Remember KaBlam! I mean you all probably do. KaBlam!... held up poorly. We had an obnoxious collection of wraparounds, Henry suffered for what amounted to nothing (I do not get the dynamic between him and Mr. Foot), the dynamic between Henry and June switched out of the blue, a lot of the shorts weren't as good in hindsight, plus they placed their priorities into the wrong places.
Hence this show.
Background
Well to be fair I can see why they did. The creators of Action League Now was created by the same key producers from KaBlam! Robert Mittenthal, Will McRobb and Albie Hecht, the first of which even has a self-insert in KaBlam!'s wraparounds. Mittenthal ran Flying Mallet, Inc., which came into being late into KaBlam!'s life, and even produced Cry Baby Lane of all things.
Will McRobb made up one half of a creative duo along with Chris Viscardi. Both created The Adventures of Pete and Pete, and later, of all things, Sanjay and Craig (well they executive produced and wrote for it anyhow).
Albie Hecht was the president of Nickelodeon at this point, and would later discover The Naked Bros. Band...'s indie movie at a film festival and work to make it a series.
The show was produced in Pennsylvania, and had starred radio personalities from the Pittsburgh area.
Action League Now! aired as part of All That before airing on KaBlam!, I only brought up the latter at first because that's where I discovered it. I assume on All That they were kept to the transition and their dedicated spot, but on KaBlam!, they were all over the place.
In several instances of proverbial masturbation, they won a self-made award show, two characters appeared in the wraparounds with Henry and June (one was a plot point, the other was an antagonist), they even had an episode shown before Good Burger when it was released in theaters. I mean then again the movie and the short originated on All That, and Nickelodeon movies at the time always had a short appearing before a movie, at least throughout the 90s (Harriet The Spy had the Hey Arnold pilot and The Rugrats Movie had the CatDog episode Fetch)
And then, a sorta full series. I say sorta because this just compiled every short to fit a half-hour junction.
It must've been a slow day at Nickelodeon, but then again they were better than Cartoon Network in the mid-2000s. Unless the shorts were that popular, this felt like overkill. The half-hour series aired from 2001 to 2002 for what amounted to a single season. From then on, the novelty was dead.
Structure
This is a more comedic superhero action affair, certainly not out of style, but second to the novelty behind it. The characters do have some personality to them, but a stark bulk of them operate on the same frequency of stupidity. Not that I hate it, it's just something I noticed.
It seems their willingness to run with the show was how cheaply it was made. It had access to a roster of actors (well, radio personalities who were able to act) and would likely not need to be paid that much, only a few minutes were required for every episode, and it's all action figures.
This predated Robot Chicken, so I won't make any inane allegations.
The show, as it's proudly announced at the end of the series proper, is Filmed in Chuckimation... OUCHIES!. Which basically means characters are moved entirely through human intervention, the prominence of the characters actually getting thrown by whatever means led to the title. It's cheap, but at the same time unique.
The characters themselves, well most of them, are borderline Frankenstein projects, notable ones are Thunder Girl who's a Barbie head attached to She-Ra's body, The Flesh, who's said to be a modified Conan the Adventurer figure (painted over unless the clothes are removable), Stinky Diver, who's a modified version of Shipwreck from G.I. Joe (the 1994 version) and Meltman, who's a melted Joe Cobra figure.
The rest come from Playskool's Play People sets.
When it comes to an animation style so cheap, and modifications so clear, they fit like a glove with an inane premise, which they went for, obviously. I've seen only a handful of episodes and wanted to see more (which I mean I could if I wanted to these days but choose not to), while I didn't pick up on a lot of hidden jokes (there's bound to be some), they were at the very least enjoyable.
And... that basically covers the show. Any serialized aspects only come in the antagonists they deal with, and even then they break that tradition with other villains and different escapades.
But why else are we here?
I can understand it if the people behind KaBlam! were also behind this, and that some creators are not willing to surrender much more of the rights to their shorts, but I feel the level of promotion this show had was overkill. As mentioned before, it felt like they were sucking their own dicks with the prominent cameos and that award show episode, and this is furthered by the fact this appeared on All That beforehand, and had the honor of having a short before a Nickelodeon Movie.
Plus a TV series. I mean I can understand putting Action League Now before Good Burger as the producers pulled from their own show... nothing else, but this is quite the evolution. I mean The Off Beats only got as far as a holiday special.
Action League Now, ironically, had little prominence in Nickelodeon as a whole, beyond a brief appearance in an old Nickelodeon bumper, they were relegated to just being part of KaBlam! and little else.
Overall
I have no intent to go back to KaBlam! any time soon, so one benefit to this show existing is that now I can just watch the episodes without having to skim. I guess the overall cheap production meant this wouldn't be a huge lift from anyone's pockets, but this show was both over-promoted and undersold.
What I'm trying to say is, I wish Life With Loopy received better treatment, even the dedicated special felt heavy-handed.
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