See also the franchise-wide pages for:
- And The Fandom Rejoiced
- Complete Monster
- Hilarious In Hindsight
- Memes
- Nausea Fuel
- The Scrappy
- The Woobie
- Badass Decay: Shao Kahn. A fireball tossed by Shang Tsung in the final episode "Overthrown" sends him fleeing from Outworld, apparently for good.
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: At a point in "Sting of the Scorpion", Sub-Zero faces a giant snake that has nothing to do with Scorpion's undead army, freezes it and moves on. This is justified because they are in Outworld, where danger is at each corner.
- Magnificent Bastard: "The Secret of Quan-Chi": Quan Chi himself is far less evil but just as cunning and manipulative as his canon counterpart. Quan Chi is a free-roaming sorcerer who wants to conquer Earthrealm. To do so, he waits for the heroes to be distracted by an Outworld attack, then gets the gem of Tetsurri, which is an artifact that brings out the worst traits of a person. Quan Chi disguises himself as an Outworld refugee to trick the heroes so he can secretly use the gem of Tetsurri on them, with his ultimate plan being to make the Earthrealm warriors fight each other, leaving their realm defensless and allowing Quan Chi to take over, a plan which nearly succeeds.
- Memetic Mutation:
- Jax was the fattest kid in school.
- KOMBAT TIME!!
- Quan Chi's infamous scream.
It has to be heard, and seen, to be believed.
- Narm Charm: The animation is crappy, the dialog is sometimes stupid and there are lots of really weird things, but there is something charming about this series.
- Never Live It Down: Jax being angsty over losing his metal arms in "Acid Tongue" and the reveal that he was a fat kid in "The Secret of Quan-Chi" are the things most fans remember about this version of the character.
- Questionable Casting: Luke Perry of Beverly Hills, 90210 fame as Sub-Zero. He looks like the coolest character and the series' equivalent of Wolverine. Then he starts talking. Oddly enough, Perry's natural speaking voice (which was lower and raspier) was more suitable for the role, but why he had a slightly higher register is unclear.
- So Bad, It's Good: The series manages to be kind of endearing in its stupidity.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Due to the series getting Cut Short, a lot of stuff that was set up early on simply disappears because the writers were apparently saving it for later seasons:
- Scorpion. You'd think that being the poster boy for the entire franchise, a formidable rival to Sub-Zero and described (and shown) as a huge threat by the team would warrant him more appearances, right? Nope, he's gone by the second episode, never to be seen again. He doesn't even get a proper bout in against Sub-Zero, whom he dispatches in a single kick while Liu Kang fights him instead.
- Rain never fights the heroes again, despite clearly intending to do so, not even putting in an appearance for the final episode.
- The Smoke subplot vanishes after his introductory episode — which many fans consider to be the best one of the series — and nobody really mentions it again.
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: Raiden is clearly meant to come off as a overly aloof, sarcastic and overall unhelpful jerk, but the way it's presented instead comes off as everyone on the team being ungrateful dicks to him. Not to mention how, despite his aforementioned personality flaws, Raiden often ends up being completely correct; a notable example being him calling out Jax for his wangst in "Acid Tongue".Raiden: Get over it, Jax. Sonya may be in danger because she went back to look for your stupid chip-thing!
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
- Stryker in "Fall From Grace". Yes, Sonya was reckless. Yes, it was unfortunate that he was injured. However, his injury was mostly his own fault since he took it upon himself to push her out of the way of a fireball from Sheeva and getting the shot himself instead of pulling her out the way of it. Plus, as it was shown in both the cartoon and regular canon, she is much stronger than he is; and even if she wasn't, she still isn't what one would call a Damsel in Distress.note
- As covered below, Jax in "Acid Tongue". He spends a disproportionate amount of time whining and acting like he's completely helpless without his metal arms — despite being a Special Forces officer who's still super-strong without them — and makes Sonya go get the damaged control chips (which he himself carelessly discarded) for them, which just sets her up to be captured by Komodai. Even when her life is on the line and he does prove himself, Jax still spends the whole time bellyaching about it.
- Wangst: In "Acid Tongue", Jax gets his metal arms badly damaged by a wad of acid spit from Komodainote and spends most of the time whining about being ineffectual without his metal arms... even though he's still a Special Forces officer and very strong without them, to the point he's able to climb a sheer cliff face on his own.
- What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Yes, a kids' cartoon based off an ultraviolent and highly controversial series of games. Back then, however, violent games tended to attract some of the younger player demographic before the ESRB guidelines tightened restrictions.
