Hello everyone. I am back with another silly candidate. Not super certain of him counting, but I figured I would try discussing him regardless. Just so you know, I am exclusively talking about the show; his game counterpart specifically from Nicktoons Unite! may count as silly Pure Evil.
What’s the work?
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is an animated series created by John A. Davis, which aired on Nickelodeon from 2001 to 2006 spawning three seasons and a movie. Said series follows the titular character Jimmy Neutron, who frequently goes on adventures with his two best friends, Sheen and Carl, usually involving his inventions going awry and occasionally deals with various villains such as Professor Calamitous. It also has a spin-off series called Planet Sheen back in 2010.
Who is he? What did he do?
Professor Finbarr Calamitous is a major antagonist of the series, who is the father of Beautiful Gorgeous (who sometimes helps him with his schemes) and was once a student of Ms. Fowl. He is a mad scientist who desires to conquer the world but his schemes get foiled by Jimmy and his friends.
What makes him close to being Pure Evil?
Heinous standards?
I will talk more about this later, but this show has a rather high heinous standard. We have Evil Jimmy who tried destroying Earth while creating another one in his image, the Nanobots who tried deleting all of humanity, Meldar Prime who hosts games where he has the loser's home planet destroyed, and we have the Martians who also tried destroying the world. Then we get into the crossovers where we have Shirley who tried destroying two universes and abused everyone in Dimmsdale and Retroville.
However, I still feel he mostly passes it. From trying to flood the world in one episode, to trying to blow up the entire universe to recreate it in his own image in the crossover special which is something that he nearly succeeds in. That’s not mentioning the fact that he caused havoc in Dimmsdale such as releasing a dinosaur on its citizens and imprisoning Jimmy’s parents in carbonite and helped Anti-Cosmo release the Anti-Fairy which makes him indirectly responsible for the global chaos they have caused. He betrays Sydney Moist by launching him out of his robot (possibly killing him) for not keeping an eye out for Jimmy.
Even if you take into account Fairly OddParents due to him appearing in the crossover, he would still pass it despite the number of villains who attempt to destroy the world as he attempted to destroy the universe. I am not sure if the Yugopotamians have enough weight to them, specifically with the F.L.A.R.G. holiday as the missile Mark used ends up going to Fairy World but the inhabitants seem fine afterwards beyond having smoke everywhere. I don't feel this is too much of an issue for here. I feel the same can be said about King Gripullon as it is not confirmed if the planets he destroyed in his debut are populated.
Moral agency issues?
Nope, nothing suggests this. Not only is he a genius, but he literally tricks the heroes into giving him an egg (which he plans to use to enslave the planet) while lying to them by telling them it would save the world in one episode.
Tragic backstory?
Okay, I saw this was listed as a prevention recently on his IH page but I don’t feel this holds up. While in his debut he does claim to want to take revenge on the people that mocked him for his inability to complete stuff (even saying the names they called him stung), this was only mentioned to be his motivation in one episode. Beyond his debut episode, he seems more interested in conquering the world than getting back at the people who mocked him and never even mentions this again.
Potential redeeming qualities?
While he did team up with Anti-Cosmo and even released the Anti-Fairies for him, it was entirely pragmatic as he promised to help him destroy Jimmy. He does team up with Jorgen at one point in the special, but that was entirely pragmatic to free himself out of the prison and they were later shown bickering with each other when the two merges, so this throws that redeeming quality out the window.
Is he silly?
Without a doubt. For most of his screen time, he has a running gag of being incapable of finishing stuff (which also includes completing sentences) which is sometimes joked about. Even outside of that, we have his debut where Jimmy stops him by tricking him into using the bathroom since he didn’t place one in his robot suit, his defeat in the episode “The Great Egg Heist” where his machine explodes and him flying out saying, “Perhaps I should have given phase two more thought”, him bickering with Beautiful Gorgeous and both him and Beautiful Gorgeous rolling down Mount Everest.
Then we get into the crossover (which is his final appearance of the show) and he still has many comedic moments such as continuously bickering with Jorgen and amusement park music being played when he is swinging Timmy’s and Jimmy’s friends using Jorgen's magic. When Anti-Cosmo betrays him, he teams up with Jorgen to get out and Jorgen slams him on the bars of the jail cell door, to which he comments that he left the keys on the door and the episode ends with him being turned into Jimmy’s mom.
However, I still feel he is taken seriously in-universe. In their first encounter, Jimmy calls him dangerous despite noting that he is a “bumbling genius” and during the chase scene in the ending of the episode, Jimmy is shown worried about Calamitous catching up to him. His scheme to flood the world is taken seriously by the heroes. When he poses as a film director, he tricks Jimmy and his friends into doing a movie production and purposely endangers them as part of his scheme to get rid of them with our heroes taking the danger seriously.
Also, I noticed that in the crossover, while still having numerous comedic moments, his running gag of his inability to complete stuff is absent, which helps his seriousness as this is where he is essentially trying to commit omnicide. Him killing Jimmy and Timmy was played seriously with our heroes feeling sad and crying over this (even though they didn’t die since fairy magic can’t be used to directly kill people). Cindy and Jorgen both call him insane for his plot. The bomb was about to explode with our heroes being scared of this with Jorgen himself stopping it at the very last second.
What prevents him from being Pure Evil?
Ultimately, I feel he fails the heinous standard to Shirley who attempted to destroy two universes. While you could argue that Shirley is more powerful due to being capable of adapting to anything, I still feel it holds up as a prevention since he is a genius who gains fairy magic which is capable of warping reality. I will also add the fact that Calamitous used Jorgen’s magic to go back to his dimension, which shows that he could target other dimensions beyond his own if he truly wanted to. Timmy and Jorgen even use fairy magic to traverse between the two universes during the specials which doesn't help his case.
He is shown to be affable in some episodes, such as his debut where he rang on the doorbell when he could have taken Goddard (Jimmy’s robotic dog) by force and even helped Jimmy’s Dad clean the chimney. He even tells Carol that he’ll receive a “charming gift basket” when he rules the world when he destroys Jimmy’s Null-Generator.
He also cares about his daughter, Beautiful Gorgeous, despite bickering with her on occasions.