Nelvana
You may remember their logo and bear.
Nelvana , you may remember from watching television in the late 80's and 90's, is a Canadian animation company now currently owned by Corus. They are the company that made the series we are talking about today.
"Stickin' Around" premiered on CBS as 1 minute shorts to air when CBS didn't want to look to commercial during their children's shows. (the C in CBS stands for commercial, not really) These appeared in 1994. (It even made the Chicago Tribune)
In Canada, YTV decided it was good enough to be a series and that premiered in 1996. It also appeared on UK television , Australian television , and of course American. It aired on Fox Kids for about a year ,but it didn't do well for FOX Kids or they just didn't care. America did the get rest of the show without Fox Kids' strange edits on the digital network . Qubo like 20 years later.
We are here to talk about the show. Like all TV shows before the networks thought screw long themes or any at all ,we have stuff to sell, it has a theme.
One thing you might notice if you haven't heard of or seen this series before, is the animation. The intro would really shows what this show is in it's 60 seconds.
Why yes, they are stick figures. The series 'stars' Stacy Stickler (get it stick?) and her best friend, Bradley (he gets no last name) they are 9 year olds with big imaginations.
Let's look at little at the first episode.
Bradley has his Dad's camera and he and Stacy decide to make a movie there's a neighbor girl named Polly who is introduced in a strange way.
See the dog we circled? That's not the show's animation style , that dog is dead , don't tell Polly that.
Polly and her dead dog , Pepperoni get to be part of the movie. (He's not not dead!) An average episode shows imagination scenes. Also, the show's backgrounds fit the style of the show as well, if the stick drawings are like a child's drawings the backgrounds are flat and simple giving it a fitting style.
It also lets them use random backgrounds like this just for fun. /Copyright Nelvana
Back to the plot : With all the running all the characters end up lost down town. There are two more male characters and also a living dog. After they run around screaming from different things , Stacy looks at the recorded footage to figure out how they got downtown in the first place. Also Stacy also caught a robbery on film. They do make it home and they don't win a sadder version of "America's Funniest Home Videos" but the police to give them award catching the robbery on video. (Crime does pay - just not those who rob)
more after the jump
Just to show how strange this show can be , I am going to talk about episode 12a "Photo Oops". (Spoilers) It starts with Stacy lamenting how her school pictures don't work very well. Then she goes to bed for the night. Then she has a dream that's really strange as dreams can be and again based on her school picture angst. Then she wakes up doing the "it's all a dream thing" which we already could maybe tell. Nope it was more dream then she wakes up. Since the show uses imagination scenes she could be very well woke up but then we find out that was a dream too. Then she has a another dream. Then she wakes up again and she thinks she's in another dream so, just goes to school in her PJs and messy. (She's lost it) So she goes to school and still thinks she's in a dream. This goes as chaotic as you can expect. Then she wakes up again. And to make you think they pulled that again, nope she was awake that whole time and did everything she did when she thought she was dreaming and this is the next day. (oops)
Since it is a 90's show it does have jokes like Uranus jokes that kind of humor though it's not over the top but it's there. For a show with stick figures I don't want heavy plots, or a long plot arcs, because I don't think that'd fit. I like how it goes random and imaginative to fit it's style of how stick figure drawings would go. The theme does tell you what to expect "For your big fat information this is our imagination... see the world as you've never seen before...". It has simple plots as well that work for comedy like there's an episode where Stacy has to clean her room ,which sounds boring on paper, (it does) but this show uses that to give us a great visual specter of her being Indiana Jones (ah the 90's )
Either that, or her house is weird /Copyright Nelvana
The series had 39 episodes , 3 seasons (13,11,15) with two halves each episode. I'm guessing that's done well. Like I said before 39 didn't air in the states when it was new in 1997. They moved it to Fox Family but not like "Hey coming to Fox Kids , it's Stickin' Around" it's more like hey we'll just stick it in an unrelated series. Which would be like if Nickelodeon decided they would just stick their new series as part of Spongebob, (The Spongebob -Harvey Beaks power Hour would be fun though) only that would be a little smarter than stickin' it (it had to be done) on another series that was untested and also complained about. That series was called "The Three Friends and Jerry" a series from Sweden working along with Germany and Britain (what?) that was for children, I think, but American parents were more bothered by it. Also, they weren't even made by the same company that makes it even stranger of why did they do it?
This is from the opening of Three Friends and Jerry, and yes I can't imagine why someone might have been complaining.
So , because of that really un-smart decision , "Stickin' Around" didn't get its chance in the US. (It would have been really hard just to air it by itself apparently) And wasn't seen in the US since 1998 until the digital over the air network , QUBO, started airing the series in 2016 and they aired all the episodes. It didn't reach a notice as a series (at least in the U.S ) and maybe a little more remembered in Canada, and it has fan fiction because of course it has that.
That dog is dead /Copyright Nelvada
It is one of those animated series that could have only come out in the 1990's. It feels 90's but not really to dated in some respects for a 90's series. If I had to give the series a rating out of 10, I'd say 7/10 it's not everyone but it's fun and silly and that's what I want from a series that's made with stick figures.
Tune in next time when we wonder why people make jokes about a planet. (Real Mature)
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