It’s the last day of August so that brings us to the end of Nicktoon’s month. I know it’s sad because that means I’ll have to do something stupid like “Slamball” or “Chocolate News” next week. For now though, we can still bask in the greatness that is a cartoon on Nickelodeon. I say that somewhat ironically though, as today is dedicated to some of the shows that couldn’t sustain the audience and longevity as other programs. I’ll go ahead and quantify that at less than 30 episodes since I don’t want to talk about “ChalkZone.” If I didn’t get to your favorite show this month, well, I guess you better hope that the world doesn’t end in December and we make it to next August (or whenever I finish “Ren and Stimpy” on Netflix.”
We’ll start the reviews with the short run of “Action League NOW!” This show was on for 8 years, but only managed 12 episodes. It was featured on “All That” and “KaBlam!” before it got a spinoff of its own. Sadly this was in 2001 and the ship had sailed. Since we covered this earlier in the month, I’ll leave you with this:
“Pelswick” clocks in at a whopping 26 episodes. Remember when “Family Guy” made cartoon characters in wheel chairs fun? Me neither. Pelswick wheeled his way on to the screens of America in October of 2000 and flew back down the ramp two years later. The show mainly had Pelswick making light of being handicapped and people not understanding him. It was kind of like an afterschool thing, but less appealing. It had some good ideas; a pirate rock radio station ran by Pelswick, a popular kids list that makes a Blink 182 joke, and a pyramid soap detergent scheme. The show was imaginative, it just wasn’t that good. The best thing about it was that character Mr. Jimmy, who was voiced by a pro wrestling legend:
In the mid-2000s Nick had a little trouble sustaining the Nicktoons. Their live action shows seemed to take over. There also was this sponge thing dominating the airwaves. One of the many causalities of this time period was the show “Catscratch.” I actually wished this show kept going. It was about three cats that inherited their crazy old owners riches. They lived with a butler and a monster truck. Mr. Blik is voiced by Wayne “Newman” Night and is just a snobby cat and his brothers Waffle and Gordon Quid round out the group. They are voiced by Rob Paulsen and Kevin McDonald not respectively. Waffle is an idiot, as the name Waffle would imply, and Gordon is some kind of Scotsman. It’s sounds dumb, and it is, but I had a mild like of it.
“The X’s” is really only useful to me for the amazing voice cast. I’ll leave it at Patrick Warburton and let you look up the rest. I wouldn’t recommend actually watching the show though. It’s just kind of hard to look at. This show is about some kind of spy family and it seems like they are trying to take over the world, but they’re protagonists somehow. I couldn’t keep my interest. It was like “Dexter’s Lab” in the sense that it was odd to see the crazy stuff happening in suburbia, but it wasn’t anywhere near as good.
The show displaying what people did during Invader Zim.
The beloved “Invader Zim” is sadly on the list of short lived Nicktoons. With a mere 27 episodes, this show really made an impact on weird people and Goth kids everywhere. Zim is an alien from a ridiculously named planet and has a pet robot named GIR. He is trying to enslave and kill people, yet he’s the good guy. Sense a theme? His main nemesis on Earth is a boy named Dib, who tries to reveal Zim as an alien. He is mocked for it and called crazy. “The Fairly Oddparents” debuted the same night, and it seems people want to expose fairies more than aliens. I never liked this show, so sorry fanboys, I don’t share the love. I hate rooting for people that don’t deserve it. The show should have ended with Dib murdering Zim.
“El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera” is tied with “The X’s” and “Catscratch” as the shortest running Nickelodeon produced shows. They all managed only 20 episodes. I only saw a handful of these episodes, but I feel the need to include it because it actually sounds really interesting. It is about Manny Rivera, duh, and he has super powers. He’s the son of a super hero and the grandson of a super villain. All I know is that the boy is pitted with the decision of being good or evil. It’s set in Miracle City, Mexico and has a huge cast of heroes and ne’re-do-well. I might have to check this one out more.
That costume alone draws me in.
I was going to talk about another 26 episoder in “Wayside” here, but as I write this I’m reading news that it is being brought back. I’ll give you the skinny so you can check it out if the revival takes off. It’s based on books of the same name, and the kids go to school in a sideways building. End.
Finally we come to the shortest running Nicktoon of all time. It wasn’t made in house, but it still counts as a big flop even more so than the three 20 episodes stink bombs. What is this big failure? It was so awful it only ran for 4 episodes. That’s right. The plug was pulled after 4. This big failure was what you ask? It was none other than “Rugrats” spinoff “Angelica and Susie’s Pre-School Daze.” Yes, the mega popular giant managed to produce the worst show on the network too. I may be acting a little harsh though since the show was scrapped when the “All Grown Up” series took off and they decided to milk that cow instead. I also think this proves that Angelica isn’t fun being older than a toddler because she’s old enough to be hit at that point. And despite the attempt at adding a little sass to the show, Suzie was never all that popular. This experiment thankfully was squashed, though based on the line up on Nickelodeon these days, maybe we should try it again. Here’s the show open if you don’t believe it happened: Opening to the pre-school adventure
That’s it for Nicktoons August. I’m sad to see it go too. I much prefer reliving my childhood than talking about some crappy show that gets cancelled now. But time moves on, and things get worse as life does. Hopefully I remember to do this again next August so we can finally relive “Angry Beavers” and “CatDog.” I might even torture you with this gem:
Nevermind. Even they don't seem to want it.
Credit Goes to: Youtube.com, Wikipedia.org, tv-ark.com, funnyjunk.com, theman-cave.com, dibujos-animados.com, and fanpop.com.