wait remember randy cunningham 9th grade ninja it was disney xd's cartoon action
show about a high school ninja not the ninja whose wife delivers sandwiches on asked for
or the blender along with his best friend fighting oncoming forces and preserving his identity
as a vigilante every four years a new ninja is chosen to take up the vigilante mantle and protect
norrisville from oncoming threats by the evil sorcerer and his dangerous allies bajillionaire
hannibal mcfist and his mad assistant scientist viceroy together randy and howard must fight
them off with the help of the 800 year old ninja nomicon a partially sentient book that quickly
teaches randy all of the ninja moves that he currently needs for each challenge he faces i'd
be careful of that book though the last book that ended in nomicon nearly took out all of my friends
and i in a cabin out in the woods taking place mostly at their high school the sorcerer has a lot
of prey to take advantage of he is able to do so by using their weaknesses or emotions to enchant
them into monsters motivated by these amplified feelings and it only makes sense that high school
would be a breeding ground for i mean feelings totally not speaking for my own experiences
get that off the screen the show's first episode premiered on august 13th 2012 and ran for a total
of two seasons each episode has two segments so while there are 50 episodes there are technically
a hundred different segments while the show was never cancelled or renewed it left fans with a
lot of questions what does the future look like for randy and howard a thank you would be nice
you knuckle dragging refrigerators created by jed elenoff and scott thomas randy cunningham
9th grade ninja was originally supposed to be a vampire show but randy cunningham 9th grade
vampire just doesn't have that certain ring to it that genesecua if you will so the two of them
began brainstorming about what kids fantasize about being in high school sure today it may be
a vampire thanks twilight but back in jed and scott's high school years of 1990 to 1994ish
being a ninja was all the rage and i guess they were right i did spend a lot of my
time daydreaming in school particularly about being an action hero or a superhero
because the pythagorean theorem was as boring as the pythagorean theorem anyway they landed
on the idea of randy being crowned the new ninja of norrisville high and despite initially being
written to be a show focused on randy boss battles and his secret identity over time it became more
of a story about two best friends and their adventures together howard isn't just the backup
that the hero relies on for support he is actively in the field with randy every day howard is very
loyal to him and often provides a well-needed comic relief during more tense situations which
is essential considering the insane amount of danger they both face on the regular the cast is
packed full of comedic and recognizable actors ben schwartz voices randy cunningham yes john
i got run over by alexis ralphio and sonic for both of the sonic the hedgehog movies
his best friend can't be overlooked either howard weinerman is voiced by andrew lewis caldwell who
is best known for his role as jude in the matrix resurrection i'm kidding i know him from shredder
man rules the two seem to have had a lot of fun in the recording process and constantly play off
of each other's energy in fact because there weren't any concern for what the voice actors
were wearing during recording they frequently decided to dress up together donning matching
full-body banana costumes and three-piece suits on one occasion caldwell wore a ball gown there's a
lot of interview footage out there with the two of them and their energy together is electric
the supporting cast is also iconic we have john dimaggio as one of the main villains hannibal
mcfist who is also the stepfather of high school bully bash johnson dimaggio is also recognizable
for his long list of iconic roles as bender from futurama jake and adventure time and i could spend
about 10 minutes reading out a longer list but i'm not gonna he's also marcus phoenix tim curry
voices the sorcerer also known for his on-screen work as wadsworth and clue and dr frankenferter
in the rocky horror picture show he also voices nigel thornberry and the wild thornberries and
professor calamitous and jimmy neutron okay just like john the list is so long that i am 93.7
sure you know who he is and know his voice very well we are also blessed with the voice of kevin
michael richardson another alum with an incredible resume as willem viceroy iii richardson has also
voiced trigun and teen titan shredder and the 2012 animated teenage mutant ninja turtles
martian manhunter and young justice and jerome in family guy last but most definitely not least
jim rash voices principal slimovitz also most recognizable as dean craig pelton in community and
that's like 70 bonus points right there and while the show wasn't nominated for or awarded anything
the actors certainly did get some attention for their performances on the show jim rash tim curry
and kevin michael richardson were nominated for annie awards and behind the voice actors awards
now that we know vocally how this show was brought to life let's take a look at how it was brought to
life visually and just how it all came to be not helpful but cute there's more randy cunningham
9th grade ninja on disney xd randy cunningham 9th grade ninja continues on disney xd the art design
is one of the most eye-catching things about this show with heavy influence from japanese art
its action sequences are vivid and entertaining however it is pretty evident that this is pretty
explicitly only used for aesthetic purposes the writing in the ninja nomicon is complete nonsense
just a bunch of characters that aren't quite real the characters are a form of hiragana or katakana
but like a knockoff version come on disney i know language isn't copyrighted why not use it properly
and i know they have the budget to hire someone that can actually write something that's you know
real but i guess it could be argued that the lessons that are being taught to randy by the
nomicon aren't supposed to be read but experienced through randy alone but still it emphasizes that
the animators used these tools to capture an eastern aesthetic to fit the general vibe of
the show at least shows like american dragon jake long in the life and times of juniper lee
didn't just use a culture for purely aesthetic purposes now when you look at this art style
the first thing that came to my mind was that this has a lot of invader zim character design
choices in it from the faces to the fingers it was clear that this was the same person behind it all
jonen vasquez the creator of invader zim worked on this show he wasn't given much direction with
the design for randy he just had to look like a ninja he initially wanted to give randy red hair
but decided that he wanted more of a cohesive color palette for him to juxtapose ninja randy
and regular high school freshman randy and he ended up giving him a deep purple hair and the
red hair feature went to howard instead vasquez characterized howard as a horror movie metal fan
mixed with a whole mess of nick frost and a whole lot of cargo shorts his personality complements
randy very well while randy is much more calmer and a bit of a rule follower howard tends to
slack off a lot and is extremely driven by his own desires like food and not losing his food
in fights that break out man's pulled out the used popcorn hat as for the villains of
the show while most times coming off repetitive from the major evil doers the way in which like
i mentioned earlier students would have their emotions and feelings used to turn them into a
beast of some sort for randy to take down was a cool idea it was not only to introduce new
interesting and one-off villains that they also had a purpose regarding the emotions or feelings
that person was going through giving a slightly deeper layer to the overall story and in some
cases something to stick on to for randy that he can learn from or understand better and that's
thanks to the sorcerer's stank literally stank yes the sorcerer puts some stank on it he's also like
800 years old and dwells trapped underneath the school constantly finding ways to battle randy so
that he can eventually escape now he has a deal with the latest mcdonald's menu item mcfist and
that is if he is able to help defeat randy and set the sorcerer free he can have a superpower of his
choice not a bad deal whatsoever as for the robots that randy faces viceroy over here is the slightly
overconfident mad scientist who likes to show off his latest and greatest before randy figures out
how to destroy it he works directly for mcfist as the two constantly fail to foil a freshman's
fearsome fists as fun as this was how was the reception of the show did all of this lead to
many viewers tuning in every new episode what does protecting the balls have to do with the
whole digging contest we'll be right back to randy cunningham on disney xd get your ninja on randy
cunningham is back disney was busy cranking out all of the randy cunningham 9th grade ninja flash
games and i was able to find just 18 of them right off the bat let me say that again 18 flash games
space so yeah the show must have been received really well uh while critics
give the show pretty mid reviews audience ratings seem pretty high i can attest to that personally
as i have been asked to cover this show at least a million times over the past several months
there clearly is a fan base out there that wants this show talked about more or have bare minimums
seen by more eyes the people who like the show really like it and i get it the show
may not hit every emotional box or have a complex underlying plot but it is fun and by the end of it
you get left wanting more and let's talk about that there has been a lot of confusion regarding
the future of this show while clearly nothing is in production nothing has been announced
after the second season disney was silent they didn't announce a renewal but they also didn't
announce a cancellation this left a lot of fans with a sense of hope but also a lot of
questions the final episode of season 2 leaves us off in a semi cliffhanger moment the creep who we
see in almost every episode speaks for the first and evidently last time to say something ominous
about randy's greatest ninja battles still being ahead of him it was also confirmed in
a scott thomas tumblr post that he is immortal so it's clear that they left the show open to
another season the series clearly is not done with the story it wants to tell and it seems
that the fans aren't done either there's a change.org petition going around which i know
i know i initially see these happen and i don't expect anything as they rarely ever
end in the thing being petitioned for to happen but then i remembered that for shows like this
it's really audience demand that brings shows back it has about 26 000 signatures at the time so who
really knows what could happen i wouldn't get your hopes up but i also would never say never but i
will say for me personally i'd love more of this show i want to see randy go through all of his
high school years as the ninja up until the moment the mantle is passed down to the next person eager
and nervous to start high school while being tasked as the ninja protector of it i originally
overlooked this show for the fact i never saw anything about it but i thank you the audience for
non-stop commenting about this show to me without that it may have been a long time or even never
that i would have given this show the time of day i didn't know about it and i'm glad i watched
through its two seasons knowing very little going in because i'm taking more going out than i
thought i would for jed and scott a month before the last episode of randy cunningham 9th grade
ninja aired they premiered their new live-action show titled best friends whenever so it could
be that the creators were ready to try something new or maybe randy cunningham really was over and
they had their next job lined up but if it does return they may have less of a major role in any
of the potential future episodes thomas though did reblog the change.org petition on his tumblr so he
definitely is on board with another season but then again that's all just speculation would you
like to see this show come back for a third season and did you enjoy watching it when it first aired
let me know in the comments as always thanks so much for watching make sure to hit the like
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and validation follow me on twitter and i'll be back with another video soon but until then later
you