Previously, me-eu [HERE]
#28 The Semprini Triplets
Season 3, Episode 7
And finally, our marathon (if you've been following through original postings) is over! We've looked at over 28 shorts already (because technically). These weren't any ranked order, just kind of going through the seasons then looping back , shorter: last but not least is The Semprini Triplets
The Semprini Triplets was created by Pat Ventura, who made a few shorts for "Oh Yeah" but we are focusing on the this one as it's the final new short in the series. Number 56. The first thing you'll notice is that is is presented as a modern (of the time) version of Terry Toons, This one is very harkening back to the old times. There's faces on the sun and random objects. Lots of bounce in the movements of characters and items, also there's comic strip like words and actions popping up.
Anyway we have three triples who are all color coded for your convenience. There's Malinda, the red one, Melvin, the aqua one, and Malcom in pink. Their mom wakes them in the car, she rewards them $5 each for mowing the lawn and they go the the amusement park. Also, I love the voices, having a kid with a deep man voice kind of works for this. There's our guard who decides to change the price of the amusement park entry to $250 because he wants a trip to New Zealand (inflation)
The kids go on and he tries to stop them because he wants his full $75. So they start to mess whit him as he chases them. You get a lot of old fashion slap stick and quick paced comedy as well. There's acknowledgement that they're cartoon characters and of the creator that's pretty fun. The kids end up winning a trip New Zealand. The guard faints, and it ends with a laugh track.
This is one is fun, very retro in tone and it's just there brining the fun. I enjoyed this one alot. Might have been a fun series, but I think nobody wanted a cartoon harking back to the 30's and 40's in the 1990's and early 2000's sadly, and I guess it wasn't meant to be. That or if it was slightly earlier, it would have been in the same time as "Animaniacs" which kind of harkens back to classic Warner Brothers. (Though I'm sure someone would have called this a knock off if that had happened )
Do give this one a watch, it's fun.
more after the jump for the purpose of the marathon
Going through the Oh Yeah! Cartoons line up was an interesting experience. Haven't seen some of this stuff in a long time. The varying amount of stories, concepts and characters gives maybe a slice of Nickelodeon was thinking of at the time. Nicktoons started with the concept of creator driven series like "Rugrats" , "Hey Arnold" and more, and it was still more the wild west period of Nickelodeon's original animation stage. The fun thing is the same people behind Cartoon Network's shorts factory that helped bring in some of their biggest remembered series, also worked on this. We only got 3 series from this, that's "Fairly Odd Parents"," Chalk Zone" ,and "My Life as a Teenage Robot",so it's kind of sad that we didn't get more.
It's like taking an alternate look at Nickelodeon, and wondering what things be like if X was picked up as a series. Contextualizing what Nick picked up versus some of the shorts around the same time shows what they were considering. It's kind of like wonder what Nick would have been like if "Fathead" was picked up and became their biggest thing and not "Spongebob" what would be different about Nick? Or that Seth MacFarline show, if he didn't do "Family Guy" FOX would be different, his life would be different, Adult Swim would be different, it's like a butterfly effect.
The ideas exposed here also show some creativity through the people who thought them up. Different kinds of storytelling, many harkening back to toon they may have watched as kids , or the times they grew up. A lot don't feel heavily late 90's early 2000's they have some timelessness or retro feelings to them.
I do miss the concept of a 30 minute TV program devoted to just airing shorts/or pilots mostly because TV wants to be bland and boring now. There are times when networks do put stuff on the internet to maybe gage what the next thing could be, that's kind of fun.
So that's it we had our fun, with looking at almost an alternate universe of Nickelodeon TV thank you for joining us. Tune in next time, after we take a rest.
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