there's something to be said about all the shows that never were whether that be from
failed Pilots that never got picked up Pilots that didn't test well or
for random behind-the-scenes circumstances it seems like for every one show that does
make it a dozen do not today we are taking a look at the steampunk esque action show that
never was constant pain with all that we have for this would have been series a 10
minute pilot if you enjoy this video you better subscribe let's jump into constant pain foreign
Michael Wright who had already had a relationship with Nickelodeon thanks to working on the Angry
Beavers went on to start writing and producing a pilot for his own show for the network that
show being constant pain a show that would have that early 2000s westernized anime feeling to it
something you'd see in stuff like totally Spies avatar The Last Airbender Martin Mystery and a
whole lot more from this specific era that look would be juxtaposed to a very stylized steam or
diesel Punk style of backgrounds vehicles and of course fashion this is just some weird Fusion of
Tai from Digimon and obedo from Naruto the premise of the show sets the universe of
the pains these sort of generational protectors that deal with various threats of evil becoming
as they put it Knights Crusaders Monster Hunters police scientists archaeologists and adventurers
essentially no matter what there has always been a pain that will protect others from Evil here
specifically we follow Amanda Amanda Payne who at this time is the next in line of the Payne
family with her father who doesn't want her to necessarily be a part of the whole saving the
world business and rather her focus on her current Life as a teenager going to school you know focus
on homework not beating up bad guys but like I said she is the next generation of Payne family
Fighters and to be fair she can hold her own against the bad guys and still focus on school
at least as far as we know from the limited amount of time we spend with her for this pilot and I'm
sure if the show were to go on that it would delve into her struggles balancing both as well as her
relationship with her father in doing so like I can totally see a storyline that has her father
being captured in her having to work by herself or with her friend who we meet at the end of the
pilot at school to go on a journey fighting a bunch of bad guys being crafty and rescuing her
father but we will never get to know that as again this is all we have a 10 minute pilot so
let's take a look into what we have as well as why it never came to be never believe what happened to
me on the way to school this morning just let me drive this one time I promise I'm never ask again
[Music]
this whole pilot revolves around one thing a father who is just trying to drop his daughter
off at school but of course the journey there is nothing like a boring commute as a sailor
boy comes flying into the window of their blimp mobile or Zeppelin well their trip is
derailed as the Sailor fell from another ship blimp Zeppelin whatever you want to
call it that is currently being overrun by the evil Wilton pain AKA Doc's brother and
Amanda's Uncle who by the way would totally be a pyromane in Pokemon just look at that
hair and beard combo Perfection the city itself is very stylized like most in the steam slash
diesel Punk genre giving the architecture a very pleasant and unique Skyline look with
Transportation Zeppelins crisscrossing the skies but the main conflict here is Doc jumping out
of their blimp and landing on the other one to confront his brother while Amanda has to
fend off attackers jumping on their Zeppelin the whole fight with Doc and all the henchmen
is very tongue-in-cheekening back to early the action cartoons from the sound effects but more
specifically the way in which the bad guys info dump random call outs like oh no there's doc pain
it's kind of charming very cheesy but Charming all in all the blimp gets destroyed with Doc jumping
from it at the last second only to be rescued by Amanda after she had literally just killed a man
yeah no coming back from that one this family Dynamic having the bad guy which we can assume
that would have been the overall main big bat of the show be Amanda's uncle and Doc's brother
could have been great in story development flashbacks seeing the reasons why he was
turned to a life of evil while still holding the last name of pain which has been a symbol
for protection what the whole falling out was it could have made for some great TV Amanda is very
enthusiastic about being a pain being a part of the missions and wants to be involved while Doc
is very much against those Notions not wanting his daughter to grow up so fast and focus on
just being a kid rather than saving the world Aspen Vincent voices Amanda and you hear this
wonderment in her voice genuine Fascination and excitement all wrapped together which is
very contrasted with her father Doc is voiced by David Key who is the embodiment of monotone but
I mean that in the best way possible there's just something to the way that he delivers
some of his lines that come off so robotic or stoic that you can't really tell what emotion
honestly intentional or not it added a lot of laughs for me as every time Amanda would
deliver dialogue in such a very natural way with her emotions all baked into it DOC would
quickly get through a sentence in response with literally none no emotions whatsoever it's kind
of great and I feel that this is something they would have changed for the full show but I think
it's perfect and I would have kept it the same it weirdly just works really well it makes you
feel like he is protecting Amanda from becoming a pain crime fighter and fear of her turning out
like him or anyone else in their family lineage the stuff he had to do and see has hardened him
up so much that emotions were tossed aside in favor of keeping others safe he doesn't want
that ambitious spark of light he sees in his daughter to dim like his did and at the same
time he does seem like he's trying to be somewhat in tune with Amanda for the sake of her deceased
mother and maybe I'm reading too far into what little the show gave me to to infer but that's
just my takeaway from the pilot but what happened to it why did this pilot not become a show well
there's a few reasons why first let's look at what Micah has stated directly he classifies this show
as the first true American anime show a title that I feel several shows have fought for the
claim of having but that's neither here nor there he mentions that there were some Executives that
thought the show was too violent and would not be kid safe but the funny thing is that it was
testing really high for both boys and girls a feat that hadn't been proven to be successfully
done at that time but Micah claims that it was possible by having this kick butt Father Figure
mixing it with the relatable teenage school life of a daughter who can equally hold her own in a
fight and Nickelodeon was starting to engage in talks with Micah for a commitment to 26 episodes
AKA a full one season of the show another reason that Micah Seitz is that at the time he signed up
with a union and believes that they made it very clear that this was the final and most
notable reason for the show not to happen as they were not happy with him trying to unionize their
studio in any way and adding on to this this was also 2001 and the recent tragedy in New York City
turned Nickelodeon away from action shows at the moment plus making matters more understandable and
complicated as the mother in the show was killed in a terror attack there was also a scene where
Amanda has to narrowly grind her Zeppelin between a pair of twin buildings which clearly made the
network Panic about that and of course all of this was just circumstantial for the time the
pilot for the show had been in production and been made before the events of what took place
happened so any references or similarities were just unfortunately coincidental and of
course when transitioning from a pilot to the full-fled show the whole scene could have been
redone the network would now not really have a want to pursue action shows in general which was
sad for a show like this because it had been doing so well in testing and there was a plan
already in talks to make it a full-fledged show but based on experiences of working on the Angry
Beavers something I detailed in this video here from earlier this year complications in dealing
with the network was already a known thing and there clearly was a lot of passion behind this
project Micah himself got to work with the Japanese animation studio madhouse to make it
which was his favorite Japanese animation studio so that must have been really cool for him to do
spending time in Tokyo as well as it gets a little more personal as he was working with
his friend and Mentor Hillary J batter who worked on a lot of dc-related properties and Star Trek
properties as a writer before she would pass away on November 7 2002. it is unfortunate that this
show never came to be as it was a pretty fun pilot and an easy enough concept to get behind this was
during the rise of action cartoons that we would see take over the 2000s and I could have easily
seen this fitting right in there with anything else in the genre on TV he would even stand out
on its own because of the steampunk aesthetic which the show focusing on both Amanda as well
as her father doc it would have been a pretty fun and interesting father-daughter dynamic obviously
giving more Focus to Amanda more than anything with our narrative clearly focusing on her I would
have liked to have dived deeper into the story that could have been there between her and her
father her and her friends in life at school what stories could have come out of this because for
the base concept here it looked like a fun idea I also really liked the name of the show being
called constant pain it just sounds really cool and in the end the biggest pain of all was never
getting the show to come to fruition but he never gave up hope since then he has tried pitching the
show to Warner Bros animation as well as other Studios all around the world to make it into a
feature film so maybe one day constant pain may be a reality if you've checked out this pilot I
want to know your thoughts on it would you have liked to seen this become a full-fledged show 26
episodes in all tell me in the comments thanks so much for watching like And subscribe later
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