Sniz and Fondue

Premise

The series was about the day-to-day lives of two ferret roommates, Sniz and Fondue. Sniz is hyperactive and playfully impulsive, traits that resulted in trouble for himself and his roommate, Fondue. Sniz sports a lime-green Mohawk haircut. Fondue was generally nervous as a result of Sniz's rambunctiousness, which resulted in him being on his guard. Fondue sports a blue chef's hat. They live with two other roommates, Snuppa and Bianca.

Production

Created by Michael Pearlstein, Sniz & Fondue was inspired and derived from characters of his short-lived comic series for a small comic book publishing company Northstar called "Puppy Action!". He later received a phone call from Linda Simensky, who was the head of Nickelodeon's programming around the time, who has found the first issue of Puppy Action! and asked him if he'd be interested in creating a pilot for a potential series. So, he produced the 1992 pilot "Psyched for Snuppa" by Stretch Films and Jumbo Pictures, under the self-proclaimed disliked direction of John R. Dilworth, creator of Cartoon Network's Courage the Cowardly Dog. The Nickelodeon team liked Sniz and Fondue so much that they spun the characters into a series of segments for KaBlam!. Unfortunately, John R. Dilworth, Jim Jinkins, and David Campbell were only involved in the pilot, but later all had no involvement with the rest of Sniz & Fondue, when it became a part of KaBlam! as Jim Jinkins and David Campbell have officially moved their jobs to Disney Enterprises when they purchased Jumbo Pictures. John was asked by the board to direct the Sniz and Fondue series in NYC but he declined due to other interests.

Michael Pearlstein was in charge of writing, storyboarding, character designing, creating the title cards and doing additional voices. The first season oversaw the animation at Israeli animation studio Pitchi Poy Animation Productions, which Michael despised due to how off-model the characters ended up being. They also mostly used stock music from Associated Production Music. The cue used for the show's title card was "Toys for Boys", composed by Boris Schoska. Eventually for the second and third season, they switched the oversea animation to Funbag Animation Studios in Canada with most of the animation and writing done in New York City, as well as going back to using original music cues with new title cards. Originally, Viacom was considering having the second and third season be animated at Spümcø in California, but Michael convinced them to have it done closely to his friends and family in New York. One of the show's trademarks is that the characters (mostly Sniz) often sing or quote lyrics from real-life songs such as in the episode, "Stuntbike Sniz", where Sniz said to Fondue the main chorus of the song "You're the Inspiration" as well as the episode "Crustacean Sensations" where Sniz was singing The Bee Gees song Night Fever while wandering in the woods.

Unfortunately, the series came to an end as Michael decided to leave the series out of frustration due to having to do most of the work in the production, as well as Funbag was in the verge of going bankrupt while working on a TV-adaption for Watership Down. He was offered a half hour time spin-off but due to his departure, the offer was given to Steve Hillenburg for SpongeBob SquarePants. The final episode, "Hosed!", ultimately with Pearlstein not involved in any way, aired within the season-three KaBlam! episode "It's All In The Wrist".

Characters