The Angry Beavers
Encyclopedia : T : TH : THE : The Angry Beavers
The Angry Beavers is a Nickelodeon American animated television series about Daggett and Norbert Beaver, two fraternal twin brother beavers who have left their parents and home to become 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, despite its large fan base. The show continues re-run on NickToons Network.
Characters
Angry Beavers and the Public
Angry Beavers was a generally popular show during its airtime, though some considered it unsuffienctly educational. 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. Its influence is evident in other current shows too. SpongeBob SquarePants has a notably similar humor pattern and animation style to this show and is highly successful.Character quirks, like Daggett's compulsive adoption of a superhero alter-ego named "Muscular Beaver" (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.
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 word "spoot" was also frequently used throughout the series, often in the derogatory sense, for example "spoot-head".
The Angry Beavers has 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, an unknown individual complained that the phrase "shut up" sounded like "shit up." What that bleep did, however, was generate more interest in the show, as some incorrectly thought that it had vulgar language in the dialogue. 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 those words several times) used the phrase "shut up". Beavers did use "shut up" and in fact, language that is generally considered to be worse (e.g. 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," Ren and Stimpy also used that same language in its later episodes), that the Angry Beavers did not use. Regardless of these claims, this was edited by the producers. There are many episodes in the show where there is some violence that is similar to that shown on the Jerry Springer Show.
In another episode, named Mistaken Identity, showed Daggett, acting as Norbert, sprinkling white dust into three vertical lines. Many parents thought that Daggett was snorting cocaine, but this was actually Dag's filth collection.
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 a destruction of the 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.
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!"
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.
NOTE: More information related to this can be read in an interview [link], which Micah Wright gave the fansite [The Beaver Channel].
Current status
The Angry Beavers was brought back to NickToons Network on June 20, 2005.In-jokes
There were several in-jokes throughout The Angry Beavers entire run. One particular one involves Richard Steven Horvitz, the voice of Dag, being mentioned.- Norb: [reading mail] Hey, Dag! Check it out! [reading letter] "Richard Horvitz had a son, 'Jake Elliot Horvitz' on April 11th, 1997.
- Dag: Ooo.. who's Richard Horvitz?
- Norb: Nobody.
Also, both beavers would often mispronounce common words in pseudo French or otherwise foreign pronunciation, such as calling a refrigerator a "re-FRIGE-er-A-twoah/re-FRIGE-er-IZE-or" or idiot as "ID-ee-ot." Sometimes even saying beaver as bee-vwARE. As an augmentation to this, they would also elongate words, particularly each other's names, with superfluous syllables, such as "Norbie-orbie" and "Dag-a-lag-a-ding-dong." Sometimes Norbert would even replace a word in a common phrase with Daggett's name, e.g. "Quite right, pin-the-tail-on-the-Daggett!"
Episodes
Trivia
- The beavers' postal address is: Norbert & Daggett Beaver, RTE 4 BOX 413, Wayouttatown, Oregon (from episode Omega Beaver)
- A lot of the show's music is from or based off of the soundtrack for the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).
- In episode Beaver Fever the beavers created a disco/funk band, that was very popular until Dag casually said that they were "bigger than sliced bread" causing a very brief period were everyone hated them. This was a clear reference to The Beatles and their "Bigger than Jesus" controversy, where Lennon offhandedly remarked that they were bigger than Jesus. The beavers got over their problem when Dag explained what he meant was that they were physically larger than a slice of bread.
- The show's visual style is rather unique, and much humour is made in lieu of the fact that the main characters don't actually look much like beavers. They are often referred to by minor characters as weasels or "pointy birds".
See also
External links
- [Official Angry Beavers website]
- [The Angry Beavers IMDb entry]
- [Internet user JohnOfE's site] (David Wright's Unofficial Angry Beavers Website)
- [FOAB Online] (Another Unofficial Angry Beavers Website)
- [The Angry Beavers'' at the Big Cartoon DataBase]
- [Episode Guide at TV.com]
- [Sound clip from last episode that never aired]-This is from Micah Wright's official website. These are the lines that slam Nick for "re-re-re-runs" of its Nicktoons as spoken by Daggett and Norbert. About 10-20 seconds of dialogue that basically ended the show early.
- [Web-Worldwide.net] 63 episode DVD set
- [Angry Beavers Message Board]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.