I was around for the ride while the network still had immense siginfance. I was there when they showed old Nicktoons, and the new stuff, I saw the Nicktoons Animation Festival a couple of times, I not only caught that weird programing error that showed the last few minutes of an episode of Kablam, but a rare variant of it that showed an ident from when Nicktoons Network was Nicktoons TV and part of an episode of CatDog.
I also remember unintentionally pulling an all-nighter just to catch shows on the network I haven't seen yet. At that point, I got to see Ren and Stimpy for the first time, I got to see Rocko's Modern Life for the first time in a while and I was introduced to shows like Skyland, Shuriken School and Corneil and Bernie (or Watch My Chops for people in Europe). I remember that because on the same day I was involved in a boating accident and practically got crippled. No joke.
The point is, Nicktoons Network had a strong collection of shows that stuck in my mind one way or another. For instance, today's show is the only show in the same vein as those plot-heavy anime-styled shows that I don't hate with a passion nowadays (well, Skyland may count too, but I haven't seen that in a while)
Personal Background
Not even one LTA ago, I talked about Wulin Warriors, a show by Larry Schwartz. Since I've been looking deeper into his works, since this show popped into my head since I could still remember nearly everything I watched on Nicktoons Network, and the fact that I'm only at work from 8 to 5 leaving me with dick to do until then, I decided, fuck it, I wanted to watch this show and see if I'd still be into it. To start off, the first episode is a three part special and admittedly, I was interested in watching all three parts. So, mission accomplished.
When I saw the show on TV, I got as far as episode 6. At that point I was slipping away from television, either that or I was moving on to Cartoon Network (mostly by 2010 or so) and got to see, quite frankly, some of the ugliest shows of all time.
Production Background
Again, this show is by Larry Schwartz. It was created to promote the live-action Speed Racer movie (remember that?) but it seemed to have garnered enough traction to warrant a full-series. Animation Collective (Schwartz's company), produced the show for its first season. The remaining season was put in the hands of two different studios, Toonz Animation India, who went on to produce a Speed Racer animated film (not based on Next Generation by the by), and worked on another show for Nicktoons, Wolverine and the X-Men, which I haven't seen, but seems like another bog-standard late-2000s Marvel cartoon that's either somewhat campy or borderline fucked up like the Ultimate Avengers D2V movies.
Telegael was the second animator, an Irish animation studio who did work on numerous shows by Moonscoop, all of which ranged from forgettable to crap (save for Growing Up Creepie, which is a decent show.) I haven't seen the second season, so I won't pass an ultimate judgement on it yet, though given that most animated shows faced a steep decline following a studio change (George of the Jungle stands as the worst example of this (and you people thought the first season was crap.)), I'm keeping my distance.
The show was also produced (and I assume was bankrolled) by Lionsgate, better known as the purveyor of bargain bin animated movies and one of seven companies involved with Dear White People, an amalgamation of black people who's keeping their entire race many centuries back, I will never say anything more beyond that because fuck, I'm not giving that show any more attention.
Premise
The show ties in all previous generations of Speed Racer. Our lead, aptly named Speed, is the son of the original Speed Racer who went missing following his birth. Speed is befriended by his roommates, Connor, a stand-in for Sparky and Chim-Chim, a stand-in for... fuck if I could remember the name of the monkey in the original show, as well as Lucy... either a diversity quota or she's based on someone from the original series. Within not even a few episodes, Speed discovers he's not only the son of Speed Racer, but the brother to X, a popular racer and a friendly rival. The antagonist, Zile, sets out to destroy Speed after he discovers plans to build an eco-friendly car on steroids.
Watching the show, I hardly payed attention to the main plot, so I didn't recognize the main motive at the time. Watching it again, it goes like this, Zile played a part in the disappearance of the legacy Speed when he made plans to produce the Mach 6, a car that could run without fossil fuels, one that would set a chain of events that would render fossil fuels obsolete. Having an empire built around that, Zile did what he had to do, and now sets his sight on the neo Speed since he seeks to bring the car to fruition.
That's... admittedly not too bad of a plot. It's not batshit insane, and the characters actually carry it along nicely, well, most of them. X stands out to me as a properly executed rival type. He loves to race not for the money (his popularity earned him sponsors), but for the thrill of winning. He's a bit more fleshed out personality-wise than Speed Jr., who only exists to help move the plot along. Zile also stands out to me as a cool villain, one with a decent motive, and a three-dimensional personality while maintaining his status as the big bad. Apparently I'm not the only one who liked this guy, because on the show's wikipedia page, which is very generous in terms of info on the show and characters, he was a popular character who was written to be a future version of Captain Terror from the legacy Speed Racer cartoon, which itself would make sense, given that he's a villain to Speed Racer, and it's carried on to the next generation.
Animation
Beforehand, I talked about how Animation Collective made a market out of shows produced with Flash and Autodesk Maya, but I never talked about their animated efforts. These shows utilized those animation programs, while setting them against 3D backgrounds produced in Blender. The result looked awesome back then, and it still holds the same level of significance to me now.
One of the show's negative aspects (at least according to the idiots who still use IMDb) is that the show looks ugly and is nothing like the anime. Apparently the anime uses low-budget animation and looks like a slightly more fluid Clutch Cargo (the show is a series of still images with moving lips). Well, Speed Racer: Next Generation has stiff animation, anime-style poses (though not to the cringeworthy extend used in Teen Titans) and a reliance on plot. I'd say it's the kind of show that'd give boners to animation fans the same way free shit gives Bernie Sanders supporters empty Twinkies.
Actors
I mentioned this in my Wulin Warriors essay, but it bears repeating for convenience. This show utilizes actors from 4Kids Entertainment (since Schwartz contacts NYAV Post for actors.), and here it's the most apparent. Our lead is played by Kurt Csolak, an actor who went on to act in two independent short films between 2015 and 2017 and most recently surfaced as a production manager on another short film. Not doing too much these days. Though to be fair, that isn't a total loss since he gives a very barebones performance (he sounds like a younger version of Reed Richards from Fantastic Four: Worlds Greatest Heroes), though unlike one actress from another series I hope to cover someday, we know what he looks like. He also gives me a Dipper Pines vibe, since his voice is somewhat deeper than what the character is supposed to sound like going by his age. Then again, I see this as a stab at the animation community who want leads to be uber mature, uber serious robots.
On 4Kids alumni, we have a regular who worked on another one of Schwartz shows, Kappa Mikey, Michael Sinterniklaas, best known as the voice of Leonardo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003. Here, he lends his voice to not one, but two characters, albeit, identical twins. They're mostly comic relief. David Zen Mansley is another example, having provided the voice of Agent Bishop (and apparently a shit-ton of other characters in TMNT 2k3), Sean Schemmel, who plays a character near the end of the first season, Greg Abbey (best known as the second English actor for Tristan in You Gi Oh and Raphael in TMNT 2k3 and Michal Friedman (who I mentioned in my Wulin Warriors essay) in tragically her second to last role.
But it goes beyond a set of given actors, they got actors like Cindy Robinson (aka Amy Rose) since season 2, Yuri Lowenthal and they even got Speed Racer himself, Peter Fernandez to throw his hat into the ring. His death led to Greg Abbey entering the ring to take his place
Other details
A while back I made an essay deconstructing Avatar: The Last Airbender's worst aspects, and on one of them I mocked the show for revealing the focal point three episodes in, when given a show that's reliant on plot, it'd be more interesting to make the big reveal at the end of season one. Speed Racer's big reveal comes in at part two of the three-part opening episode. Does that make it worse? Well, not exactly. They found a way around it. You see, there were clues that guided new viewers to the conclusion, and they were super obvious, so if they set the reveal up for the end of the season, people'd be like "wow, took you a whole season to reveal something we picked up on overtime? Screw this."
Overall
The show was also produced (and I assume was bankrolled) by Lionsgate, better known as the purveyor of bargain bin animated movies and one of seven companies involved with Dear White People, an amalgamation of black people who's keeping their entire race many centuries back, I will never say anything more beyond that because fuck, I'm not giving that show any more attention.
Premise
The show ties in all previous generations of Speed Racer. Our lead, aptly named Speed, is the son of the original Speed Racer who went missing following his birth. Speed is befriended by his roommates, Connor, a stand-in for Sparky and Chim-Chim, a stand-in for... fuck if I could remember the name of the monkey in the original show, as well as Lucy... either a diversity quota or she's based on someone from the original series. Within not even a few episodes, Speed discovers he's not only the son of Speed Racer, but the brother to X, a popular racer and a friendly rival. The antagonist, Zile, sets out to destroy Speed after he discovers plans to build an eco-friendly car on steroids.
Watching the show, I hardly payed attention to the main plot, so I didn't recognize the main motive at the time. Watching it again, it goes like this, Zile played a part in the disappearance of the legacy Speed when he made plans to produce the Mach 6, a car that could run without fossil fuels, one that would set a chain of events that would render fossil fuels obsolete. Having an empire built around that, Zile did what he had to do, and now sets his sight on the neo Speed since he seeks to bring the car to fruition.
That's... admittedly not too bad of a plot. It's not batshit insane, and the characters actually carry it along nicely, well, most of them. X stands out to me as a properly executed rival type. He loves to race not for the money (his popularity earned him sponsors), but for the thrill of winning. He's a bit more fleshed out personality-wise than Speed Jr., who only exists to help move the plot along. Zile also stands out to me as a cool villain, one with a decent motive, and a three-dimensional personality while maintaining his status as the big bad. Apparently I'm not the only one who liked this guy, because on the show's wikipedia page, which is very generous in terms of info on the show and characters, he was a popular character who was written to be a future version of Captain Terror from the legacy Speed Racer cartoon, which itself would make sense, given that he's a villain to Speed Racer, and it's carried on to the next generation.
Animation
Beforehand, I talked about how Animation Collective made a market out of shows produced with Flash and Autodesk Maya, but I never talked about their animated efforts. These shows utilized those animation programs, while setting them against 3D backgrounds produced in Blender. The result looked awesome back then, and it still holds the same level of significance to me now.
One of the show's negative aspects (at least according to the idiots who still use IMDb) is that the show looks ugly and is nothing like the anime. Apparently the anime uses low-budget animation and looks like a slightly more fluid Clutch Cargo (the show is a series of still images with moving lips). Well, Speed Racer: Next Generation has stiff animation, anime-style poses (though not to the cringeworthy extend used in Teen Titans) and a reliance on plot. I'd say it's the kind of show that'd give boners to animation fans the same way free shit gives Bernie Sanders supporters empty Twinkies.
Actors
I mentioned this in my Wulin Warriors essay, but it bears repeating for convenience. This show utilizes actors from 4Kids Entertainment (since Schwartz contacts NYAV Post for actors.), and here it's the most apparent. Our lead is played by Kurt Csolak, an actor who went on to act in two independent short films between 2015 and 2017 and most recently surfaced as a production manager on another short film. Not doing too much these days. Though to be fair, that isn't a total loss since he gives a very barebones performance (he sounds like a younger version of Reed Richards from Fantastic Four: Worlds Greatest Heroes), though unlike one actress from another series I hope to cover someday, we know what he looks like. He also gives me a Dipper Pines vibe, since his voice is somewhat deeper than what the character is supposed to sound like going by his age. Then again, I see this as a stab at the animation community who want leads to be uber mature, uber serious robots.
On 4Kids alumni, we have a regular who worked on another one of Schwartz shows, Kappa Mikey, Michael Sinterniklaas, best known as the voice of Leonardo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003. Here, he lends his voice to not one, but two characters, albeit, identical twins. They're mostly comic relief. David Zen Mansley is another example, having provided the voice of Agent Bishop (and apparently a shit-ton of other characters in TMNT 2k3), Sean Schemmel, who plays a character near the end of the first season, Greg Abbey (best known as the second English actor for Tristan in You Gi Oh and Raphael in TMNT 2k3 and Michal Friedman (who I mentioned in my Wulin Warriors essay) in tragically her second to last role.
But it goes beyond a set of given actors, they got actors like Cindy Robinson (aka Amy Rose) since season 2, Yuri Lowenthal and they even got Speed Racer himself, Peter Fernandez to throw his hat into the ring. His death led to Greg Abbey entering the ring to take his place
Other details
A while back I made an essay deconstructing Avatar: The Last Airbender's worst aspects, and on one of them I mocked the show for revealing the focal point three episodes in, when given a show that's reliant on plot, it'd be more interesting to make the big reveal at the end of season one. Speed Racer's big reveal comes in at part two of the three-part opening episode. Does that make it worse? Well, not exactly. They found a way around it. You see, there were clues that guided new viewers to the conclusion, and they were super obvious, so if they set the reveal up for the end of the season, people'd be like "wow, took you a whole season to reveal something we picked up on overtime? Screw this."
Overall
Will I ever revisit the show again? Not quite. Given that it's a plot-centric show, I'd have to see the episodes in chronological order. I prefer more comedic or episodic shows since I could go into them at any time at any point, whereas with a show like Speed Racer: Next Generation, I wouldn't be able to get into one episode without seeing another to get brought up to speed (and those recaps don't do it for me too well). Do I recommend this show to anyone? Of course.
In fact, along with Skyland (for now), I'd call this one of the only plot-centered shows that haven't been ruined by bottomlessly stupid people. Teen Titans was ruined by obnoxious people who ironically give the show more publicity than the fans (Dahvie Vanity, I think you were onto something with the Haters Make Me Famous mantra), Avatar was ruined by pretentious fans who constantly whine about M. Night Shymalan (epic troll BTW), Steven Universe was doomed from the start, I have a love-hate attitude toward The Loud House and honestly I'm getting some bad vibes from the later episodes, and since Gravity Falls ended, it's safe to like it again. Speed Racer: Next Generation was a big success. According to TV Tropes it outlived other adaptations and even treated references to the legacy material with respect.
With this level of effort in terms of writing (and I'm scratching the surface here), if Wulin Warriors was a YouTube fan dub aired on television, then Speed Racer Next Generation would be a story on FanFiction.net adapted into a full series, and this is the best idea out of the two. To everyone, ignore the 4 star rating on IMDb. It's just whiny projection.
Unfortunately, the show isn't on YouTube, so you'll have to put up with Dailymotion instead: www.dailymotion.com/video/x66w…
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