Bigfoot Presents, what I'll call it for the sake of time, began life in September of 2006. While the title is long, it does exemplify what you're gonna get. Apparently Bigfoot (referring to the original monster truck), was a late addition to the title, but he does appear in most episodes so... fuck it. This series first aired on Discovery Kids, a network that, in retrospect, turned out to be one of the more underrated kids networks, which in turn led to one of the best underdog networks, The Hub.
The series was executive produced by James D. Stern of Endgame Entertainment. I bring him up because his line of work is rooted in live-action movies, more serious ones mind you, though he did try his hand at theatrical animation in later years. Did you know that he was behind The Nut Job? Do you even remember The Nut Job? He was also behind a Trump-oriented documentary which for all intents and purposes doesn't seem to be as venomous as Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9 or one-sided as the average Dinesh D'Souza flick (that's right, I'm biting both sides.)
The series was produced in Canada, and as a result we do have some familiar voices here. Headlining the series is Cameron Ansell, one of the voices of Arthur, Scott McCord who voiced the main character on Camp Lakebottom and also worked on The Nut Job (that Endgame biopic is beginning to make a bit more sense, isn't it?), we have two voices from Atomic Betty (the primary ones anyways (Tajja Isen who voiced the main character and Laurie Elliot, Betty's best friend), Linda Ballantyne; the voice of Sailor Moon in that show's later half and the voice of Mangolia from George of the Jungle... season 2... proof that everyone overreacted to the first season... fuck you Singapore. I'd list more, but who wants to hear about some idiotic trivia on Canadian voice actors, especially on shows few people even care about? ...Okay apparently Len Carlson also lent his voice to the series. It's weird because he died in January of 2006, this series turned up in September. I take it this series was in the works for a while and that every episode was pre-made and recorded before it was pitched to networks. Sorta explains how they were able to released 52 episodes within the span of two months.
Structure
The series is essentially a collection of morality tales, though thankfully it doesn't involve a pseudo-psychopath who'd force someone to strip naked while torturing them mentally just to push some asinine lesson. Fortunately, our star is headlined in the title, Meteor. He's a space-rover child, and fortunately, he's very bearable. Meteor is typically guided by his grandfather, whether it be giving him a swig from the cup of life or encouraging him to see past the boring exterior of beneficial activities. The other characters aren't painfully interesting and only exist to keep the episode going, but I want to single one out. One of Meteors friends is LT, Little Tow, and he's the son of Bigfoot. This doesn't seem important, but since Bigfoot is part of the title, I guess it's nice to know they didn't forget about the content of their title for the sake of cashing in on something only the far south could appreciate.
The first episode I've seen of this show centers on Meteor's grandfather leading Meteor and his friends on a treasure hunt. This is a farce conjured by the grandfather to show them the fun aspects of problem solving and puzzles with some action here and there. I'll say this, they didn't let this go astray, and while it doesn't contain substantial educational material it is nice of them to show how fun the educational aspect of puzzle solving is.
BrutalMoose made a statement regarding the difficulty in separating education and fun in one of his videos, so I'd like to bring this up. If you make the educational bits subtle while maintaining a slight focus on it, while including fun aspects that work along the premise, you'd probably find more enjoyment than you would with a chicken nugget.
So overall, I give the show props for a proper balance between education and fun.
Animation/Similarities
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| I'll let this set the tone for the rest of the review |
That Cars reference I made at the start is beginning to make sense. This series came out the same year as Cars, and the latter predates this by a few months. It's very easy to draw comparisons between both, but you could say it's not copying the core premise of that. It seems to resemble your typical mock buster, but let's be honest, this is above those.
The animation has a very smooth frame rate. The facial expressions are a bit limited, but these are anthropomorphic cars, so I don't know what I was expecting. The backgrounds on the other hand are kinda limited, flat texture and obvious hand-drawn environments that clash considerably with the CGI. It's obvious most elements are tacked on and the graphics are basically a product of their time. It did hold up better than the average Mainframe Entertainment production, which they themselves hold up more than the latest turds they've been tied to.
For a television series that had all of its episodes released within less than a year, it's passable.
Non-secular
I wasn't kidding when I said this wound up on a Christian television network. At some point, possibly still to this day, this currently airs on Smile TV, a family subdivision of the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Given the implication, just re-airing the show wouldn't be enough, and you'd be right. Basically the more notable changes to the series are the inclusion of a narrator who sums up everything that has happened and throwing in a bible scripture that fits with the episode. They also remove all references to Discovery Kids, so whether or not they acknowledge the stray from the original series is up to speculation.
Overall
Basically I wanted to bring to light another series only a few of you ever heard of. But if you want a proper sum up, if you decide to raise your kids around television, don't show them something like Peppa Pig and turn this on. You'll thank me later.
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