Game Over is an American adult animated sitcom created by David Sacks and produced by Carsey-Werner Productions. The series was broadcast on UPN in 2004, and was cancelled after five episodes. It was animated using computer animation.
| Game Over | |
|---|---|
 The Smashenburn family | |
| Genre | Animated sitcom |
| Created by | David Sacks |
| Voices of | |
| Composer | Kevin Riepl |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 6 (1 unaired) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
|
| Running time | 22 minutes |
| Production companies |
|
| Original release | |
| Network | UPN |
| Release | March 10 – April 2, 2004 |
Game Over (the title was inspired by the phrase "game over" that commonly concludes video games) focuses on what happens to video game characters after the game ends, and recounted the lives of the Smashenburns, a far-from-ordinary suburban family that lived in an alternate video game universe. The show made numerous references to video games and even featured certain game characters as cameos. For example, Crash Bandicoot appears on a Got Milk? billboard, and creatures from Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee appear in one of the episodes.
Marisa Tomei voiced the character of Raquel Smashenburn in the series' unaired pilot episode, but scheduling problems saw Lucy Liu take over the role for the actual series.[1]
Game Over was heavily hyped by UPN before its debut. It generally received positive press on its airing.[2] Because of this, six episodes were produced and aired on a variety of different days – the fourth and fifth episodes were broadcast on April 2, 2004, with the sixth episode ("Monkey Dearest") never aired and only appears on the complete series DVD.
Characters
edit- Rip Smashenburn (voiced by Patrick Warburton) is a Grand Prix driver who races every day and crashes his car all the time.
- Raquel Smashenburn (née Grunkmeyer) (voiced by Lucy Liu) is a covert agent who likes to fights monsters and is vaguely similar to Lara Croft.
- Alice Smashenburn (voiced by Rachel Dratch) is a cynical yet socially conscious 14-year-old girl in which she is part of a beach volleyball team. However, instead of wearing a bikini, she wears a hoodie.
- Billy Smashenburn (voiced by Elizabeth Daily) is a 13-year-old boy who is hoping to become a rapper.
- Turbo (voiced by Artie Lange) is a purple walrus-dog creature and the Smashenburn family's talking 300-pound pet. Turbo robs pawn shops and smokes cigars, and shows an inclination towards teenage girls.
- The Changs are a family of Kung-Fu-fighting Shaolin monks who live next door, this includes Dark Princess Chang (voiced by Marie Matiko).
- Another Next door neighbor who talks to Rip in first person perspective
Episodes
edit| No. | Title | Original air date |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | "Pilot" | N/A |
| 1 | "Meet the Smashenburns" | March 10, 2004 |
| 2 | "Basic Win-stincts" | March 17, 2004 |
| 3 | "All Work and All Play" | March 26, 2004 |
| 4 | "Into the Woods" | April 2, 2004 |
| 5 | "Alice and the C.A.T.s" | April 2, 2004 |
| 6 | "Monkey Dearest" | N/A |
Home media
editAnchor Bay Entertainment released all six episodes of the series as Game Over: The Complete Series on DVD in North America on June 28, 2005.[3]
References
edit- ^ Dave Goestch of Game Over Archived 2008-01-27 at the Wayback Machine, UGO.
- ^ TELEVISION REVIEW; Video Game Heroes: Just Folks, The New York Times, March 10, 2004.
- ^ Game Over - Complete Series Archived 2006-11-16 at the Wayback Machine, TVshowsonDVD.com.