Mona the Vampire

Mona the Vampire is a Canadian children's animated television series that was created by Sonia Holleyman. The series follows the adventures of Mona Parker, who devotes to referring to herself as "Mona the Vampire," as well as her two best friends, Lily Duncan ("Princess Giant") and Charley Bones ("Zapman"), and her pet cat, Fang, as they imagine themselves confronting a new supernatural foe, or solving a supernatural mystery, in every episode, but there are always rational explanations for what they see.

Mona the Vampire is based on a series of 1990s children's books of the same name that was written and illustrated by Sonia Holleyman and later also by Hiawyn Oram.

Characters

• Mona Parker ("Mona the Vampire") - The show's main protagonist; a young girl with a vivid imagination and a naive personality who claims and devotes to be a vampire superhero. She believes her hometown is overrun with supernatural monsters and she plans to stop them all and save the town on a daily basis. Although Mona's imagination can cause trouble at times, her imagination has proven to be more helpful than not.
• Fang - Mona's pet cat and sidekick that she ties unreal wings around during missions. Fang is her accomplice in the nether realms of her imagination. He always follows Mona everywhere.
• Charley Bones ("Zapman") - One of Mona's best friends. He wears glasses, and is an intelligent but sometimes scared boy in real life. His alter ego is Zapman, who wears a green costume and is armed with a Zapp-A-Rama gun and other types of guns (a water pistol in reality). Charley is bullied by George at school frequently.
• Lily Duncan ("Princess Giant") - One of Mona's best friend. She has a timid and slightly paranoid personality at times, but is still helpful to the team.
• Mr. and Mrs. Parker - Mona's parents. Mrs. Parker is shown to be a stricter parent, while Mr. Parker is more light-hearted and clumsy and has an imagination like Mona, and allows her to continue her fantasy life.
• Angela Smith - Mona's snobbish rival in the series. Often, Angela boasts about her wealth to her classmates and often enlists George in her schemes to cause problems for Mona. Her parents won the lottery, explaining her richness and her spoiledness. She plays the role of a female bully in the series.
• George Jamell - A school bully, who mainly bullies Charley, but also bullies several other characters in the series. He plays the role of a male bully in the series, and often is seen talking to and negotiating with Angela as a friend.
• Madeleine Gotto: Mona's teacher. She is very stern, yet also has a habit of falling in love easily. She is often exasperated by Mona's strange ideas and arguments for supernatural occurrences which are ordinary events.
• Principal Shawbly: The strict principal of Mona's school, St. Faith's Elementary. He easily grows tired of Mona's behavior and is quick to discipline her.
• Officer Halcroft: The chief of local police. He's become used to Mona's antics, and is quick to offer a more rational explanation to Mona's stories, which, ironically, Mona finds rather outlandish and unbelievable.
• Mayor Rosenbaum: The town's mayor.
• Mrs. Bryerson: Mona's elderly neighbor. She has a poodle named Blitzy.
• Lawrence: One of Mona's classmates; a minor but recurring character.
• Reverend Gregory: The local reverend.

Episodes

There are a total of 65 full episodes of Mona the Vampire. Each episode is approximately 20 minutes long, not including the theme song and the credits theme, and each full episode contains two 10-minute episodes.

Four seasons of Mona the Vampire were produced. The first season contains 26 full episodes, while seasons 2, 3, and 4 each contains 13 full episodes.

Voice cast

The following is a list containing voice actors and the characters they voice. Throughout the series, there are a tremendous amount of minor and episodic characters, who solely appear in single episodes. Most of the voice actors of minor characters in the series are unknown.

English

• Emma Taylor-Isherwood as Mona Parker
• Justin Bradley as Charley Bones until 2002
• Evan Smirnow as Charley Bones—replaced Justin Bradley in 2003.
• Carrie Finlay as Lily Duncan
• Carole Jeghers as Mrs. Parker
• Marcel Jeannin as Mr. Parker
• Tia Caroleo as Angela Smith
• Oliver Grainger as George Jamell until 2002
• James Harbour as George Jamell (2003)
• Louis Negin as Reverend Gregory
• Gary Jewell as Officer Halcroft (1999–2002)
• Richard Dumont as Officer Halcroft (2003)
• Jennifer Seguin as Miss Gotto
• Rick Miller as Principal Shawbly (1999–2002)
• Stephen Spreekmeester as Principal Shawbly (2003)
• Sonja Ball as Mrs. Bryerson
• John Stocker as Mayor Rosenbaum
• Michael Yarmush as Lawrence
• Holly Gauthier-Frankel as Belinda (2003)
• Jonathan Koensgen as Robin
• Ricky Mabe as Morris
• Al Gravelle as Big Al
• Jessica Kardos as Additional Voices
• Michael O'Reilly as Additional Voices
• Dawn Ford as Additional Voices
• Mark Trafford as Additional Voices
• Helen King as Additional Voices
• John Koensgen as Additional Voices
• A.J. Henderson as Additional Voices
• Dennis St. John as Additional Voices
• David Tyler as Additional Voices
• Doug Price as Additional Voices
• Jeremy Zafran as Additional Voices
• Ellen David as Additional Voices
• Terence Bowman as Additional Voices
• Wyatt Bowen as Additional Voices
• Nadia Verucci as Additional Voices
• Susan Glover as Additional Voices
• Gabrielle Lazarovitz as Additional Voices
• Terrence Scammell as Additional Voices
• Michelle Heisler as Additional Voices
• Bruce Dinsmore as Additional Voices
• Tedd Dillon as Additional Voices

French

• Kelly Marot as Mona Parker
• Caroline Vigier as Lily Duncan (Princesse Invincible) (1999–2002), Additional Voices
• Zoé Bettan as Lily Duncan (Princesse Invincible) (2003) / Angela Smith (2003)
• Stéphanie Lafforgue as Charlie Os ou Charlie Genoux, Maman de Mona, Additional Voices
• Suzanne Sindberg as George Dumol, Mademoiselle Mile Suffy, Additional Voices
• Bernard Jung as Papa de Mona, Inspecteur Lostus, Additional Voices
• Thierry Murzeau as Directeur Bonneuil, Révérend Gregory, Maire Rosenbaum, Additional Voices
• Marjolaine Poulain as Angela Smith (1999–2002), Additional Voices
• Danièle Hazan as Madame Baterville, Additional Voices

German

• Sylvie Nogler as Charley Bones
• Saskia Weckler as Lily Duncan
• Angela Quast as Mona Parker

Spanish

Hispanoamérica

• Cristina Hernández as Mona Parker (1999–2001)
• José Antonio Marcías as Charley Bones (1999–2000)

España

• Carmen Ambrós as Mona Parker
• Assumpta Navascués as Charley Bones

Book basis

Mona the Vampire is based on a series of books of the same name that were each published in the early to mid 1990s and were written and illustrated by Sonia Holleyman, who was later partnered with Hiawyn Oram in the writing of that same book series. Holleyman's original idea of Mona, as represented in her first three Mona the Vampire books, led more towards a girl with a great imagination who, like many children, likes to experiment with multiple different obsessions. However, after Oram joined Holleyman in the writing of the next six Mona the Vampire books, they decided to modify Mona into a character who is solely obsessed with her vampire superhero persona. These ideas later developed into the modern television series.

Additionally, a series of eight picture books and three activity books based on the television series was published in the United Kingdom by Orchard Books in 2001. This picture book series depicts the characters and scenery in a similar manner to the television series. Each of the picture books are based on specific episodes of the first season of the show.

Website

In August 29, 2000, after the production of the first season of the series, Alphanim, France3, and Cinar created a bilingual Adobe Flash-based website under the domain name monathevampire.com. This website includes several children's games and activities that include characters and settings from the series.

DVD release

During and after the production of Mona the Vampire, several various DVDs containing episodes of the series were published, especially by Cookie Jar Entertainment. These DVDs sometimes included extra features, such as episode and language selection settings and voiced character descriptions by child voice actors. An example of a popular Mona the Vampire DVD is Mona the Vampire: The Complete First Season, released by Mill Creek Entertainment under a deal with DHX Media, a DVD that, as the name states, contains all the episodes of the first season in numerical order.

Production

The first public announcement of the production of the television series was in a news article published in June 9, 1998 by the New York City news agency PR Newswire. Before Mona the Vampire, Cinar and Alphanim, two of the series' main production companies, had partnered in several other television series, including Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Lassie. The leaders of both of these companies predicted that Mona the Vampire would be a great success, and hoped to further the relationship between the two companies with this production.^[1]

Broadcast details

• In Canada, the series originally aired in English on YTV, and in French on Radio-Canada Télé.
• In Australia, the series is aired on ABC1 during May 2011. The series originally aired on Nickelodeon from 1999-2004.
• In the United States, the series originally aired on This TV from September 26, 2011 until October 27, 2013, a month before the This is for Kids block ended due to DHX Media's acquisition of Cookie Jar Entertainment.
• In the United Kingdom, the series aired on CBBC and Nickelodeon UK. Reruns began airing on UK Freeview channel Pop in 2015.

Reception

According to Community Newspaper Company, Mona the Vampire, along with Cédric and The New Adventures of Lucky Luke, received a wide audience in Canada as well as in many European countries.^[2]

External links

• The official Mona the Vampire website
• Mona the Vampire at BBC Programmes
• Mona the Vampire at the Internet Movie Database

References