ChalkZone


ChalkZone is an American animated television series created by Bill Burnett and Larry Huber for Nickelodeon that ran from 2002 until 2008. The series follows Rudy Tabootie, an elementary school student whose magic chalk allows him into the ChalkZone, an alternate dimension where everything drawn on a blackboard and erased becomes real. The show concentrates on the adventures of Rudy, his sidekick Snap, and classmate, Penny Sanchez, within the ChalkZone.
ChalkZone originally aired as part of Fred Seibert's Oh Yeah! Cartoons animated shorts showcase in 1998. The series ran on Nickelodeon from March 22, 2002, through August 23, 2008, with 40 episodes in total. It was produced by Frederator Studios and Nickelodeon Animation Studio.

Premise

Rudy Tabootie is a 10-year-old fifth-grader who loves to draw, but Reggie Bullnerd, the school bully, is always teasing him or getting him into trouble with Mr. Wilter, Rudy's grumpy school teacher who strongly dislikes cartoons especially Rudy's passion for art. One day while in detention, Rudy discovers a piece of "White Lightning" chalk, which allows access to the ChalkZone, a place where everything and everyone that has ever been drawn in chalk and erased takes form as living or is tangible. He soon makes friends with Snap, a small, blue, humanoid drawing made by Rudy when he was only eight. Snap wears a superhero uniform and is very adventurous and witty. Rudy only lets one other person know about ChalkZone, his best friend and crush Penny Sanchez, who acts as the genius of the group.
While in ChalkZone, the trio are introduced to Cyclops, the kilt-wearing guardian of the magic chalk mines where Rudy obtains his magic chalk ; Queen Rapsheeba, ChalkZone's song artist whom Snap has a crush on; and Blocky, a light green block friend of Snap's and Rudy's first-ever drawing. They are also faced with villains such as Skrawl, a drawing who blames Rudy for being ugly and wants to destroy him; and the Craniacs, a series of robot drawings obsessed with collecting futuristic devices.

Episodes

Cast

Main

ChalkZone was the creation of Bill Burnett and Larry Huber, with Huber's idea of a boy with magic chalk and Burnett's idea of a world behind the chalkboard. The concept's origin dated back during the production of Hanna Barbera's What a Cartoon! where Seibert initially wanted Huber to develop a cartoon for the showcase and assigned him with Burnett, who was writing for Cow & Chicken at the time, to develop a pilot for a potential series. Development fell through at the last minute from the result of Warner Bros. Animation acquiring Hanna Barbera Cartoons. The concept came back when Seibert developed Frederator Studios and was pitched as a short on Nickelodeon's Oh Yeah! Cartoons before getting the greenlight in 1998. In 1999, ChalkZone became the first spin-off of Oh Yeah! Cartoons to enter production and be greenlit. Despite this, ChalkZone did not make it to the air until 2002, as the initial 13 green-light episodes were shortened to 6 due to executive reasons, all which were completed by 2000. The show's air-date was up for debate until the lack of new programming and the US' critical situation at the time led the decision to air the series in 2002. Frederator Studios announced in 2005 that the series had been cancelled at 40 episodes.
The show is remembered for featuring one-minute music videos sung by Rudy and his friends at the end of each episode. Several songs Bill Burnett created prior to ChalkZone's production, i.e. Insect Aside and Dream Alotta Dreams, were implanted into the series. A popular rumor about the show is that it was based on Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings. In fact, Bill Burnett debunked this in a 2013 interview, revealing that he was not even aware of the series' existence until after ChalkZone entered production. Although Burnett did mention that Harold and the Purple Crayon was an influence on Larry's idea for the "boy with magic chalk" concept. A one-hour special, "The Big Blow Up", premiered on August 6, 2004. The final season featured new character designs with a slimmer line quality and a zooming chalk transition as new artists and oversea studios were used for the remainder of the series.
The show had three different variations of the theme song released to the public, one from the 2001 Nickelodeon album, "The Newest Nicktoons", which used a synthesizer instead of a guitar and had an early version of Penny's voice which was a demo Bill Burnett created in order for the song to get the green-light, an early version of the final version from the album "ChalkZone: In The Zone", where the guitar was used and Penny's early voice was still used, and the final version which was shown on regular episodes. Bill Burnett's original idea for the concepts' score was something in akin to simplistic children's toy instrument melodies to fit the show's children's "chalk-drawing" theme, but the Nickelodeon crew suggested a more techno rock-based score to give the show a huge contrast from the premise. Steve Rucker was brought into the music composition team and some of his compositions were later re-written upon request by Burnett and Moon to fit the series better, much to his discourage.

Broadcast

The pilot for the series first aired on December 31, 1999, as part of Nickelodeon's annual New Year's Eve block, but due to being delayed by Nickelodeon for undisclosed reasons, the series made its official premiere on March 22, 2002, as the highest-rated premiere in Nickelodeon's history up to that point.
The show aired in reruns on "Nick on CBS" for more than a year from February 1, 2003, to September 11, 2004. In June 2005, following the announcement that the series had been cancelled, the fourth season of the series premiered. Of the season's eleven episodes, only five would be aired that year before Nickelodeon abruptly halted the broadcast of new episodes. The remaining six episodes would not air until three years later in June and August 2008. The final episode aired on August 23, 2008.
Since the series' cancellation, reruns aired on Nicktoons until October 28, 2013. ChalkZone reruns aired on NickSplat for two nights only on November 12 and 13, 2016 as part of a block that ran every weekend from August until December commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Nicktoons franchise. As of October 2018, NickSplat –including ChalkZone– has been a subscription channel based on VRV.

Home media

During the show's original run, there weren't any DVD releases specifically for ChalkZone. The episode "Future Zone" was released on the Nickstravaganza! VHS. Three episodes were released for the Nickstravaganza! 2 DVD. The Christmas episode, "When Santas Collide", was featured on the 2006 DVD Nick Picks Holiday. A Complete Series DVD set for ChalkZone was finally released through Amazon.com's CreateSpace manufacture-on-demand program on October 13, 2014; despite the title, however, it is missing the episode "The Smooch" due to music licensing issues. A soundtrack album In the Zone has also been released. The entire series is available on Amazon Video and the PlayStation Store.

Reception

Critical

Joly Herman of Common Sense Media gave the series 3 out of 5 stars; saying that, "What makes this show interesting is that it acknowledges that worlds of imagination are available to all of us. But while it's true that we love to get lost in a story, for a young child, getting as lost in a world as Rudy does can be scary."

Awards and nominations