Iggy Arbuckle

Iggy Arbuckle

The main cast of the show: (Clockwise from top) The Great Bamzeani, Robear,[1] Catfish Stu, Robert, Jiggers, Iggy Arbuckle, Spiff, Zoop and Kira. (Background) Mooseknuckle.
Genre Animation
Sitcom
Created by Guy Vasilovich
Developed by Myra Fried
Steve Wright
Shelley Hoffman
Robert Pincombe
Written by (5 or more episodes)
Myra Fried
Steve Wright
Karen Moonah
Terry Saltsman
Kenn Scott
Voices of Jonathan Wilson
David Berni
James Rankin
Derek McGrath
Stephanie Milo
Stephanie Anne Mills
Novie Edwards
Neil Crone
Patrick McKenna
Country of origin Canada
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 26 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) Donna Friedman Meir
Noreen Halpern
John Morayniss
Audrey Velichka
Producer(s) Suzanne Berger
Running time 22 min approx.
Production company(s) C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures
National Geographic Kids
Blueprint Entertainment
Distributor Oasis International
Release
Original network Teletoon
Original release June 29 (2007-06-29)[2] – October 16, 2007 (2007-10-16)[3]

Iggy Arbuckle is a Canadian animated series that premiered in Canada on Teletoon in June 2007.[4] Based on a comic strip from National Geographic Kids, the show is created by Guy Vasilovich, and focuses about a pig (Iggy Arbuckle) who happens to be a forest ranger, known in the series as a "Pig Ranger". The plot involves Iggy's attempts to protect the environmental structure of the fictional Kookamunga National Park. It is produced by Blueprint Entertainment, in association with C.O.R.E. Toons, National Geographic Kids Entertainment, and Teletoon Canada Inc. and distributed by Oasis International.

The series also aired in Australia on ABC Kids and in the United Kingdom on Jetix from August 25, 2007, Pop from June 27, 2011. Oasis International, the Canadian distributor, also licensed the series to channels such as Cartoon Network (in Korea, Southeast Asia, India, and the Philippines) and Canal + SA and TPS in France. It was also broadcast on Saturday mornings on Toonattik on ITV and CITV, and weekday mornings on Action Stations! on ITV4 and CITV.

Plot

The show takes place in a fictional national park known as the "Kookamunga" (The "Kook" for short, although there is the Cucamonga Valley in California). The park is looked after by a white pig named Iggy Arbuckle, who is the creator of the "Pig Rangers", a fictional type of forest ranger. He is accompanied by a beaver named Jiggers, who is the only other canonical Pig Ranger in the show.

Iggy's nemesis is a catfish named Stu, who is always trying to use the Kookamunga to obtain wealth. Most of the stories revolve around Iggy and Jiggers' efforts to save the park's ecosystem from Catfish Stu.

Recurring locations

The most prominent locations in the park include a volcano called Mount Kaboom, which Jiggers is constantly afraid will erupt, despite Iggy saying it has been dormant for centuries. The first story in the debut episode focused on this matter. Three other recurring places are a lake called Gottalottawatta, in which character Catfish Stu frequently dwells, an Iceland called Brainfreeze and a town called Mooseknuckle.

Production

Iggy Arbuckle began as a comic strip entitled Iggy Arbuckle: Nature Freak! that premiered in National Geographic Kids in the June 2004 issue.[5] It was, to date, the only issue of the comic strip; in which the characters Iggy Arbuckle, Jiggers and Zoop made their first appearances. The plot involved Iggy and Jiggers trying to find an acorn so Iggy could make an acorn squash pie for Zoop as a birthday present. Created by Guy Vasilovich, director of Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.!, writer for Moville Mysteries, and production designer for Hey Arnold!: The Movie, the series is loosely based on his childhood experiences while living in Tomahawk, Wisconsin.[6][7]

On April 11, 2005, Oasis International, Blueprint Entertainment and Teletoon announced that they were coproducing an animated series based on the comic. The series would be targeted at children ages six to eleven and feature twenty-six episodes each comprising two eleven-minute sub-episodes. The animation was done entirely in Flash, with over 100 workers involved in the series' creation.[8] National Geographic holds the US distribution rights for the series, while Blueprint holds the international rights.[5] Jetix Europe acquired the European broadcast and DVD distribution rights to the series in February 2007.[7]

In January 2008, Oasis International sold distribution rights of Iggy Arbuckle to Canal + SA and TPS in France, to ABC in Australia, and to the variants of Cartoon Network in Southeast Asia, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and India.[9] The series was licensed for US broadcast by Animania HD, and is currently licensed for distribution in a total of seventy territories.[10]

Characters

Iggy Arbuckle and his sidekick Jiggers

The characters in the show are drawn as animal species, including many types of mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, and even insects. Rather than referring to the male characters as "men" and the females as "women" in the appropriate contexts, the characters refer to each other by their species (though the words "lady/ladies,"[11] "gentleman/men," "girls,"[12] and "boys"[13] exist in their vocabulary). The wild animals and the anthropomorphized characters understand each other quite well, and the wild ones seem quite intelligent.

A gag in the series is that whenever a character gets conked on the head, bluebirds start flying around their heads. When the character comes to, they fly away.

Episodes

Season Episodes Originally aired
Season premiere Season finale
1 26 June 29, 2007 October 16, 2007

Reception

Iggy Arbuckle has been received well in Europe, with Jetix Europe receiving strong sales on the show.[14] In the United Kingdom, its biggest timeslot is among young male viewers.[14] As of Autumn 2008, it ranks among the top shows viewed by European children, in the markets in which Jetix has aired the show.[15]

Awards and nominations

As of March 2008, the sub-episode "Petition Impossible", of the episode "Yawny Come Lately/Petition Impossible" was among the finalists of the children's programs nominated for the 2008 Canadian Screenwriting Awards.[16][17] On April 14, the day the award winners were declared, the episode won the Children/Preschool category award.[18][19] The episode "Idle Worship/There's Something about Berries" won a Gemini award for Best Writing in a Children's Series, during the 23rd anniversary of the Gemini awards.[20][21] Jonathan Wilson and David Berni, the voices of Iggy and Jiggers, respectively, received a Gemini nomination for Best Individual or Ensemble Performance in an Animated Program or Series, for the same episode, although it lost to Gordon Tootoosis, Raven Brass, Trevor Cameron, Lorne Cardinal, Taylor Cook, Eric Jackson, Andrea Menard, and DerRic Starlight, for The Guardians.[22]

Merchandise

Promotional online poster for the game.

On November 1, 2007, an online game based on the series, The Great Kookamunga Challenge, was launched. Hosted on the Teletoon web site and created by Zinc Roe Design, the game was an online race in which players explored the Kookamunga National Park in search of 115 "checkpoints." At each checkpoint, they could earn points by playing games, answering trivia questions about the series, or completing group activities. The first players who completed the entire challenge won real-world prizes, including a digital camera and items from National Geographic Kids. The game ran for six weeks.[23][24]

The entire series of Iggy Arbuckle was released on DVD in 2007.[25]

References

  1. ↑ This is how the character's name is spelt in the end credits of the show, and in closed captioning (although in CC, a hyphen is placed between both syllables). All official material on the show spells his name as "Robear"; see Teletoon.com.
  2. ↑ http://www.cynopsis.com/wednesday-june-6th-2007-3/
  3. ↑ "Television Program Logs". Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. 2016-03-02. Archived from the original on 2016-05-16.
  4. ↑ Sofley, Kris (2006-03-21). "Blueprint, Nat Geo's Iggy pops up on Teletoon". C21Media. Retrieved 2008-02-16.
  5. 1 2 "National Geographic Kids' Programming and Production and Blueprint Entertainment Conclude Production Deal on New Animated Series 'Iggy Arbuckle'" (Press release). NoticiasB2B. 2005-04-11. Retrieved 2007-11-08.
  6. ↑ "Nat Geo teams with Blueprint for new toon" (Press release). C21Media. 2005-04-13. Retrieved 2008-02-16.
  7. 1 2 "Jetix Europe Strengthens Comedy Line-Up With Iggy Arbuckle" (PDF) (Press release). Jetix Europe. 2007-02-19. Retrieved 2008-02-16.
  8. ↑ http://coredp.com/pdf/articles/iggy_press.pdf
  9. ↑ Vlessing, Etan (2008-01-30). "9 Story takes a 'Village' global". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2008-02-16.
  10. ↑ Brzoznowski, Kristin (2008-01-31). "Oasis Shores Up Deals for Iggy Arbuckle". World Screen. Archived from the original on January 4, 2009. Retrieved 2008-02-16.
  11. ↑ "Prince of the Kookamunga/Voyage to the Bottom of the Lake"; In "Prince of the Kookamunga," when Iggy, Jiggers and guest character Prince arrive in Mooseknuckle, the town has gathered to meet their newest visitor. When Prince is saying hello, he greets three females as "ladies."
  12. ↑ "Any Friend of Yours/Miner Misfortunes"; In "Any Friend of Yours", Jiggers and Kira are discussing wood carving. Jiggers tells Kira that his favourite wood for carving is maple, and she replies that she's an "elm girl."
  13. ↑ Character Catfish Stu frequently calls his henchmen "Boys".
  14. 1 2 "Jetix Europe N.V. announces results for the six months ended March 31, 2008". Euronext.com. 2008-05-15. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
  15. ↑ "Jetix Europe N.V. Announces Results for the Year ended September 30, 2008". www.euronext.com. 2008-11-13. Retrieved 2008-11-13.
  16. ↑ "CBCNews.ca's report on the finalists in the 2008 Canadian Screenwriting Awards.". CBCNews.ca. 2008-03-17. Retrieved 2008-04-03. |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help)
  17. ↑ Salem, Rob (2008-03-18). "Hot Box: Television worth talking about". The Star. Toronto. Retrieved 2008-04-14.
  18. ↑ "CBCNews.ca's report on the winners of the 2008 Canadian Screenwriting Awards.". CBCNews.ca. 2008-04-14. Retrieved 2008-04-16. |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help)
  19. ↑ "Official Writers Guild of Canada website's review on the 2008 winners". www.wgc.ca. Retrieved 2008-04-16.
  20. ↑ "Official Gemini awards website page for winning writers of children and youth's television" (PDF). www.geminiawards.com. 2008-10-21. Retrieved 2008-10-24.
  21. ↑ "'Degrassi' tops Canada's Geminis". Jennie Punter; www.variety.com. 2008-10-21. Retrieved 2008-10-24.
  22. ↑ "Best Individual or Ensemble Performance in an Animated Program or Series". Official 2008 Gemini Awards website. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
  23. ↑ "Great Kookamunga Challenge". Zinc Roe Design. 2007-11-01. Retrieved 2008-02-16.
  24. ↑ Rusak, Gary (2007-11-07). "Blueprint, Nat Geo put real-time twist on Iggy Arbuckle game". KidScreen Magazine. Archived from the original on 2011-08-14. Retrieved 2008-02-16.
  25. ↑ "Iggy Arbuckle series on DVD". ABC Shop. Retrieved 2008-05-11.
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Iggy Arbuckle
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/27/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.