Top Five Movie Tie-In Cartoons That Made No Sense

When a beloved movie hits theatres, the marketing machine goes into overdrive, and sometimes that includes creating an animated tie-in series. Ideally, these cartoons expand on the story, give fans more of what they love, and make narrative sense. But, as any fan of 90s and 2000s animation can tell you, sometimes the results are… baffling.

Here’s a look at five movie tie-in cartoons that left audiences scratching their heads.

AI Generated image. Source: Shutterstock.

1. The Real Ghostbusters (1986–1991)

Yes, it was wildly popular, and yes, it technically followed the Ghostbusters movie. But if you remember the series, you also remember how it often felt like the characters had been dropped into a completely different universe. Slimer became a comedic mascot who could talk, the Ghostbusters often interacted with bizarre child-friendly villains, and episodes frequently ignored the adult themes of the film. Fans sometimes joked that it was less about busting ghosts and more about merchandising slime.

2. Jumanji: The Animated Series (1996–1999)

The 1995 Robin Williams film Jumanji was a tense, imaginative adventure about a magical board game that literally altered reality. The cartoon? A group of kids (with none of Robin Williams’ charm) constantly battled jungle animals and evil hunters who seemed to exist only to move the plot along. Somehow, the rules of the game were mostly forgotten, and the tension of the original movie was replaced with standard “action-of-the-week” hijinks. It made little sense to anyone who actually liked the film.

3. The Mask: The Animated Series (1995–1997)

Jim Carrey’s manic performance in The Mask was iconic, but translating it to a weekly cartoon created a show that was… honestly, over-the-top even by cartoon standards. In the series, Stanley Ipkiss constantly transforms into The Mask to fight vaguely defined “evil” characters, but the rules of his powers are inconsistent, the humour is often nonsensical, and it occasionally felt like a Looney Tunes show with a thin movie tie-in slapped on top. It made about as much sense as a green-faced man surviving a piano drop in a live-action movie—except now it was the entire premise.

4. Mulan II: The Animated Series… Wait, That Exists?

Disney is known for its direct-to-video sequels, but some of their extended content bordered on surreal. Mulan II already stretched the original film’s story, but any cartoon adaptation (which exists in promotional shorts and series tie-ins) often threw continuity out the window. Characters behaved inconsistently, historical context vanished entirely, and storylines seemed designed solely to showcase merchandising potential. Fans of the original epic narrative were left scratching their heads.

5. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (1990s Animated Series)

Okay, technically this isn’t tied to the original 1960s series, but it was meant to capitalize on the 1991 Rocky and Bullwinkle movie. The cartoon reimagined the characters in a world that often ignored the charm of the original while throwing them into random, disjointed scenarios. The humour was oddly modernized, the plots often made no sense in relation to the film, and fans of either the movie or the classic show were left asking, “Why did this even exist?”