Earthworm Jim (TV series)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. Please help recruit one or improve this article yourself. See the talk page for details. Please consider using {{Expert-subject}} to associate this request with a WikiProject |
 |
To comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines, the introduction of this article may need to be rewritten. Please discuss this issue on the talk page and read the layout guide to make sure the section will be inclusive of all essential details. |
|
|
The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions.(December 2007) |
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. (December 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
- This article is about the animated series. For the video game series, see Earthworm Jim; for the character, see Earthworm Jim (character).
| Earthworm Jim | |
|---|---|
| Format | Animated comedy |
| Created by | Doug TenNapel |
| Starring | Dan Castellaneta Andrea Martin John Kassir Jim Cummings |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of episodes | 23 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Universal Cartoon Studios/Flextech |
| Running time | 30 minutes (including commercials) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel |  Channel 4 Kids' WB! RTL7 RTL Television TV3 Network Ten Canal 13 YTV Nelonen TVE Channel One (Russia |
| Original run | September 9, 1995 – December 14, 1996 |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
Earthworm Jim is an American animated television series which ran for 23 episodes in 2 seasons from 1995-1996 on the Kids' WB programming block on The WB Television Network. It is based on a video game character created by Doug TenNapel for the 1994 title Earthworm Jim. The series follows the adventures of an earthworm named Jim, who is turned into a superhero by a robotic super suit.
The cartoons featured a significant amount of joke content that mostly adults would find humorous and that children would doubtfully understand. An example being "Deep in the Bowls of Justice" followed by everyone saying "Ew". This lead to the one hour block it originally shared with Freakazoid, also a show with more adult friendly jokes and cartoon humor along with its near-afternoon show time, into being a more adult oriented cartoon block on the WB.
Contents |
[edit] Plot & Show
Earthworm Jim maintains much of the absurdist and surreal humor of the original games as well as introduces its own features. Most of the episodes revolve around one of Jim's many villains trying to reclaim the super suit, or otherwise causing mayhem through the galaxy. Other problems Jim is faced with include returning his neighbors eggbeater and finding a new power source after his suit is depowered. The show also breaks the fourth wall with many characters often talking to the audience and the narrator. The end of every episode involves Jim or any other character being crushed by a cow, a play on the first game of the series (at the start, you launch a cow into the sky only to have it crush the princess in the end) Jim himself ended up with two catch-phrases, either "Guh-ROOVY!" when excited, or, when preparing to fire his plasma gun yelling "EAT DIRT!" followed by an at times vague description of his intended victim before laughing hysterically. (examples: "EAT DIRT, EVERYONE IN THE VICINITY!" when firing random shots in all directions; "EAT DIRT, POINTY BEAKED SQUISHY HEAD!" yelled at Psy-Crow when he was conducting a Public Service Announcement)
[edit] Characters
Many of the characters from the games were made into main characters for the show. Peter Puppy becomes Jim's sidekick and friend and Princess What's-Her-Name his love interest. Many villains from the game, including Evil the Cat, Psy-Crow, Bob the Killer Goldfish and Queen Slug-for-a-Butt also recur throughout the show. The series also created many of its own new characters, such as the Galactic Heroes League, a group of wannabe superheroes including the Hamsternator and Lower Back-Pain Man. The series also introduced a major new villain named Evil Jim, an evil duplicate of Earthworm Jim, who went on to be the main antagonist for the game Earthworm Jim: Menace 2 the Galaxy. It also inspired the later game Earthworm Jim 3D.
[edit] Future
On April 22, 2008 Interplay Entertainment signed a partnership arrangement with Earthworm Jim creator Douglas TenNapel to relaunch the video game branch, as well as announcing a new television animated series and feature length film with TenNapel as a creative consultant, however no release dates have been set yet. [1]
[edit] Cast
- Dan Castellaneta: Earthworm Jim; Evil Jim
- Andrea Martin: Queen Slug-for-a-Butt
- John Kassir: Snott; Henchrat
- Jim Cummings: Psy-Crow; Bob the Killer Goldfish
- Kath Soucie: Princess What's-Her-Name
- Jeff Bennett: Peter Puppy; Narrator
- Charlie Adler: Professor Monkey-For-A-Head
- Edward Hibbert: Evil the Cat
[edit] Episodes
[edit] Season 1
1. "Sidekicked" (9/9/1995) - After Peter botches one of their adventures, Jim begins looking for a new sidekick.
2. "The Book of Doom" (9/16/1995) - Due to a printing error, Jim's pop-up book contains the secret to universal destruction, which Evil the Cat seeks to possess.
3. "Assault and Battery" (9/23/1995) - Jim must find a new power source after his super suit is drained.
4. "Day of the Fish" (9/30/1995) - Bob the Killer Goldfish attempts to steal Jim's super suit.
5. "Conqueror Worm" (10/7/1995) - Due to a photocopy machine accident, Jim creates an evil duplicate of himself.
6. "Upholstered Peril" (10/14/1995) - Professor Monkey-For-A-Head creates sofa monsters that are so comfortable, people become mindless zombies.
7. "Sword of Righteousness" (10/21/1995) - Jim finds an enchanted sword who begins training him in what it considers the ways of a true hero.
8. "The Egg Beater" (10/28/1995) - Jim loses his neighbor's eggbeater and takes her on a journey to recover it.
9. "Trout!" (11/4/1995) - After receiving a postcard, Jim sets out to see the legendary Fur-Bearin' Trout.
10. "The Great Secret of the Universe" (11/11/1995) - Evil the Cat steals Jim's snow globe, which contains The Nameless Beast (whose name is Rosebud), who knows the Great Secret of the Universe.
11. "Bring Me the Head of Earthworm Jim" (11/18/1995) - Psy-crow and Professor Monkey-For-A-Head team up to defeat Earthworm Jim by replacing his super suit with a weak duplicate.
12. "Queen What's Her Name" (11/25/1995) - Princess What's-Her-Name finally overthrows her tyrant sister Queen Slug-for-a-Butt.
13. "The Anti-Fish" (12/2/1995) - Jim must save the Great Worm Spirit from being consumed by its arch-enemy: the Anti-Fish.
[edit] Season 2
14. "The Origin of Peter Puppy" (9/7/1996) - Jim and Peter travel through Peter's subconscious to try to discover the reasons for Peter's transformations.
15. "Opposites Attack!" (9/14/1996) - Evil Jim attempts to create evil versions of Jim's friends, with less than stellar results.
16. "Darwin's Nightmare" (9/28/1996) - Bob discovers a way to hyper-evolve himself to higher lifeforms.
17. "The Exile of Lucy" (10/5/1996) - Psy-Crow & Prof. Monkey-for-a-Head overthrow Queen Slug-For-A-Butt, but quickly proves to be even worse rulers than her.
18. "Evil in Love" (10/26/1996) - Evil falls in love and teams up with Malice the Dog.
19. "Hyper Psy-Crow" (11/2/1996) - Psy-crow overdoses on coffee and becomes hyper-powered.
20. "Peanut of the Apes" (11/9/1996) - While Professor Monkey-For-A-Head tries to de-evolve people into monkeys, Jim tries to introduce "viewer interactivity" on the show.
21. "Lounge Day's Journey Into Night" (11/16/1996) - Jim and Peter switch roles as hero and sidekick, while Evil tries to destroy the universe by making a pair of dime-store lounge singers sing a cursed song.
22. "The Wizard of Ooze" (11/23/1996) - Jim and Peter are transported to an alternate dimension akin to The Wizard of Oz.
23. "For Whom the Jingle Bell Tolls" (12/14/1996) - Queen Slug-For-A-Butt tries to brainwash Santa Claus.
[edit] Home video releases
The series was released by MCA/Universal Home Video on four VHS volumes in 1995. The videos included:
- "Bring Me the Head of Earthworm Jim" and "Sword of Righteousness" (Volume 1)
- "Conqueror Worm" and "Day of the Fish" (Volume 2)
- "Assault and Battery" and "Trout!" (Volume 3)
- "The Book of Doom" and "Egg Beater" (Volume 4)
Each VHS tape also included a short behind-the-scenes "Cartoon School" segment, which covered various production topics including storyboarding and voice acting. There are no current plans to release the show on DVD.
[edit] Action figures and other merchandise
A line of action figures based on the show were released. A second series of figures was planned but was ultimately canceled. The action figures available included every main character from the cartoon/video games except for Queen Slug-for-a-butt. It also included battle damage suit Earthworm Jim. Earthworm Jim and battle damage Suit Earthworm Jim came in two different colors with either a red gun and snot or a green gun and snot. This required you to buy both colored versions to have the correctly colored gun and pet snot. The pocket rocket was also available and was correctly sized for Earthworm Jim to ride when scaled with the rocket from the show. For a short time, Taco Bell also included premium toys with their Kid's Meal.
The action figures were nearly half the price of other action figures available in stores at the time including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and X-men action figures. Also during this time other action figures had stopped selling in stores the main versions of characters shown on their TV shows. Mostly offering only extreme variants and in some cases selling characters only marginally shown in media (such as comic books with low circulation) other than the cartoons they were catering to.
Two Earthworm Jim comic book series were created to tie the games to the animated series. Separate comics were released in the US and UK, but the UK comics struggled greatly to find an audience. Submissions to the comic's letters/fan art page were so low that the publishers were forced to show episodes at local schools so that pupils could create content for them. This was noted several times within the comic itself.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
|
||||||||
