wait remember the marvelous misadventures of flapjack or just flapjack for short it
was a cartoon network tv show that aired between june 5th 2008 and august 20th
2010 spanning three gloriously weird seasons a show in which i watched a fair bit of it when it
was on the air due to it always fascinating me from the aesthetic of the looks to the varying
animation styles and for the most part the odd couple comedy of a trickster pirate and a naive
boy whose mother figure is a whale that was a sentence i just said yeah the word interesting
can't begin to describe what the show is so we're gonna take a look at it see what it
was what happened to it this is one that i've been itching to revisit for quite some time
so welcome back or hello for the first time to the 25 days of fringe miss where i cover
something interesting nostalgic or holiday related every day from the 1st december to
the 25th in order to find that holiday spirit i lost nearly a decade ago so if you want to
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the show follows flapjack a cheerful friendly naive little boy with a small green scarf
and tiny sailor's cap perked upon his blonde curls who longs for adventure
out in the sea but especially for the adventure of finding candied island a magical island made
entirely of candy where there's lollipop trees in a lemonade sea listen the theme song well not my
favorite of all time by any means it's catchy and so perfectly sea shanty worthy that it just gets
stuck in your head in the world of flapjack candy is this greatly valued treasure everyone wants
from the high upper crust members of society to the salted crusted c-bound adventurers so to young
flapjack and honestly most of the characters in the show finding the fabled candied island is
like the ultimate dream come true a good example of how candy fits into the world of flapjack is
the candy barrel a rough and tough bar like restaurant that serves candy to the visiting
sailors instead of alcohol you can get pretty turn off some sugar believe me the candy barrel
is run by peppermint larry an old-timey barkeep complete with a white apron and a glass that he's
constantly cleaning and his wife a woman made of candy aptly named candy wife who is rendered in
this claymation style whenever she is on screen so it can contrast the 2d styling of the rest of
the characters you can already see how the show plays with animation and it's great and sometimes
terrifying enabling flapjack's love of adventures and dreams of candied island is captain canuckles
a washed up once great at least according to him sea adventurer who is now a lazy self-centered
and willing to do anything for a sweet piece of sugary candy pirate flapjack regards captain
canuckles as his personal hero with his love for the old pirate occasionally bordering on obsession
despite often taking advantage of flapjacks open nature knuckles does truly care for him and will
make necessary sacrifices to get flapjack out of dangerous situations but not all the time he would
quickly ditch the kid for his own selfish desires in a heartbeat but only sometimes knuckles body
is almost entirely wooden with his hands legs arms and bottom all having been replaced due to various
accidents during his adventures in spite of this canuckles maintains a pretty good reputation among
his fellow pirates and sea-goers flapjack is raised by bubby a caring sassy maternal
talking whale who has happily taken up the duty of being both flapjack's mother and his home with
flapjack living in her mouth yeah he just sleeps right there on her tongue it's both charming and
utterly repulsive bubby has raised flapjacks since she found flapjack in a bed of seaweed
as a baby with no parents in sight she adores her adopted son but disapproves of flapjack's love of
adventure due to the potential risk it poses him she also hates captain knuckles who she feels is a
bad influence on flapjack often leading the young boy into danger despite all of her attempts to
stop or put some distance in their friendship they usually fall flat and are disregarded
coming up next it's the marvelous misadventures of flat jack on cartoon network
despite knuckles and flapjack having big dreams of getting out onto the ocean and finding candied
island most episodes take place within the safety of storm along harbor a man-made island of docks
platforms and a bit of land in the middle of the sea that the trio including bubby
call home the wealthier citizens of storm along harbor live on elevated piers with vegetation and
sunlight while the working and lower class live below in the grimy crowded city where most of the
interesting characters come to port up due to the harbor nature of the city most of the inhabitants
are transient sailors and pirates on their way to far-off lands resulting in the city being heavily
crime-ridden and full of sketchy people flapjack gets into a series of misadventures and hence the
title across storm along harbor and on the seas predominantly in episodic fashion flapjack and
canuckle spent a good amount of their off time in the candy barrel eating candy or trying to trick
free candy out of peppermint larry due to neither of them having i don't know money the show was
created by mark throw up van orman a cal arts graduate who i personally think is a collective
figment of our childhood imagination you'll get that once you hear about his backstory van orman
worked as a storyboard artist and co-writer for shows like the grim adventures of billion mandy
camp laszlo and the powerpuff girls with being a supervising producer of adventure time and sanjay
and craig van orman grew up in panama city florida dreaming about the life of adventure on the open
seas eventually van orman's family moved to utah during the time and van orman became very obsessed
with old adventure novels which in turn got him stuck on the idea of living off the land and sea
making a hut with his own hands following this desire van orman began to work as a
janitor eventually getting enough money to buy a ticket back to florida purchase some
potatoes and rice and paddle board out to shell island an undeveloped island between
the gulf of mexico and saint andrew bay there young van orman planned to live off sea urchins
and other wildlife unfortunately for van orman his swiss family robinson dreams came to an end
when he got badly sunburned started to low-key starve and learn that the island was infested
with rattlesnakes these three things finally prompted van orman to return to the mainland
one failure wasn't enough to discourage van orman though and a little while later he tried to live
off the land again you can never just learn from the first time now going to mexico for a summer to
live in the jungles this attempt didn't go much better eventually leading to van orman feeding
himself by eating out of dumpsters in order to survive van orman took all these experiences
in stride though considering each failure as an adventure in its own right and using them
as inspiration for flapjack while also pulling heavily from the old timey adventure novels he
always loved van orman first pitched flapjack to cartoon network as a concept of sketches and vague
ideas in 2001 while this initial proposal was shot down van armin used that feedback he received
and the next two years to redefine the concept working diligently until he was taken seriously
van orman voices flapjack taking over the role from paul rubins who was cast at the part but
never showed up to any of the recording sessions probably was busy at a movie theater of sorts or
something i don't know during this part van orman's real-life son leave played
live-action flapjack oh and bubby's there in live-action as well but is not nearly as cute
the show overall had played with so many animation styles that at
some point while watching this series it just felt natural to see something
different i loved how it portrayed the look of the sea with the waves moving or how traveling on
a map looks it gave it the feeling of a pop out book which helped it stand out compared to the
other shows at the time a lot of cartoon network shows love to play with how they can do animation
chowder the amazing world of gumball the list goes on but what was special is that while all these
shows did that they never felt the same for doing so each of them did it in their own unique way
flapjack played off the visual jokes by switching without warning between a simple 2d cartoon style
to a high def super realistic art or claymation models before quickly switching back title cards
to the show were done in a claymation style with other bits of stop animation used occasionally
throughout the series the stop-motion portions were produced by screen novelties a collection
of artists that specialized in stop-motion if you were already filling up your brain with the
lyrics of the show's theme song there was an extended version of it that was only used once
in the series during the musical special all hands on deck when it came time to record this
extended version modest mouse lead singer and fan of the series isaac brock provided
the vocals while candied island is proven to exist before the end of the series canuckles
and flapjack being able to see it from space while they are trapped there on the moon in the episode
over the moon neither of them ever find it before the series wrapped well flapjack does manage to
when the two of them try to jump down from the moon before the moon's gravity then
pulled them right back into space slapjack was eventually canceled by cartoon network when
they decided to change his target audience with its live action era honestly i really enjoyed
the series it combines so much of the weird with the fascinating that it's hard to look away and
not hit play on the next episode for a visual perspective it excels for the obvious reasons
i've been gushing about this whole video and from a funny standpoint it has that spongebob energy
about it that it just becomes too infectious to not watch i love when a show can defy
expectations looking at the title and seeing stills from the more odd moments in the show can
be a big put off for some mix that with what seems like a dreary dark color palette that i wouldn't
say incites a sense of joy you have something that on surface level may not appeal to everyone
but for me it truly worked and i wish i had given the show more of my attention when it
was on the air so i guess the easiest way to put it is don't judge a book by the candy on its cover
or something like that i don't know so what are your thoughts on the marvelous misadventures of
flapjack did you love it were you just too weirded out by it let me know in the comments thanks so
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next day of fringe miss check out the playlist to keep up with the month but until then later
you