Fred and Barney Meet the Thing

In the late 70s and early 80s Marvel tried to make all their cartoons "kid friendly", even if it meant completely destroying their beloved characters.After destroying The Fantastic Four by replacing The Human Torch(we can't have kids setting themselves on fire) with a stupid robot, they still felt the need to further disgrace The Thing.This time Ben Grimm is a teenager with two rings that he touches together to become The Thing.No one ever knows he's The Thing because he walks around the corner to change.His friends never notice that Ben and The Thing are never around at the same time.Weirdly, that's one of the best things about this show.All the stories are truly horrible.It seems like they just made up the stories week by week without worrying about anyone noticing.Anytime a new character appears, they show up in the next episode as one of Ben's friends, it's extremely strange.They even added a laugh track to the last few episodes because that's the only way you will ever realize they are trying to be funny.The most important thing about this cartoon is that it's very clear that Marvel thinks kids who watch TV are much dumber than those who read comic books.They're probably right.