Nerds and Monsters

Nerds and Monsters is a Canadian animated series airing on YTV that follows three nerdy kids and a simple football linebacker on a fantastic uncharted island. As described on the show's website: "The tween castaways must use nothing but their smarts to survive the relentless attacks by the island's inhabitants - a tribe of hideous and hilarious monsters that are mistakenly threatened by their human invaders. Lucky for the nerds, these dim-witted monsters don't have any smarts!"^[1] It is produced by Slap Happy Cartoons Inc.

The series also airs on CITV and ITV in the United Kingdom, UTV in Northern Ireland, Canal+ Family and Télétoon+ in France, Disney XD Europe in Poland, and ABC3 in Australia. It was announced at the 2014 Banff World Media Festival that the series was renewed for a second season.^[2]

Characters

Nerds

• Dudley Squat (voiced by Tabitha St. Germain) - the leader of the nerds, despite his short stature. He demands things be done a certain way - HIS way.
• Becky Hooger (voiced by Tabitha St. Germain) - a tall, excitable nerd, the only female in the group. She is the love interest of Irwin.
• Irwin Chang-Stein (voiced by Vincent Tong) - a Chinese Canadian nerd, has a phobia of everything except Becky who he has a crush on.
• Stan Grissle (voiced by Ty Olsson) - a dumb football linebacker, the top lineman on the Beaverton Bulldogs team.

Monsters

• Zarg (voiced by Brian Dobson) - the leader of the monsters, and Lyle's uncle. His position as Supreme Leader is threatened by the nerds' arrival.
• Skur (voiced by Ian James Corlett) - Zarg's servant, a winged lizard-like monster who is fed up being second banana, so is bent on dethroning Zarg and becoming king of Monster Island.
• Lyle (voiced by Brian Drummond) - a nerdy monster, King Zarg's nephew, who is forced to live life like the other monsters. This is proved in one episode where he doesn't want to 'monster up'.
• Urp (voiced by Lee Tockar) and Durn (voiced by Michael Adamthwaite) - Lyle's parents that share the same body. Durn is the sister of King Zarg.
• Vink (voiced by Michael Daingerfield) - a giant, child-like monster with a short attention span.
• Maiden Cheena - Queen of Monster Island, a children's inflatable pool toy that was washed up onto the island some time ago. Her name comes from the Made in China label imprinted on her rubber back.

Early prototype

The first prototype of the series had four nerds; Becky Hoogerstein, Dudley Squat, Winston Chang and Fareed Singh. They were completely different in appearance; Becky was a curly haired brunette, Dudley had bigger glasses and blond hair and Winston had shorter hair and was described as Spock-like. Fareed was written out of the final version and replaced with Stan. Becky's name was shortened and Winston became Irwin with the 'stein' from Becky's original name being inserted into his. Dudley's name was kept, but he too was altered.^[3]

Zarg was originally called Zar and designed with orange fur, and Skur had no fur at all. Urp and Durn's only change was the addition of fingers instead of tentacle-like hands.

Awards & Nominations

References