Kim Possible

Kim Possible
Format Animated television series
Created by Bob Schooley
Mark McCorkle
Voices of Christy Carlson Romano
Will Friedle
Nestor Carbonell
Nancy Cartwright
Gary Cole
John DiMaggio
Shaun Fleming (1-3)
Ricardo Montalban
Tahj Mowry
Earl Boen
Jean Smart
Rider Strong (1-3)
Nicole Sullivan
Kirsten Storms
Raven-Symoné
Anneliese van der Pol
A.J. Trauth (1-3)
Patrick Warburton
Ashley Tisdale
Spencer Fox
Opening theme "Call Me, Beep Me"
by Christina Milian
Composer(s) Adam Berry
Country of origin United States
Language(s) English
No. of seasons 4
No. of episodes 87 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time 22 minutes
Production company(s) Walt Disney Television Animation
Broadcast
Original channel Disney Channel
Picture format 480i (4:3 SDTV)
1080i (16:9 HDTV)
Audio format Dolby Digital 5.1
Original run June 7, 2002 (2002-06-07) – September 7, 2007 (2007-09-07)
External links
Website

Kim Possible is an American animated television series about a teenage crime fighter who has the task of dealing with worldwide, family, and school issues every day. The show is action-oriented, but also has a light-hearted atmosphere and often lampoons the conventions and clichés of the secret-agent and action genres. It marked the second animated Disney Channel Original Series, and was the first series to be produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, in association with Disney Channel.

It remains the longest running Disney Channel Original Series airing for 5 years and 3 months.

Contents

Premise

Kim lives in a normal town named Middleton. The series revolves around Kim’s fight against her enemies as well as her everyday life problems as a normal teenager, which are usually presented as a subplot.[1]

Production

Creators Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley claim they created the show in an elevator. As they tell it, McCorkle looked at Schooley and said, "Kim Possible: she can do anything". Schooley at once replied, "Her partner is Ron Stoppable: he can't do anything". The creators also maintain that it was always their intention for Kim and Ron to eventually become involved romantically, rather than just remaining best friends. This becomes a reality in the supposed series-ending movie, Kim Possible: So the Drama. The romantic theme also continues in season four.[2]

The series premiered on Disney Channel on June 7, 2002[3], and the first episode to air, "Crush", was nominated for a Primetime Emmy award the following year. After the premiere of this episode, Kim Possible was the most-watched and highest-rated television show on Disney Channel at that time. The series as a whole was nominated for the Daytime Emmy in 2004 and again in 2005 (that year it received five nominations and won one for Outstanding Sound Mixing — Live Action and Animation).[4] The show has been widely praised for its dialogue, animation, and characters (both heroic and villainous).[5]

On February 22, 2005, after three seasons and 65 episodes, the show ended production. Due to the popularity of the series and grassroots operations by dedicated KP fans, Disney announced on November 29, 2005, that the show would be renewed for a fourth season, which debuted on Disney Channel on February 10, 2007. The series finale aired on September 7, 2007, with the airing of the one-hour-long concluding episode "Graduation."[6]

Steve Loter documented the production of the final episode of season four, and thus the completion of the Kim Possible franchise, in a blog titled "So the Finale" hosted on Blogger. It included behind-the-scenes and production information from the perspective of the crew as well as production sketches from one of several alternative endings that had been scripted. "So the Finale" maintained an open comment system allowing fans to express their views on the franchise and its closure.[7]

The show's title music, "Call Me, Beep Me," is sung by Christina Milian. Artist Stephen Silver was the lead character designer.

The series is currently the longest running Disney Channel Original Series in terms of duration, running for five years and three months.

Airings

Kim Possible aired on Toon Disney in the United States and Family in Canada. Episodes have been aired on ABC as part of its ABC Kids lineup.[8]

In the UK, the show has often been aired on GMTV's children's weekend slot Toonattik, on ITV1. The show currently airs at 6:00AM and 11:35PM, weekdays, on the Disney Channel, while being broadcast at 10:50PM on a weekend. The show is also broadcast daily at 9:30pm showing two back to back episodes on Disney Cinemagic. In Australia, Kim Possible can be seen on Disney Channel Australia 3 times a day along with the Seven Network which are currently repeating the final season every Saturday at 7:05am. In India, Kim Possible can be seen on "Toon Disney", "Disney Channel" and "Disney CineMagic".

It is still being aired on Disney Channel Latin America in the Pacific feed from Monday to Friday in the animated block. It is also being aired on Disney Channel South Africa and Disney XD Netherlands.

The Bulgarian version of Kim Possible (Ким Суперплюс) premiered in 2005 on BNT Channel 1, with a dub produced by Disney Character Voices International; the Disney weekend block however was closed without notice on January 1, 2006. After more than two years absence, Jetix CEE brought the series' first season back in August 2008, with the old Bulgarian dub appearing from October of that year. After Jetix was changed to Disney Channel, it repeated season 2 (which aired on Channel 1 as well). It has been reported that the previously undubbed season 3 is now ready for broadcasting. It is expected that it will be dubbed by the same sound studio as before (Alexandra Audio).

Episodes

Season Episodes First Airdate Last Airdate
Season 1 21 June 7, 2002 May 16, 2003
Season 2 30 July 18, 2003 August 5, 2004[9]
Season 3 11 (14 with So the Drama) September 25, 2004 June 10, 2006
Season 4 22 February 10, 2007 September 7, 2007

Characters

The show centers around teenaged crime-fighter Kim Possible and her faithful sidekick and boyfriend (since Season 4) Ron Stoppable. Ron owns a pet naked mole rat named Rufus, who proves an excellent aid to Ron and Kim in their many battles versus Dr. Drakken and various other foes. Ron is also the main source of comic relief for the show. During the show, Kim and Ron progress through the high school, starting in tenth grade in the pilot episode, Crush, and ending with a graduation party in the final episode, Graduation.

Together the duo fights various antagonists, most commonly Doctor Drakken, assisted by his henchwoman Shego, whose unsuccessful world domination schemes appear in almost every episode of the show. The other common villains are Monkey Fist, Duff Killigan, Señor Senior, Sr. and Jr., and Professor Dementor. Monkey Fist starts out as an Indiana Jones-like persona, but soon turns into a megalomaniacal practitioner of monkey kung fu also known as Tai-Sheng-Pek-Quar as shown in the episode Monkey Fist Strikes written by Gary Sperling, which is a fictional fighting discipline supernaturalized and portrayed as mystical in the series.[10] Duff Killigan is an overweight Scottish golf player who wears a kilt and attacks his opponents with exploding golf balls.[11] The Señor Senior father and son duo are at first just extremely rich people owning a large resort island. However, they are inadvertently pushed into the evil business by Ron Stoppable. Senior, the father, is more business-oriented, as his son tends to exploit the evil ways for not-so-evil deeds, such as opening a personal disco.[12][13] Little is revealed about Professor Dementor, an antagonist obsessed with world domination schemes like Doctor Drakken, his sworn enemy, although Dementor usually turns out to be more successful.[14][15]

Films

DVDs

Various DVDs were released for the series:

Soundtrack

Video games

Awards and Nominations

2005 - Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing - Live Action and Animation - Melissa Ellis and Fil Brown (Won)

EPCOT Park attraction

Based on the series, the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure is an interactive attraction taking place in several of Disney EPCOT Park's World Showcase pavilions. The attraction is an electronic scavenger hunt that has guests using special "Kimmunicators" (in actuality, modified cell phones) to help Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable solve a "crime" or disrupt an evil-doer's "plans for global domination." The "Kimmunicator" is able to trigger specific events within the pavilion grounds that provide clues to completing the adventure. Launched in January 2009 and presented by Verizon Wireless, the Adventure is included in park admission.[16]

International

A Mandarin version aired on CCTV-12 in China, and an Arabic dub was also made which started airing on Disney Channel Middle East in 2002. The only changes were to the characters' names; Kim was called "Damo Staheel" (Mostaheel is Arabic for Impossible), Ron was called "Mostah Aed", "Awad", Shego was called "Shahira", and Dr. Drakken was called "Daraken". The show aired on the French Disney Channel and then on TF1's Disney show in France. Several changes were made in the names to fit with translated jokes: for example Ron is called Robin Trépide ("Intrépide", meaning intrepid: some kind of a courageous and adventurer). In Germany, Austria and Switzerland Kim Possible was aired on Super RTL, ORF 1 and SF zwei. Kim was dubbed by Anna Carlsson. In Bulgaria the show was aired on Kanal 1 in 2005. The same translation was made available on the Bulgarian version of Jetix on October 20, 2008 (name changes: Kim Possible - Kim Superplus / Ким Суперплюс; Ron Staythere / Рон Стойситам). In Sweden, the show has been aired on SVT1, Disney Channel Sweden and Toon Disney Sweden. The show was dubbed to Swedish, but the names were the same as in the original version. This is also so in the Dutch version. The Hungarian version aired on the Hungarian RTL in 2006. In the Japanese version of this show, Beni Arashiro sang the main theme "Call Me Beep Me" in both Japanese and English. In India the show retained its name as Kim Possible and was aired on Disney Channel India and various channels airing Disney cartoons dubbed in Hindi.

References

  1. ^ Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley Interview on Kim Possible Season 4
  2. ^ The Background Art of Kim Possible Art director Alan Bodner and executive producer/director Chris Bailey discuss the Background Art of Disney's Kim Possible.
  3. ^ "Kim Possible: Cast & Details". TVGuide.com. http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/kim-possible/cast/194598=. Retrieved October 27, 2010. 
  4. ^ Awards for "Kim Possible" (2006), retrieved August 4, 2006
  5. ^ Latest interview with Steve Loter
  6. ^ So The Finale, Official Season Four finale production blog by Steve Loter (2008-01-01)
  7. ^ Loter Steve (2007) "So the Finale", Blogger
  8. ^ earlier Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley Interview
  9. ^ "Tahj Mowry Current Month TV Schedule" (in English). USA: TVNow. 2004. Archived from the original on August 14, 2004. http://replay.web.archive.org/20040814232357/http://www.tv-now.com/stars/tahmow.html. Retrieved 14 May 2011. 
  10. ^ Kim Possible, episode 13, Monkey Fist Strikes (13 September 2002)
  11. ^ Kim Possible, episode 14, October 31st (11 October 2002)
  12. ^ Kim Possible, episode 3, The New Ron (7 June 2002)
  13. ^ Kim Possible, episode 11, Coach Possible (23 August 2002)
  14. ^ Kim Possible, episode 39, Hidden Talent (2 January 2004)
  15. ^ Kim Possible, episode 54, Bonding (22 October 2004)
  16. ^ Disney's Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure Description of EPCOT'S Kim Possible attraction, with demonstration video, from Walt Disney World's website.

External links