Making Fiends (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Making Fiends is an American animated television series. Based upon a web series with the same name, the series premiered on October 4, 2008 on Nicktoons. The series follows the evil Vendetta and the new happy girl, Charlotte, at school in the gloomy town of Clamburg. Vendetta hates Charlotte and tries to destroy her in each and every episode.
The series is created by Amy Winfrey
. She voices Charlotte and her grandmother Charlene, among other characters. Character designer Aglaia Mortcheva
is the voice of Vendetta.
Each of the voice actors from the web cartoon reprise their roles for the TV series, with the addition of a new castmember and crewmember, Dave Wasson
The series premiered with no promotion or press release. At one point, it was the highest rated original program on Nicktoons. Despite positive reviews and good ratings, the show was abruptly cancelled after airing just six episodes.
Charlotte, a new girl at Vendetta's school, arrives determined to make a friend. An "impossibly cheery" optimist, Charlotte rapidly becomes the foil
and tormentor of the morose and vindictive Vendetta, by insisting on befriending her.
Vendetta is unable to elicit anything but saccharine friendliness out of Charlotte, and so makes the first of many fiends that are specially designed to "destroy" the newcomer. After demonstrating that her oblivious joy makes her immune to the dangers and terrors of all of the fiends, Charlotte declares that she and Vendetta are "going to be best friends forever and ever."
In subsequent scenes, Charlotte displays an ability to change the nature of some fiends into helpful friends, further frustrating Vendetta's efforts to undo her. Being "oblivious to all that is bad and mean in the world", Charlotte neither acknowledges the damage caused by Vendetta's fiends, nor the threat Vendetta herself poses over Clamburg. Nearly all of the residents, including Vendetta's parents, come to hate or fear Charlotte more than they do Vendetta within the first six episodes.
Charlotte never discovers or understands that Vendetta despises her, and Vendetta is never able to get rid of Charlotte. While this conflict is never resolved by the end of each episode, some minor developments appear to continue between episodes, like the introduction of Buttons 2 and an enormous statue that Vendetta has raised of herself.
They all live in the mysterious and gloomy town of Clamburg. Vendetta closed stores she does not like, such as a model toy store. Nearby cities are called Tinspit (which is mentioned by Vendetta to have miniature golf
) and Molding. They eat clams
, beef jerky, grape
punch
, and lots of onion
s, including onion soda
. The town is coastal and was in the past famous for its clams. Before Vendetta came with her fiends, Clamburg was apparently a happy place, as shown in a commercial. It had beaches, happy inhabitants, a thriving clam industry, and a polka
music festival.
, mixing together ingredients to form them. Vendetta seems to be the only one in Clamburg who knows how to make fiends, although in one episode Charlotte was able to make a friendly fiend without help from Vendetta. (Vendetta only gave her the ingredients.)
Vendetta gets her fiend recipes from a large green cookbook
labeled "How to make Fiends". The base ingredient is a colorless powder
, or liquid
, called "Fiend Mix"and spiders. Though Vendetta has been shown in episodes such as "Puppies, Puppies, Puppies!" to be able to make simple fiends from only fiend mix, more complicated ingredients are needed to make fiends with more potential. Another interesting point is that adding any ingredient that doesn't fit can make the fiend come out entirely wrong, as shown in the promo clip "Ralph" and in the episode "Parentnapped".
There are many fiends that take prominent roles in the show (see Characters), but many fiends are only shown in one or two episodes before disappearing forever. Many fiends were taken from the online series, such as in the episode "Marvin the Middle Manager"; the "library fiends" were previously "noise-making fiends" shown in web episode 16.
Charlotte can manipulate fiends very easily. It has been shown in many episodes that giving fiends sugar of any kind, or sometimes even just showing them affection, can make them turn benevolent. It is unknown whether this is a flaw present in all fiends, a mistake Vendetta repeats by accident, or some unspoken power of Charlotte's.
Most fiends Vendetta creates only have one purpose, and seem only capable of doing one thing. It is unknown if it is just because a lack of intelligence, if Vendetta only surrounds them with one thing to do, or if it is in the ingredients. Grudge, however, is a more complicated fiend who does anything Vendetta asks.
at home, and once had a salamander
.
was a fan of Making Fiends. She showed the website to other Nickelodeon employees. They contacted Winfrey to see if she was interested in televising the series.
In early 2004, Nick started negotiations with Winfrey to develop the series into a half-hour television program. During the long negotiation and development period, Winfrey continued to create new web episodes independently, and sell related merchandise in her own online "souvenir shop". In 2006, Nickelodeon began distributing many of the web cartoons as streaming video on their own TurboNick platform, and later as podcasts available on iTunes
.
The series was picked up for a first season of television episodes in late 2006. Production began in January 2007 and the show started airing in 2008. The show was set to premiere on Nickelodeon
, but Nickelodeon decided to cancel its plans for a broadcast on their parent channel, and instead gave this new series to its sister channel Nicktoons (along with fellow Nicktoon, "Random! Cartoons").
The series premiered on October 4, 2008. The show currently airs on Saturdays and Sundays at 11:30am ET/8:30am PT and 9:30pm ET/6:30pm PT. It has received generally favorable reviews by critics. Making Fiends carries a rating of TV-Y7. The series currently airs in the US, Australia
, New Zealand
, and in the Netherlands
.
The writing team of Making Fiends consist of only four people; Winfrey, Peter Merryman, Madellaine Paxson, and Matt Negrete. In the show's studio, there is a special "thinking couch" to come up with new ideas.
. The character designs are kept from the web series, with some changed details; such as cleaner lines and brighter eyes. Despite the fact that both versions use Adobe Flash to create animation, the television episodes are cleaner-looking. This is probably because the characters and backgrounds in the web episodes were made of overlapping JPEG files, and that the television series has an actual budget. Also, the colors still go outside the outlines, but it seems more like a second outline than messy drawing. Every building was changed; in the web cartoon most buildings were grey, but was changed to different colors for the TV version. Vendetta's house is now dark green and Charlotte's blue.
voices Charlotte, Grandma Charlene, Giant Kitty, Marion, Maggie, Buttons, and Mrs. Millet. Character designer Aglaia Mortcheva
, who also was in the crew for the web series, voices Vendetta and her mother, Violeta. Winfrey's husband, Peter Merryman, voices Mr. Milk, Marvin, Malachi, Grudge, Mort, Ms. Minty, Onion Man, and most fiends on the show. The series' supervising producer and director, Dave Wasson, voices Vendetta's father, Viktor, and Mr. Gumpit. Madellaine Paxson voiced Maggie in the episode "No Singing". Winfrey, however, voices Maggie in all other appearances.
is funny, and funny for any kid old enough to handle the weirdness of rooting for a patently bad girl who will never win and with nothing but a secret, lingering fear of monsters under the bed."
Dan Heching at Tilzy said "clever and irreverent, Making Fiends is a fairly classic series of short episodes. [...] Nothing is left untouched; torture, animal attacks, musical numbers and April fools' jokes. [...] Character development is kept largely to a minimum, in keeping with the classic simplicity of the cartoon, [that is] Vendetta vs. Charlotte."
A 2-Disc complete series DVD set was released on June 9, 2009 with the first season including all six episodes. Although it is shown in the gift shop at the Making Fiends official website, it is only available for purchase at Amazon.com
in DVD-R format.
Nickelodeon
released shorts on TurboNick to promote the show. They are entitled "Ralph", "The Kite", "The Puppy", "Teeth", "Monkeys", and "№ 2 Pencil".
The series is created by Amy Winfrey
Amy Winfrey
Amy Winfrey is an American animator, screenwriter, songwriter, and voice actress. She is best known for creating the web series Making Fiends that was later picked up by Nickelodeon in 2006.-Career:...
. She voices Charlotte and her grandmother Charlene, among other characters. Character designer Aglaia Mortcheva
Aglaia Mortcheva
Aglaia Mortcheva is a Bulgarian animator, illustrator and voice actress, perhaps best known for her portrayal as Vendetta on the Making Fiends web series and on the television series.-Biography:...
is the voice of Vendetta.
Each of the voice actors from the web cartoon reprise their roles for the TV series, with the addition of a new castmember and crewmember, Dave Wasson
The series premiered with no promotion or press release. At one point, it was the highest rated original program on Nicktoons. Despite positive reviews and good ratings, the show was abruptly cancelled after airing just six episodes.
Plot
Vendetta is a selfish little girl with the power to make fiends, "hideous things" which she has unleashed on her town to bring it under her reign of terror. The coastal town of Clamburg, once a thriving tourist destination, has become a grim, forbidding place, with stores shuttered and the populace cowed before the horror of Vendetta's watchful fiends.Charlotte, a new girl at Vendetta's school, arrives determined to make a friend. An "impossibly cheery" optimist, Charlotte rapidly becomes the foil
Foil (literature)
In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character in order to highlight particular qualities of another character....
and tormentor of the morose and vindictive Vendetta, by insisting on befriending her.
Vendetta is unable to elicit anything but saccharine friendliness out of Charlotte, and so makes the first of many fiends that are specially designed to "destroy" the newcomer. After demonstrating that her oblivious joy makes her immune to the dangers and terrors of all of the fiends, Charlotte declares that she and Vendetta are "going to be best friends forever and ever."
In subsequent scenes, Charlotte displays an ability to change the nature of some fiends into helpful friends, further frustrating Vendetta's efforts to undo her. Being "oblivious to all that is bad and mean in the world", Charlotte neither acknowledges the damage caused by Vendetta's fiends, nor the threat Vendetta herself poses over Clamburg. Nearly all of the residents, including Vendetta's parents, come to hate or fear Charlotte more than they do Vendetta within the first six episodes.
Charlotte never discovers or understands that Vendetta despises her, and Vendetta is never able to get rid of Charlotte. While this conflict is never resolved by the end of each episode, some minor developments appear to continue between episodes, like the introduction of Buttons 2 and an enormous statue that Vendetta has raised of herself.
Characters
Vendetta and Charlotte attend Mu Elementary School in class room 4. Mr. Milk, a soft-spoken nervous man, is their teacher. Charlotte lives with her grandmother Charlene. Charlotte's parents are said to be astronauts. Vendetta lives with her shrunk down parents, Violetta and Viktor, who live in a hamster cage.They all live in the mysterious and gloomy town of Clamburg. Vendetta closed stores she does not like, such as a model toy store. Nearby cities are called Tinspit (which is mentioned by Vendetta to have miniature golf
Miniature golf
Miniature golf, or minigolf, is a miniature version of the sport of golf. While the international sports organization World Minigolf Sport Federation prefers to use the name "minigolf", the general public in different countries has also many other names for the game: miniature golf, mini-golf,...
) and Molding. They eat clams
CLaMS
CLaMS is a modular chemistry transport model system developed at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany. CLaMS was first described by McKenna et al. and was expanded into three dimensions by Konopka et al....
, beef jerky, grape
Grape
A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...
punch
Punch (drink)
Punch is the term for a wide assortment of drinks, both non-alcoholic and alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice. The drink was introduced from India to England in the early seventeenth century; from there its use spread to other countries...
, and lots of onion
Onion
The onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...
s, including onion soda
Soft drink
A soft drink is a non-alcoholic beverage that typically contains water , a sweetener, and a flavoring agent...
. The town is coastal and was in the past famous for its clams. Before Vendetta came with her fiends, Clamburg was apparently a happy place, as shown in a commercial. It had beaches, happy inhabitants, a thriving clam industry, and a polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
music festival.
Fiends
Vendetta makes the fiends through a process similar to bakingBaking
Baking is the technique of prolonged cooking of food by dry heat acting by convection, and not by radiation, normally in an oven, but also in hot ashes, or on hot stones. It is primarily used for the preparation of bread, cakes, pastries and pies, tarts, quiches, cookies and crackers. Such items...
, mixing together ingredients to form them. Vendetta seems to be the only one in Clamburg who knows how to make fiends, although in one episode Charlotte was able to make a friendly fiend without help from Vendetta. (Vendetta only gave her the ingredients.)
Vendetta gets her fiend recipes from a large green cookbook
Cookbook
A cookbook is a kitchen reference that typically contains a collection of recipes. Modern versions may also include colorful illustrations and advice on purchasing quality ingredients or making substitutions...
labeled "How to make Fiends". The base ingredient is a colorless powder
Powder (substance)
A powder is a dry,thick bulk solid composed of a large number of very fine particles that may flow freely when shaken or tilted. Powders are a special sub-class of granular materials, although the terms powder and granular are sometimes used to distinguish separate classes of material...
, or liquid
Liquid
Liquid is one of the three classical states of matter . Like a gas, a liquid is able to flow and take the shape of a container. Some liquids resist compression, while others can be compressed. Unlike a gas, a liquid does not disperse to fill every space of a container, and maintains a fairly...
, called "Fiend Mix"and spiders. Though Vendetta has been shown in episodes such as "Puppies, Puppies, Puppies!" to be able to make simple fiends from only fiend mix, more complicated ingredients are needed to make fiends with more potential. Another interesting point is that adding any ingredient that doesn't fit can make the fiend come out entirely wrong, as shown in the promo clip "Ralph" and in the episode "Parentnapped".
There are many fiends that take prominent roles in the show (see Characters), but many fiends are only shown in one or two episodes before disappearing forever. Many fiends were taken from the online series, such as in the episode "Marvin the Middle Manager"; the "library fiends" were previously "noise-making fiends" shown in web episode 16.
Charlotte can manipulate fiends very easily. It has been shown in many episodes that giving fiends sugar of any kind, or sometimes even just showing them affection, can make them turn benevolent. It is unknown whether this is a flaw present in all fiends, a mistake Vendetta repeats by accident, or some unspoken power of Charlotte's.
Most fiends Vendetta creates only have one purpose, and seem only capable of doing one thing. It is unknown if it is just because a lack of intelligence, if Vendetta only surrounds them with one thing to do, or if it is in the ingredients. Grudge, however, is a more complicated fiend who does anything Vendetta asks.
Origins
Winfrey is often asked where she got the idea for Making Fiends. She is not sure, but liked to sketch "strange and fantastical" animals in college. She is often inspired by "silly looking and improbable" animals. She has a parrot and a pet flounderFlounder
The flounder is an ocean-dwelling flatfish species that is found in coastal lagoons and estuaries of the Northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.-Taxonomy:There are a number of geographical and taxonomical species to which flounder belong.*Western Atlantic...
at home, and once had a salamander
Salamander
Salamander is a common name of approximately 500 species of amphibians. They are typically characterized by a superficially lizard-like appearance, with their slender bodies, short noses, and long tails. All known fossils and extinct species fall under the order Caudata, while sometimes the extant...
.
Music
Creator Amy Winfrey writes all the songs on the show. She then records a demo track to send to composer Ego Plum. Plum is noted for using unusual sounds in his songs, such as dripping water, a goat, toy pianos, baby rattles, and plastic xylophones. Occasionally, a part of the series' crew pitch in to help to play the instruments, which gives the music a "home-made" feel to compare to the web episodes.Production
A daughter to an employee at NickelodeonNickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
was a fan of Making Fiends. She showed the website to other Nickelodeon employees. They contacted Winfrey to see if she was interested in televising the series.
In early 2004, Nick started negotiations with Winfrey to develop the series into a half-hour television program. During the long negotiation and development period, Winfrey continued to create new web episodes independently, and sell related merchandise in her own online "souvenir shop". In 2006, Nickelodeon began distributing many of the web cartoons as streaming video on their own TurboNick platform, and later as podcasts available on iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
.
The series was picked up for a first season of television episodes in late 2006. Production began in January 2007 and the show started airing in 2008. The show was set to premiere on Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
, but Nickelodeon decided to cancel its plans for a broadcast on their parent channel, and instead gave this new series to its sister channel Nicktoons (along with fellow Nicktoon, "Random! Cartoons").
The series premiered on October 4, 2008. The show currently airs on Saturdays and Sundays at 11:30am ET/8:30am PT and 9:30pm ET/6:30pm PT. It has received generally favorable reviews by critics. Making Fiends carries a rating of TV-Y7. The series currently airs in the US, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, and in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
The writing team of Making Fiends consist of only four people; Winfrey, Peter Merryman, Madellaine Paxson, and Matt Negrete. In the show's studio, there is a special "thinking couch" to come up with new ideas.
Animation
Cyber Chicken Animation Studio and DQ Entertainment Limited animate the series in traditional 2-DTraditional animation
Traditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...
. The character designs are kept from the web series, with some changed details; such as cleaner lines and brighter eyes. Despite the fact that both versions use Adobe Flash to create animation, the television episodes are cleaner-looking. This is probably because the characters and backgrounds in the web episodes were made of overlapping JPEG files, and that the television series has an actual budget. Also, the colors still go outside the outlines, but it seems more like a second outline than messy drawing. Every building was changed; in the web cartoon most buildings were grey, but was changed to different colors for the TV version. Vendetta's house is now dark green and Charlotte's blue.
Cast
Creator Amy WinfreyAmy Winfrey
Amy Winfrey is an American animator, screenwriter, songwriter, and voice actress. She is best known for creating the web series Making Fiends that was later picked up by Nickelodeon in 2006.-Career:...
voices Charlotte, Grandma Charlene, Giant Kitty, Marion, Maggie, Buttons, and Mrs. Millet. Character designer Aglaia Mortcheva
Aglaia Mortcheva
Aglaia Mortcheva is a Bulgarian animator, illustrator and voice actress, perhaps best known for her portrayal as Vendetta on the Making Fiends web series and on the television series.-Biography:...
, who also was in the crew for the web series, voices Vendetta and her mother, Violeta. Winfrey's husband, Peter Merryman, voices Mr. Milk, Marvin, Malachi, Grudge, Mort, Ms. Minty, Onion Man, and most fiends on the show. The series' supervising producer and director, Dave Wasson, voices Vendetta's father, Viktor, and Mr. Gumpit. Madellaine Paxson voiced Maggie in the episode "No Singing". Winfrey, however, voices Maggie in all other appearances.
Reviews
Making Fiends has received generally positive reviews from critics. KJ Dell Antonia at Commonsense Media gave the show 4 out of 5 saying "the dialogue is simple, the animation is intentionally scribbly and dark, and the color palette is limited. The whole thing looks like a kid's flip book. And yet it's funny -- funny for the kind of parents who think Dexter's LaboratoryDexter's Laboratory
Dexter's Laboratory is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Cartoon Network Studios . The show is about a boy named Dexter who has an enormous secret laboratory filled with an endless collection of his inventions...
is funny, and funny for any kid old enough to handle the weirdness of rooting for a patently bad girl who will never win and with nothing but a secret, lingering fear of monsters under the bed."
Dan Heching at Tilzy said "clever and irreverent, Making Fiends is a fairly classic series of short episodes. [...] Nothing is left untouched; torture, animal attacks, musical numbers and April fools' jokes. [...] Character development is kept largely to a minimum, in keeping with the classic simplicity of the cartoon, [that is] Vendetta vs. Charlotte."
Marketing and merchandise
Before the series was picked up by Nicktoons, Winfrey sold Making Fiends T-shirts and DVDs with the web episodes at her "souvenir shop". Official T-shirts by Nicktoons will soon be released.A 2-Disc complete series DVD set was released on June 9, 2009 with the first season including all six episodes. Although it is shown in the gift shop at the Making Fiends official website, it is only available for purchase at Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
in DVD-R format.
Episodes
At the web series' television production log it was confirmed that a few TV episodes in production are remakes of some of the web cartoons, but the majority of the TV show will be all new stories. Each episode has 3 7-minute long segments making one episode 21 minutes long.Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
released shorts on TurboNick to promote the show. They are entitled "Ralph", "The Kite", "The Puppy", "Teeth", "Monkeys", and "№ 2 Pencil".
External links
- Official website
- Making Fiends at Nicktoons
- Making Fiends episodes online at TeenNickTeenNickTeenNick, formerly The N, is an American television network aimed at the teenage market. TeenNick is owned by the MTV Networks subsidiary, Viacom. The channel was originally known as The N from its April 1, 2002 launch until September 28, 2009....
- Making Fiends Wiki, an external wiki