Evil Con Carne is an American animated television series/spin-off of Grim & Evil and sister show of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, created by Maxwell Atoms. The series first appeared on Cartoon Network during the show Grim & Evil, along with The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. Thirteen more half-hour episodes of Grim & Evil were produced, but the two series later became separate programs in 2003. While The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy ran for six seasons, Evil Con Carne only ran for fourteen episodes and ended on October 22, 2004. It was also part of Cartoon Network's brand, Cartoon Cartoons, and is the 15th and final cartoon of the series. An official series finale, titled "Company Halt", aired on March 16, 2007.
Overview
Hector Con Carne was a "jillionaire playboy" crime lord and evil genius bent on taking over the world and the League of Nations. Eventually, he was caught in an explosion initiated by his nemesis, Cod Commando, a soldier for the Secret Paramilitary Organized Response Kommand. The explosion scattered most of his body across the world. He was rescued by a scientist, the curvaceous Major Dr. Ghastly, 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, a purple Russian circus bear, giving Con Carne's brain control over all of the bear's actions and movements. Hector, Dr. Ghastly and his military leader, General Skarr, then created a secret laboratory on an island with a bunny-shaped mountain known as "Bunny Island". Gathering an army, Con Carne resumed his quest for world domination and made a new goal: to find his missing body parts. The "Con Carne" of the title is Spanish/Italian for "with meat", as well as a pun on the expression "evil incarnate" and the dish "chili con carne".
Evil Con Carne's original show, Grim & Evil, became the result of a viewer's poll in 2000. The poll, titled Big Pick, was held on the internet from June 16 to August 25, 2000. The three choices for short films to become animated series were Grim & Evil, Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?, and Longhair and Doubledome. After the event, the Meet the Reaper short film won with 57% of the vote and soon became Grim & Evil. 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. Grim & Evil 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. However during 2003 once Evil Con Carne became separate from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy the previous episodes of Evil Con Carne that first aired on Grim & Evil where shown only. In 2004, the series returned with newly produced episodes only to be cancelled once again later that year. 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" 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 has been a recurring character in the Grim Adventures. In the episode "Company Halt", Con Carne and Ghastly appear in Endsville, in order to recruit Skarr and revive Evil Con Carne in another attempt to take over the world; naturally, like most of their other schemes and misadventures, it ends in failure. 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 did briefly appear in the crossover's end credits in a crossover with Camp Lazlo titled "Evil Camp Carne". On July 29, 2016, the series aired re-runs for a single day on Cartoon Network's sister channel, Boomerang, in the United States, despite the schedule for Boomerang saying that The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy was airing in its timeslot. It is currently unknown whether or not the series will return to Boomerang's schedule in the future.
Note: The first season of Evil Con Carne consists of 27 segments. 26 of them were originally produced for Grim & Evil, while the only bonus non-Grim & Evil segment was "Ultimate Evil", which premiered in the same half-hour on October 22, 2004 as The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy segment "Five-O-Clock Shadows", making it the 2004 Billy & Mandy/Evil Con Carne combo, believing that it could've been a new Grim & Evil half-hour.
Season 2 (2004)
Crossover special (2007)
Home media
The five [|season one] 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 under a single volume.
