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Western Animation: Evil Con Carne

Left to right: Hector Con Carne (and Boskov), Major Doctor Ghastly, and General Skarr

Our world is filled with incredible beauty

And that is why I feel it's my duty

To send armies of troops to invade the coastline

To crush, and destroy... until it's all mine!

—Hector Con Carne

Evil Con Carne was a short-lived animated series created for Cartoon Network by Maxwell Atoms. It premiered in 2001 as one of the two cartoons that formed a part of the three shorts series Grim & Evil, the second one being The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy. After the split that gave each of these cartoons their own half-hour slots, however, Billy and Mandy went on to have many more seasons whereas Evil Con Carne was soon cancelled, even though it never lost its edge.

Set in an alternate history where the League of Nations was never disbanded and peace and harmony is the norm among the countries of the world, the plot concerns the misdeeds of villain protagonist Hector Con Carne, a billionaire Hispanic arms smuggler reduced to brain in a jar status after an assassination attempt destroyed his mansion along with most of his body. Rescued by Major Doctor Ghastly, a perky female mad scientist who had fallen in love with him, and implanted into the body of a Russian circus bear named Boskov, Hector now reigns over an arch-criminal organization named Evil Con Carne, which combats the League of Nations' forces in a grandiose attempt to conquer the Earth. The cast also features the sadistic General Skarr, a competent military strategist and Hector's second-in-command, who constantly tries to kill Hector and seize ECC's reins for himself.

Tropes:

Action Girl: Major Doctor Ghastly, Kablammity Jane.
Affectionate Parody: The song at the end of the Musical Episode seems to be at least partially based on Afroman's "Because I Got High".
Alternate History: The League of Nations has not disbanded, there is peace and harmony among the nations of the Earth, and Abraham Lincoln is still president. The show takes place in the 21st century, but it has a sort of 1960s chic to it.
Animate Body Parts: Hector's Brain and Stomach are both able to speak. And despite their jars flashing when they do, they still are able to speak without them. Oh, and the stomach has a mind of its own.
Arch-Enemy: Hector and Cod Commando, to each other.
Art Evolution: The drawing style in the last few episodes became greatly more colorfully detailed and less flat looking, likely to look more different from Billy and Mandy
Big Eater / Extreme Omnivore: Boskov, and Hector's stomach.
Bilingual Bonus: "Con Carne" is Spanish for "with meat".
Blah Blah Blah: Cod Commando speaks entirely like this.
Blank White Eyes: General Skarr, who is blind in one eye.
Bloodless Carnage: Subverted; as Cod Commando attempts to teach a group of primary-school children how to cross the street, he's instantly run over by a passing car. Cut to a surprisingly gory scene of him in a bloody mess on the road... right before he sits up, winks at the audience and gives the thumbs-up sign.
Brain in a Jar: Hector, post-explosion.
Butt Monkey: General Skarr, and how.
Canon Immigrant: After Evil Con Carne was cancelled, General Skarr became a recurring character in The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy. Canonically, after Evil Con Carne (the organization) was abolished, he decided to go straight and get himself a house in the suburbs... the one right next to Billy's, much to his chagrin.
Call to Agriculture: That's what Skarr does in Billy and Mandy. In fact, when Hector restored Evil Con Carne (the organization) and hired Skarr back, Skarr's obsession with his garden turned him against Hector when the Evil Con Carne forces damaged it.
Card-Carrying Villain: It's called Evil Con Carne.
Crossover: Three times with Billy and Mandy.
The Ditz: Major Doctor Ghastly, Boskov.
Dumb Muscle: Boskov, Estroy's sons.
Enemy Mine: Hector and Cod Commando had a situation like this once.
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Hector is so terrified of disappointing his elderly mother, all these years he's been pretending to be a dental hygienist as opposed to an international arch-criminal. Apparently, his mother never watches the news, because Hector's charade works for far longer than it should, even when his mom visits his lair.
- I was under the impression that Hector's mother was blind. That would explain things.
  - Actually, she knew all along and just pretended to believe Hector's lies.
- Averted with Skarr, who hates his mother.
Evil Versus Evil: Hector versus Estroy. Also, when Hector decided to reunite the world's villains to form a League of Destruction, the league destroyed itself because nobody would accept anybody else as leader.
Expy: Doctor Courage and his sons, Max and Rick, are obvious parodies of either the main gang from Johnny Quest or of the characters from The Venture Bros.. Or both.
- Also, Hector's "neighbor" Estroy, an equally obvious parody of Destro from G.I. Joe.
- Not to mention that General Skarr is an obvious homage to Herr Starr of Preacher, with a uniform that looks a lot like Fearless Leader from Rocky and Bullwinkle
The Faceless: Hector's face, pre-explosion, is never shown; even old photos of him cut off at the neck. However, we do see that he was a very tall and very well-muscled man with flowing black hair tied back in a ponytail.
Fake Brit: General Skarr.
Genius Bruiser: Hector (pre-explosion) and Destructicus.
Getting Crap Past the Radar
Hartman Hips: Major Doctor Ghastly.
Hey, It's That Voice!: Phil LaMarr voices Hector Con Carne, while Frank Welker does Bosko's vocals.
- Grey DeLisle voices Major Dr. Ghastly
- Armin Shimerman voices General Skarr
- Maurice LaMarche voices Estroy. Oddly fitting, as he voiced Destro in the DIC version of G.I. Joe.
Humongous Mecha: Hector's short-lived B-1000 Suit.
Inadequate Inheritor: Destructicus Con Carne, a good guy.
Ghastly: So what do you think? He's not too bad, is he?
Hector: That's just it! He's not bad at all!
Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Hector Con Carne and General Skarr.
Kid from the Future: Destructicus Con Carne, son of Hector and Ghastly.
Latin Lover: Hector before losing his body.
Leitmotif
Musical Episode: "The Pie Who Loved Me" (see page quote)
Mad Scientist: Major Doctor Ghastly.
Nerds Are Sexy: Major Doctor Ghastly.
Noodle Incident: Hector once conquered Canada but this was never seen onscreen. It was just mentioned when Hector tried to convince the other villains to accept him as the leader of the League of Destruction. Estroy asked who cared about Canada.
Oblivious to Love: Hector on Ghastly's feelings for him.
Organ Autonomy: Hector's stomach has a mind of its own.
Otaku: Hector adores Japanese culture.
Overly-Long Gag: In episode 10 (Tiptoe through the tulips part 2), Hector is out of his jar crawling in a corridor, when a mess call gets his entire army of minions marching over him.
Paper-Thin Disguise: Estroy once disguised a bomb as a Skarr-like girl to get back at Hector. Skarr fell for it despite Hector and Ghastly having pointed out the fuse. Skarr was the only one who fell for the disguise.
Perky Female Minion: Major Doctor Ghastly.
Punch Clock Hero: Cod Commando and the guys at SPORK.
Punch Clock Villain: Everyone at Evil Con Carne except Hector.
The Rival: Estroy, Hector's fellow evil genius.
Screwed by the Network: Lampshaded by General Skarr in The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy; while explaining to Billy why he's no longer a general in an evil organization, he mentions that the Network executives bought out Evil Con Carne so they'd have less competition in their plans to conquer the world.
- Stealth Insult
The Starscream: Skarr seems to think he'd be a better leader of Evil Con Carne than Hector, and in several episodes has tried to take over. However, in one episode, when Hector was incapacitated and Skarr took over in the mean time, he was completely useless. Seriously - he needed an instruction manual to figure out how to get the soldiers to stand to attention.
- You have to remember, though, that this is more than Hector ever convinced those same soldiers to do. In an instant they knew perfect Drill and Ceremony, when seconds before they were useless.
- Skarr managed to take over when Hector replaced the mooks with dreadbots and Skarr reprogrammed them to be loyal to him. It was a short-lived victory, as Skarr-bot followed his "father's" example and re-reprogrammed the dreadbots. Skarr was proud of him, however.
Surrounded by Idiots: Hector's soldiers apparently can't even aim a weapon straight. Once when one of Evil Con Carne's airships is attacked, a guy is shooting holes in the deck.
Terrible Trio: Hector, Ghastly, and Skarr.
Too Dumb to Live: Boskov
- Skarr was the only one who fell for the Paper-Thin Disguise (see above)
Tuckerization: In an obscure interview, Maxwell Atoms mentioned that he'd caricatured his friends as ECC foot soldiers.
Villain Protagonist: Hector Con Carne.
Word Salad Title & Gratuitous Spanish: "Con Carne" means "with meat", which makes it sound like "evil" is the main ingredient in an entree. Perhaps Evil Tastes Good?