Making Fiends is an American animated television miniseries based on the web series of the same name. The series ran from October 4 to November 1, 2008, on Nicktoons Network. The series is Nickelodeon Animation Studio’s first animated series to be based on a web series, and follows the evil Vendetta and the new happy but dim-witted girl, Charlotte, at school in the gloomy town of Clamburg.[1] Charlotte unintentionally irritates and annoys Vendetta. As a result, Vendetta attempts to kill her with fiends, but she always fails due to Charlotte's luck.
| Making Fiends | |
|---|---|
 Title card | |
| Genre | Black comedy Horror comedy Dark fantasy |
| Created by | Amy Winfrey |
| Based on | Making Fiends by Amy Winfrey |
| Written by | Amy Winfrey Matt Negrete Madellaine Paxson Peter Merryman |
| Directed by | Dave Knott Martin Cendreda |
| Voices of | Amy Winfrey Aglaia Mortcheva Peter Merryman Dave Wasson |
| Theme music composer | Amy Winfrey |
| Opening theme | "Making Fiends" |
| Composers | Ego Plum Amy Winfrey |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 6 (18 segments) (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Eric Coleman Matt Mahaffey |
| Running time | 21 minutes (7 minutes per segment) |
| Production company | Nickelodeon Animation Studio |
| Original release | |
| Network | Nicktoons Network |
| Release | October 4 – November 1, 2008 |
| Related | |
| Making Fiends (web series) | |
The series is created by former South Park animator Amy Winfrey[1] and produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio, with Cyber Chicken Animation Studio and DQ Entertainment Limited animating the show in traditional 2D animation. Winfrey voices Charlotte and her grandmother Charlene, among other characters.[2] Character designer Aglaia Mortcheva is the voice of Vendetta.[2] All of the voice actors from the web cartoon reprise their roles for the TV series, with the addition of a new cast member and crew member, Dave Wasson, who previously created Time Squad for Cartoon Network.
Plot
edit
Vendetta is a selfish green girl with the power to make fiends, "hideous things" which she has unleashed on her town to bring it under her reign of terror. The coastal town of Clamburg, once a thriving tourist destination, has become a grim, forbidding place, with stores shuttered and the populace cowed before the horror of Vendetta's watchful fiends.
Charlotte, a new girl at Vendetta's school, arrives determined to make a friend. An "impossibly cheery"[3] optimist, Charlotte rapidly becomes the foil[1] and tormentor of the morose and vindictive Vendetta, by insisting on befriending her.
Vendetta is unable to elicit anything but saccharine friendliness out of Charlotte, and so makes the first of many fiends that are specially designed to destroy the newcomer. After demonstrating that her oblivious joy makes her immune to the dangers and terrors of all of the fiends, Charlotte declares that her and Vendetta are "going to be best friends forever and ever."
In subsequent scenes, Charlotte displays an ability to change the nature of some fiends into helpful friends, further frustrating Vendetta's efforts to undo her. Being "oblivious to all that is bad and mean in the world",[4] Charlotte neither acknowledges the damage caused by Vendetta's fiends, nor the threat Vendetta herself poses over Clamburg, and in the end ends up turning Vendetta's fiends into harmless friends. Nearly all of the residents, including Vendetta's parents are actually afraid of Charlotte more than they do Vendetta within the first six episodes.
Charlotte never discovers or understands that Vendetta despises her, and Vendetta is never able to get rid of Charlotte. While this conflict is never resolved by the end of each episode, some minor developments appear to continue between episodes, like the introduction of Buttons 2 and an enormous statue that Vendetta has raised of herself.
Characters
editCharlotte and Vendetta attend Mu Elementary School in class room 4.[5] Mr. Milk, a soft-spoken nervous man, is their teacher.[4] Charlotte lives with her grandmother Charlene while her astronaut parents are away in space missions.(However dialogue implies that they are actually dead)[5][6] Vendetta lives with her tiny parents, Violetta and Viktor, who live in a hamster cage.[6]
Music
editSeries creator Amy Winfrey wrote all of the songs featured on the show.[1] After recording the demo track for each song, they would be sent to series composer, Ego Plum, for production.[7]
Plum is noted for using unusual sounds and instruments in his music. Examples include: dripping water, toy pianos, baby rattles, plastic xylophones, and even a goat.[7] On occasion, other Making Fiends crew members would pitch in to help play the various instruments, lending the music a "home-made" feel similar to the original web series.[7]
Production
editA daughter to an employee at Nickelodeon was a fan of Making Fiends. She showed the website to other Nickelodeon employees. They contacted Winfrey to see if she was interested in televising the series.[8]
Winfrey is often asked where she got the idea for Making Fiends. She is not sure, but liked to sketch "strange and fantastical" animals in college.[1] She is often inspired by "silly-looking and improbable" animals.[9] She has a parrot and a pet flounder at home, and once had a salamander.[9]
In early 2004, Nick started negotiations with Winfrey to develop the series into a half-hour television program.[10] During the long negotiation and development period, Winfrey continued to create new web episodes independently, and sell related merchandise in her own online "souvenir shop".[10] In 2006, Nickelodeon began distributing many of the web cartoons as streaming video on their own TurboNick platform, and later as podcasts available on iTunes.[11]
The series was picked up for a first season of television episodes in late 2006. Production began in January 2007 and the show started airing in 2008. The show was set to premiere on Nickelodeon, but Nickelodeon decided to cancel its plans for a broadcast on their parent channel, and instead gave this new series to its sister channel Nicktoons Network (along with the show, Random! Cartoons).
The series premiered on October 4, 2008 and ended on November 1, the same year on Nicktoons Network. It received generally favorable reviews by critics. Making Fiends carries a rating of TV-Y7 (FV - fantasy violence for some episodes).[12] The series aired in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand, and in the Netherlands.[13] in Canada, the series aired on YTV on October 11, 2008.
The writing team of Making Fiends consisted of only four people; Winfrey, Peter Merryman, Madellaine Paxson, and Matt Negrete.[14] In the show's studio, there was a special "thinking couch" for the development of new ideas.[14]
Cancellation
editThe series was cancelled on November 1, 2008 after one season. The show premiered with little to no promotion or press release. At one point, it was the highest-rated original program on Nicktoons Network. After the series ended, reruns continued to air until late 2016.
Animation
editCyber Chicken Animation Studio and DQ Entertainment Limited animate the series in traditional 2-D. The character designs are kept from the web series, with some changed details; such as cleaner lines and brighter eyes.[15] Despite the fact that both versions use Adobe Flash to create animation, the television episodes have smooth animation and a vivid color palette. This is because the characters and backgrounds in the web episodes were made of overlapping JPEG files, and that the television series had access to an actual budget due to being a show on a television cable network.[16] Noticeably, the colors still go outside the outlines, which is a unique stylistic choice.[17] Every building was changed; in the web cartoon most buildings were grey, but were changed to different colors for the TV version. Each house represents a character.[18][19] Vendetta's house is dark green and Charlotte's blue, matching their own skin color.[18]
Cast
editCreator Amy Winfrey voices Charlotte, her grandmother, Charlene, Mrs. Millet, Maggie (in most appearances), Buttons, Giant Kitty, and Marion.[2] Character designer Aglaia Mortcheva, who also was in the crew for the web series, voices Vendetta and her tiny mother, Violeta.[2] Winfrey's husband, Peter Merryman, voices Marvin, Malachi, Mort, Mrs. Minty, Onion Guy, Grudge, and Mr. Milk. And also, most fiends on the show. The series' supervising producer and director, Dave Wasson, voices Vendetta's tiny father, Viktor, and Mr. Gumpit. Madellaine Paxson, who wrote for Kim Possible and Johnny Test, voiced Maggie in the episode "No Singing". Winfrey, however, voices Maggie in all other appearances.
Episodes
edit| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | Prod. code | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Charlotte's First Day" | Dave Knott | Amy Winfrey | October 4, 2008 | MF101 | ||||||||||
| "A Fiendish Friend" | Martin Cendreda | Peter Merryman & Amy Winfrey | MF102 | ||||||||||||
| "Super Evil" | Dave Knott | Peter Merryman | MF106 | ||||||||||||
|
The new happy but dim-witted girl Charlotte comes to the town of Clamburg with her cheerful grandmother, Charlene. Charlotte starts at Mu Elementary School right away. Mr. Milk welcomes Charlotte and tells her to take a seat. Then, Vendetta enters the classroom and Charlotte starts talking to her. Already now, Charlotte annoys Vendetta, even though she is only nice. Vendetta decides to bring a fiend to Show and Tell the next day. Charlotte brought her hamster, Buttons, her "favorite hamster in the whole world", and a rock, that Vendetta "gave" to her. In real, she threw it. Vendetta brought a tentacle fiend that was supposed to eat Charlotte, But the red giant kitty saved her. Charlotte tries to introduce the red giant kitty to Buttons, but the red giant kitty chased Buttons. Charlotte loves to pretend to be different kind of things. Vendetta suggests to "pretend to be dead". Charlotte pretends to be a ghost and starts "haunting" her at Le Mayonnaise, the fancy restaurant, from "beyond the grave". Vendetta decides to go home. Then she hears ghostly sounds from the attic and walks up and sees Charlotte holding and rattling chains like a ghost. Vendetta decides to make a scissor fiend to her, which Charlotte befriends and names it Buttons 2. Charlotte scores "super evil" in a magazine quiz, while Vendetta scores "mostly evil". After this, Vendetta wants to see Charlotte's evil ways, so she starts following her. She gives her the chance to make her own fiend in her kitchen. Charlotte made her own fiend Mr. Huggles, a pink bear-like fiend that loves and hugs everybody and everything. In the end, it turned out that Charlotte did not look at the questions for the quiz, she only drew a pretty picture of a flower. | |||||||||||||||
| 2 | "Vegetables" | Martin Cendreda | Madellaine Paxson & Amy Winfrey | October 5, 2008 | MF103 | ||||||||||
| "Toupee" | Martin Cendreda | Amy Winfrey | MF112 | ||||||||||||
| "Mama Vendetta" | Dave Knott | Matt Negrete | MF105 | ||||||||||||
|
Charlotte notices that the lunch lady, Mrs. Millet, only serves Vendetta's favorite food; beef jerky, grape punch, and clams. Charlotte wants to have more vegetables on the menu, but when she tries to change it, Vendetta makes some vegetables fiends that scares Charlotte and the other kids. Charlotte calms down the vegetables and teaches them how to sing the vegetable song which makes Vendetta scream in fear. Mr. Milk has a crush on Ms. Minty, but he does not know how to talk to her. Charlotte gives him an apple because he is the "best teacher in the whole world". Vendetta decides to give him an evil toupee that makes all of his dreams come true, but only if he destroys Charlotte. Mr. Milk tries to destroy her several times, but he fails every time as he throws the toupee into the sea because he is too kind to destroy the only student that gave him an apple. Mr. Milk goes back into being timid and sad. To remind the residents of Clamburg how powerful she is, Vendetta erects a giant statue of herself. Charlotte likes to swing on the statue's "pretty elbow". To keep Charlotte away from her statue, she creates some exploding pigeon fiends. But they think Vendetta is their mother because, as Charlotte said, "she hatched them with her love". Charlotte takes the role as their father. In the end, Vendetta's statue breaks but she later re-built it again. | |||||||||||||||
| 3 | "Shrinking Charlotte" | Martin Cendreda | Amy Winfrey | October 11, 2008 | MF104 | ||||||||||
| "Parents" | Martin Cendreda | Madellaine Paxson | MF111 | ||||||||||||
| "No Singing" | Dave Knott | Amy Winfrey | MF110 | ||||||||||||
|
Vendetta makes a fiend to shrink Charlotte, but accidentally shrinks herself and Grudge, too. Charlotte is thrilled of being just as small as Buttons. Vendetta makes some "gianting squids" to make her as big as a giant to destroy Charlotte. Charlotte misses her parents, they are "in a better place. Up there," supposedly a reference to their jobs as astronauts. Vendetta decides to make fiend look-a-likes for her. Charlotte thinks they are her real parents, but the fiends are willing to eat her. But like usual, Charlotte befriends the fiends and now they are having fun together. In the end, they are eaten by whales, but Grudge accidentally fires a cannon, which makes Charlotte think that they have returned to the space station. Vendetta is extremely tired of Charlotte's happy songs, so she makes a fiend to destroy singers. However, Maggie reads a sad poem about a lost kitten, and suddenly Charlotte doesn't feel like singing. Vendetta does everything she can to make her sing again. However, when Vendetta starts singing in an attempt to make Charlotte sing, she triggers the fiend, who starts chasing Vendetta instead of Charlotte. | |||||||||||||||
| 4 | "Puppies! Puppies! Puppies!" | Martin Cendreda | Matt Negrete | October 18, 2008 | MF107 | ||||||||||
| "Shorts 1 (Dear Pretty Diary, Dear Stupid Journal)" | Dave Knott | Peter Merryman & Amy Winfrey | MF108 | ||||||||||||
| "Marvin the Middle Manager" | Dave Knott | Amy Winfrey | MF114 | ||||||||||||
|
Vendetta wants to protect all her favorite places from Charlotte, so she uses her "fiend multiplier" to multiply her guard dog fiends. However, since Vendetta left the "fiend multiplier" in the same room as Charlotte, Charlotte finds a way to take care of all the fiends – multiply herself. An advertisement for Clamburg's onion stand; Charlotte and Vendetta share their versions of the day with their journals or diaries; Charlotte sings about why she loves Clamburg; a tourism advertisement for Clamburg, sabotaged by Vendetta. Vendetta decides she's too powerful to sit in school all day. She hires Marvin to run things in her absence and Charlotte decides to help him. They do everything on the list; scare the student, feed the fiends, And so on. But Marvin may not be up to the task of destroying Charlotte, while Charlotte thinks it will be fun, because she is going to be a butterfly that gets hit by a piano. | |||||||||||||||
| 5 | "Parentnapped" | Martin Cendreda | Peter Merryman | October 25, 2008 | MF113 | ||||||||||
| "Smash" | Martin Cendreda | Madellaine Paxson | MF109 | ||||||||||||
| "New Best Friend" | Dave Knott | Matt Negrete | MF115 | ||||||||||||
|
Vendetta and Grudge are driving home in their new car. Vendetta sees her tiny parents on a picnic with Charlotte and gets out of the car. She is angry at her parents for going on a picnic with Charlotte. She sends a fiend to bring them back home, but he comes back with Charlotte's cheerful grandmother, Charlene. Vendetta writes a note to Charlotte about "trading parents". Charlotte is playing with Vendetta's parents all day, and Charlene is making sure that Vendetta has everything she needs at school, cleans her house, and knits scarves for Vendetta and Grudge. Vendetta gets tired of Charlene and decides to take her parents back. All of Clamburg is getting ready for the Pancake Festival, Charlotte creates a marching band with four performers. Marvin plays his tuba, Marion plays her triangle, Maggie plays her kazoo, and Mort plays his drum. Vendetta makes a fiend to flatten Charlotte, but her and Grudge ends up being smashed together with her. Vendetta's house gets invaded by termite fiends she made to destroy Charlotte, so her house will be tented for three days. Vendetta decides to move in with Marion, just as she is about to leave Clamburg forever. She is terrified of Vendetta, but she also thinks it's nice to have a powerful friend. | |||||||||||||||
| 6 | "Tornado" | Dave Knott | Peter Merryman | November 1, 2008 | MF116 | ||||||||||
| "Shorts 2 (The Land of Cheese)" | Dave Knott | Peter Merryman & Amy Winfrey | MF117 | ||||||||||||
| "Pony" | Martin Cendreda | Amy Winfrey | MF118 | ||||||||||||
|
Vendetta makes a tornado fiend to destroy Charlotte's house, but unintentionally attaches it to her own house. Charlotte's antics eventually drive Vendetta crazy. Meanwhile, Grudge gets blown away by the tornado and ventures through harsh environments to get back home and save his master. A commercial for giant pet supplies runs; Charlotte dreams about a world made out of cheese with her "best friend" Vendetta, which destroys later; Charlotte sings a song about living on the moon, while Vendetta sings about its downside. Charlotte wants Vendetta to make a pony for her, so she makes a giant pony fiend. It invades Clamburg and terrorizes the citizens. Vendetta is happy until everybody hides in her house for safety, so she must get rid of "John" the female pony if she wants to get back in her own house. | |||||||||||||||
Reception
edit"It's not gross or political or even gory, and although it's dark -- and looks dark -- it's a beginner's sort of dark. Because no matter how cynical Vendetta's outlook or how random the results of her machinations seem, she'll never ever actually win."
KJ Dell Antonia[20]
The show received positive reviews from critics, with KJ Dell Antonia at Common Sense Media gave the show 4 out of 5 saying "the dialogue is simple, the animation is intentionally scribbly and dark, and the color palette is limited. The whole thing looks like a kid's flip book. And yet it's funny -- funny for the kind of parents who think Dexter's Laboratory is funny, and funny for any kid old enough to handle the weirdness of rooting for a patently bad girl who will never win and with nothing but a secret, lingering fear of monsters under the bed."[20]
Dan Heching at Tilzy said "clever and irreverent, Making Fiends is a fairly classic series of short episodes. [...] Nothing is left untouched; torture, animal attacks, musical numbers and April fools' jokes. [...] Character development is kept largely to a minimum, in keeping with the classic simplicity of the cartoon, [that is] Vendetta vs. Charlotte."[3]
Marketing and merchandise
editBefore the series was picked up by Nicktoons, Winfrey sold Making Fiends T-shirts and DVDs with the web episodes at her "souvenir shop".[21] Official t-shirts by Nicktoons were later released.[22]
A 2-disc complete series DVD set was released on June 9, 2009 with the first season including all six episodes. Although it is shown in the gift shop at the Making Fiends official website, it is only available for purchase at Amazon.com in DVD-R format.[23] The entire series is also available for digital purchase at Amazon Prime Video.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c d e Gendy Alimurung (August 6, 2008). "Making Fiends: Amy Winfrey's Animated Vendetta". LA Weekly. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
- ^ a b c d "Making Fiends Cast and Crew". TV.com. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
- ^ a b Dan Heching (January 8, 2008). "Making Fiends". Tilzy. Archived from the original on February 12, 2009. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
- ^ a b "Making Fiends: Characters". Nickelodeon. 2008. Archived from the original on February 10, 2009. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
- ^ a b Written by Amy Winfrey. Directed by Dave Knott (October 4, 2008). "Charlotte's First Day". Making Fiends. Season 1. Episode 1a. Nicktoons Network.
- ^ a b Written by Madellaine Paxson. Directed by Martin Cendreda (October 11, 2008). "Parents". Making Fiends. Season 1. Episode 3b. Nicktoons Network.
- ^ a b c "Songs!". Making Fiends. Retrieved 2009-08-13.
- ^ Aaron Simpson (February 6, 2007). "Winfrey Making Fiends for Nick TV". Cold Hard Flash. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
- ^ a b "Where do fiends come from?". Making Fiends. Retrieved 2009-08-15.
- ^ a b "Ego Plum Radio - Making Fiends". Ebola Music Records. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
- ^ "Fiendy History". Making Fiends. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
- ^ "Making Fiends". Nickelodeon. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
- ^ "It's the Making Fiends TV Schedule!". Making Fiends. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
- ^ a b "Writing Fiends!". Making Fiends. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
- ^ "Fiendmaking". Making Fiends. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
- ^ "Fiendy Textures!". Making Fiends. Retrieved 2009-08-13.
- ^ "Fiendy TV!". Making Fiends. Retrieved 2009-08-13.
- ^ a b "Visit Clamburg!". Making Fiends. Retrieved 2009-08-13.
- ^ "Inside Clamburg!". Making Fiends. Retrieved 2009-08-13.
- ^ a b KJ Dell Antonia. "Making Fiends - TV Show Rating For Kids and Families". Commonsense Media. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
- ^ "Making Fiends Gift shop". Making Fiends. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
- ^ "Making Fiends". Making Fiends.com. 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
- ^ "Making Fiends Season 1 (2 Disc Set)". Making Fiends.com. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
External links
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