15 Of The Darkest 90s TV Fan Theories You'll Ever Read

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Fan fiction has been around for a very long time, the reach of the internet has made the genre more prevalent in our culture. One of the first Star Wars novels, Splinter of the Mind's Eye is fan fiction, heck every Star Wars novel not written by George Lucas can be considered fan fiction!

Nowadays, imaginations have run wild with all kinds of fan theories and some of these are so well thought out that it begs the question – don't some of these people have better things to do in their spare time? Like read lists like this one?

All jokes aside, some of these fan theories go to really dark places. In most of these entries, our beloved characters and their quirks are reimagined and explained as being abuse victims, survivors of some horrific trauma, or are just plain insane! Read on if you dare, for these are the top 15 darkest fan theories you'll ever read.

The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air

The Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff were once a very successful MC/DJ hip hop duo. Most of their hits, like Summertime are still popular to this day. Then Will Smith went on to save the world in at least one summer blockbuster for the next 15 years or so. In between and during his run as the everyman superhero, Will Smith’s first and most famous role might be playing a souped up version of himself on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

The show was just like any other silly, popular sitcom and Smith’s charm and sly smile only added to its continued popularity. But as most fans do, every form of art is subjective and people see what they want to or need to, or just have vivid wild imaginations. 99.9% of us surely remember the Fresh Prince’s theme song – as fate would have it, according to the fan theory, the gang that Will started a brawl with in the theme song killed the guy.

The “rare” cab that takes Will to Bel-Air from Philly, would have cost a frickin’ fortune, and as one person’s research tell us, would’ve cost over eight grand! Not even Uncle Phil would have paid that price, so it must have been the lord almighty bringing one of his Princes home. Heaven for the Fresh Prince, who grew up slightly impoverished in Philly would certainly be living in the lap of luxury. His parents, who we would see every so often, would only show up to visit their son’s grave. Some of the theories on this list are a little better thought out, but the proof of this one is the fact that no cabbie in their right mind would drive the 3000 miles from Philly to Cali.

Joey Gladstone Is Really The Father Of The Tanner Children

When Danny Tanner’s wife Pam died, she left him widowed with three young girls to care for. Grief stricken with no help, he asked his brother-in-law Jesse and best friend Joey to stay with him and help him raise his kids; the dark origin story is how one of the saccharine, schmaltziest, most beloved sitcoms, Full House was born.

Jesse coming to help out makes a lot of sense, he loved his sister dearly and wanted to be around her kids, the last connection to Pam he had. But Joey?! He and Danny were the best of friends, and friends do a whole lot for each other, but pretty much dropping everything in your life to help out your friend is a little far-fetched. The internet’s dark and sordid theory is that he sticks around, because he, not Danny, is father to DJ, Stephanie, and Michelle; he had a tawdry affair with his friend’s dead wife.

While in sitcoms it might make perfect sense, but in the real world, where the theory resides – Danny’s dark hair and Pam’s blond hair – makes it unlikely that all three of their kids would be blond. That’s a grandiose shot in the dark for genetics to give Danny and Pam three beautiful blond babies. So according to the theory, Joey Gladstone is as much of an S.O.B. as Alanis Morissette proclaims Dave Coulier, who played Joey, to be. Sometimes the theory goes even deeper and cites Joey as the father to Jesse’s twins, Nicky and Alex, so the guy basically preys upon the women of all of his friends. You Outta Know, indeed.

Sgt. Al Powell Shot And Killed Steve Urkel/Urkel Is The Product Of Abuse

Only in television can the completely annoying next door neighbor who never gets the message that he needs to leave eventually become a beloved member of the family. Judge for yourself, which Family Matters theory is more twisted.

Steve Urkel is more than just the annoying neighbor on Family Matters, he is guilt manifested to the fractured mind of a police officer who has seen one too many horrific events.

Traversing over several movies and Family Matters, this theory sees Reginald VelJohnson’s eight thousand cop characters all connected. As an NYPD cop in Ghostbusters, he saw the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man almost destroy the city. From there, he moved to L.A. and because of Egon’s crazy Twinkie explanation, Sgt. Powell starts eating as many Twinkies as possible and unfortunately shoots a kid by accident. He would eventually save another NYPD cop, John McClain, by shooting terrorist Karl. With his mind completely fractured, he now envisions himself as Carl Winslow, a normal happy family man whose family supports him no matter what, except when he tears into the annoying next door neighbor, Steve Urkel, who is the manifestation of the boy that Sgt. Powell shot.

Another Family Matters theory is that Urkel actually has Autism and his parents locked him in a room after too many autistic attacks, the last being accidentally killing his sister, which is why when he created the Winslow family to escape from his life, the little sister disappears and she’s off the show.

The Smurfs Are White Supremacists, Nazis, And Satanists

And here you thought the strangest things on the Smurfs was the fact that only one girl lived in the village. Pick your poison here, because there are a slew of dark and twisted very real world things that apparently are happening in Smurftown.

Depending on which site and which theory you read. The adorable little blue bastards who recently had their second movie open in theaters, are either Communists, Devil worshippers, misogynists, or anti-semites; but not just hateful racists – they’re actually the worst kind, Nazis and/or KKK clansmen.

Author Antoine Bueno wrote Le Petit Livre Bleu (The Little Blue Book), citing the early comic strips, The Black Smurfs – in it if a Smurf gets sick, they turn black and lose all trace of intelligence. If that’s not subtle enough for you, how about the group giving a “Seig Heil” when they cheer 'All for Smurf and Smurf for all'? Their white caps, some have likened to KKK hoods, and their whole community has been considered akin to a socialist society.

Even the pretty lone girl Smurf, Smurfette, was originally ugly and working for Gargamel, the misogynist theory comes from when Papa Smurf and his grand wizard colored red cap performed surgery on her, turning into the generalized vision of beauty, blonde with curves in all of the right spaces.

Rocko Works For A Naughty Hotline

When the Nicktoons debuted in the early nineties, Doug, Rugrats, and Ren and Stimpy were the marquis trio that the brand launched under. Several years later, Rocko’s Modern Life, featuring a Wallaby as the titular character would debut. More or less the precursor to both SpongeBob and Camp Lazlo, as a lot of the staff would move on to both of those shows, Rocko had a lot of absurdist humor if you’re kid. But if you were an adult and caught the show, you might be wondering how the heck this show was a Saturday morning cartoon.

It’s not even a theory, but an incontrovertible fact, Rocko worked as a Phone Sex Operator. The sign at his office read “Remember – Be Hot, Be NAUGHTY, Be Courteous.” He would pick up the phone and answer, “oh baby, oh baby, oh baby.”

Besides being a phone sex operator, the entire show is filled perverts and perversions – Rocko and Hefer used to eat at Chokey’s Chicken, Filbert cross-dressed and wanted to be called Ophelia, and most obvious of all, Hefer’s dad liked to yell out “let’s eat the beaver!,” a double entendre for sure, since he meant it towards Rocko, but most of us know what 'beaver' is a reference to. If not, check out urban dictionary.

Helga’s Family Life On Hey Arnold/Arnold’s An Orphan

Never mind the fact that “football head,” Arnold Shortman was probably born with hydrocephalus, a condition where there is an inordinate amount of spinal fluid on the brain, the poor kid was bullied all of the time by his neighbor, Helga Pataki. Like a lot of real life children, the school yard hazing is actually more because Helga likes Arnold and less because she’s a bully.

Her unrequited affections for Arnold and her home life are the main reasons that Hey Arnold is actually more about Helga than the titular star. The series gave her the monologues and focused on her unrequited love. It is suggested that her family life is pretty terrible. She only knows bullying as way of showing her affections due to dad never being around and he even only refers to her as “the girl.” Helga’s mom should probably visit alcoholics anonymous.

As for Arnold, the poor kid – according to one theory – is actually the child of his grandparents who told Arnold his real folks died in a plane crash. His water on the brain is byproduct of his folks having him so late in life. Arnold also suffers from several conditions that make imagine things – like his friends also having oddly shaped heads to make him feel normal too.

Zack Morris Was Not The Popular Kid

Saved by the Bell is still to this day, one of the most watched shows on the planet. It’s easy enough to understand in any language the trials and travails of a group of high school kids. Insanely funny, quirky, and gorgeous high school kids (except for Screech). The show’s main star, Zack Morris, even had what would have to be the most coveted superpower a teenager could want – freeze time.

In a Rod Serling-esque twist, not one bit of this happened at all. In reality, Zack Morris just couldn’t stand growing up in the suburbs of Indiana, being a child of divorce, or even having a brother. Instead he created a fantasy world for himself and decided to never leave it. Instead of Indiana, Zack’s fantasy would place his Bayside school in Bayside, California. His childhood friend Nikki, who always would put him in his place, was replaced by Jessie, who most of time just smiled at Zack’s mischief and left him alone to his own devices. He and his imaginary friends pretty much get to do and succeed at everything, including being rockstars.

In his deluded fantasy, Zack is just like every other kid dreams of being – the most popular, most capable kid ever. He outwits all of the adults and all of the guys seem to admire him. His rival (who went from being Mikey to Slater) becomes a friend and sometimes henchman. Screech and Lisa never gave him many problems, so they didn’t change much in his fantasy world. Because in reality he is just an ordinary not so popular kid in a small town in Indiana, he envisions that he dates the hottest girl in school and no matter how a situation looks, Zack never loses or fails, in his fantasy world, there’s always a loophole for Zack to turn into a knot and win the day.

The Rugrats Are Figments Of Angelica’s Imagination

There are several cartoons on this list, but no theory is darker than this one. Angelica, the oldest of the Rugrats is actually the only one who is real. All of the other babies on the show have died in horrific ways, causing Angelica to create them all as a coping mechanism. Unfortunately, that coping mechanism never left and it manifested as schizophrenia in Rugrats: All Grown Up.

Because of her lackluster relationship with her parents, Angelica dreamt up a whole gaggle of kids to play with – only they were all real at one point and through horrific accidents died. Chucky and his mom died in a car wreck, turning his dad into a neurotic shell of his former self, and while in Paris he married a Japanese prostitute, Kira whose daughter Kimi was taken away due to her substance abuse issues. Tommy was stillborn, leaving papa Stu to spend all his time in the basement creating toys for a son he’d never know. Since the DeVilles had to end their pregnancy due, Angelica didn’t know if they were supposed to have a boy or a girl, so Phil and Lil were born in her mind. Even Angelica’s doll Cynthia was part of the fantasy she created for herself, serving as a reminder of her drug-addled mother who died of an overdose.

Dil is actually the only baby who survived and he and Angelica have a really hard life growing up. Her friend Susie actually kept up the façade to not ruin Angelica’s only coping mechanism of a terrifying childhood.

What’s scarier? This piece of fan fiction or the fact that there is someone out there who is twisted enough to have come up with it watched enough Rugrats to explain it.

Clarissa Darling Was Insane

The girl had a pet alligator named Elvis for Christ's sake; you don’t think that’s slightly off kilter?! Clarissa Explains it All was one of the first sitcoms that were designed and marketed towards tweens and teens, and for having a female lead be the focal point. Clarissa was also one of the first live action Nickelodeon shows, along with other cult shows like Hey Dude and Salute Your Shorts.

Like most series and movies where a character breaks the fourth wall to an audience that isn’t there, tends to create theories like this one – Clarissa could only explain everything because she was completely “nucking futs.” What backs this one up is that in the early episodes, her friends Sam and Jodie broke the fourth wall with her, effectively humoring a fractured mind. Sam would eventually grow tired of humoring Clarissa and stopped talking to the audience. Her friend Jodie, fed up with her antics would disappear totally.

But unlike other shows where the main character talks to us and bickers with younger siblings, Clarissa actually had plans to murder Ferguson, and she actually wound up in a straight jacket, and no one on the series thought it was odd, nor did they try to get her out of it.

Homer Simpson’s In A Coma

There are a few different types of Simpsons fans, out there. The ones that have watched from day one, fans that have grown up with the show, and fans who believe the earliest shows are the best and subsequent seasons past the early shows are way too absurd. The reason for the absurdity is simple – Bart inadvertently put his father in a coma and the rest of the series (all 20 some odd years’ worth) have all taken place in Homer’s coma-addled brain.

A wild imaginative story that is based around the episode “So it’s Come to This – A Simpsons Clip Show.” Bart and Homer are having a prank war. Bart shakes up a bottle with a paint mixer and it causes a massive explosion, putting Homer in the hospital, and he would never wake up from his coma – meaning everything since is in his head. The other proof to this one is Homer’s exchange with God in “Homer the Heretic” – Homer asks God the meaning of life and is told he’d find out when he dies. Homer tells him he can’t wait that long and the Lord Almighty retorts, “you can’t wait 6 months?”

While this theory is a very imaginative way to explain how the show went from grounded stories and humor to more silly cartoon like stories, in reality that would mean the showrunners back in 1993 would have assumed the series would continue to go on, and planted this nugget here for all other writers who came afterward.

Doug Was Molested And Took Drugs To Cope

What happens to Doug Funnie on his titular show is anything but. The show did its best to showcase what real kids are going through at this age – being completely and wholly afraid of public embarrassment, which any pre-teen could empathize with. To combat his insecurities, Doug would use his wild imagination as a way to cope.

But the CreepyPasta world of internet stories came up with a bigger, darker reason beyond the usual teenage angst. According to the twisted theory, when Doug moved to Bluffington, Mr. Dink had molested the young teenage boy. One episode had Mr. Dink taking the kids camping and head off to find a place to “pitch their tents.” Doug and Skeeter would later find him naked and staring at them from a tree.

To cope with what was then very unheard of in the mainstream media – teacher/neighbor/camp counselors molesting young boys – Doug would start dropping acid, thus explaining some of his crazy imagination sequences.

Phoebe Buffay Was A Meth Head

How on Earth does someone as ditzy, as random, as odd, and as seemingly slightly off-kilter (putting it mildly) find a way to be friends with five other twenty-somethings in New York, who all seem to be normal compared to her? Because it was a sitcom, that’s why! Do you think anyone would ever allow someone like Kramer to just come and go as he pleases on Seinfeld? Sitcom is short for 'situational comedy' and sitcom writers tend to create zany characters to inhabit those situations.

But that doesn’t stop fans from thinking up their own situations to give credence to. One batcrap fan of Friends dreamt up the final scene – the final scene would have had Phoebe walking away from Central Perk, with the other characters making a reference to the crazy lady who always stares at them. She then walks past a furniture store, catching her reflection in the mirror with the name of the store right above her – Ursula.

All ten seasons were actually the imaginations of a homeless meth-head Phoebe Buffay, who desperately wanted friends so badly that she fabricated five of them and somehow, every single episode was able to make whatever situation her friends were going through, about her.

Central Perk Was A Mental Asylum

The Rembrandt’s classic theme for Friends "I’ll be There for You" was actually a mantra for a group therapy session. The entire series is actually just six mentally challenged people, all with deep seated issues in one large shared psychosis to mask how terrible their lives either are or the horrible childhoods they all had.

According to this theory, when a patient goes through a traumatic event, he or she eventually invents a make believe world to escape the pain of what is really happening to them. Ross’ abandonment issues; Rachel’s daddy issues, not to mention being a bit of a sociopath; Monica’s eating disorder giving way to obsessive compulsive disorder; Joey unable to handle being the only man in his family gave way to him being a nitwit to cope; Chandler’s dysfunctional parents; and Phoebe never getting over her mother’s suicide.

All of these instances drove each person into sanitarium where they all work very hard to try and get right. However, each of their neuroses allow them to play off one another and none of them ever truly get better, so none of them ever got to leave the asylum.

Boy/Girl Meets World Illuminati Connection

While most of the items on this list are dark and convoluted theories that involve and revolve around comas and childhood traumas, this one unveils a dark conspiracy of mythical proportions. It’s right on par with the Da Vinci Code, folks. Perhaps Dan Brown will use this for his next Robert Langdon thrill ride.

Boy Meets World (and now, Girl Meets World), the mostly saccharine sweet show about the trials and tribulations of growing up, is actually part of a nefarious plot by the Illuminati and the CIA’s Monarch Programming. To what end? Most likely it would be for the New World Order to control the entertainment industry and therefore much of the world’s population. Not so sweet natured anymore.

Someone clearly has a very vivid imagine and reads way, way too much into complete random bits, but then again – Topanga did begin on the show as a complete weirdo, so perhaps it's possible given that she is seen making the sign of the Illuminati (which rapper Jay-Z and wrestler Diamond Dallas Page are both famous for) in some episodes and also makes the hand gesture for the witch and moon in a video as well. But the sign is also the Hawaiian hang loose sign, so who really knows.

After all the Illuminati is a centuries old organization that no one can prove exists and yet somehow controls the entire world – so why not control all of the masses through television and a show pretty much everyone who grew up in the nineties adored?

The Power Rangers Are Child Soldiers

Most of the time when we see videos and images of children in another country, generally a third-world country armed to the teeth as a foot soldier for some out of control despot, most sane people are outraged. Nazi Germany had Hitler Youth and in the 80s the children of Iran were given plastic keys (keys to Heaven) and sent to clear minefields.

No one ever seemed to be outraged over sending five privileged kids from Angel Grove, California into battle for a giant head in an intergalactic war against the likes of Lord Zed and Rita Repulsa. Whether you like it or not, think about it, the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, who are experiencing a slight resurgence with a movie, were actually child soldiers recruited for a war they had little to do with.

Granted they were a bit older than the child soldiers we were accustomed to seeing. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't have just worried about the perils of growing up and let adults take the reins of those giant Voltron wannabes instead.

Sources: boymeetsworldilluminati.tumblr.com, dailydot.com, reddit.com, refinery29.com, moviepilot.com