32 Years Ago, A Forgotten MTV Animated Show Arrived Ahead of the Creator’s Classic Cartoon Network Series

August 19, 2026, 1:00pm

Danny Antonucci’s Ed, Edd n Eddy became one of the defining shows of Cartoon Network’s original programming push, running for six seasons and sixty-nine episodes between January 4, 1999, and its 2009 series finale, the television film Ed, Edd n Eddy’s Big Picture Show. The series followed three suburban boys, Ed (voiced by Matt Hill), Edd (voiced by Sam Vincent), and Eddy (voiced by Tony Sampson), as they schemed their way through the cul-de-sac of Peach Creek in pursuit of jawbreakers, using an elastic animation style that stood apart from most cartoons airing alongside it. On top of its impressive longevity, Ed, Edd n Eddy also won a Reuben Award and multiple Leo Awards during its run, being praised by critics while simultaneously giving Cartoon Network an extremely popular show. In fact, Ed, Edd n Eddy was so massive that it turned into a fixture credited with helping define the network’s identity.

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Before Ed, Edd n Eddy, Antonucci launched The Brothers Grunt on MTV through his newly formed studio, a.k.a. Cartoon, after MTV executive Abby Terkuhle saw a bumper ad Antonucci had animated for the network and asked him to expand it into a full series. The forgotten series follows five pale and veiny, boxer-shorts-wearing humanoid brothers — Frank, Tony, Bing, Dean, and Sammy, all voiced by Doug Parker — as they journey through the human world searching for a sixth brother, Perry, who abandoned the group’s monastery rather than accept his role as its chosen leader. Each seven-minute segment plays out like a fever dream built around that chase, with the brothers subsisting almost entirely on cheese and communicating mostly through grunts instead of dialogue (hence the title). There’s a reason The Brothers Grunt vanished from collective memory, though. Across 42 episodes, seven of which never aired, The Brothers Grunt built a reputation as one of the most reviled animated shows of its decade and was canceled amid overwhelmingly negative reception.

What Made The Brothers Grunt So Despised?

Throughout the early 1990s, MTV built most of its animation slate inside Liquid Television, a showcase created specifically to test shorts and creators before committing to standalone series. The Brothers Grunt bypassed that testing entirely, becoming MTV’s first original animated series developed outside Liquid Television. The show was then given a dedicated slot airing directly after Beavis and Butt-Head in the network’s late-night lineup. As anyone but MTV could tell, the placement led to direct comparison to Beavis and Butt-Head, a massive hit thanks to its pop-culture-fluent satire and the format built on two characters who just can’t shut up. Meeting non-verbal characters that had nothing to do with Beavis and Butt-Head in terms of tone and themes led to audience backlash, as the new show felt nothing like what they were used to on that specific window.

Beyond the scheduling mismatch, The Brothers Grunt pushed grotesque imagery past the point where audiences found it funny. The show leaned on the aggressively escalogical style The Ren and Stimpy Show had popularized, then escalated it, having the brothers swimming in feces with eyes popping out of their faces right in the first episode. The pilot even includes a bizarre origin story where a caretaker uses a rake to peel the skin of a giant blob-like being, finding the titular brothers, as babies, hidden in the flesh. There were also obvious structural issues. Since the brothers don’t speak, the caretaker takes over as the narrator, with heavy-handed exposition that shows how much the original concept was flawed. As a result, The Brothers Grunt disappeared from MTV’s own rerun rotation within a year, a swifter fate than most polarizing cartoons of its era faced.

How Did The Brothers Grunt Lead to Ed, Edd n Eddy?

The failure of The Brothers Grunt led Antonucci to create his Cartoon Network masterpiece. By his own account, given years later on a DVD commentary track, someone challenged Antonucci after Grunt’s cancellation, arguing that his gross-out sensibility was too repulsive for a mainstream audience and daring him to prove he could make something for children instead. Antonucci responded by sketching three small boy characters, a concept that, after further development, became the basis for Ed, Edd n Eddy.

Although they are vastly different shows, it’s also interesting to see how Ed, Edd n Eddy reused elements from The Brothers Grunt. Antonucci kept the exaggerated stretches and bulging eyes as core parts of the show’s physical comedy, with slapstick violence becoming a trademark of Ed, Edd n Eddy. There was no body horror involved, though, or long close-ups of pustules and disgusting body parts, which helped a new audience to appreciate Antonucci’s keen sense of action and movement.

The Brothers Grunt has never received an official home video release or a spot on any streaming service, and the episodes that survive online today exist only because fans preserved them independently of MTV.