Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Replacements"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

Do you remember that episode of Class of 3000 I reviewed? The one where the kids have their teachers replaced with unqualified celebrities? Well, I have another question for you - what if there was an entire SHOW based on the idea of replacing people with unqualified celebrities? Actually, there IS. And it's called The Replacements!

Created by children's book illustrator Dan Santat, this show focuses on two siblings, the eleven-year-old Todd (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) and the thirteen-year-old Riley (voiced by Grey DeLisle-Griffin). While cleaning the floors of the orphanage where they lived, they found a comic book with an ad for a corporation called Fleemco and their "replacement service". They mail the ad back and get two new parents, a British secret agent named Agent K (Kath Souice) and a dimwitted daredevil named Dick Daring (Daran Norris). They also get Fleemco cell phones that allow them to call up the company's CEO, Conrad Fleem (Jeff Bennett), and request for whatever person or animal they don't like to be replaced with someone cooler. This usually leads to WHACKY SHENANIGANS and the kids learning a valuable lesson about appreciating what you already have or whatever. I wish I had a Fleemco phone, I would use it to replace Donald Trump with somebody who would actually do a good job of running this country.

The Replacements premiered on Disney Channel in July 2006. Two seasons were produced, the first one having twenty-one episodes and the second one having thirty-two, making for a total of fifty-two (though all but two of the first season's episodes consisted of two shorts, so technically it's actually seventy-one in all if my math is correct). I remember hearing about the show when it was on (mostly, I saw ads and comics based on it in Disney Adventures magazine), but I never actually watched it. Now that I think of it, I didn't really watch much of Disney Channel's cartoons - not the stuff they were airing as part of their Playhouse Disney block, the other cartoons - AT ALL during this time period. I remember watching Lilo and Stitch: The Series, The Emperor's New School, and at least one episode of The Buzz on Maggie... oh, and Phineas and Ferb, of course... but aside from that? I think I mostly watched Toon Disney as opposed to Disney Channel during the 2000s. I knew about Kim Possible, The Proud Family, Dave the Barbarian etc., but I don't think I ever watched a single episode of them until long after they were off the air. I wonder why that is. Nonetheless, the show seems pretty well-liked online. According to TV Tropes, the second season is better than the first, but the second season isn't on Disney Plus whereas the first season is (I have no idea why that is), so I'm going to review an episode of the first season. Why don't we watch the twenty-first episode of the show, which consists of the segments "Clue-Less" and "Conrad's Day Off"?

"Clue-Less" begins with Riley setting up for her mystery dinner party. Todd is miffed that he wasn't invited, Riley's justification being that they're going to use "logic and reasoning and other big words [he] wouldn't understand", but he's got better things to do with his time anyway - like hanging out with his new Robo-Cat, named the year's Most Obnoxious Toy by three different magazines. This episode aired in 2007, which means that the Robo-Cat managed to beat out such toys as the Elmo Giggle and Shake Chair (it was a chair with Elmo's face on it that giggled. Not sure where the appeal is in that) and Floam (remember that stuff? It looked so fun in the ads but was disgusting when you actually put your hands in it!).

It can do everything a real cat does... except eat your lasagna, since it's a robot and
doesn't have a digestive tract.

Just then, it starts to rain, even though the weather forecast yesterday called for a sunny day. The reason? Todd apparently replaced the TV weatherman with a Jerry Seinfeld parody. Don't judge him.

Then the doorbell rings, and Dick opens the door and lets everybody in. First to enter are Riley's friend Abbey Wilson (Erica Hubbard) and Todd's best pal Jacobo Jacobo (Candi Milo), then the Japanese-American Robocop cosplayer Tasumi (Lauren Tom) and Todd's nemesis Buzz Winters (also Grey DeLisle-Griffin). They're all playing characters with names based on the characters in Clue. Because that's what this episode is a parody of. The board game, not the 1985 movie.

Dang it, Dick, don't you know that it's a bad idea to put a watermelon in front of
somebody holding a mallet? You're just ASKING for it to get smashed.

Even though all the invited guests have arrived, the doorbell rings again, and when Dick answers it, who should be at the door but... an alien?

Nope, it's not an alien. It's Shelton (Jeff Bennett doing a Jerry Lewis impression), the character whose entire shtick is that they're a gigantic nerd. Remember, this was made in the 2000s, when everyone thought it was okay to make fun of nerds. It's the same mindset that gave us The Big Bang Theory.

Even My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic made fun of nerds in one episode.

The dinner party gets started, but before Riley can tell anyone what heinous crime that someone in the room committed, the robot cat zips into the room and starts wreaking havoc. Todd can't shut it off because it's stuck on the highest level of obnoxiousness, as seen here:

You'd think the highest level of obnoxiousness would be "Chris Rock" or "People Who
Hate Hanna-Barbera But Consider Jellystone To Be The Funniest Thing Ever". I'd take a
game show host over either of them any day.

While the robot cat is running amok, the lights go out. Riley gets a lantern, revealing that someone took advantage of the power outage (that's why the lights went out, right? It's raining, after all) to smash the robot cat to pieces! Horror of horrors!

Tell me, do YOU know who done it? I was gonna say I think it was Buzz, since he has a mallet and is Todd's nemesis, but then I realized he was too obvious of a suspect. The writers of this show probably have a lot more respect for our intelligence than THAT.

Don't worry, robot cats have nine lives.

Todd sobs over the smashed remains of his robot cat, and then Jacobo enters the room and asks what's going on... okay, I think it's pretty safe to say that HE'S the culprit. If somebody apparently wasn't in the room when the heinous crime was committed, they're usually the one who did it.

Riley is annoyed that her dinner party has been hijacked by Todd's toy getting destroyed, but considering that HER idea of an engaging mystery was somebody stealing a hanky, I'd say this is for the best. Everybody starts arguing over who did it. Todd says that it must be Buzz, but Jacobo urges them not to jump to conclusions. Taking out a magnifying glass, he finds out that the robot cat wasn't smashed by a mallet, but rather STEPPED ON.

Okay, I don't know much about robotics, but I'm pretty sure that robotic toys are pretty sturdy. Simply stepping on one would likely not destroy it. Even if the person who stepped on it was wearing size six shoes.

"Riley, why do we all have to do the Hokey Pokey?"
"Hey, it's MY dinner party..."

After inspecting everyone's shoes, Riley discovers that the only one NOT wearing a size six shoe is Buzz (he has dainty feet) - ergo, he couldn't have been the smasher. Called it.

Now, who had a motive for destroying the robot cat? When everyone arrives, Tasumi recoiled at the sight of it and told it to stay away from her, so clearly it must have been HER, right? Nope, the exoskeleton of Tasumi's Robocop getup and the exoskeleton of the robot cat have the same magnetic polarizations, ergo they repel each other. She explains this to everyone in her stereotypical fake Japanese accent. I know this was the 2000s, but I can't help but find it problematic that the show cast Lauren Tom, who is Chinese-American, as a Japanese character, the mindset apparently being "Well, Chinese and Japanese are both Asian, so it's all the same thing, right?". Was the actually Japanese-American voice actress Janice Kawaye too busy or something?

Come to think of it, is it also problematic to have the Asian character dressed up
like a Power Ranger?

Dick shows up with a pizza, and Jacobo suggests that maybe HE did it. After all, the butler always does it in mystery novels. Then Riley points out that he couldn't have done it because he was out getting pizza. Then Buzz and Tasumi decide that it must have been Jacobo, who left the room to get a screwdriver yet came back without one. This is the cue for Agent K to appear - she was in the garage trying out her new video spyglasses, and she saw Jacobo enter the garage and do... um, this...

Jacobo has some weird hobbies...

After whatever that was, Riley says that it couldn't have been Shelton either because he's a wimp (he can't even smash an egg, let alone a robot cat!), so clearly it must have been Abbey. Before the lights went out, the robot cat spilled grape juice on her dress, so clearly she must have smashed it in revenge. But Abbey insists that if she wanted to get back at someone, she wouldn't commit robocide, she'd just make fun of them behind their backs.

That only leaves one suspect: Riley. And oh look, Jacobo just found a single strand of red hair in the robot cat's smashed remains...

Isn't it kind of funny that what we call "red hair" is actually orange?

Why did Riley supposedly do it? Because she'd been planning her stupid mystery dinner party for weeks, and when the robot cat stole her thunder, she got MAD! So, when the power went out, she seized the opportunity to smash the robot cat with her size six shoes, and then spent the night grilling them to cover up her crime. The others start beating the crap out of her... wait, so Shelton's too wimpy to smash an egg but he can help deliver a beatdown to somebody? Odd... tie her up, and hoist her over their heads, presumably with plans to throw her into a volcano. Assuming they can find a volcano nearby, of course.

But then Todd reveals that Riley didn't do it, HE did. He used a screwdriver to set the robot cat to its highest annoyance setting, then left the room claiming that he'd get the manual only to shut off the power, run back in, smash the robot cat, and sneak back out before Riley lit her lantern. Why? Because he was mad at Riley for claiming that a mystery dinner party is "not [his] thing". Congratulations, Todd, you destroyed your own toy just to prove a point to your annoying big sister.

Of course, this backfires on Todd spectacularly. Riley praises him for proving her wrong and then suggests that the turn off the lights and smash ANOTHER one of his toys. To Todd's dismay, everyone is on board with that. Next segment...

So how does "Conrad's Day Off" begin? Todd calls up Conrad to complain that his math homework is dull and boring, he needs a math teacher who can make math FUN. In that case, what Todd needs is for the characters from Schoolhouse Rock to show up in his house. Now THAT show made math fun!

"Let me just pick someone from my Wall of Cartoon Stereotypes... how about the
opera singer? I'm sure SHE knows a lot about algebra..."

Thus, Todd's math teacher winds up being visited by a Discount Zapp Brannigan who's traveling to the center of the earth. He is accompanied by a highly attractive assistant and... a monkey. Presumably, the monkey is only there because, as we've established, the animation industry is convinced that monkeys are the funniest thing ever. They are not.

And why would somebody who's traveling to the center of the earth even NEED a monkey?
Wouldn't an animal that's known for digging tunnels very well, like a mole, make more sense?

The math teacher heads off with them to journey to the center of the earth and stop the earth's core from overheating ("It's a statistically impossible dream come true!" he says) and Todd's math class is now being taught by a rodeo clown - complete with a bull to chase him around the classroom. I sure hope none of the students in that class are afraid of clowns like I am. Now Todd is learning about fractions! Somehow.

Todd is very happy, but Conrad admits that he's been on call 24/7 since he gave Todd and Riley their phones. So he decides to take the next two days off. Which means no replacements for the next forty-eight hours. As for the rodeo clown, the bull chases him into the hallway, then starts chasing after Riley, who runs right into her teacher, Mr. Vanderbosh (Rob Paulsen)... which causes him to split his pants? Riley must be very strong if her just running into somebody's backside creates a hole in their trousers.

No student should have to see their principal's underwear.




I just realized that sounds much creepier than I intended for it to.

Mr. Vanderbosh promptly gives Riley a "double-detention" for running in the halls and then going "But... but... but..." (which he assumes is her making fun of his underwear being revealed to the world). Since she doesn't know that Conrad is taking time off, she considers calling FleemCo to replace her teacher with a leprechaun or something, but eventually decides that it's the coward's way out and that they can't rely on Conrad to solve all of their problems.

Riley heads down the stairs to the detention room, and as soon as she does, Jacobo shows up to tell Todd about the horrors of double-detention: deep within the earth's crust where the sun's rays have never reached lies a pit of despair and the people either evolved from frogs or eat them. Todd decides that he must help Riley... and then remembers that Riley has always been a total wet blanket who never supports him and decides against it. So what if she has to travel the River Styx?

I think I was only ever in detention once. It did not involve me going below the earth's crust.

So what is detention like? As it turns out, students who get detention are forced to do the school's laundry. That's right, apparently this school participates in child labor. I believe that's frowned upon. And Riley can't even tell the principal because he's in on it, forcing Buzz to make "My Child is an Honor Student" bumper stickers. As for Riley, she's on furnace duty and must spend her double-detention shoveling coal.

Suddenly relying on Conrad to solve all your problems doesn't seem so bad anymore,
does it, Riley?

"Mr. Vanderbosh, I'm not serving double-detention!" Riley says. "Because... this is unfair! And YOU'RE unfair! Your glasses that match your shoes AREN'T AS HIP AS YOU THINK THEY ARE!" But does Mr. Vanderbosh listen? Nope. He tells Riley that now she has triple-detention, which means she's going to be locked in a cage and forced to act like a hamster. No, really. What kind of school IS this?

I think even the teachers at Wayside would be weirded-out by this...

Not wanting to be treated like a literal guinea pig, Riley dives into a laundry basket and calls up FleemCo... only to wind up listening to an answering machine. Looks like she's stuck in detention... or IS she? Mr. Vanderbosh suddenly gets a call from Todd, who tells him that he's won a sweepstakes and that he must leave detention to claim his prize. When Mr. Vanderbosh says that he's never entered a sweepstakes in his life, Todd says that actually, he won a cruise around the world, to which Mr. Vanderbosh reveals that he's not a big fan of cruises. But he DOES decide to take the week off from his teaching job to track this mysterious prank caller down. Mission accomplished, I guess?

After Mr. Vanderbosh leaves, Todd arrives at the detention room in disguise (he's standing on Jacobo's shoulders and wearing a trenchcoat), only for Mr. Vanderbosh to show up again. Todd admits to him that it's his fault she got detention (kind of - Conrad didn't HAVE to send the bull with the rodeo clown, did he?) and tells Mr. Vanderbosh to let her go. Mr. Vanderbosh refuses on the grounds that Riley insulted his shoes and glasses, which Todd and Jacobo do as well, resulting in all three of them - and the bull - getting QUADRUPLE-DETENTION!

QUADRUPLE-DETENTION!

QUADRUPLE-DETENTION!

QUADRUPLE-DETENTION!

And how will they be serving their QUADRUPLE-DETENTION, QUADRUPLE-DETENTION, QUADRUPLE-DETENTION, QUADRUPLE-DETENTION? By GRADING HIS POP QUIZZES!

None of this would have happened if Conrad had just sent the cast of Schoolhouse Rock
to replace Todd's math teacher like I suggested...

During the credits, Tashumi gives a lecture about composure. Which means we have to listen to her stereotypical fake Japanese accent again. I still find it problematic.

What's the Verdict?

The Replacements is a mixed bag. I didn't care much for "Clue-less", but I thought "Conrad's Day Off" was better. It was a lot funnier. I think the main problem with the show, or at least this episode, is that the really interesting characters - Dick and Agent K - aren't given much to do. Instead we have to focus on Todd and Riley, who aren't as engaging, but I stomach them fine. Their friends are just obnoxious stereotypes, particularly Tashumi (Lauren Tom is a great actress, but this is not one of her better roles). Still, the animation is fine, the voice actors all do a pretty good job with what they're given, and there isn't anything straight-up AWFUL about the show. Will I be watching more episodes of it? I'm not sure. Maybe. Like I said, this show apparently gets better in the second season. For now, I'm giving it three and a half stars out of five.

Fun fact: apparently, Will Arnett was originally cast as the voice of Dick (the showrunners were also hoping to get his then-wife Amy Poehler to voice Agent K, but she turned them down). When the show got picked up, Will became too busy, and they replaced him with Bryan Cranston, who in turn was for some reason replaced by Daran Norris. In hindsight, maybe it was for the best... seems kind of pointless to cast a celebrity as Dick when he's basically a supporting character.

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Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Buzz on Maggie"

I have a confession to make. I'm afraid of flies. All bugs, really, but especially flies. I don't know why, I think it's a combination of the buzzing sound they make and those big compound eyes. Those compound, pupilless eyes. I know they're harmless, but they just scare the bejabbers out of me. So it's fortunate for me that this show starring flies makes them cartoony enough to NOT give me the willies.

The Buzz on Maggie premiered on Disney Channel in June 2005, the creation of South Park writer Dave Polsky. Taking place in the tiny inset-populated town of Stickyfeet, the show focused on an energetic teenage girl fly named Maggie Pesky, voiced by Jessica DiCicco (one of her first voice acting roles), who aspires to be a rock star. She attends junior high school and has to deal with typical teenage girl problems like babysitting her younger siblings, having a crush on her math tutor, dealing with the popular girl in school who hates her guts because she's not rich like her... y'know, basically the same stuff Penny Proud was already dealing with, except Penny was human whereas Maggie was a bug.

Maggie was designed by Dave Wasson of Time Squad fame (note to self: do a review of Time Squad at some point), who also served as a director on the show. In an interview with Animation Magazine, Dave said that he was influenced by Disney, Tex Avery, and Warner Brothers cartoons from the 1930s, which is why the characters wear white gloves. Maggie's home town of Stickyfeet is also located in a dump because, as he put it - "As an animator, that concept gives you a lot of visual opportunities. Who can resist building a whole city out of garbage?!"

Only one season of The Buzz on Maggie was produced, consisting of twenty-one episodes (each one consisting of two segments). The show received mostly positive reviews from critics, the show got the flyswatter when it had only been on the air for two months because it was doing lousily overseas. Then it was only aired at night, when most kids would likely be asleep, until 2008 when it was pulled from the schedule, pretty much torpedoing any chance of the show finding a new audience and maybe getting at least one more season. Oh, and only three episodes were released on DVD as part of an extremely rare promotional kit and it's not on Disney Plus. Fortunately, you can find episodes of the show on YouTube.

Today, The Buzz on Maggie is at best a cult classic. As for me, I remember watching the show when it was on, though I haven't watched it since it aired on TV so I don't know how well it holds up. We'll be watching the show's ninth episode, which consists of the segments "Slumber Party" and "Spelling Bees", to see if this is another cartoon that deserved better or if Disney made the right call taking a can of Raid to it. Let's get started!

"Slumber Party" begins at the Pesky family's milk carton house...

I guess the straw sticking out the top functions as a chimney? If so, that's a nice touch...

Maggie's loving but (in her opinion) embarrassing parents Chauncey (voiced by Brian Doyle-Murray) and Frieda (voiced by Susan Tolsky) are taking their eldest child Adrian (David "Danny Fenton" Kaufman) to his "flyball" (which is kind of like football, except they call it "flyball" because they're flies) game. Maggie is left at home to take care of her younger brother Pupert (Thom Adcox-Hernandez) until her parents and Adrian return the next day. Maggie is all "Oh, yeah, I'll be totally responsible!". Is she being honest, or is she secretly planning to do something totally IRRESPONSIBLE since she's a teenage girl and they're not exactly known for their responsibility? You be the judge!

Unlike most anthropomorphic cartoon bugs, the ones in this show have six legs (well,
two legs and four arms, anyway). Points for insect anatomy accuracy.

Now, you'd expect Maggie to do what ALL teenagers usually do when their parents go out on vacation and throw some sort of party, which usually leads to the parents arriving home early and discovering what's going on and the teenager getting in hot water. But nope, Maggie straight-up tells her parents that she's invited her best friend Rayna (Cree Summer) over to spend the night. "Instead of ONE set of eyes on Pupert, we'll have TWO!" she explains. "He'll never be out of our sight for one single second!"

Her parents aren't sold, but Maggie insists that she can handle it, asking "What could possibly go wrong?" You'd think she'd know that saying "What could possibly go wrong?" is a pretty good way of ensuring that anything that COULD possibly go wrong DOES go wrong. Chauncey seems to think so too, seeing as he imagines them arriving home to discover that their house is missing. Sheesh, what does he expect, that Maggie and Rayna will somehow knock down the walls?

I don't think this is even Maggie's fault. Maybe a sanitation worker picked it up and
put it in a recycling bin.

Once Chauncy, Frieda, and Adrian leave, Maggie calls up Rayna and tells her that the sleepover is off because her parents don't think it's a good idea. But, she decides, them just saying that it's not a good idea doesn't exactly mean "no", does it? Plus, the only way she can prove that she's responsible enough to have a sleepover when they're not home is to actually have a sleepover when they're not home, right? So the sleepover is back on, despite Pupert's pointing out that their parents told Maggie it wasn't a good idea and imagining himself tattling on her as soon as they get home.

This is where all Disney Channel characters go after their shows get cancelled. Dave the Barbarian
is in the cell next to Maggie's.

Maggie tells Pupert that he'll get to be the "documentarian", whose job is to take pictures of the quiet, responsible sleepover, allowing Maggie to have proof that she's responsible and allowing her to do a lot more cool stuff from now on. I'm sensing a flaw on Maggie's plan, but teenage girls aren't exactly known for their rational thinking.

Pupert still wants to tattle on her, but Maggie tells him to think "big picture" - if she gets away with this, just think about what HE'LL be able to get away with when he's her age. This is what he imagines...

His parents don't let him go on kiddy rides? The fiends!

So Pupert agrees. Maggie hands him a camera... remember when people actually used cameras? Now we all just take photos with our phones. Rayna arrives at the house, and she brought some guests with her: droopy-eyed moths. They're bummed because they live in a constant state of indecision: should they eat their own clothing, or continue holding up the laws of insect decency and risk starvation?

Yes, I'm aware that moths don't actually eat clothing (their larvae do), but come on,
it's not like they WEAR clothing either so why bring realism into this review NOW?

Maggie calls out Rayna for not telling her that she was bringing guests. Rayna explains that they're the daughters of her father's army buddies and she's been stuck entertaining them all day long, but they're not gonna cause any trouble.

The girls watch a movie, have a way fun but totally safe pillow fight, do each other's nails (putting the polish on their gloves, amusingly enough), and order a pizza... which makes me wonder, if they're flies, do they use garbage as pizza toppings? Or, seeing as they construct buildings out of garbage, would that be like eating bricks and concrete? Eventually, it starts to get dark, and Maggie turns on a lamp. And you know how moths get around lights in the dark...

Pictured: how people react to whatever live action remake Disney is throwing their way.

"Ooh, it's just like the animated movie, but it's with REAL PEOPLE and TERRIFYING CGI!
I must give Bob Iger all of my money!"

Yes, when night falls onto the fair city of Stickyfeet, nocturnal bugs like moths start acting like they've just chugged fifty Red Bulls (how do you think they get their wings?). Maggie apparently didn't know that moths were nocturnal, which you'd think would be common knowledge in a city of anthropomorphic bugs, but whatever. Not only will the moths' being nocturnal make the "slumber" part of "slumber party" very difficult, but it also means no pizza for Maggie, Pupert, and Rayna - as soon as it shows up, the moths devour it (and the pizza delivery bug's dignity).

I know the episode is going to frame this as being Maggie's fault, but to be fair,
how was she supposed to know that Rayna would bring uninvited guests with her?

"Rayna, you brought these moths! DO SOMETHING!" Maggie yells as the moths start dancing to FUN-KAY music and making a mess of the house. Rayna is powerless against the flies, so it's up to Maggie to kick out the moths... or at least she tries to, she quickly turns out to be powerless against them too. Especially when they summon MORE moths...

Pictured: people showing up at the movie theaters when whatever live action remake
Disney is throwing their way next is released. I swear, if that Lilo and Stitch remake is
successful enough for Disney to greenlight a "live action" remake of Zootopia or something...

Chaos ensues as the moths take over Maggie's house. And in this situation, there's only one responsible thing to do: hide in the closet, where Maggie, Pupert, and Rayna find a moth who has eaten all of the clothing inside. See? I'm not the only one who makes jokes about moths eating clothing.

I didn't know moths had belly buttons.

Fortunately, the moths finally leave in the morning before the other Peskys arrive home. Unfortunately, they've made a huge mess of the house. "I guess my parents were right. I wasn't ready to have a sleepover when they weren't home," Maggie laments, even though the situation that led to the house getting trashed was out of her control (Rayna didn't have to bring the moths with her, did she?). It's time for Plan B: clean up the house, destroy all the evidence, and act like it never happened. But she'd better clean up the house quickly, because her parents' car is approaching!

Maggie and Rayna clean up the house via a montage, but there's still one thing they have to take care of: all the photos Pupert's been taking!

Cue the dramatic music.

Pupert agrees to keep the party their little secret after Maggie bribes him with lots and lots of candy. The parents and Aldrin arrive back home, but wouldn't you know it? Chauncey and Frieda notice the stack of photos behind Maggie and decide to start looking at them. The episode irises out before we see their horrified reactions, but hopefully they at least give Maggie a chance to explain before sending her to Teenage Girl Jail.

The next segment, "Spelling Bee", starts off at Stickyfeet International Airport... and oh look, the bugs' planes are made from bottles. That's pretty funny.

Wouldn't airplanes be kind of redundant for bugs, seeing as most of them can fly?

A huge crowd has gathered at the airport to see the arrival of Maggie's favorite spelling team, the Spelling Bees... who look like the Beatles for some reason? You'd think they would've had their parody of the Beatles be, y'know, beetles. Maybe they thought that was too obvious?

And why would a group that competes in a spelling competition be a parody of the Beatles?
Did the Beatles regularly take part in spelling bees?

The Spelling Bees consist of Floyd, Nigel, Quentin and Stingo - and Maggie and Rayna want to become the fifth and sixth members. But what's this? Stingo gets laryngitis just before the Spelling Bees are to participate in a spelling competition against a group of Praying Mantises. Now they'll have to forfeit!

...or WILL they? Maggie's got an I-D-E-A. We cut to them at some building called the Golden Fleabag, dressed as bees... I wonder if this is considered the insect equivalent of blackface.

"Now, remember, Rayna: our favorite colors are brown and yellow, we love Honey Nut
Cheerios, we're always busy, and whenever the opportunity to make a bee pun arises,
we take it. Got all that?"

Maggie's plan is foolproof: she'll audition to be the Spelling Bee's new member. Rayna's posing as her groupie/agent. The Spelling Bees give Maggie a test by having her spell really long words like "dyspepsia" and "flagellum" (and thank goodness she spells them, because otherwise I would have no idea how to!), then take her and Rayna out to do stuff that famous bugs do. Like head inside the local florist shop and swim in the pollen without paying, for example!

Just looking at that pollen is messing with my allergies!

So now Maggie is an official Spelling Bee, but Rayna is upset by the way the Spelling Bees treat other bugs. They seem to be under the impression that being famous gives you the right to be a tool (make your own joke here). So outraged is Rayna that she tears off her bee disguise and reveals herself to be a fly. And what does Maggie do? Does she agree with Rayna and suggest that the Spelling Bees be nicer without revealing herself to be a fly as well, which should increase her chances of not getting kicked out but still help the Spelling Bees to bee-come (couldn't resist) better people... er, bugs? Nope. She gasps and says, "You're a FLY?! I've... I've been HOODWINKED! HOODWINKED, I SAY! How dare you!"

Rayna storms off, and then we cut to the spelling competition that night. I had to share a screencap of those praying mantises that the Spelling Bees are competing against:

"We're praying that we'll win!"

The first word that the Spelling Bees have to spell is "egocentric"... oh, the irony. Soon, the mantises are ahead by two points, and it's up to Maggie to ensure the bees get two points as well and the competition goes into overtime. The other Spelling Bees point out to Maggie how stupid their fans look, especially that one group in Section G, Row 6 - wait a minute, that's Rayna and Maggie's family! Not sure why Rayna attended seeing as she hates the Spelling Bees now. Maybe it was solely to guilt-trip Maggie?

She needs an "I Really Wish I Weren't Here Right Now" button.

To further guilt-trip Maggie, the next word she has to spell is "imposter". When she asks for a definition, the host says, "A fake, a phony, a trickster if you will - a lying waste of exoskeleton who would betray and sell out her own kind!". The shame is gnawing at Maggie like a caterpillar gnaws on leaves. Glancing over at the Spelling Bees, Maggie says, "Imposter... I-M... imposter... I-M... I AM... AN IMPOSTER! ME! MAGGIE! M-A-G-G-I-E! M-A-G-G-I-E! M-A-G-G-I-EEEEEEEE-HEEEEEEE!" Everyone gasps. "I'm not a bee! I'm a FLY!" Maggie continues, tearing off her bee disguise.

"I thought that my lavender-colored head would be enough to give it away! Everybody knows
that bees have YELLOW-colored heads!"

"We lose because of some STINKIN' FLY?!" Floyd yells. "It FIGURES! YOU FLIES HAVE BEEN A BUNCH OF BOGGY, ROTTEN, PESTS EVER SINCE WE LANDED IN THIS RANCID LITTLE STINKTOWN!" This, of course, is a really dumb thing to say. The crowd starts pelting the Spelling Bees with what I think is either mud or crap. Rayna and Maggie's family are proud of her for doing the right thing, Maggie apologizes to Rayna, and the mantises are dubbed the winners while the Spelling Bees are chased out by an angry mob. The moral of today's story is that bees are the scum of the earth. Not that we didn't already know that. After all, they sting people!

What's the Verdict?

Y'know, I honestly really liked this. First of all, I give the show credit in that this could've very easily been another generic "kids in school dealing with their first world problems" cartoon, but unlike Birdz, they actually take advantage of the fact that the characters are not human. I mean, the second episode alone tackles racism in a very different way than a show starring humans would've. You couldn't have a white person disguise themselves as a person of color, that would just be offensive. Combine that with some genuinely funny jokes, interesting characters, and some great voice acting from folks like Jessica DiCicco and Cree Summer, and you've got a fun show. My one complaint is that the Flash animation, per usual of Flash animation in the 2000s, is mediocre. Still, I enjoyed watching The Buzz on Maggie and it's a pity that it only got one season. Chalk it up as another Disney cartoon that we should've gotten more of. I'm still bitter over how they treated Wander Over Yonder myself...

And now, a word from our sponsor. This review has been brought to you by the newest film from DreamWorks Animation - the long-awaited sequel to their iconic 2007 film Bee Movie...

Bee Movie 2 marks the triumphant return of Barry B. Benson, the bee who made his mark on the world by suing the entire human race. He and his human girlfriend... what was her name again? Oh, right, Vanessa... have finally decided to tie the knot. But first, they'll have to fight to get bee/human marriage legalized! Get it?! It's a metaphor!

Jerry Seinfeld and Renee Zellweger will be reprising their roles, as will Chris Rock, Matthew Broderick, Kathy Bates, Barry Levinson, and John Goodman as that fat lawyer guy, who has returned to seek revenge on Barry by fighting AGAINST bee/human marriage! Also joining the cast as new characters are Awkwafina, Sabrina Carpenter, James Corden, Flula Borg, Jason Statham, Timothee Chalamet, Maya Rudolph, and even Bee Movie superfan Doug Walker as internet celebrity Bee Doug Walker. Lin-Manuel Miranda has been tapped to write seven original songs for the film, among them "Do You Bee-lieve in Miracles?", "Squash That Bee", and the spine-tingling romantic ballad that is "You're Sweeter Than Honey".

Will Barry and Vanessa make the world a safe place for homo sapiens and apis mellifera to wed? Will Patrick Warburton's character, Ken, get the therapy he so desperately needs? Is the house of Ethyl, the new ladybug character that Awkwafina lends her voice to, actually on fire? And are her children home? Is Barry, in fact, "her little bed bug"? Bee Movie fans rejoice! All of these questions and more will be answered in the blockbuster event of the summer, Bee Movie 2! Flying to a theater near you!

DISCLAIMER: This is not an actual movie. DreamWorks has not announced that they are making a sequel to Bee Movie. The review that you have just read is not actually brought to you by anything. Ever since my review of Sheep in the Big City, I have gotten the idea to put fake ads in reviews whenever I can't think of a genuinely funny way that is relevant to whatever I just reviewed to end it on. The chances of them actually making a sequel to Bee Movie are very, very small. Do not actually expect to see a trailer for Bee Movie 2 in front of the next kids' movie you go see. Please don't sue me. I do not have a lawyer.

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Lilo and Stitch: The Series"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

NOTE #3: If you like this show, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.

I remember when Lilo and Stitch came out. I remember seeing it in theaters. I remember the bonus features on the DVD. I remember my sister having a Lilo doll. Lilo and Stitch was one of the only Disney movies of the 2000s to be considered (by the company itself, at least) a box office success. And you know what THAT meant, right?

ANSWER: it meant that they had a new cash cow.

And boy howdy were they going to take advantage of that - ESPECIALLY at the Disney theme parks. Well, at Walt Disney World anyway, I don't know if they did this at Disneyland too. Stitch received his own attraction in 2004 at the Magic Kingdom, Stitch's Great Escape. I never went on it, but apparently it was really bad, and it has since been shut down. Disney, however, was really proud of the attraction, because they promoted it perhaps more than they've promoted any other attraction in the resort's history... there were signs all over the park, Stitch stickers were pasted on the windows of the monorail, they even vandalized Cinderella Castle. Look at this:

And on top of THAT, somehow Stitch became the sixth member of Mickey's group of friends. On merchandise, he'd be included alongside Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto and he stuck out like a sore thumb. Eventually, the company calmed down on Stitch, but he was practically the mascot of Disney for a while.

Outside the parks, Disney kept the Stitch train a-chuggin' along with merchandise and direct-to-video sequels. He received three, the first of which was Stitch! The Movie. Kind of a weird thing to call a film's direct-to-video sequel, seeing as the name of the first movie was Lilo and Stitch. So this one is just Stitch? It's like if they made a sequel to Turner and Hooch and called it Turner! The Movie.

I've heard that the ACTUAL Lilo and Stitch direct-to-video sequel that came after
this one, Lilo and Stitch 2: Stich Has a Glitch, is better. The fourth one, Leroy and Stitch,
is apparently the weakest of the Stitch movies.

The name makes a little more sense if you know that Stitch! The Movie was actually just a feature-length pilot for the Lilo and Stitch TV show that Disney was making, which was going to be called Stitch! The Series at first before they decided to call it Lilo and Stitch: The Series instead.

This show, developed by Bobs Gannaway and Jess Winfield, premiered on September 20th, 2003. It was basically Disney's answer to Pokemon - Stitch's name, before Lilo found him, was Experiment 626, right? So that means that his creator, Dr. Jumbaa Jookiba, made 625 experiments BEFORE he made him, right? Thus, the show had Lilo (once again voiced by Daveigh Chase) and Stitch (once again voiced by Chris Sanders) chasing after all the other experiments that Jumbaa (David Ogden Stiers) created, which were stored in tiny ping pong balls that would free them when contact was made with some sort of liquid. Along for the ride were Lilo's big sister Nani (Tia Carrere), Jumbaa, and the one-eyed former Galactic Federation agent Pleakley (Kevin McDonald). The show received two seasons, making for a total of sixty-five episodes.

I remember watching the show when it was on, but to be honest, I don't think it holds up very well. Apparently, executive meddling resulted in the charm of the film it was based on being tossed out the window in favor of zany, more lighthearted antics. The original film was pretty mellow and laid-back. You're not gonna find any tender moments like Stitch's speech about his family here. Nope, we have episodes about experiments that turn people into babies, crossovers with Kim Possible and American Dragon: Jake Long, and... well, just look at this:

This episode, by the way, has a really heavy-handed moral about healthy eating.
Yes, it's one of THOSE shows...

The characters got Flanderized as well, most notably Pleakley. In the original movie, he was intelligent (he just didn't quite understand humans) and tried his best to keep the bombastic Jumbaa in line. In the show, he's now a massive idiot who exists so that the writers can make jokes at the expense of gay people. I shouldn't have to say this... somebody being gay is not a joke. Making fun of people for not being straight is wrong, okay? In fact, television shows' mockery of gay people is likely a reason why homophobes are still a thing.

All right, all right, let's get on with the actual review. We'll be watching the third episode, "Clip". As they say in Hawaii, E hoʻomaka kākou! Thank goodness for Google Translate...

Back to the Drawing Board: Disney Animated Series We Could've Gotten

Welcome to another edition of Back to the Drawing Board, where we look at things that didn't even get a bit of test animation.

In the 1980s, Disney opened up the Walt Disney Television Animation Department. The first show made by this branch of Disney was The Wuzzles, paving the way for such beloved shows as Phineas and Ferb, Gravity Falls, Goof Troop, Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, and Kim Possible... as well as some shows that I think it would be a stretch to call "beloved" - such as Quack Pack, Pickle and Peanut, The Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show (though I've heard that the Tex Tinstar segments were much better than the Schnookums and Meat segments)…

There have been some very strange and god-awful shows that Walt Disney Television Animation has produced, you might be wondering... if something like Fish Hooks got produced, what show concepts were considered so bad that even the higher-ups at this company didn't want to make? Well, today, we're gonna be talking about some shows that the folks at Walt Disney Television Animation came up with which didn't get off the ground. For whatever reason. And I'm just now realizing that I am awful at writing introductions.

Okay, here we go...

Maximum Horsepower

It's gotta be tough being Horace Horsecollar. He and Clarabelle Cow have never been quite as popular as Mickey's other friends, but at least Clarabelle became slightly more prominent when they decided to make her Goofy's girlfriend (I'm not sure how they came up with that pairing... I guess they just wanted Goofy to have a "Minnie" of his own and it was either her or Clara Cluck*). Horace still shows up sometimes - he was in House of Mouse and recently showed up in Mickey and the Roadster Racers - but even still, it seems as though the folks at Disney think of him as an afterthought.

He also does meet-and-greets every so often at Disney World. I wonder how often people there see him and ask, "Hey, is that Goofy?"

I mean, they don't look THAT much alike, but I've heard that
sometimes people see Figment and come to the conclusion that
he's Spyro despite the fact that Spyro isn't even a Disney character,
sooooo...

Maximum Horsepower was going to shed a little light on why Horace hasn't shown up as much since the 1930s. Basically, the idea was that Horace was getting tired of playing bit parts. When he found out that Mickey was going to be in Fantasia, he decided to go down to Walt's office and demand that HE get a role in the film as well. But before he can get to the office, he's abducted by aliens who believe that he is the hero that their galaxy needs.

Here are some screencaps for a pitch reel video by Tad Stones, which he uploaded to his Twitter and Facebook accounts in 2017 (I don't know why I didn't stumble upon these before):

Apparently, the reason why this show didn't get off the ground is because Disney was more interested in shows based off their more popular characters. And when Maximum Horsepower was being developed in the 1990s, Disney's more popular characters were the cast of Aladdin, Timon and Pumbaa, Hercules... you know, characters from their more recent animated films. And I guess they didn't think Horace Horsecollar was popular enough to make kids interested in watching a show about him.

Thumper's Thicket

With America's love of A) bunnies, B) cute things, and C) bunnies that are cute, it's strange that Thumper isn't more prominent nowadays. All Thumper's really gotten aside from his roles in the two Bambi movies was a merchandising line called Disney Bunnies, which gave us books like this:

I haven't read any of these books, so I'm not sure if they're any good.

But it's not like Disney NEVER tried to do anything with Thumper. In the early 1990s, they were in the process of developing a show about the little fella called Thumper's Thicket.

Why this show didn't get off the ground, I'm not sure, but maybe they were concerned that a show about a cutesy widdle bunny wabbit would be out of place next to more action-packed shows like Gargoyles and TaleSpin. Of course, in 1997 a certain programming block called Playhouse Disney - which was eventually renamed Disney Junior - was created so that Disney could dip its toes into making shows for preschoolers. Apparently around the time the Disney Bunnies books were first released, there was talk of doing a show based on them for Playhouse Disney if they were successful enough, but nothing ever came out of it.

This doesn't count.

And on a side note, long before Thumper's Thicket was thought up, during the 1980s Disney announced that they were considering making a MOVIE about Thumper.

Disney Babies

One rule in television animation is this: if something's successful, expect a bunch of shows extremely similar to it in an attempt to cash-in on the success of it. For example, the success of Scooby-Doo resulted in the creation of shows like Speed Buggy and Fangface. Shrek being a massive hit gave us Happily N'Ever After. And have you noticed that Frozen's Anna and Kristoff and Zootopia's Judy and Nick are essentially clones personality-wise of Rapunzel and Flynn Rider from the highly-successful Tangled**?

Well, when Muppet Babies premiered in the 1980s, it started a trend of shows about younger versions of pre-existing cartoon characters. Some of these shows are considered to be actually pretty good in their own right - A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, for example - others, not so much...

Did you know that this show turned Magilla Gorilla into a pop star named
"Magilla Ice"? I did not make that up.

Of course, Disney wanted to cash in on this, so during the 1980s they started releasing merchandise, books, and even commercials featuring Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and the gang as tykes.

Even as babies, Donald and Daisy don't have pants on.

Actually, now that I think about it, how come everyone gives Donald
a hard time for not wearing pants but you never see anybody complain
about Daisy not wearing pants either?

Eventually, senior management at Disney Customer Products got an idea: if they made a SHOW based on the baby versions of Mickey and the others, merchandise sales would be HUGE! The folks at Disney Television Animation thought this was a stupid idea (I wouldn't be surprised if somebody there straight-up said "Isn't this just a huge Muppet Babies cash-grab?") and did everything that they could to derail the project. But Disney eventually did indeed try their hand at a Muppet Babies wannabe with Jungle Cubs, a cartoon featuring characters from The Jungle Book in their youth. And a decade or two since THEN, they made a REBOOT of Muppet Babies, which might or might not have resulted in that "shows about iconic cartoon characters as babies" trend starting up again. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we get MARVEL Babies or Star Wars Babies at some point.

The Kingdom Hearts Show

I've never played any of the Kingdom Hearts games. Here's what I know about it: there's this kid named Sora, and he teams up with Donald and Goofy to find Mickey, who's a king now, it would seem. They meet characters from other Disney franchises. And there's also these other kids named Kairi and Riku and there are Final Fantasy characters in there, too. That's about it. Oh yeah, and the cover art for one of the games looks like this -

What are they all looking at? Is it because the moon is now
shaped like a heart?

Nonetheless, the franchise has been a huge success! And thus, in 2002, Seth Kearsley (who also worked on such shows as the Dilbert cartoon and Phineas and Ferb) was hired to develop an animatic based on the first game. We have Seth to thank for filling us in on this - he even posted a storyboard from the show on his DeviantArt page. The first episode was going to set in Agrabah from Aladdin. The original script Seth was handed he promptly threw out because it read more like an episode of the Aladdin TV series guest-starring the Kingdom Hearts guys. He then played the entire game and wrote a new script because he "wanted to be very true to the game without just copying the game."

And this very year, an animatic of the show was posted online! Here it is:

So why didn't they make the show? Well, apparently it's because they planned on making many more Kingdom Hearts games, and I guess they were worried that the show would conflict with the games or something. But as Seth said, maybe there actually COULD be a Kingdom Hearts show greenlit. The franchise is still plenty popular!

The AristoCats: The Animated Series

Ya know how they were planning on making a direct-to-video sequel based on The AristoCats back when Disney was obsessed with making direct-to-video sequels? Well, in addition that, they were also going to make a show based on the film. And remember that Yo Yogi show I brought up earlier? Well, this was going to be like that.

The show was going to kick Duchess and Thomas O'Malley, the film's main characters, to the curb because I guess they didn't think kids would be interested in them. Instead, the show would focus on the kittens: Berlioz, Tolouse, and Marie. All well and good, except that it was also going to turn Berlioz, Tolouse and Marie into teenage cats.

Roquefort apparently would've made it in, too.

They also created a love interest for Marie (apparently, things wouldn't have worked out with the love interest she was going to get in the sequel) named Delancey, who was apparently going to be like a teenaged version of O'Malley (because it's totally not creepy to have Marie's love interest be somebody extremely similar to her father, right?) who could dance like a combination of Justin Timberlake and Usher.

Top Cat he ain't.

Oh, and then there were the Street Cats.

...why do both Delancey and the purple cat have their ears pierced? How does
a cat get their ear pierced?!

Yeah, I think it's for the best that this didn't make it to air.

So somewhere in production it was decided that making Berlioz, Tolouse, and Marie teenagers wasn't exactly the best idea. So then they decided to have them be teenagers in The AristoCats 2 and then - if that was successful - make the show (I don't know if they were also gonna have Delancey replace Marie's love interest in the sequel or not, but who cares?). But then The AristoCats 2 and all of the other direct-to-video sequels that were in production were cancelled, and so we were spared having to see a cross between O'Malley and Justin Timberlake put the moves on Marie while outwitting a gang of alley cats not nearly as cool as Scat Cat and his band from the film.

Actually, now that I think about it, a show about Scat Cat and his band might actually have potential. Or at least, it would be better than seeing the kittens as teenagers. Can somebody at Disney get on that?

And on a side note, I still don't see what makes Marie so much better than her brothers. Where's the love for Berlioz?!

Cinderella Stories

No, this doesn't have anything to do with that Hilary Duff film.

Are you familiar with the 2001 direct-to-video sequel to Cinderella? You know, Cinderella 2: Dreams Come True? I admittedly haven't seen it (I do like that one of the stepsisters does a Heel-Face Turn, but that's not enough to make me want to watch it), but from what I've heard, it's not particularly good.

Kind of a generic name, too... "Dreams Come True"?
Didn't Cinderella's dreams already come true in the first movie?

But, in case you're wondering just how Cinderella 2 came to be... At some point, somebody at Disney thought it would be a good idea to make a television show about Cinderella. For some reason. Probably so they could sell more merchandise.

So they whipped up a few episodes of the show, which was going to be called Cinderella Stories. Which in my opinion is an awful name for a TV show. Eventually the show got the axe before it could even make it to air, but Disney went through all the trouble of making those episodes, they had to do SOMETHING with them. So they strung the three episodes together, made some new animation of the Fairy Godmother and Cinderella's mouse friends to act as a framing device, and PRESTO! Cinderella 2: Dreams Come True wound up in DVD stores all over the country. Boy, remember when DVD stores were a thing?

Now, this begs the question: would the show have been better received if it had stayed a TV show instead of being mutated into a direct-to-video sequel? I don't know. Again, I haven't seen it, so I'm not sure if it even IS as awful as everyone says it is, so...

The Chicken Little TV Series

It's kind of funny that Disney had plans for more of Chicken Little, considering how incredibly reviled it is. Though, again, I've always been more accepting of it than others. If nothing else, I think Chicken Little himself is a likeable and funny character.

Anyhow, you remember how  they were gonna make a sequel to Chicken Little about Abby competing with a French lamb for Chicken Little's affections? Well, they were also planning on making a TV series based on everyone's favorite Zach Braff-voiced bird. Around this time, Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh pitched a certain show about two boys and a platypus to Disney Channel. However, they were worried that it'd be rejected because of how focused Disney was on Chicken Little. Because apparently Disney couldn't make two animated shows at the same time?

To my knowledge, no concept art for this
hypothetical Chicken Little show exists, but I didn't want
this section to be without at least one picture, so here's
something I found on Google Image Search.

Then John Lasseter came in and cancelled Chicken Little 2 and all of the other direct-to-video Disney sequels that were in production. Without a Chicken Little 2 in production, Disney saw no reason to go ahead with the TV show, and we got Phineas and Ferb instead.

By the way, my source for this comes from a Tumblr post, but apparently they got their information from a post Dan Povenmire made on a Family Guy production blog. I don't know if that blog is still online, maybe somebody else can find it...

Brother Bear: The Series

Speaking of animated Disney movies from the 2000s, while I don't think Brother Bear is as hated as Chicken Little, it does seem to get more flack than praise. But I've never had a problem with it. In fact, I used to watch the DVD commentary with Rutt and Tuke a lot - it might be even better than the movie itself!

But anyhow, while the film was in theaters, Disney Television Animation hired Pete Michels (who's also directed episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy) to direct a pilot written by Bart Jennett (who also worked on - fittingly enough - another Disney animated show, Recess) for a Brother Bear TV show. For what it's worth, Bart also wrote a pilot for a show based on Disney's adaptation of Robin Hood, but I couldn't find any information about that.

The plush toys would've sold themselves!

It was pretty hard for Pete Michels to direct the pilot for a show based on a movie that was still in theaters at the moment. He had to borrow a copy from Disney to watch for reference, and they made him return it as soon as he watched it.

The plot of the show was this: Koda loved having Kenai as a big brother so much that he invited MORE young animals to join their little "family". Specifically, they would have been joined by a husky pup, two baby owls, a porcupine, and a cross between an elephant and a platypus called Doohickey - who, as you can see from the concept art, looked kind of like Scrat from Ice Age. Jeremy Suarez, Rick Moranis, and Dave Thomas were set to reprise their roles as Koda, Rutt and Tuke, with Will Friede going to fill in for Joaquin Phoenix as the voice of Kenai. Tom Kenny and Grey Griffin were going to be part of the cast as well (as which characters, I don't know).

The pilot tested well, and Pete hoped that they would get at least 52 or 65 episodes. There's just one problem - this was the 2000s, when Disney Channel didn't give a bear's tail about shows based on Disney's animated characters. The management then was all about making tween-centric programming, which in their eyes was live action stuff like Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and shows like that. They thought that making shows based on animated movies was counterproductive to their goal of being a channel for tweens. The Emperor's New Groove got a TV show because it at least did a little better than Brother Bear at the box office, and likely also because they could at least stick the teenaged main character, Kuzco, in a high school so that the show would appeal to tweens. And apparently it didn't occur to anyone to just put the show on Toon Disney.

So that's eight animated shows that Disney could've given us. As you can see, many of these got the shaft either because A) the direct-to-video sequels were cancelled or B) blame the tweencoms. I might do a sequel to this post, because there are a couple other Disney animated series that didn't get off the ground, but for now I'll just leave you with a teaser for my next review:

Sources:

- https://jimhillmedia.com/tube-thursday-the-disney-afternoon-shows-that-you-didnt-get-to-see/

- https://jimhillmedia.com/why-for-27/

- https://jimhillmedia.com/toon-tuesday-disneys-the-aristocats-the-animated-series/

- https://disneytvanimation.com/post/671597549802618880/brother-bear-the-series-and-the-story-of-disney

- https://animatedviews.com/2013/o-brother-bear-where-art-thou-why-disney-channel-turned-down-brother-bear-the-series/

* Of course, An Extremely Goofy Movie from 2000 gave Goofy a love interest as well, but she never showed up again. I guess they figured a character from a direct-to-video sequel would look out-of-place next to Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Pluto on merchandise.

** And on top of that, I am fully convinced that Sven from Frozen was an attempt to cash in on the success of Tangled's Maximus***. They're both hoofed animals that act like dogs!

*** As is Pua from Moana, by the way.