wait remember squirrel boy it was cartoon network's short-lived show about squirrel
and boy contrary to initial impressions there is no singular squirrel boy with super squirrel
powers and a squirrel man mentor instead we are given an anthropomorphic squirrel that can walk
and talk and even has intelligence well kinda not not really actually his name is rodney j
squirrel and andy is his boy rodney's informal owner if you will listen the show's weird okay
the show premiered its first season on may 27 2006 and ran for two seasons for a total of 26 episodes
plus an unaired pilot there was also a series of six shorts released a year after its last episode
aired each episode is split into two 11-minute segments and in each 11 minutes we are brought
along on a new adventure through suburbia with andy and rodney it aired during the time when
cartoon network was about to start putting a lot of emphasis on the transition to a cn
real era in the next couple years but that isn't necessarily the reason that rarely
anyone remembers the show today and that's what i'm going to be talking about in this
episode of our wait remember series yup that that's my intro transition pretty nuts right
i don't want to know
i will share but only because it will torment you squirrel boy takes place in the suburbs
of grand rapids minnesota one of our main characters is andy voiced by pamela adlon
andy is a highly anxious nine-year-old boy with obsessive-compulsive disorder he's also allergy
to cashews and i mean look at him of course he is like a typical nine-year-old andy is naive
and easily coerced into shenanigans by his pet squirrel and best friend rodney rodney is the
squirrel in this boy squirrel relationship and he is a typical manipulator with schemes that
are morally questionable at best he is voiced by richard stephen horvitz being a squirrel the
writers seem to embrace that very chaotic sense of animalistic self-preservation and reflect it
in the way that rodney approaches his day-to-day many of his plans or general hijinks are motivated
by selfish reasons or from happenstance of the will of the universe it seems that andy's
dad recognizes rodney's true nature mr johnson is voiced by kurtwood smith he serves as the typical
oppressive adult figure that andy and rodney have to constantly dodge his unwavering distaste
towards rodney is constantly being brought up but never acted upon even though rodney lives
in the johnson house and constantly pushes his buttons mr johnson is pretty quick to anger and
he's protective of his son which makes him a great adversary for rodney who is constantly getting
andy into trouble and making attempts on his life because he's allergic to cashews of course he is
so mr johnson's concern seemed somewhat justified here maybe a bit too aggressive sometimes but
there's at least a solid caring for his son reason andy's mom lucille is voiced by nancy sullivan she
is pretty different from andy's dad as she doesn't talk very much on the show but when we do hear
her she is pretty mild-mannered and happy-go-lucky just a nice minnesota mom the clear-cut antagonist
of the story is the not-so-friendly neighborhood bully kyle finkster voiced by the voice of almost
everyone ever billy west along with his pet parrot salty mike voiced by carlos alasraki the original
voice behind spyro the dragon before you know spongebob took over kyle is your typical monster
drinking drywall smasher in the making with parents that encourage his aggressive and maniacal
behavior oscar andy's friend is another character we meet he's voiced by jason spicer he serves as
the typical boy in a bubble next door and is prone to sickness with germ-obsessed parents it's very
miss benson core you know what i mean just look at his complexion why are they worried about
germs one ray of sun and it's over for him make sure he gets his cloud blocked guys cartoon
network's new hit show squirrel boy show the music a brand new squirrel boy in morning wood on friday
i am a little wet behind the ears and dirty the creator of squirrel boy is everett peck who while
i was working on this video and watching through the series unfortunately passed away he was also
the creator of the animated series duckman which much like squirrel boy also didn't have too much
success resulting in it being cancelled abruptly and overlooked duckman is about the adventures
of a crude talking duck named eric t duckman voiced by jason alexander most famous for his
role as george costanza in seinfeld duckman also has a partner named cornfed who is
you guessed it a pig and together they solve crimes but let's save that for a duckman video
eventually okay but you can see peck's commonly used themes and styles shining through in duckman
which really helped me understand where he was coming from when he created squirrel boy it also
feels as if squirrel boy was a way for peck to redo his duckman idea but this time marketing it
towards young kids which at the time of its airing is what possibly resulted in duckman's initial
failure but ultimately it was just bad timing for both of the shows i can't help but think if they
actually swapped and squirrel boy was released in the mid 90s and duckman was released in the late
2000s they both would have succeeded much more than they originally did comparative shows like
bojack horseman which premiered in 2014 obviously popped off despite being so similar to duckman
bojack just got the timing right and duckman unfortunately did not now addressing the squirrel
boy situation i do think that the show would have done better having been released earlier but
not by a lot scrollboy is still squirrelboy and forgive me if this comes off worse than how i mean
it but i don't think creating kids programming is peck's strongest suit his talents lie elsewhere
as evident with duckman's belated success in fact duckman is considered by watchmojo as the number
one underrated cartoon tv series yeah watch mojo what are you gonna do not listen to them
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we're counting down our picks for on the other hand scroll boy
not so much of a belated success nor truly having success during its initial run on cartoon network
the major sentiment lies in it falling short of a lot of things the characters aren't really
that likable the plot is one dimensional with nothing deeper than surface level situations
and the comedy just doesn't overall hit the show relies mostly on physical comedy which
is cool because at some points you can see how it directly was pulled from older warner bro cartoons
now i did smile at some one-liners but it was too inconsistent and far and few between to be notable
i just never felt like it offered me something new within such a common genre of a human and
animal getting into wacky situations it felt too tame to compete with other slapstick and
crass cartoons as well as the jokes because of the situations they find themselves in are all things
i've heard before the most fun part of squirrel boy is from going to mcdonald's and getting
the nutty rodney pencil topper toy from cartoon network's 2007 happy meal tie-in he's got two nuts
two peanuts and just look at this whole line of toys i know what my next business expense will be
it's just truly sad that this was the last animation project that everett peck
worked on before his recent passing i know there was an idea out there that would fully fit his
style i could easily see some form of adult animation from him doing well may he rest in peace
it was nice to see that rodney did make a cameo in the okkko let's be heroes crossover nexus special
a nice way to celebrate a small piece of cartoon network's history before that rodney and andy both
appear on the 20th anniversary poster for cartoon network oh and that like really really small cameo
in the codename kids next door and the grim adventures of billy and mandy crossover special
the grim adventures of the knd so no matter what squirrel boy is a part of the cn legacy now
after all that why did squirrel boy come to an end after two seasons i don't know i ask
myself that same question every morning is the exact quote from peck regarding the show
so that means i don't know either coming up next it's squirrel boy now it's squirrel boy
this is fun peck has mentioned that the inspiration for squirrel boy comes from
older warner bros cartoons the classics like bugs bunny and road runner peck was
an illustrator for 25 years before trying his hand at animation in the past he had done work
for the new yorker playboy time magazine rolling stones and sports illustrated his very colorful
exaggerated highly stylized and eccentric art is impressive and i feel like the show could have
done so much more creatively with peck's talents we saw in teachers pet how a fine art style can
be honored and used to emphasize the story being told but for some reason this show didn't embrace
what they had resulting in a fairly by the numbers looking cartoon it tried to capture the energy and
childhood magic that phineas and ferb eventually would which premiered in 2007 but it falls flat
not to mention there's no fun bee plot no perry the platypus and doofenshmirtz equivalent like
at least give us something a little extra to keep my attention or give me a laugh i'm practically
begging you at this point i will give the show credit however the art style while not super
stylized isn't that bad and i can see where the inspiration was pulled from with its rich
backgrounds and a lot of depth added to it peck said in an interview that he wanted the series
to feel like a bright sunny day which clearly it does give off those vibes he wanted to take
50 style characters and move them into a slightly warped 21st century world and
that was successful but when you take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and you're
not putting a hundred percent into both of them sometimes you result in something that's just
fine rather than something special there's the same pacing and physical comedy that are
recognizable from old warner bros cartoons as well and the attitudes of the characters fall into line
with beloved characters like daffy duck being similar to rodney and randy as porky pig porky
pig did serve as a kind of straight man to balance out daffy duck and hey rodney and andy do tend to
balance each other out they don't balance out nicely but they do for sure balance out and hey
in the end scrollboy is definitely a cartoon outside of the cartoon however there were a few
cartoon network games that accompanied the series like one squirrely summer the squirrel of sandwich
and screwball squeeze which i actually had more fun playing these games than watching through
the whole show so do with that information what you will it's always disappointing to revisit a
show that isn't overall too great or live up to certain memories of nostalgia that you have for
them with squirrelboy i remembered the show but not much else about it and after watching it i can
understand why that is it's an okay time pretty much harmless but there are so many other shows
that deserve your attention as well and are well worth revisiting or seeking out for the first time
even if you haven't seen it it feels like we've all seen it before but what about you
do you even remember this show and if so what do you think about it overall
let me know your thoughts in the comments thanks so much for watching make sure to hit the like
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you do follow me on twitter and i'll be back with another video soon but until then later
you