Are these the worst designs of Gen 1?
A lot of people will say it's something like Grimer or Voltorb, ignoring that some Pokémon in the first gen were designed to be Pokémon's version of common JRPG enemies (slimes and mimics, in these cases), but I think it's got to be Meowth and Persian.
Firstly, Meowth is little more than a cartoon cat. It's got noodle limbs and a generally uninspired design. Yes, it's based on "lucky cat" statues commonly seen in Japan, but aside from the koban stapled to its fucking head and the occasional pose, nothing about its design really conveys that. It just kinda looks like a palette swapped Felix, and that feels out of place in a gen that gave us shit like Nidoking and Gyarados. It's almost never shown on all fours (like it supposedly normally is), it's always seen upright, which makes every Meowth feel like it's TR's Meowth from the anime. It sucks that this guy couldn't have been more unique or interesting.
Possibly worse still is Persian, who is just a panther. A white panther with a gem on its forehead and a curly tail. That might be a cool design for some other kind of series, but it feels really lazy in one like Pokémon. These are supposed to be monsters, not just animals. Persian's design also begs a lot of questions, like "what happened to Meowth's koban?" or "why is Persian on all fours when Meowth is almost exclusively shown on two feet?"
Worse yet are the region variants. Both of the Alolan forms are simply grey and their expressions are more smug... and Persian's face becomes fat and round, for some reason. What is the theme here? What sort of ecological factors would explain this sort of variation?
Then there's the Galarian forms. Meowth has a beard now? And looks kind of evil? Okay, what about Persi- oh, it evolves into Perrserker now... which has a vague evil viking design? Why?
I'm calling it, Meowth and Persian are my least favorite mons and I think they can be objectively called some of the weakest in the series.