Baby Blues (US TV series)

Baby Blues is an animated television series based on the Baby Blues comic strip. The first eight episodes of Baby Blues originally aired in the United States on The WB from July 28, 2000 until August 24, 2000, before the series cancellation. Five then-unaired were later aired on Adult Swim in 2002. Another season consisting of thirteen episodes has been produced, but has never aired or been released to the public in any format.

Production

In 2000, Baby Blues was adapted into an animated cartoon, which aired on The WB Television Network, produced by Warner Bros. Television and Warner Bros. Animation, with the overseas animation done by Rough Draft Studios for the first 4 episodes, then Sunwoo Entertainment for the rest of the episodes, for a few weeks in the summer, from July 28, 2000 to August 25, 2000. The animated version featured Darryl and Wanda raising the infant Zoe as their first child, as distinct from the comic strip's storyline at the time which showed Zoe as the older sister to Hammie. Mike O'Malley voiced Darryl, while Julia Sweeney played Wanda.

The Baby Blues television series differed from the comic strip by focusing on Darryl and Wanda's relationship with the Bittermans, a neighbor family with three children (Rodney, Megan, and Shelby); Kenny, Darryl's co-worker; and Bizzy, the babysitter for Zoe. Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott had little creative control over the animated version.^[1]

The WB typically aired two episodes each week, thus enabling eight different episodes to be shown in the five-week run, but abandoned plans to air additional episodes which had been completed. Previously unaired episodes were later aired on Cartoon Network's late night programming block, Adult Swim, and on TeleToon in Canada. The show was canceled after 13 episodes. A second season's run of 13 episodes was produced but never aired.^[2]

Opening sequence

The opening theme song was "It's All Been Done" by Barenaked Ladies, from Drive Me Crazy.

In the episode "Rodney Has Two Daddies" the song "Alternative Girlfriend" also by Barenaked Ladies was featured during the cooking montage.

Cast

Characters

• Darryl MacPherson - Darryl is the uptight and responsible father of Zoe and husband to Wanda. He tends to think Wanda's heart-felt ideas are crazy, but will later agree with them if there is an advantage for himself. He wants the best for his baby daughter, but can overly protect her. Despite intending to do the right thing, he has done unexpected selfish things, such as pretending to grieve over going with Carl and their kids to a fun zone, only to watch an attractive dancer at the place singing every time it was a child's birthday. But in the end, he is faithful to his wife and daughter. Darryl often feels that his wife nags him and will always discuss his issues to his friend, Kenny at work. Most commonly, he will talk about a problem, the next day, talk about how happy he is to have solved the problem an easy way, then the next day, talk about how it did not work out. Darryl is quick to express jealousy—particularly of Carl, his next door neighbor.

• Wanda MacPherson - Wanda is Darryl's wife and Zoe's mother. She is caring, unpredictable, passionate and impulsive by turns. However, just as Darryl does, she loves Zoe and wants only the best for her. Wanda is a stay at home mom. Her closest friends are her neighbor Melinda and a young girl named Bizzy, who serves as Zoe's babysitter from time to time. Wanda generally has a cheerful disposition, but she is quick to let her emotions get the best of her. She will usually go through drastic measures to fix something, against her husband's wishes. Wanda is occasionally melancholy about motherhood, as suggested by the title Baby Blues. She is said to have a "crazy spark" in her that never left. This is seen at one point, when she wants to feel young again and escapes with Bizzy and her friends at night and gets caught by the police. Wanda's unpredictable and impulsive behavior is often a source of extreme stress for Darryl. Wanda is shown to be extremly shallow for she wants to look perfect by looks in society, shown in "Ugly Zoe". However, in the end, they always settle their differences and make peace after the arguments and problems they have gone through.

• Zoe MacPherson - Zoe is the infant daughter of Darryl and Wanda. As a baby, Zoe's curiosity and emotions are expressed in her eyes, which show almost complete understanding when something happens or if somebody talks to her. Although calm and cheerful in the day time, she is very loud and cries nonstop at night, leaving her parents to stay up all night taking turns rocking her and carrying her until the day time. Zoe appears to have a really close relationship with Rodney, the trouble kid next door who seems to be the only one who could stop her crying and comfort her.

• Melinda Bitterman - Melinda is Wanda's friend and neighbor whose family is dysfunctional. Melinda is always seen smoking in her yard as her husband and kids are working on some bizarre, dangerous or disastrous activity outside. Any time she sees Wanda, she always greets with the same line, "Hi Wanda, how's the baby?" Seemingly careless or tired, Melinda seems to desire the happiness and relationship she once had before she became a mother and somewhat envies Wanda's stable life, but is still content with her family. She always talks in a calm voice, even when discussing an insane thing that her family is doing, as if it was normal.

• Carl Bitterman - Melinda's husky, big-muscled and overweight husband. A seemingly bum like man, Carl claims that he gives his kids strict discipline, even though he has lowered himself to their level many, many times, particularly to his son, Rodney who annoys and pesters him and makes his fuse go down and take aggressive action. Carl is usually envied by Darryl, for being good at fixing mechanics and other things Darryl is not good at. Carl could be rude and obnoxious at times, but considers himself the "man of the house". He usually involves his children in several activities, such as practicing to shoot arrows or riding in a hoover car without seatbelts. He can be proud at times and has belittled Darryl's parenting skills and self-confidence either bluntly or through his children who have little respect for Darryl. Because of this, Carl and Darryl do not particularly get along as dads, although Darryl has been talked into doing things he would not normally do, because of Carl's forceful insistence.

• Rodney Bitterman - Rodney is the eight-year-old son of Carl and Melinda Bitterman. Rodney is very mischievous and is best known for causing a lot of trouble. However, is the smartest of his siblings and is street wise. Rodney repeatedly has pestered his dad by annoyingly asking stupid questions, shooting knock-knock jokes to avoid going to bed and placing his finger an inch from touching one of his father's tools when he was forbidden to touch anything. Because of the things he does, he always makes his sister, Megan laugh. Besides being a terrible menace, he can be very sympathetic, particularly to Darryl and Zoe. The sensitive side of Rodney has shown his somewhat neglect, unimportance or misunderstanding relationship with his dad. At one time, Rodney had tried one of Darryl's mushrooms and realized how much he cared about food and wanted to cook. However, his father thought it was silly, so Rodney had relied on Darryl to help him, but of course, this preference to Darryl over his own dad had lead Darryl to pride. Although, Rodney has verbally pestered and teased Darryl many times before. Rodney's tough exterior surprisingly has a caring and loving relationship with Zoe.

• Megan Bitterman - Megan is Rodney's younger sister and is very close to Rodney. Megan is most commonly known for laughing out loud at anything Rodney does to pester their father. Megan is almost always seen with Rodney and faithfully keeps a huge smile on her face all the time. However, when Rodney is not around, she is seen to get very sad and cry.

• Shelby Bitterman - Carl and Melinda's youngest son who is a sociopath and is always seen carrying a fat, green baseball bat around and hitting things with it without expression. The episode "Hurtin Inside" revealed he is four years old. He also never makes any noise on his own, but he snores and coughs at points.

• Bizzy - Wanda's teenage friend who has babysat Zoe on some occasions.The MacPhersons have known her since she was a girl scout. Bizzy seems to be older for her age, since Darryl's boss once bought Darryl's lie about her being his wife. Although, only respectable with Wanda and Zoe, she is disobedient and disrespectful as far as suggesting Wanda leave Darryl and hating her morally responsible and caring stepfather. Also, Wanda and Darryl many times have had to question her about each dysfunctional boyfriend she gets when she babysits. Bizzy is seen to be very thin and cannot seem to gain any weight, as she once claimed when Wanda discovered Bizzy had been sitting on the couch all day eating a whole bag of chocolate chip cookies with no worry, while babysitting.

• Kenny - Kenny is Darryl's smooth-talking friend and co-worker at the office. Despite the fellowship they share, Kenny also seems like somewhat of a pester or nuisance to Darryl, such as bragging about his life and family or poking fun at Darryl's personal relationship with Wanda. Darryl normally talks to Kenny about his problems at home, to which Kenny advises with either agreeable or nonagreeble mischievous ideas for Darryl. Kenny's personality is seen to be laid back and worryless, however he grows upset and anxious when his friend is not working with him anymore. Even though Kenny seems to think his family is normal, it's hinted that his wife is cheating on him with the neighbor and that he might be a neglectful father, since for one second in an episode he couldn't even remember that he had a third child.

• Charlie - The MacPhersons' pet dog. Vocal effects by Phil LaMarr.

Episodes

Season 1: 2000

Season 2: 2002

References

External links

• Baby Blues at TV.com
• Baby Blues at the Internet Movie Database