As I've been doing the looks at "Oh Yeah! Cartoons" the main rule I put was to not look do ones that became series, but here I present a special Edition. This one is a look at the eight episodes that were under the title "ChalkZone" which eventually did become a series. Does that mean I'll be doing this with others that became series? Probably not, but they are always under consideration. The main goal was to talk about ones that were interesting but didn't make it to series, guessing on how they could have been as series or if they could have been. And a fun look to through a trove of something different.
ChalkZone's concept wasn't a very new idea, there were few different ideas from different countries that happened to use a the idea of using a writing instrument with some power to it. There's media like the cartoon short series from Poland. "Zaczarowany ołówek" about a boy who uses a magic pencil that an materialize things he draws. There's "Penny Crayon" a British series about a girl name Penny who uses magic crayons. Also from the UK there was "Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings" which has a boy who has chalk that is magic. In fact, in that series Simon even goes into a land of chalk drawings. Some people even think that "ChalkZone" is fully based off that but it has been denied. I will also mention the book "Harold and the Purple Crayon" which also has the concept. With all that, there's alot of fun and charm to ChalkZone because this is a concept that works well and why many have done that. It is funny because I think around this time, many schools were moving towards dry-erase boards, and where's my dry erase world series?
ChalkZone was created by Bill Burnett and Larry Huber. Those names I've mentioned before in our "Oh Yeah! Cartoons" series of posts. Burnett co-created "Slap T. Pooch in What is Funny?", "Jelly's Day" , "Hobart", "Tutu the Superina"[The only one I haven't covered yet as of this post being made] , "Enchanted Adventures". He solo-created "The Feelers". If anyone was going to get a series from Oh Yeah! it should have been him he was trying. The very first Oh yeah! all 3 segments have him as a co-creator, including the one called "ChalkZone". Huber is also all over , he created "APEX Cartoon Props & Novelties" and "The Man with No Nose", but it seems that "ChalkZone" was his main focus a little more.
ChalkZone Short #1 : ChalkZone
From : Season 1, Episode 1a
Yeah the very first short is called "ChalkZone". Yes it's one word. (Spell check hates this) There's a young boy named Rudy Tabootie who is really good at drawing and yes voiced by E.G Daily, so he sounds like Tommy Pickles. He gets his money taken by cliché bully type C , this one named "Reggie" Bullnerd. (With a name like that) . Rudy takes out his frustration by drawing the bully on the chalk board in a picture calling him Bully-Nerd. The teacher named Mr. Wilter who isn't the most useful teacher and of course things Rudy was bullying the bully because sure. Rudy has to stay behind and do the Bart Simpson and write on the chalk board the "I will not..." thing.
Rudy finds an interesting piece of chalk that he draws a circle and can see into a chalk world. That's when a character named Snap, created by Rudy, calls out his name for help. Also the bully drawing is there chasing Snap. Rudy enters the chalk world called ChalkZone.
The art style of ChalkZone , the world, is very nice giving a sense of a child drawing with fun backgrounds. It's what you can call a very cartoon-y cartoon with slapstick and that kind of old fashioned humor and style. The ChalkZone world is more interesting than the real world and that's the also the charm.
In the plot Rudy has to outsmart the Bully Nerd. He is able to jump back into the real world and runs in Reggie who won't give him the chalk back but he figures out a way to stop the bully nerd and even gets Bullnerd in real trouble. Good end.
ChalkZone Short #2 The Amazin' River
From: Season 1: Episode 11a
The episode starts with the class learning about the Amazon River, get it? It also seems to be very boring. Rudy is busy drawing SNAP and the idea of going down "The Amazin' River" He decides to walk up to the chalkboard, draw a circle and get away. The river is unfinished. Snap gives him a map to connect random water ways kids have drawn and make an actual river. The river is fun since it's a mixture of different types of rivers so there are different sceneries, plants and animals, and experiences.
There's also an answer to what happens if Rudy ran out of chalk. There's a magic chalk mine. A Cyclops , A Scottish cyclops, is there and he is stopping them from getting the chalk because he evil creators made things and caused havoc, he's also not happy with the boy who made him. He doesn't like having 1 eye and wearing a kilt. Rudy grabs some chalk and tricks Cy to stop him,
There are some pretty fun gags in this one,. Rudy does do something nice for Cy by giving him a second eye and then they leave.
ChalkZone: Short 3: Rudy's Date
From Season 2, Episode 1a
This is the first short from season 2 and decides to do something where the art style changes. They also reused this episode in the series proper. Rudy looks taller, his clothes are styled differently and a less round head. They made him less "cute" in design. He still has the green dot eyes. This would be the design that the final series would also use, which is how they slotted this episode into that. This also was because they aged him a couple years, though the segment doesn't say that.
This one also introduces a friend for Rudy in the real world that being a girl named Penny Sanchez. She the genius type, and even working on a science project of perpetual motion machine. I will mention, I am glad there was no "dumb boy, smart girl" thing here because this would really be the era where that idea was bubbling up, so they kind of an equality here.
Reggie Bullnerd erases her formula and she's mad, I think she was going to bully him. Also dark joke of him saying to the kids he was playing hangman with to play actual hangman. (Someone stop him) Rudy decides to introduce Penny to ChalkZone.
Snap is there ready to Rudy polar bowling where polar bears play bowling with penguins- played using actual penguins. Snap and Penny don't seem to be instantly getting along. The trio goes on the hunt for the formula.
They meet a biker who has the formula on his jacket, and he runs over Snap. Rudy does a plan to defeat him and penny can get the formula. It does seem that Penny warms up to Snap.
ChalkZone Short #4: Snap Out of Water
From Season 2, Episode 4a
This one is interesting in the start on how Rudy uses recess time to go ChalkZone. The basic element of these being an escapist idea. Usually Recess time is the biggest escape time during the school day, so why not do a bigger escape of going into a fun world of chalk?
Rudy and Snap are trying to have a weenie roast on an island and find out that the island is a actually a whale. The whale doesn't like being being on fire. Snap ends up getting thrown out of ChalkZone. Penny is tasked with making sure that Snap doesn't get erased or found out. She has him pretend to be a foreign exchange student. That works.
Reggie wants to meet Snap after class to you know.. Rudy is busy being beaten up in ChalkZone. Reggie gets stopped to clean his desk and the chalkboard, but he's fast enough to beat up Snap. Snap uses his power of being chalk to defeat Reggie.
Snap enjoys our world, but he has one weakness... water. He decides to go back.
ChalkZone Short #5: Secret Passages
From Season 2, Episode 5a
Rudy is working on his science project with Penny's help but he forgot the hamster at school. This is also where we get to see somewhere else that's not the school as a starting setting. Rudy's idea is use ChalkZone to get to school and get the hamster, since it's after hours. Good thing he has a home chalkboard.
It's nice to see ChalkZone at night it's fun look to see the nighttime setting where looks more like a chalk board with the black backgrounds with the color drawings. He ends up at the meat shop that is owned by his dad. This is the first time to see Rudy's parent, at least one of them. I will note that this segment was later also reshown in the cartoon's run.
Penny thinks they are going the wrong way. It is fun to see them going to different chalk boards and seeing different places. They weren't late enough to the point the teacher is still there doing something. Mr. Wilter goes to the police and they think he's crazy, he's going to have a fun night. Rudy's coldness ends the segment, he doesn't care if his teacher is locked up, and its his fault.
ChalkZone Short #6: Chalkdad
From Season 2, episode 7a
Rudy is helping out at his dad's meat shop. His dad had made dishes that seem to be a bit no thank you. His dad turns down the drawings and different names that Rudy did to make things sound more appealing. I sense a theme that there are characters who just don't like drawing and cartoons for some reason.
The dad he drew for the board is now walking around and alive in ChalkZone. He wants Rudy to draw him a business, but he's picky and seems to be very negative to Rudy's ideas. This time Rudy is more forceful since that's not his real dad.
The ChalkDad informs Rudy that he forgot the food for the food place. (a big need) Rudy ends up working at the chalk restaurant. Snap ends up working at the place too. Also, funny to have cows working at the place instead of being the food.
Rudy talks to his real dad and they both seem to make a mends with each other. Rudy's ideas also turned out to work too.
ChalkZone Short 7: Chalk Rain
From season 2, episode 9a
It's the ChalkZone Swap-athon where people can swap their stuff for something else. Then it starts to chalk rain which seems different than rain. It's made by real rain from sidewalk chalk drawings being washed away then it re forms and lives in this world.
In this case, it has made a dragon. Rudy has to find away to stop the dragon and he decides to find a way to stop it by going way up to the top to find the creator of the dragon. He ends up in China it seems and meets the chalk dragon artist. He takes the woman with him to ChalkZone and she's not seemingly questioning this at all. (I'd be going ahhhhh)
The dragon didn't get its wings yet and that's apparently why it's grumpy. She is able to calm the beast with her flute and Rudy has to draw wings. (He should use Red Bull) When the dragon gets wings, he's happy. The artist gets on the dragon's back and they fly off... leaving questions I won't ask.
ChalkZone Short 8: Rapunzel
From Season 2, Episode 12a
Chalkzone has a character this a parody of Queen Latifha named Queen Rapsheeba. That's what you need to know. Snap has a crush on her and wants to see her play where she's playing Rapunzel, and yes Rap...pun-zel is the pronunciation. Then a storm cloud shows up and Snap pleads to Rudy to stop the dangerous cloud. Penny tells Rudy draw a big fan to blow the big cloud away that works. I'm sure we'll not see that thing again.
The show starts, but then Rapsheeba notices that fan noise and wonders what's causing that noise. So Snap goes and turns off the fan which I'm sure will have no effect on anything uh oh I see the cloud. A majority of this short is a song performance. And as mentioned before this one was also re-aired in the main series.
The storm cloud shows up to zap everything. Whoever draw this cloud took lightning kills to heart. Rudy goes to the fan and turns on reverse and shreds the cloud to cloud death. The set has been destroyed so Rudy fixes it with the power of the chalk. Snap gets to play the knight as well since he gets to do anything for crush there.
Since it's one of the lucky things featured on "Oh Yeah! Cartoons" to become a series. It was actually the first thing to become one. Looking at the "Oh Yeah!" season 2 episodes for ChalkZone it looks like a completed fleshed out thing, versus the conceptual feel of the season 1 episodes then I mentioned a quite few of these segments were reused in the final show. That also might be because this was actually was approved as series before 2000. Then the show after some delay and a lot of delay premiered in 2002. The very first episode presents the first short with a wrap around of new material to present the first short as a flashback.
The first season was even cut to 6 half hour episodes. As a show it felt like things were against it for some reason even though it got lucky to be a series.
Back to the shorts, I can see how this charmed to be a series in the first place. The idea fit with Nickelodeon's concept of kid power and escapism. ChalkZone, the world, is very interesting it runs on it own logic and style and has a lot of freedom to be its own thing, a contrast to the normal world of Rudy. I think Rudy's normal world isn't over the top to keep it a little mundane to have the other world be way more interesting.
The charm is that the stories are different and have different tones to them. You can have Rudy adn Snap on some adventure in ChalkZone, you can have Rudy have to make sure the secret of the world doesn't get out or into the wrong hands. There's that sense of tension of what could happen in either sense. But it also plays to the old fashion style of cartoons where slapstick and over the top actions can happen. There's also a budding sense of this saying that cartoons, art, and creativity are as important and shouldn't be shunted away as someone gets older. The series, itself, will have a some more on that.
That's a look at "ChalkZone" -in Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Maybe [Heh] will get into the full series one day, I don't know. Tune in next time when we accidently find a piece of chalk and get stuck in Toronto.
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