when I was a kid there were a handful of books that I'll never forget like The Very
Hungry Caterpillar The Giving Tree Verdi but there was always one I feel that can always
no matter what be universally remembered for how it always stood out with the shiny scales on its
cover or the out-of-pocket Twitter memes of a social media employee acting like the person
who runs the Wendy's Twitter account yes today I'm speaking about none other than the classic
children's book rainbow fish but this isn't a book Channel and I can't read well so instead
did you know that in the early 2000s they turned this beloved book into a cartoon yeah it kind of
blew me away to figure that out so long after it happened and to be fair there are some good
reasons that I never heard about it so today I wanted to take a look at what rainbow fish
the cartoon was all about because watching a cartoon is always better than reading a book
okay maybe that's not a good takeaway from this video uh fish time [Applause] [Music] foreign
look the rainbow fish is pretty iconic in its own right you see this cover and you're instantly a
little kid again sitting crisscross applesauce being read the story or doing your best to read
along originally the book we all know originated from Swiss illustrator and author Marcus Fister
and from there was translated to English by J Allison James so originally the rainbow fish was
first known as the Reagan bugen fish just a cool bit of detail that I didn't even know when growing
up with this story published in 1992 The Rainbow Fish would make a huge Splash for the children's
book market and even spawn a whole list of sequel books that heck again I didn't even know about I
remember the original book and that's really it why have I been so out of the loop here but this
does give us a clue that there are many more stories about this rainbow fish to tell that
could work in a cartoon series now before we get to the cartoon series itself there was a VHS and
DVD release that featured two 13-ish minute shorts of two different works from Marcus fully animated
with the rainbow fish being front and center and then saying also including Dazzle the dinosaur
this would release in March of 1996 7 and it was a nice little taste of what would be to come in the
book The Story of the rainbow fish revolves around a fish that has these beautiful shiny scales that
the other fish do not have and would like to also have and as these fish who are supposed to be
friends with the rainbow fish ask him for a scale of their own he refuses in what would come off as
a rude tone because of this all of his friends didn't want to hang out with him because of his
selfishness and rudeness after this he seeks out some advice being advised to share with others
and that being beautiful isn't the only thing that matters in finding true happiness would be what's
truly important in recent Years A lot of people have tried to tear apart the story and look deeper
into what this silly little book is and I do think critical thinking is important and what you take
away infer and discuss from it do mean a lot but some people take what this book was a little too
seriously and infer it for other things that it really didn't mean to be like relaxed don't
like it don't read it to your kid or whatever I don't know I'm not a parent the story from
the book would not be the focus of the TV show however the show would end up taking all these
extra Liberties to make this character work in a cartoon setting giving them a school to attend
and filling the stories with new and fleshed Out characters to interact with so thanks to decode
entertainment emtv and Sony wonder which all three of those companies are now other companies or part
of other companies came together to produce this cartoon so let's take a big old dive
into what the rainbow fish series was all about this this can't be right hey it could be worse
I gotta go back why on January 8 2000 The Rainbow Fish series would premiere on Tiny Pop in the UK
which was a Children's Entertainment Channel but the show did make its way to the states through
HBO's Family Channel a channel I was never made aware of until many years later because all I ever
knew about HBO was that it had all the adult shows that I wasn't allowed to watch at the time the
show would follow rainbow the colorful fish with the scales that still shine brightly throughout
the series as he and his friends learn plenty of undersea life lessons that can also apply
to those who walk on the land how convenient but let's take a look at some of the wonderful fish
and undersea creature characters that we meet in the show of course we have rainbow he's the main
character in our main vessel into the world voiced by Rhys Huber he has a whole family and even a
sister as they all live in a cave not far from shipwreck Park which partially alludes that the
Titanic is among the watery ship grave but here is where this show really clicked with me there
was a character on the show named C Philly who is a seahorse and this character design stood out out
to me like a sore thumb I don't know where in the back of my mind that this character was hidden in
but I vividly remember this design I mean look at the fish in the show they look like this and sure
she's a seahorse but look at this character design it's ridiculous and I love it it's uncanny fish
human looking and my brain tries so hard trying to understand it all but regardless of all that
she is friends with rainbow and his voice by Chantel strand the other fish in the friend
group is blue voiced by Andrew Francis and was based off a fish originally seen in the book but
obviously turned into a full character all of his own here while we get to interact and hang
out with other members of The Aquatic Society like teachers family members and others who work within
this world we really follow these main three and honestly mainly rainbow every episode I do like
the shenanigans they get up to like when they try what is deemed a dangerous sport called Rip
Tiding but one of them actually gets Swept Away In A Riptide or with an episode of rainbow having
a fear of the dentist which was always a really relatable story line and shows for me as a kid I
mean it never really was much of a fear of mine as it was just not wanting to go and deal with
the hassle of whatever the dentist was doing in my mouth with a various assortment of scary painful
looking utensils okay maybe it was scary and I'm dealing with a recent Dental visit so this is
fresh on my mind anyway the stories had a bit of charm to them but followed a very basic formula we
even had an episode that felt more like the book where the rudeness factor of rainbow comes back
once a new student comes to school named Sherman who was a shrimp this episode ends up becoming
very heartwarming in the end as rainbow learns this being kind to others lesson without giving
away all of his personal shiny scales or even when they do some light versions of parodies or
mainly focusing on the same rotation of overused plot points they at least tried to add in the
whole we're all just fish and other underwater creatures dealing with this which can be fine but
the characters aside from their base traits don't offer enough to make these stories stand on their
own sure we learned good lessons by the end but it never really matters all that much it's pretty
light on drilling those themes down although this is made for a much younger Target demographic I
still think that a certain level of thoughtfulness and quality should always be there and here there
is a bit of that that does need to be looked at from that specific scope after 52 episodes that
premiered throughout the year the show ended on December 24 2000 after one full season the final
episode titled Santa sword is Coming to Town timed perfectly with Christmas Eve has that episode
revolved around Christmas Eve so it was a nice send-off for the show at the end however we can
start putting some of the puzzle pieces together as why the show stopped after one season first
keep in mind that this show being on HBO family was skewed fairly young at least younger than
most current Nickelodeon shows at the time as well as there being another way more popular show about
undersea life that was on Nickelodeon SpongeBob SquarePants which reviews of the show and websites
that were talking about it would point out as a recommendation to watch over rainbow fish as
SpongeBob was quickly rising in popularity now I don't believe that that SpongeBob had anything to
do with the show not continuing I think that it just didn't have enough eyes on the show in the
different territories it was being shown in with the UK Market being its most successful for the
property it also could be boiled down to not running longer than it needed to the companies
that produced it still lasted a lot longer before being morphed into these other companies or
shifting their focus into other things completely it just ended and honestly as cool as it was to
look back into the show it didn't offer much else special outside of the Nostalgia of knowing the
book from my childhood the show doesn't have anything in its episodes that hasn't been done
before in other cartoons already it just has a really nice Sparkle on fish's scales but that's
about it I think it's a cute cartoon and something that should live on for a younger audience to take
away some good lessons with but it boils down to a run-of-the-mill childhood learning show
some are always going to stand out more than others from this era I remember stuff like
Franklin little bear and I see Rainbow Fish sitting right there fitting into that group
of animal-based shows to help teach kids some life lessons values and more for me I remember
Franklin and little bear very vividly but it was cool to really get into and discover the rainbow
fish cartoon I found it interesting and hey maybe you did as well let me know your thoughts in the
comments thanks so much for watching like And subscribe later oh what's that stink
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