The Big Pick viewer poll The series' existence is largely the result of a viewer poll. An
Internet and
call-in event called the
Big Pick was held from June 16 to August 25, 2000. The three final choices were
The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy,
Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?,
Longhair and Doubledome. Out of the three,
Grim & Evil won the poll with 57% of the vote and became its own series.
Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? would later be made into a full series;
Longhair and Doubledome would reappear with another pilot episode in another
Big Pick-style show in 2002, only to fall short once again. Though initially announced by
Betty Cohen in February 2001 for an October premiere, the first season appeared on
Cartoon Network to kick off the "Cartoon Cartoon Fridays Big Pick Weekend" on August 24, 2001. A second season consisting of 13 episodes was announced in March 2002.
Conception Maxwell Atoms created a student film titled "Billy and Mandy in 'Trepanation of the Skull and You'" in 1995. Atoms reused ideas from his student film to create the animated short "Meet the Reaper" for Cartoon Network. Along with
Billy & Mandy, Atoms produced another short,
Evil Con Carne, that would later be combined with the former as one show, under the title
Grim & Evil. The decision came as Cartoon Network wanted the show to have a "middle cartoon" to air in between the
Billy & Mandy segments (similar to the
Dial M for Monkey and
The Justice Friends shorts in ''
Dexter's Laboratory, and the I Am Weasel segments on Cow and Chicken). Sometimes the format was reversed, with a single Grim
segment in between two Evil
shorts. Both sides of the show were influenced by cartoons Atoms watched in the 1980s; Grim
took inspiration from classic comedies from Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros., while Evil'' was a spoof of the era's action cartoons such as
G.I. Joe and
Transformers.
Spin-offs In 2003, before the series aired in reruns for the final time on June 8, the network separated it into
The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and
Evil Con Carne, effectively giving both a full-length series, despite the 2003 episodes originally made for
Grim & Evil. The short-lived
Evil Con Carne series was canceled once all the already-made episodes previously seen on
Grim & Evil were aired. In 2004,
Evil Con Carne was given another short-lived run with the newly created intro and end credits, only to be canceled again.
Grim & Evil, in its original form, has not been seen on TV since 2003.
Evil Con Carnes General Skarr became a recurring character on
Billy and Mandy beginning in the second season, including as a main character in the TV film
Underfist, with other
Evil Con Carne characters making occasional cameo appearances. On October 22, 2004, Cartoon Network aired the half-hour
Billy & Mandy/Evil Con Carne combo: "Five-O-Clock Shadows" and "Ultimate Evil", with it being the final half-hour
Grim & Evil episode. While the two segments weren't exactly produced for
Grim and Evil, they aired on the same night, leading to fan rumors that it makes up Episode 27. On March 16, 2007, Cartoon Network aired the 11-minute
Billy & Mandy/Evil Con Carne crossover episode titled "Company Halt". ==Episodes==