Girish Mahajan (Editor)

YooHoo and Friends (2012 TV series)

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Genre
  
Adventure Comedy

Directed by
  
David Feiss

Created by
  
David Feiss

Based on
  
"유후와 친구들" by Aurora World

Voices of
  
Flavor Flav Mara Kay Cedric Themole Mark Mathison Jan Bos Michelle Brezinski

Theme music composer
  
Rich Dickerson Gigi Meroni

YooHoo & Friends is an American animated television adaptation of the Korean animated television series YooHoo & Friends, created by David Feiss. The series debuted on Cartoon Network's Movimiento/Movimento Cartoon block in Latin America on January 8, 2012. The series also premiered on ABC Me on February 15, and on Pop in the same year.

Contents

Premise

YooHoo & Friends is about five executives who worked for Nasty Corporation. When Mother Nature notices that they've been slowly destroying the world, she pressures Father Time to stop them from polluting the Earth by turning them into five animals. Together, Lemmee, Roodee, Pammee, Chewoo, and their leader YooHoo, save the world from all of the environmental disasters they caused as their former human selves, in return for the gems Father Time planted in the locations they visit. If all of them are found, the Furry 5 will be able to make a wish to become humans again.

Main characters

  • Father Time (voiced by Flavor Flav) is an ogre who controls time and acts as the narrator of the series, introducing each episode. He gives the previous executives the task to find gemstones in order to become human again.
  • Mother Nature (voiced by Mara Kay) is Father Time's wife. She was hurt and angered by Nasty Corporation's environmental destruction, and ordered Father Time to stop it immediately. She loves her husband, and always tries to keep him on track with the Furry 5 and their task to find the gemstones.
  • YooHoo (voiced by Cedric Themole) is a bush baby, and the leader of the Furry 5 who guides the others in search for gemstones. He has cream and grey fur, blue eyes, and a blue and grey striped tail.
  • Lemmee (voiced by Mark Mathison) is a ring-tailed lemur, and the sourpuss. He constantly tries to convince the others that he should be the leader instead of YooHoo. He has grey and black fur, yellow eyes, and a grey and white striped tail.
  • Roodee (voiced by Jan Bos) is a capuchin monkey, and the inventor. He has brown fur and yellow eyes.
  • Pammee (voiced by Michelle Brezinski) is a fennec fox, and the princess. She has a connection to nature, and can understand when an animal is hurt or a tree is thirsty. She has white fur, pink eyes, and a pink and white striped tail.
  • Chewoo (voiced by Mara Kay) is a red squirrel, and the cheerleader. She is always excited and happy, even in the most dangerous of situations. She has red and white fur and pink eyes.
  • Pookee 1, 2, and 16 are a trio of meerkats who try to steal the Furry 5's gems to make their wish. They have brown fur, green eyes, and purple, pink and yellow eye markings and tail tips.

    • Recurring characters

  • Santa Claus (voiced by David Feiss) is Father Time's next door neighbor, and has a rivalry relationship with him.
  • The Easter Bunny is another friend to Father Time.
  • Leper is a leprechaun who's also friends with Father Time.

    • Production

    David Feiss stated in an interview that he was contacted by Konnie Kwak, the president of Toonzone Studios, to make the show into something he could sell to western television. He then approached it similarly to Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily?, where "a foreign language film is re-dubbed in English with an entirely different story, it could be funny." He rewrote dialogue, and created 4 minutes of new animation per episode. Feiss has also said that he moved to a house across from Flava Flav, the voice of Father Time, and he agreed to be on the show.

    Kwak once saw YooHoo & Friends stuffed toys, and thought "they looked pretty cute. The toys had already inspired a 52-episode animated series for younger kids, which aired in Korea and had received many prestigious awards in that country. But like many Korean properties, it doesn't translate well overseas. So [they planned] to repurpose the episodes to broaden the market." The team had prepared the adaptation for a six to 12-year-old demographic.

    The distributor, Moonscoop US, originally planned for the show to air on French and German-speaking territories across Europe, "with hopes to reach televisions in next summer," but this never happened. In addition, Toonzone Studios also planned to release a new line of plush toys, playsets, and light up dolls. Eventually, the series wasn't renewed for another season, causing Toonzone Studios to take legal action against Aurora World over the contractual rights of the series. Aurora World ended up breaking the deal with Toonzone, and licensed its franchise to its new distributor, Lawless Entertainment, in June 2014.

    References

    YooHoo & Friends (2012 TV series) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA