Spotlight Australia II: The Canadian Joints

A while back, I touched upon a few Australian cartoons that peaked my interest. I mainly did that because I didn't see myself making a full review of any of those shows. I've decided to make a sequel to the list because there're shows I've been hoping to cover, but I feel a long review is unjustified for each. Also, these shows happen to be Canadian/Australian co-productions.

The most interesting aspect about these shows is that they're prime examples of programs that receive funding from their respective governments. This is best represented in the closing credits where you see credits for financial units and government organizations like Film Victoria or the Canadian Film Fund. I’d say that’s tax payer money put to good use.

So, let's begin.

Yakkity Yak

I'm just gonna get this out of the way. Few people like this show, I do. Yakkity Yak lasted for twenty six episodes between 2002 and 2003, two segmented episodes of course. You might've caught this show on Nickelodeon years ago, possibly on Nicktoons Network during their golden age. Forgettable nature aside, I don't hate this show.

Yakkity Yak aired on Teletoon in Canada and Nickelodeon's Australian channel, airing on the former's home base in the US. The show was created by Mark Gravas, one of two of his only major television efforts. I covered the other one, CJ the DJ, in the first Spotlight Australia. He also directed Casper's Scare School, which as of now is the second best Casper movie thanks to the sheer shit factor of Casper's Haunted Christmas. Gravas was based in Australia and produced the show through his Kapow Pictures label.

From Canada, the show received assistance from Studio B Productions. I bring them up because it was at this point they transitioned into their flash phase. Their previous productions were known for their simplistic character designs and fluid animation, while from here through to their demise, their shows had floaty flash animation, where the characters looked like they were 2D models pasted onto three-dimensional storyboards. For a general idea on what I'm talking about, key examples of the style lie in here, Being Ian, George of the Jungle, Ricky Sprocket: Showbiz Boy and those early Edgar and Ellen shorts.

Well by motion anyways.

One of the more interesting facts about the show is that it's based on the song Yakety Yak by The Coasters. Obviously, the first time I heard the song was on this show, so when I heard the actual song while watching The Great Outdoors, it was a bit of a mindfuck. One one hand, they took the yak portion quite literally and sorta threw everything they could onto the storyboard. On the other hand, yakety is a metaphor for the talkative nature of our protagonist, and both could represent daily life from the eyes of a youth.

Basically, the show centers on Yakkity Yak, an aspiring comedian who either causes trouble through his nativity, or is along for the ride. He lives in a world where anthropomorphic creatures and humans co-exist with one another. There's a bit of variety with each of them, notably Yakkity's friends which consist of a human girl named Lemony and an anthropomorphic pineapple named Keo. They fall under the wacky leader, straight man, abrasive girl archetypes, though admittedly, it's done well enough to the point I could at least get through the plot. There's also an occasionally seen fourth character, a robot named Penelope. This came out before My Life as a Teenage Robot, and given how polluted that fandom has become, I view episodes with her (and by extension, Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones) as an outlet for machine on human interactions. Other than that, it's a basic collection of comedic episodes, verbatim when compared to other shows with this format. 

So what's keeping me from lumping this in with the likes of Squirrel Boy? Well, it's quite easy on the eyes. They went for a 60s aesthetic with the design, which is ironically harder to pull off than a basic modern day setting. It's almost like a storybook in some areas, helps to make the show pop out more. Plus, given the influx of bizarre character choices, I could give Gravas the benefit of the doubt and say he wanted to try his hardest to make something original.

Since this is a Canadian joint, by nature I'm going to discuss the actors. Lee Tokar stars as Yakkity. He gives an intentionally obnoxious flair to Yakkity, but it is fairly easy on the ears. Plus it compliments the yak aesthetic (big noses, stuffy voice), Brian Drummond, aka one of the earliest voices of Knuckles the Echidna, voices Keo, and I dunno, the voice fits. Andrea Libman voices Lemony, and bear in mind this was years before she found her stride in voicing Pinkie Pie. As this is a Vancouver production, we have some verbatim actors like Scot McNeil and Tabitha St. Germain, but keeping their range in mind, they do their roles well.

There's little for me to hate about this series, then again I'm not one of those wannabes who hold the mentality that everything unknown is bad.

Moving on.

Zeke's Pad

I imagine this was discovered in some vault and was intended to be released in the early-2000s. I'll let this teaser image speak for itself.

Zeke's Pad is like a hybrid between Chalkzone and Penny Crayon. Aka, it's one of those drawings come to life affairs. How differently does this do the concept? Well it's limited to a specialized pad in the possession of our titular protagonist. Per airings, this turned up on YTV in Canada and Seven Network in Australia.

The series centers on Zeke using his art pad to try and get his way on something, only for it to gradually backfire and leading to him learning a lesson. He has to put up with his militaristic tidy mother Ida, the classical music lover and violinist Alvin, the aspiring actor Rachel and the jock-like Ike. Before you think of it, these characters aren't entirely confined to their stereotypes, there's still some noticeable dimensions you could find in most episodes.

For instance, Zeke isn't a trouble seeker, and he typically only acts when provoked. He's more than willing to throw away his aspirations to do the right thing after his plans go awry, and he feels more genuine than most other characters that fall under this trope. The show does a good job at presenting moral lessons, but maybe that's where it went wrong, and why it fell under the cracks.

Okay, now let's address the neo-punk elephant in the room. The animation is... something. It's cel-shaded CGI, which amounts to 3D animation with a 2D aesthetic. Not to mention, everyone has weird hair colors. This wouldn't look out of place in a skatepark or a nu metal music video. The animation was produced by Bardel Entertainment, better known for Viva Piñata. Their shows vary, whether they be straight-up CGI or cheap as hell 2D efforts like Mother Up and Edgar and Ellen. Two other companies are credited to this, but I don't know the full extent of their contributions to the show.

The show stars Michael Adamthwaite, who voiced a character in Firehouse Tales, a show I briefly covered in my Tickle U retrospective. You see why I talk about Canadian actors a great deal? You never know who you'd find in these shows. Tabitha St. Germain returns again, as the voice of Ida, once more putting those chops to good use. The only other main actors are Chiara Zanni, who voiced the lead character in What About Mimi? and Trevor Devall, the second voice of Dukey from Johnny Test.

This is like the 3D counterpart to Yakkity Yak, where the show is forgettable, but at least it has a style that can stick in your head. Plus it serves its purpose to teach basic morals in an interesting way.

John Callahan's Quads

I mention the creator by name because, aside from it actually being the full title, this was by the same guy who created Pelswick. One obvious tell between both is that they centered on crippled men, though this one hits closer to the home of the creator.

To get you up to speed, Callahan's focus on crippled characters is based on the fact that he himself is a quadriplegic. Happened in a car accident years before he got into animation (and if you want to know what that was like for him, he drew the characters by planting the pencil between both hands. It's hard to poke fun at the art style of his shows, because you'd literally be picking on a handicapped person. This one stands out from Pelswick, in that it shows off Callahan's more twisted side.

Callahan was never the most politically correct person out there. His works were often derided for their taboo subject matter, but that didn't stop him from dabbling in kids programming. Callahan died in 2010, and sadly his legacy has worn thin. But luckily I'm around to pick up the pieces. As for this show, it aired on Teletoon in Canada and SBS in Australia. Supposedly, it turned up on Adult Swim and HBO at some point, but I'm going to take that with a grain of salt until I get more evidence. The show was produced by Media World Features (who also produced Dogstar, covered in SA 1) and Nelvana Limited.

I wasn't kidding when I said this was closer to the life of the creator. Callahan got crippled in a car accident, perpetuated by drinking, he had to fight to quit alcoholism, the main character goes through the same thing here, with Callahan's macabre wit to boot. Reilly O'Reilly is crippled and is given a mansion by the man who ran him over to avoid legal litigation, and takes in his big breasted Earthly girlfriend Franny, a blind black man, a handless masseur and one who's just a head on a table. I'm stopping here because this is one of those edge before substance shows. It fits the creator, sure, and I don't mind it, but I guess people'd find a way to bitch about it. It's still better than Drawn Together.

A preface

One interesting aspect of this show is that it's one of the first television shows to be animated in flash. Mucha Lucha was given this honor, but that came out in 2002, this came out in 2001. Seemingly this came about to maintain connections between the Australian and Canadian units behind this, budgetary issues may be the tell here. This leads to what looks to be unfinished animation, with basic backgrounds and the like. I kinda like it, it takes balls to have something like that air.

The show has few actors I recognize. The few I know are Terri Hawkes, aka the original voice of Sailor Moon as Fanny and Linda Kash as a recurring character. I know Kash from Almost Naked Animals and Scaredy Squirrel, though she also appeared on Seinfeld at some point. This is the first Canadian-Australian show on this list to include an Australian actor, Matthew King. I know him from Dogstar as well, okay I saw he voiced a character on it via IMDb.

View at your own risk.

Pixel Pinkie

Here's something a bit more infamous. If you followed Mr. Enter during the Where's the Fair Use fiasco, you'd know about a debacle he had with the production company behind Pixel Pinkie, where they took down a review of an episode he covered. The result of this is that now every episode has a strong dislike ratio for the episodes posted onto YouTube, and it's sitting at a miserable 2 out of 10 on IMDb.

Apparently this did air on television, on the Nine Network and ABC Me. This show is not just a Canadian/Australian joint, but the United Kingdom threw their hat into this as well, though the extent is up in the air. In spite of Canada supposedly aiding in production, they wouldn't get this show until around 2014, where it aired on Teletoon (proof needed.)

The plot is out there. It seems simple enough, but that's only if you don't bother summing up the characters. To sum up, Nina, a girl with hippie parents moves to a new school, befriends the average nerdy sidekick and rams horns with the popular clique. What's special about it? Well there's a fixation on cellphones, and Nina gets one that contains a digitized genie. Ah it's on the tip of my tongue, ah, the wishes go horribly wrong and Nina attempts to resolve them, every episode.

I'm going to be honest, I only skimmed through a few episodes, I never caught the parts with the titular Pixel Pinkie, but maybe I'm doing myself a favor. None of the characters are interesting, and when it goes to the main characters, that's bad. If I find myself favoring the clique, that's worse. Speaking of the clique, they're not stereotypically obnoxious. They're like more calculating versions of Courtney Grippling of As Told by Ginger, seemingly less intent on making Nina miserable, and more or less just curious about her.

Nun gud

Let's just get this out of the way, for something out of 2009, it's one of the lowest offerings flash cartoons have to offer. The irised eyes remind me of Atomic Betty, and I absolutely hate that show. The movements are rather choppy and the backgrounds are rather simple. If this was something posted on Newgrounds or YouTube, I'd forgive this for sure, but as a television series, Australia doesn't have its priorities as high as other countries. You can make something good with flash animation, there're plenty of enjoyable flash shows, but for here, it hits the black area outside of the dartboard.

Overall, had it not been for the flagging fiasco, this would've fallen under my radar. It is certainly the worst show covered on this entry, but ironically, I'd go back to this before I go back to I Got a Rocket.