thanks to today's video sponsor squarespace the all-in-one website building platform to help you
create the perfect creative space more about them later in the video wait remember american dragon
jake long well it was a disney channel series that aired between january 21st 2005 and september 1st
2007 for a total of two seasons two distinctly interesting seasons this was a show i absolutely
loved back in the day one it has freaking dragons and two there's two seasons of it i don't know
i couldn't think of two that fast i'm sorry but what i'm not sorry for is that today we're gonna
take a look at american dragon jake long for our wait remember series so let's take a look into
what the show was some interesting info about it what ultimately happened to it and of course my
personal thoughts on it as well so hang out with me for a bit as we reminisce on such a unique show
so what the heck is american dragon jake long all about well american dragon jake long followed
around jake long jake is a chinese-american teen who thanks to his magical family bloodline on his
mother's side has the ability to transform into a dragon lucky jake is a teenager with his age
progressing between the two seasons and a native new yorker he has a laid-back skateboarder persona
with a keen awareness of his peers and current culture along with an interest in stereotypical
teenage boy activities like music video games and avoiding schoolwork jake is slated to be
the next american dragon a fated position that makes him responsible for the safety of
all magical creatures in new york city and beyond jake's duties as the american dragon which most
commonly involve protecting weaker creatures and training on how to be a better dragon are
often sidelined by jake's immature teenage nature and his day-to-day worries and trials of being an
american teen jake is trained by his maternal grandfather luang lao she or just laoshi in the
way of the dragon lao xi is a late 60s early 70s aged man who in his youth was the chinese dragon
serving a similar purpose to jake with his duties being to protect all the magical creatures of
china eventually laoshi immigrated to the united states where he established his electronics shop
on canal street with the iconic slogan we never had a customer never had a sale which is similar
to mine never make a video never have a subscriber or something like that i really don't have an
iconic slogan maybe one day throughout american dragon jake long laoshi does his best to train
his young grandson but unfortunately due to a disconnect between the two's modern perspective
and old school views laoshi's teaching sometimes initially do more harm than good assisting grandpa
laoshi in his training of jake is the dragon's magical talking animal guardian fudog a 600 year
old chinese sharpay who has been in the family for generations guiding them to their full potential
just like air bud leading his team to the big win at the game fudog lives in laoshi's electronics
shop where he gives out sarcastic advice to the two dragons using his vast knowledge of magical
items though fu dog is much older than lao xi he is much more into current culture than the retired
dragon often reading magazines and understanding the modern references jake makes dragging up we'll
be right back to american dragon jake long on disney xd now back to american dragon jake long
on disney xd jake's dragon comes from his mother aka laoshi's daughter susan while susan does not
have any dragon abilities of her own with that trait skipping her generation she still carries
the magic bloodline and is well versed in the magical world around her jake's father jonathan on
the other hand is a stereotypical office working dad with no idea that his family has any magical
connection or that the magical world exists at all just completely oblivious the rest of the
long family does their best to keep jonathan in his blissful ignorance of the world around him
not sure of how he'd handle it the final member of the long family is jake's little sister haley
who is an overachieving and highly advanced student both in the human world and in her dragon
abilities jake spends a lot of his time annoyed with his sister often feeling stuck in her shadow
despite him being older jake does love his sister though several times making great sacrifices to
rescue her from dangerous situations haley for her part secretly has great respect for her brother
looking up to him as a role model of bravery and selflessness and all she really wants throughout
the series as a chance to hang out with him more jake's best friends and later some of his greatest
allies are trixie carter and arthur spud spadinsky two laid-back skater types much like jake who at
the beginning of the series know nothing about the magical world trixie is cool calm and collected
and the smartest of the trio trixie holds the group together with her maturity and logic
spud on the other hand is easy going loyal and is not as smart as the others in most cases spud does
show insightful bursts of intelligence throughout the series dropping extremely
perspective observations or coming up with a niche piece of trivia that helps save the day
you love to see it jake's love interest throughout the series is his crush and fellow classmate rose
while rose seems to return his interest each have a second double life that unbeknownst to
each other makes them mortal enemies jake as the american dragon and rose as the hunts girl
a member of the hunt's clan the hunt's clan is a group of highly trained ninjas in the world of the
show who have sworn to slay all magical creatures when they're not selling those magical creatures
into captivity for profit with them deeming magical creatures as dangerous and unnatural
all members of the hunt's clan are identifiable by a unique dragon-shaped birthmark somewhere on
their body rose herself comes from a particularly powerful line of dragon slayers in the hunts clan
having been raised by the clan's leader the hunt's man i mean what other name would they have the
hunts clan but the huntsman in particular serve as the main antagonist throughout much of the series
which complicates jake's feelings for rose when he eventually discovers her hunt's girl identity rose
eventually learns of jake's dragon identity which sends her on a journey of questioning everything
she's ever been taught by the huntsman i won't go too deep into spoilers for you here since
i think a lot of the twists and turns make for a really fun watch if you haven't seen it beforehand
jake long himself is pretty cool but you know what else is pretty cool and isn't long creating your
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thanks again to squarespace for sponsoring today's video later on there is a new foe the dark dragon
who becomes the main antagonist for the rest of the series wanting to transform his fellow dragons
into an unstoppable army amongst the non-magical world on a less pressing note a smaller antagonist
throughout american dragon jake long is professor hans rottwood a german schoolteacher obsessed with
magical creatures in discovering the identity of the american dragon in spite of all of his years
of study most of rottwood's knowledge on magical creatures continuously proves to be superficial
and wrong with him never succeeding in any of his goals american dragon jake long was created by
jeff good a tv writer and established playwright with several published works under his belt
including dracula rides again larry and the werewolf and marley's ghost what can you say
man likes the supernatural american dragon jake long was pitched to disney in 2002 and
was sequentially green lit by the network for 21 30-minute episodes ordered for the first
season the first season was planned to premiere in the fall of 2004 but was moved to january of
2005 when the work of brandy and mr whiskers was finished early and debuted in september
instead reception of the first season was very positive and the show was renewed for a second
season with some changes made to the crew lineup christian roman stepped down as the show director
with steve lotter who served as the director of kim possible scheduled to fill that position when
kim possible was renewed for a fourth season however lotter became an executive producer
on american dragon instead and nick philippe who did some directorial work on kim possible stepped
up as the new director of american dragon from his executive producer position lotter pushed for
a redesign of the show's animation for the second season not being overly fond of the original style
lotter and the production crew decided they'd like the new redesign more with it better representing
where jake was in the development as a dragon for example in the second season while in dragon
form jake is thin and scrawny cannot be serious of course the show did spawn some video games as well
with the main two releasing in close proximity to one another in late 2006 on the game boy advance
we had american dragon jake long rise of the hunts clan a side scrolling him beat-em-up where you'd
be able to use your dragon abilities to take out bad guys and use your skateboard in a myriad of
ways kind of similar to games like rocket power dream scheme's use of the skateboard there was
also american dragon jake long attack of the dark dragon on the ds it was essentially the
same exact game but only now in 3d american dragon jake long is next on disney channel
that wasn't so long american dragon is back on disney channel the show's theme song was
recorded by the band mavin during the first season but was recorded by the jonas brothers for the
second all it took to get them was traveling to the year 3000. there was also this weird
but interesting special crossover event with lilo and stitch the series where jake and his friends
travel to hawaii to investigate some of jumba's experiments while there jake helps lilo enter a
skateboarding competition and works with stitch to fight off some bad guys yeah that was a thing
despite disney originally wanting to extend the series and even floated the idea of making a live
action movie eventually jake long american dragon was cancelled with the last episode of the second
season being the series finale which all in all is unfortunate to hear the show had a lot of
potential to do great things i don't know how a live action movie would have turned out but hey
i'm sure at worst it would have been meme worthy i genuinely still love this show
with its constantly growing character development meeting a story that grows and expands in many
interesting and sometimes rather dark ways its portrayal of life in new york city is something i
love and to me adds its own extra character into the show itself it's not a perfect show either
it has some faults with pacing and sometimes we focus on storylines that feel too similar
to a previous storyline but i was never really bored or burnt out on watching it dragons well
they're still really cool so there's a point that it's never losing i would love to see this show
come back today sure who wouldn't want it to be a little bit more grown up you know make it a little
darker for the people who grew up with it but in whatever form that it could take i think there's a
lot left on the table here for interesting stories culture action i mean at the end of the day he
is the american dragon maybe at some point i'll do a full retrospective on this series if that's
something you'd like to see let me know in the comments as well as your thoughts on the show in
general thanks so much for watching make sure to hit the like button and subscribe for more content
like this follow me on twitter or else i'll nollie trey flip in a game of skate against you and you
can't do anything about that and i'll win i'll be back soon with a new video but until then later
you