carne and Ghastly appear in Endsville, in order to recruit Skarr and revive Evil Con Carne (the organization, not the show) in another attempt to take over the world; naturally, like most of their other schemes and misadventures, it ends in failure when Skarr turns against Hector once he tries to destroy his garden in an attempt to kill Billy, and crushes him with a giant catapult (which they were to use to destroy the neighborhood), causing Ghastly and the rest of the army run away. According to Tom Warburton, characters from ''Evil Con Carne'' were originally set to appear in the television special "The Grim Adventures of the KND". Hector, General Skarr, and Dr. Ghastly (strangely, they're "costumed" by Lazlo, Raj, and Clam) did briefly appear in the crossover's end credits in a crossover with ''

Camp Lazlo ''Camp Lazlo'' is an American animated television series created by Joe Murray for Cartoon Network. The series follows Lazlo, an anthropomorphic spider monkey that goes to a camp called "Camp Kidney", a Boy Scout-like summer camp in Pimpleback M ...

'' titled "Evil Camp Carne". On July 29, 2016, the series aired re-runs for a single day on Cartoon Network's sister channel,

Boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool, typically constructed with aerofoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the thrower, while a non-returning ...

, in the United States, despite the schedule for Boomerang saying that '' The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy'' was airing in its timeslot.

Censorship

When the show was running as a segment on ''Grim & Evil'', the two part episode "The Smell of Vengeance" was subject to censorship in the wake of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

. The episode centered on Hector and his army using an oversized stink gun on

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, unleashing a stench that sends its citizens into a frenzy. A particular scene featured people jumping off of the World Trade Center prompted the decision. "There are the twin towers, and you see tiny, little people hopping off the roof of the towers into the water", said Linda Simensky, then senior vice president of animation for Cartoon Network. "I mean, two weeks ago, you wouldn't have thought about it. What were the chances of anyone jumping out of the World Trade Center?" In response, Atoms reworked the episode, so it took place in rural Kansas instead; despite these changes, the episode was still suspended from broadcast rotation.

Episodes

Note: Most of the episodes did not air in production code order.

Season 1a (2001–02)

Season 1b (2003–04)

Season 2 (2004)

Crossover episode (2007)

Home media

Five episodes are included as bonus features in the Season 1 DVD set for '' The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy''. On August 16, 2018, the entire series was added to the

iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...

under a single volume.

References

External links

* (archive) * * {{Rough Draft Studios 2000s American animated television series 2000s American comic science fiction television series 2001 American television series debuts 2004 American television series endings American animated television spin-offs American children's animated comic science fiction television series Alternate history television series Brain transplantation in fiction Television series by Cartoon Network Studios English-language television shows Fictional depictions of Abraham Lincoln in television Military science fiction television series Animated television series about bears The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy Spanish-language television shows Supervillain television shows Television series created by Maxwell Atoms Television series set in 2002 Television shows set in the United States Cartoon Cartoons