The STRUGGLES of Invader Zim

Thanks so much for watching! What's your favorite episode of Invader Zim?

Invader Zim was definitely one of the shows that influenced my tastes as a kid. It was edgy, amusing, twisted and gross. It helped to nourish my then budding love of horror.

Dark Harvest was the creepiest episode for me with Zim stealing organs replacing them with random stuff and putting the stolen organs in him. Also the fan series "A Very Tall Problem" is a testament to the lasting legacy of Invader Zim.

I love this show so much! One of my favorite episodes is “Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom". Where Dib throws a muffin at Zim, but won’t admit it. The episode is set up to make us think that Dib had finally succeeded in exposing Zim to the world, but in the end it was just a simulated ploy to get Dib to admit that he threw the muffin. I just love how Zim has all this awesome technology and uses it for petty reasons 😂

Invader Zim is amazing. The idea of Nickelodeon looking at Vasquez' work and going "yeah, we can make a show with this" is so funny to me. Also, what surprises me about Invader Zim is not the stuff they had to censor, but the stuff they got away with.

No matter how dark the show was, I still find the lore the most underrated aspect of the show. The best too

I love the “Bloody GIR” Easter egg! I’ve had him as my profile picture for like a year and a half now. It’s so unsettling to see such a bubble character frowning, and covered in blood…

The Rubber Piggy episode is for me the most disturbing one ever, the ending is just psychological terror at it's finest with that note Zim send to himself into the time portal to his brain and how Dib nearly died. The original idea for the creators was for Dib to die for the rest of the series and they had to change it due to Nickelodeon, so great they did because this ending is far more creepy, just incredible.

I think the reason why Invader Zim was so unique to me and probably other people is how the humor is kinda like a forerunner to Rick and Morty's with how random and snappy it is. It was our introduction to it and topped off with Jhonen Vasquez's unique and bizarre art style. I always liked how even as a kid I knew I would've hated to live on Dib's world where everything looked dirty and everyone was insane but that's its charm. My favorite moments were when one of the characters had to go into the inner city at night and just how spooky and over the top outlandish everything was

Yeah, Invader Zim was certainly a show that doesn’t seem like nickelodeon would greenlight for a series. It was dark, cruel, and gross but honestly, I think that made me love it even more. The series worked well because the main two characters, Dib and Zim, trade loses and its usually their own fault, it’s not like in Catdog or bad episodes of others good shows where the world honesty hurts just one character(s) who didn’t do anything to deserve it. you also relate to both, zim thinks he’s great and is loved by his leaders were in actuality the tallest HATE him and just want him out of the way. Dib is the “crazy loser” in class who annoys the other students with his ideas of the supernatural. Both have really great egos that often case them to fail. It’s a dark weird show that I don’t think I would change anything about if I could.

My favorite story about Invader Zim is that my 4th grade teacher had a brother on the animation crew and was able to get our class to be a test audience for the pilot. Got to see it about 6 months before its TV release.

Zim was influential for its time. I remember Making Fiends having a super similar tone and art direction. Nobody ever talks about Making Fiends, man.

glad they fought back against a lot of the changes, networks will literally ruin a show for no reason cause they never have any idea what kind of shows people want to actually watch, this show defined a generation, horror is one of my favorite genres shows like this and courage the cowardly dog are definitely part of it, there needs to be more horror based animation for younger audiences

It blew my mind finding out Zim was made by my favorite comic author as a kid. One of my fondest memories with my sister is when she would drive me to our local Newbury Comics every Friday to buy me the next Johnny the Homicidal Maniac comic. I was in middle school and she just got her driving permit so it was a nice bonding experience. I still have all of them in perfect condition. Great video Jordan!

For those who wished the show went on longer than I did, there are some old videos on YouTube on the voice cast of the show doing a table reading of a few unproduced episodes at some conventions. I'd really recommend watching them.

I loved invader zim when it was on air and still love it, just re-watched recently. It was exactly my idea of humor and loved the visuals. I didn't find it scary and I think its good for kids to see that stuff in a safer environment like invader zim. One of my favorites was definitely dark harvest, loved the organ stealing.

This was the Nick rival to CN's Courage for me, my two favorite shows bar none. Weird, creepy and genuinely hilarious, I can't not notice the VAs in other work now, instantly knowing them and always smiling. There's added hilarity to the Invader Zim behind the scenes weirdness when you listen to the commentary on the old DVD box set with my favorite episode, Dark Harvest, having the most telling moment. Apparently, said episode was a test to see how far they could push it and still get the green light, and they were excited.... until they remembered how new episodes would get shown. Nick would show them in a gymnasium and play them for test groups and the approval people and I can mostly quote what is still vividly in my head in the commentary for it: "So first up was a Dora episode and after that a Nick Jr show.... and THEN Dark Harvest came on! I've never heard a roomful of people go dead quiet that fast in my life. We were looking for the closest exit to try and run." Never laughed so hard at commentary in my life.

This was one of those shows that would’ve been great with a reboot for more mature audiences

Something I find interesting is that a person Jhonen worked with during Invader Zim and other projects is a guy named Aaron Alexovich, whose art style is similar to Invader Zim's. He made the webcomic Serenity Rose and did the art for the Invader Zim comics, along with working on the show itself

My friend circle at the time (all young adults) were huge fans of Johnny and Squee, so I immediately recognized the art style in Zim when I first encountered it channel-surfing. They were confused why I would enjoy a “kid’s show,” but I recognized that there were a lot of implied things happening off-screen, and for me that just makes the writing of certain gags seem more clever than something uncensored as the aforementioned comics.