Yeah, I checked and if it was there, then it's not anymore. Both my Wii and Wii U menus at least appear clean.
It's possible my hard drive failed, and it's death throws were causing the system to freeze as it tried to download a game to it. At the time the hard drive would register if I plugged it into my computer, but now it doesn't do that. I'm getting it repaired/replaced fixes the problem, then I will have some strong words for Nintendo.