When fans think of a Breaking Bad spinoff, the first (and often only) show that comes to mind is Better Call Saul, and rightfully so. The prequel series delivered the same level of character complexity, visual excellence, and moral decay that defined Vince Gilligan’s original masterpiece. However, not all expansions of the Breaking Bad universe hit the same high notes. In fact, one spinoff crashed and burned so hard, it’s practically been erased from the collective memory of the fandom. AMC once gave us an animated prequel that completely missed the mark - and I honestly can’t blame anyone who’s never heard of it.

That show was Slippin’ Jimmy, a short-lived, little-watched cartoon that tried to cash in on the growing success of Better Call Saul during its later seasons. While Better Call Saul gave us emotional gut punches and intricate character arcs, Slippin’ Jimmy was more like Saturday morning cartoon filler, except worse. Even though it featured familiar characters and tied into the larger lore of Jimmy McGill, it felt more like a parody than a prequel. And for fans who appreciate the sharp writing and grounded tension of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, this spinoff wasn’t just disappointing, it was baffling.

Slippin' Jimmy Is An Animated Prequel To Better Call Saul

The Animated Breaking Bad Spinoff Turned A Fan-Favorite Character Into A Cartoon Punchline

Slippin’ Jimmy premiered in 2022 on AMC+, quietly releasing just six short episodes that most fans skipped - or never even knew existed. Billed as a Better Call Saul prequel, the series followed a young Jimmy McGill in his high school days as he gets into mischief in Cicero, Illinois. Each episode was around 8 to 10 minutes long, animated in a style that evoked old-school cartoons and anthology segments. In theory, it sounded like a lighthearted way to dig into Jimmy’s past. In practice, it felt like an awkward, off-brand spinoff that had no idea who it was actually made for.

The animated Breaking Bad prequel was developed by Ariel Levine and Kathleen Williams-Foshee, two writers with ties to the Better Call Saul writer’s room. Despite that pedigree, Slippin’ Jimmy failed to capture any of the emotional depth or narrative sophistication that defined its parent series. Instead, it leaned heavily into visual gags, slapstick humor, and stylized parody (each episode mimicked a different movie genre, including film noir, spaghetti westerns, and sci-fi B-movies). It was less “origin story” and more “Saturday morning sketch show.”

The animation itself was serviceable but unremarkable, and the tone of Slippin’ Jimmy was so far removed from the bleak, morally murky world of Breaking Bad that it felt more like a fan-made YouTube parody than an official spinoff. Most egregiously, it reduced Jimmy - one of the most complex characters in modern TV - to a flat caricature. Even with the name recognition and a direct connection to the Better Call Saul timeline, Slippin’ Jimmy never managed to justify its existence.

AMC Completely Missed The Point Of Better Call Saul With The Animated Show

Slippin’ Jimmy Felt Like A Joke Next To The Prestige Drama It Spun Off From

For anyone who’s followed the Breaking Bad universe from the beginning, the tonal whiplash of Slippin’ Jimmy is hard to overstate. While Better Call Saul was sometimes funny, its humor was always grounded in character and context. It balanced the absurd with the tragic, often using comedy as a brief reprieve from the crushing inevitability of its characters’ fates. Slippin’ Jimmy, by contrast, dived headfirst into pure cartoon silliness - and completely misunderstood what made Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad work in the first place.

Each episode of the animated Breaking Bad spinoff leaned into pastiche, playing more like exaggerated genre parodies than anything resembling the complex emotional storytelling fans expect. Rather than exploring Jimmy’s troubled youth in any meaningful way, the show reduced his backstory to a series of harmless hijinks. It felt like the writers thought viewers were more interested in slapstick than substance. This was a strange assumption, given the tone of the series it was meant to .

Slippin’ Jimmy gave us a talking fish sidekick and goofy capers.

The problem wasn’t that Slippin’ Jimmy was light-hearted, it’s that it lacked any real tension, consequence, or thematic relevance. Better Call Saul didn’t shy away from moral gray areas or difficult questions about identity, legality, and self-destruction. Slippin’ Jimmy gave us a talking fish sidekick and goofy capers. It wasn’t just a misfire; it felt like a betrayal of the tone and depth fans had come to expect from this universe. Ultimately, Slippin’ Jimmy seemed aimed at an audience that didn’t exist: young kids who had never seen Better Call Saul, or diehard fans who somehow wanted their favorite morally ambiguous lawyer reimagined as a wacky cartoon teen. I still can’t believe AMC signed off on it.

Better Call Saul Could Have Been A Comedy (But It Turned Out As Dark As Breaking Bad)

The Breaking Bad Spinoff Almost Went Down A Very Different Path Before Finding The Right Tone

The irony of Slippin’ Jimmy is that Better Call Saul actually did start out as a comedy concept. When the creators first considered a Breaking Bad spinoff centered on Saul Goodman, the early pitch was a 30-minute sitcom, a legal comedy with a fast-talking conman at the center.

DID YOU KNOW: It wasn’t until creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould began developing the idea further that it morphed into something far more dramatic, nuanced, and ultimately essential to the larger Breaking Bad story.

That creative pivot is what made Better Call Saul so successful. Rather than leaning into Saul’s most cartoonish qualities, the show peeled back the layers of Jimmy McGill and explored how a well-meaning, desperate man gradually becomes the sleazy persona fans first met in Breaking Bad. It delivered complex arcs, morally ambiguous choices, and heartbreakingly human moments - none of which would’ve landed in a sitcom format.

That’s what makes the failure of Slippin’ Jimmy so frustrating. AMC had already proven that going darker and deeper was the right move for Breaking Bad spinoffs. Reverting to the original comedy pitch, but doing it with cheap animation and shallow writing, felt like a regressive step. It lacked the dramatic ambition that made Better Call Saul great and instead played out like a weird relic from a timeline where the original pitch had never evolved. In the end, Slippin’ Jimmy felt like a bizarre footnote - a misguided reminder of what Better Call Saul could’ve been if it hadn’t dared to be more than comic relief. Thankfully, most people missed it.