Jump to content

The Angry Beavers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 70.36.30.90 (talk) at 23:53, 26 March 2006 (→Season 5). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Angry Beavers
File:Angry Beavers.gif
Created byMitch Schauer
StarringRichard Steven Horvitz (voice)
Nick Bakay (voice)
Country of originUSA
No. of episodes63 (62 aired)
Production
Running time30 minutes
Original release
NetworkNickelodeon Studios
ReleaseApril 19, 1997 –
January 1, 2000 (On the regular Nickelodeon channel)
ReleaseNovember 11, 2003
ReleaseNovember 11, 2003
ReleaseNovember 11, 2003
ReleaseNovember 11, 2003
ReleaseNovember 11, 2003
ReleaseNovember 11, 2003
ReleaseNovember 11, 2003

The Angry Beavers was a Nickelodeon American animated television series about Daggett and Norbert Beaver, two brother beavers who have left their mom and home to become two bachelors in the forest. Their many adventures spark them to release their ugly sides very often, drawing in the name Angry Beavers. The show premiered in 1997 after the 1997 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards and was cancelled amid controversy in 2001 (with a handful of unaired episodes remaining). It was created by Mitch Schauer. The series has, so far, not yet come to DVD, and most likely never will due to the controversies, despite its large fan base. The show continues re-run on Nicktoons TV.

Recurring characters

  • Daggett Doofus Beaver: Dag is the younger brother of Norbert by four minutes. He is very crazy, extremely hyper, and sometimes funny. He says an assortment of strange phrases and likes calling people names. His trademark phrase is "That was nuts!" and is also known for adding 'eh' at the end of sentences (which Invader Zim did as well in the episode Door to Door, in homage to Dag). He is dark brown with a red nose, and voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz.
  • Norbert Foster Beaver: Norb is Dag's laid back, older brother. He uptakes many hobbies and frequently (and intentionally) mispronounces words for humorous effect. His trademark phrase is "Biiiiig hug!" or "Biiiig Beaver Hug" (often accompanied by him hugging Dag). He is light brown with a purple nose, and voiced by Nick Bakay.
  • Stump: Stump is a tree stump whom Norb met and introduced to the other creatures of the forest. He often moves on his own off-screen,much like plank from cartoonnetwork's Ed Edd n' Eddy.
  • Barry Bear: Daggett and Norbert's disco loving friend; obviously based on Barry White. He is a famous singer, whom Norb and Dag try to exploit. Whenever he sees a clown he flashbacks to his days as a circus bear and cowers, saying: "Oh, the baaaaad times!". He is voiced by actor John Garry, who provided the narration for the pilot episode of Invader Zim and also provided the voice of the host of "Mysterious Mysteries", a show-within-a-show seen on Invader Zim.
  • Treeflower: The love of Norbert's life whom he met at a hippie concert. Once a hippie, now turned business woman/elevator-music composer.
  • Bing: An annoying lizard who hangs around Norb and Dag. Bing speaks extremely fast and often in circles. Victor Wilson provided Bing's hyperactive voice.
  • Truckee: A trucker shrew who thinks only about trucks and shrews. Hates Daggett, and Daggett hates him. Briefly dated Treeflower, causing animosity between him and Norbert.
  • Oxnard Montalvo: Norb and Dag's favorite B-movie actor. Norb and Dag often watch black and white horror movies (these are very seriously drawn, contrary to the regular style of the show). An obvious homage to 1950's horror movies. The name seens to be a parody of Ricardo Montalban, if not the character's look. His name is a homage to the California towns of Oxnard and Ventura, California. Most likely, the creators of this character were driving north along the US 101 and saw the exit signs for Oxnard and Montalvo, an area in Ventura.
  • Toluca Lake: Another B-movie actor, often accompanies Oxnard Montalvo as the damsel in distress. The name plays on the eponymous California city Toluca Lake.
  • El Grapadura: The beavers (Especially Daggett's) favorite vale tudo/lucha libre wrestler. His name is Spanish for "The Stapler". Daggett has an autographed copy of his board game, "El Grapadura and Ladders" (an obvious reference to Chutes and Ladders).
  • Scientist #1 and Pete: They are scientists, because they wear fancy white coats. They call the beavers "pointy weasels" and try to use them for very strange experiments. Scientist No.1 has a distinctive cleft chin and always wears sunglasses. It is revealed in one episode that he never even went to college. Pete greatly resembles Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, and speaks only in an unintelligable mutter that Scientist No.1 apparently understands just fine. At one point, they wore green coats, making them environmentalists.

Angry Beavers And The Public

Angry Beavers was a generally popular show during its airtime, though some considered it crude and uninspired. Angry Beavers was 'the show' that kept adolescents and adults interested in Nickelodeon in the late 90s. It had a more adult, sophisticated sense of word play jokes and culture references that made up its humor, for example, in one episode, Scientist No.1 was once transformed into a beaver by one of his own experiments. In addition to his new form, he also had Boris Karloff's infamous "Devil's Hand". In another, Norbert wants to become Canadian because William Shatner is Canadian. The show was silly and unrealistic enough to attract the attention of young children too. Unfortunately, it was aired in the midst of the success of Rugrats, and many fans believe it did not earn the popularity it deserved. Many people compare it to Rocko's Modern Life and Ren & Stimpy as one of the most influential Nickelodeon cartoons of the 90s. Its influence is evident in other current shows too. SpongeBob SquarePants has a notably similar humor pattern and animation style to this show, and it has the same backing music as Jimmy Neutron.

Character quirks, like Daggett's compulsive adoption of a superhero alter-ego named "Muscular Beaver Whoosh" (whose pathetic costume consisted of an ill-fitting ski mask, a stuffed sweater, vent-front white briefs, stockings, socks and a cape), kept older and younger audiences' interest, but entertained them on different levels. For example: children and adults would be amused by the costume, but adults might get some additional mileage from finding the name "Muscular Beaver" to be vaguely risqué.

Angry Beavers' popularity with the more "adult" scene managed to get it some recognition. Radio stations also used Dag's catch phrase "That was nuts!" for promos for music marathons, and the show even had a small merchandise line that included T-shirts and plush toys.

The Angry Beavers have a small but devoted cult following, especially since the show started re-airing on the Nicktoons Channel.

Controversy

The whole controversy surrounding the series first started in 1998, when Alley Oops! had Norb saying "Oh, shut up, Dag!"

When this episode was first televised in the US on Nick, the "shut" in "shut up" was bleeped out. Apparently, a currently unknown individual complained about the phrase "shut up" sounded like "shit up" in a Nick program. What that bleep did, however, was it generated more interest in the show, as some felt that it had vulgar language in the dialog. Between airings, however, Nick changed Norb's line to "Shush up, stupid!" It was only one of the few times a Nicktoon had a line changed between airings since Rocko's Modern Life and Ren and Stimpy. Many people believe this was ridiculous, and it has been shown that many other Nickelodeon programs that aired before and even after (Spongebob Squarepants used shut up several times) Angry Beavers did use "shut up" and in fact, language that is generally considered to be worse (ex. Hey Arnold, which, particularly in its early episodes, used a few words many people believe should not air in children's programming, such as "crap"), that the Angry Beavers did not use. Regardless of these claims, this was edited by the producers.

The final straw was an un-aired episode titled Bye Bye Beavers, which was going to be the show's last episode, involving Norb having to convince Dag that they're just characters on a TV show, thereby indicating fourth wall. Staffer Micah Wright said that Nickelodeon hated this episode, as it made fun of the station's practice of not making new episodes of their Nicktoons, preferring to air reruns instead. It is unclear if it was even part of foreign syndication. Also, the episode had broken Nick's "code on Nicktoons": When you're going off the air, don't tell your viewers!

This is a quote from Wright's website about Nick canceling the show: "Nickelodeon hated this episode because it actually told the kids the truth: that the show was ending! Nick likes to just rerun their shows forever and pretend that they're still making new episodes and this show idea drove them up a wall!"

All in all, 63 episodes of the show were produced, because Nick cut 2 episodes out of the planned 65.

Many of the show's fans were extremely upset when the show was cancelled, and an on-line petition has been created.

Current status

The Angry Beavers was brought back to Nicktoons TV on June 20th, 2005.

Pirated DVD's exist, but there is no official release.

In-jokes

There were several in-jokes throughout The Angry Beavers entire run. One particular one involves Richard Steven Horvitz himself being mentioned. Norb: [reading mail] Hey, Dag! Checkit out! [reading letter] "Richard Horvitz had a son, 'Jake Elliot Horvitz' on April 11th, 1997. Dag: Ooo.. who's Richard Horvitz? Norb: Nobody.

Episodes

Season 1

  1. Born to Be Beavers / Up All Night
  2. A Dam Too Far / Long in the Teeth
  3. Gift Hoarse / Go Beavers
  4. Boxtop Beavers / Salmon Sez
  5. Beach Beavers A-Go-Go / Deranged Ranger
  6. Muscular Beaver / Fish and Dips
  7. Enter the Daggett / Bug-A-Boo
  8. Mission to the Big Hot Thingy / I Dare You
  9. Stinky Toe / House Broken
  10. Tree's Company / Guess Who's Stumping to Dinner
  11. Fancy Prance / H2Whoa!
  12. The Bing That Wouldn't Leave / You Promised
  13. Bummer of Love / Food of the Clods

Season 2

  1. Kandid Kreatures / Fakin' It
  2. Beaver Fever / Same Time Last Week
  3. Muscular Beaver 2 / Stump Seeks His Roots
  4. Tree of Hearts / Dag for Night
  5. Un-barry-ble / Another One Bites the Musk
  6. The Mighty Knothead / Pond Scum
  7. Utter Nonsense / Endangered Species
  8. Lumbjerjack's Delight / Zooing Time
  9. Friends, Romans, Beavers / Big Round Sticky Fish Thingy
  10. If You In-sisters / Alley Oops (where the controversy surrounding the series began... see above)
  11. Open Wide for Zombies / Dumbwaiters
  12. Sans-A-Pelt / Gonna Getcha
  13. The Day the World Got Really Screwed Up (the series' only 30 minute episode; also the Halloween Special)

Season 3

  1. My Bunnyguard / What's Eating You?
  2. Omega Beaver / Bite This!
  3. Spooky Spoots / Up all night 2: Up All Day
  4. Muscular Beaver 3 / Sang 'em High
  5. In Search of Big Byoo-Tox / Moronathon Man
  6. The Legend of Kid Friendly / Silent but Deadly
  7. Pass It On! / Stump's Family Reunion
  8. Tough Love / A Little Dad'll Do You
  9. Too Loose Latrine / Pack Your Dags
  10. Daggy Dearest / Dag's List
  11. Muscular Beaver 4 / Act Your Age
  12. Mistaken Identity / Easy Peasy Rider
  13. Stare and Stare Alike / I'm Not an Animal, I'm Scientist #1
  14. Norberto y Daggetto en El Grapadura Y El Castor Malo / The Loogie Hawk
  15. Kreature Komforts / Oh, Brother?
  16. Das Spoot / SqOtters
  17. Long Tall Daggy / Practical Jerks
  18. Dagski and Norb / Come Shell or High Water
  19. Nice & Lonely / Soccer? I Hardly Knew Him!
  20. Slap Happy / Home Loners
  21. Ugly Roomers / Finger Lickin' Goofs
  22. Brothers...to the End? / Euro Beavers
  23. Strange Allure / Partying Is Such Sweet Sorrow

Season 4

  1. Chocolate Up to Experience / Three Dag Nite
  2. All in the Colony / Line Duncing
  3. The Beave Master / Deck Poops
  4. Fat Chance / Dag in the Mirror
  5. Canucks Amuck / Yak in the Sack
  6. Driving Misses Daggett / Big Fun
  7. Moby Dopes / Present Tense
  8. House Sisters / Muscular Beaver 5
  9. It's a Spootiful Life / The Mom from U.N.C.L.E.
  10. Vantastic Voyage / Blacktop Beavers
  11. The Big Frog / Dag Con Carnie
  12. Damnesia / The Posei-Dam Adventure
  13. Specs Appeal / Things That Go Hook in the Night

Season 5

  1. A Tail of Two Rangers / Bye Bye Beavers(unaired)

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=The_Angry_Beavers&oldid=45628396"