02.06
When the name of this show is mentioned to an American fan of animation, the first thing that would come to their mind is probably something along the lines of: “Wasn’t that the show that bombed on Nick?” Yes, its true that 6Teen received poor ratings when it aired on Nickelodeon, a while ago. However, as one might be able to tell from its style of animation alone, this series bares a striking resemblance in tone and detail to the very successful series known as Total Drama Island. Both shows are in fact produced by the same company, Nelvana Limited (a Canadian entertainment company), and also share the same creators, Jennifer Pertsch and Tom McGillis. Due to TDI’s recent popularity on Cartoon Network, in America, the channel has been wise enough to license the rights to air 6Teen, which has already become a hit in Canada, as well as in a few other countries. Unlike TDI, this series focuses on a group of 6 main characters, as well as a few supporting characters who spend most of their time hanging out at a mall, rather than a group of participants competing in a game-show and being eliminated one by one. In this way, for better or worse, 6Teen lacks an ongoing plot, and instead focuses on each individual episode, allowing newcomers to the series to jump into it at just about any time, without being required to have prior knowledge of any previous episodes of the show.
Now, before getting onto my impressions of this episode, it should be known that, besides the information listed above, I have had no prior knowledge of the series, and this premiere episode on Cartoon Network was indeed my first episode of this series (this is not, however, the first actual episode of the series itself). I also haven’t seen too much of TDI, but from what I have seen of it, these shows do share some striking similarities, especially with some of their voice actors. However, a review is not for discussing information like that, so you can go find out about it on your own time. Instead, let’s get familiar with the characters of this series.
The 6 main characters include, Jen Masterson (the more hardworking and sensible female character of the group), Jude Lizowski (the easy going teenager/sports-junkie of the group), Jonesy Garcia (the Spanish/Filipino playboy of the group who apparently has a thing for Nikki), Nikki Wong (the purple-haired girl of the group who apparently has a thing for Jonesy), Wyatt Williams (the stereotypical “black teenager who hangs out with white kids, a Chinese girl, and one Spanish/Filipino kid” of the group), and last but not least, Caitlin Cooke (the peppy and shop-crazy teenage girl of the group). There is also Jude’s on and off girlfriend (who is apparently his ex-girlfriend in this particular episode), Starr….yeah, well, we don’t get to hear her last name, but she apparently has a similar casual and laid back attitude like Jude, which is probably why they hooked up in the first place, but it is explained in this episode that she broke up with him after he accidentally puked in her mouth (well, who could really blame her for that?). Other than the above information, I didn’t really get to learn much about the characters from this episode alone, but I think its safe to say that while they have their common clichés, they also each have their own interesting and unique qualities that make them likable, in one way or another. Anyways, with the main characters having been introduced, let’s explore the pros and cons of this episode.
Well, Halloween specials are certainly nothing original, and any fan of animation must have seen dozens of them as a kid. This episode starts out no different than how you would expect a typical Halloween special to start out. The characters notice the strange behavior of people in the mall, and witness as this behavior oddly starts spreading to others, until their too late to realize that there is a zombie epidemic going on. The viewer, from the beginning, is purposely meant to recognize this obvious idea, and the humor is in watching the characters take about the first quarter of the episode to realize what’s happening. Its not like this concept hasn’t been used plenty of times before, but I must admit that it is still humorous; at least in the way that 6Teen chooses to execute this comedy element. As the episode progresses, we get to see how the characters interact with one another, which will give newcomers to the series some insight on their personalities, and their relationships and feelings towards one another. However, not as much of this was accomplished with this episode as a newcomer such as myself would have liked, but with this series being one which you can just jump into, it really wasn’t a big deal, and this episode’s references to classic zombie/horror flicks like Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead (which the episode title basically parodies), managed to make me forget about this relatively minor issue.
We do also get to see some of the supporting cast in this special. In particular, Coach Hadler (Jen’s boss), from the very little time he had on screen, managed to get a chuckle out of me. Darth, which is the nickname given to the show’s local Star Wars geek, was also a nice addition, with quite a few of his own funny moments. In addition to him, there were a trio of stereotypical snobbish teenage girls who honestly didn’t interest me all that much; at least not from this particular episode alone. Ron the Rent-a-cop (the mall’s main security enforcer), however, was probably the best supporting character that I have seen so far, having that classic war veteran attitude (and as shown in a flashback in this episode, he is in fact a Vietnam war veteran), with some humorous and unique twists to his character thrown in. The way he interacted with the group in this special showed us his obvious disgust for teenagers, but also showed us his potential soft-side as he attempted to help save their lives from the “supposed” zombie invasion of the mall. In a way, it felt like I got to learn more about him, from this episode, than I did about any of the main characters. Still, the characters all got pretty equal shares of screen-time in this one-hour viewing, and I have already developed a liking to most of them.
Originally posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008.