Hey, Tom And Jennifer.

I appreciate the sentiment.  We do need young people to vote.  But seriously, you bring back 6teen for a US voting PSA, when you didn't even give us a 10th anniversary surprise back in 2014.  And you have Jonesy wearing a MAGA hat?  I can't say I'm too happy.

For any other 6teen fans who missed it, here it is.

Tom And Jennifer Would Approve.

I had a nice surprise this morning.  I had to brave the icy streets that resulted from last night's snow and freezing rain.  As I was about to turn onto McKercher Drive I stopped behind a car that had the custom Saskatchewan license plate 6teen.  It probably had some other meaning, but I couldn't help but speculate the driver might be a fan of the cartoon series 6teen.  Hopefully I'll see it again at some point.

Will Nikki Be Happy Or Unhappy?

It's really hard to say.  One of the things that defined the character of Nikki Wong on the Fresh TV cartoon series 6teen was her skepticism towards consumerism.  So it's hard to say how she'd react to the news that Toronto's Galleria Mall is probably going to be demolished, replaced by a condo development.  In the series a namesake mall is the centre of most of the action, other than the occasional scene elsewhere, and the place that Nikki and the other characters hang out.  Of course the fictional Galleria Mall is the kind of place you might want to hang out, while the real one is old and past it. On the other hand Nikki might not approve of yet another generic condo building popping up in an increasingly crowded skyline.  In any case if you're in Toronto, or visiting it, and you're a 6teen fan  you might want to stop in for a visit, while you have the chance.  At the very least you can check out Randy McDonald's pictures of Galleria at the link above.

6teen In Africa?

This morning I got a hit on an ancient blog post that mentioned 6teen.  It was from Cameroon.  Was the person looking for something else, or does 6teen air in Cameroon?  Has it aired anyplace in Africa?  The Wikipedia article for the series gives no sign it has.  Cameroon certainly doesn't look at first glance like the most likely place for the show to air, but you never know.  

When I Rule The World 16.

When I rule the world, all sidewalks will have to have that rubberised coating on them that some people put on their driveways.  I really like walking on that stuff.

And since this is number 16 of these, I  will add an additional requirement.  When I rule the world all homes will have to have all episodes of 6teen on DVD.  And the whole series will be put on DVD.

Caitlin Wouldn't Work There.

Regular visitors of this blog will know I'm a fan of the now ended Teletoon teen sitcom 6teen.  Although an actual location is never given I've always felt that the series took place somewhere in Southern Ontario, specifically one of the cities of the Toronto region.  Via A Bit More Detail I found out that there actually is a Galleria Mall in Toronto.  Robyn Urback posted at blog.TO a report on the mall.  Unlike the animated megamall in 6teen this much smaller mall has seen better days.  Of course that's because they only share a name, with the TV version being based on Toronto's Eaton Centre and Edmonton's West Edmonton Mall, not this sad place.  It reminds me a bit of Saskatoon's Market Mall, which tends to have a vibe of being past it, but Market Mall is a powerhouse by comparison.   Interestingly in an early episode, "A Lime To Party," the owner of the Big Squeeze lemon drink stand, Big Steve, threatens to move it to a strip mall when sales drop.  I would imagine it would be a place like this real Galleria Mall. 

I've Been Troped!

Looking at my blog hits I noticed that one of them came from a TV Tropes page.  I took a look, and much to my surprise found a part of my post on the final episode of 6teen quoted on that page.  Funny to find myself in the company of Ursala K. Le Guin, Kurt Vonnegut, and Bugs Bunny.

The Galleria Mall Closes.

No, it's not the one in Regina, or anyplace else.  Rather this is a heads up to any 6teen fans who didn't already know that your last chance to see the series on Teletoon is here.  Tonight will be the final Thursday airing at 8:30 PM ET/PT, with tonight's episode "Bye Bye Nikki? Part 2" being repeated Sunday at the same time.  After than 6teen will leave Teletoon after 6 years.  It's all but certainly not gone for good, but for now its run has ended. 

Fresh TV Goes Blogging.

I've made a few posts on here related to the shows produced by Fresh TV, including 6teen, Total Drama Island, and Stoked.  Fresh now have their own blog, dealing with both their current activities and a current series on the history of 6teen.  They also link to Fin McCloud of Stoked's Twitter feed for those of you into Twitter.

Finale. (6teen Spoilers)

Don't worry, it's not the finale of this blog.  Rather I thought I'd make a couple of comments on the series finale of 6teen.  This contains spoiler material, so if you haven't seen the final episodes of 6teen yet now is the time to stop reading this.   Especially those of you who have been watching the series on Cartoon Network in the US, as who knows when they might air these episodes.








Still here?  Then don't say I didn't warn you.

The titles of what were assumed to be the final 13 episodes were revealed way back in September of 2008, and given the copyright on the end of that last batch it's not unreasonable to assume they may have been completed by then.  If so Teletoon decided to sit on them for a year or more for some reason.  My guess is that it had something to do with the possibility Cartoon Network in the US would buy the series, but that's only a guess.  In any case we knew the series finale would be a two part episode, called "Bye Bye Nikki?"  And given that title it wasn't hard to guess what the plot would be, that Nikki would somehow leaving the rest of the cast behind.

Sure enough that did turn out to be the plot.  Nikki's father is up for a job with Ruts, a clothing company obviously intended to make the viewer think of the highly popular Canadian clothing company Roots.  But taking the job involves moving to Iqaluit in Nunavut.  As expected the gang try and stop this in humurous fashion, they of course fail, and we get to see a nice going away party sequence, including clips from throughout the series.

But to I'm sure the surprise of most viewers, including me, the show didn't go for the expected cop-out.  Most were probably expected that somehow the status quo would be maintained, that the job would fall through, or that Mr. Wong would change his mind, or some other way would be found to have Nikki stay.  Instead when he actually suggests not taking the job Nikki quickly decides she can't let him give up the opportunity of a lifetime just for her, and Nikki and her family actually do leave, off on a new adventure without her 5 other friends.

I'm sure a lot of people will not be happy with this ending, but I have to say that I'm impressed with it.  The series didn't take the easy way out.  Instead it ended on a realistic note, as one of the things that everyone faces in life is having to part with friends as they find themselves on a different path.  Not that the ending is a completely down one, as the writers left it open for our heroes, especially Nikki and her love interest Jonesy, to reconnect again sometime in the future.   But even with that out series creators Tom McGillis and Jennifer Pertsch must have known the ending would upset some viewers, and one assumes must have considered taking the easy way out.  They didn't, and I give them a thumbs up for that.  I think it shows faith in their audience.  It also makes for a nice "closing of the circle" with the beginning of the series, which revolved around Caitlin joining what had been a group of five friends and making it six.

Of course I can't help but wonder if this is the last we've seen of new 6teen material.  The ending of the series did leave an opening for a followup special at some point, along the lines of the one hour special "Snow Job" that ended what is commonly seen as the second season of the series.(And which I can't help but wonder might not have been intended as a series finale had the series not continued.)  Whatever the future fate of the franchise it will continue to air on Teletoon for the foreseeable future given its popularity and the fact it has 91 episodes.

It will be interesting to see if the last batch of episodes airs on American TV, as Cartoon Network hasn't exactly been committed to giving 6teen a consistent and regular slot in its schedule.  Especially the episode "Role Reversal," in which a temporary co-worker of Nikki's, a girl named Jean, not only openly states she is gay, but is also seen going to a Sadie Hawkins dance in the company of Connie, who first appeared in "Snow Job" as the drummer in Wyatt's band.  The couple can also be briefly seen together amongst the party guests in  "Bye Bye Nikki? Part 2."  It would have been interesting, had the series run longer, to see if they would have turned up again.

In closing thanks to everyone who worked on the series and provided me with a lot of entertainment over the last six years, even if I wasn't the intended audience. 

A 6teen Reminder.

Tonights the night.  Teletoon will be airing the final episodes of 6teen this evening, including the two part series finale "Bye Bye Nikki?"  Check your local listings for the starting time in your area.  Fortunately if you miss it they'll be airing them again on Sunday, and of course Teletoon will pretty much certainly continue airing the series in reruns for the foreseeable future.

Almost Time To Say Goodbye.

If you're a fan of Teletoon's long running cartoon 6teen be sure to mark your calenders for February 11th. According to a post on the Unofficial Fresh TV Forums the final episode of the series will air on that date. The series has had a good long run on Teletoon, originally debuting in the fall of 2004. Too bad it won't make the 100 episode mark, but it has outlasted much of what Teletoon debuted at the same time, and its success led to Fresh TV's hit Total Drama franchise and their current surf resort comedy series Stoked. It's also too bad it didn't have better luck on US TV. Nickelodeon played it briefly in 2006, and Cartoon Network's success with TDI and TDA led to their picking it up last year, although their airings have ended up being spotty. Even with the final episode airing 6teen will all but certainly be airing on Teletoon in reruns for a long time given how well it did for them, and given that less successful shows have been replayed multiple times by the network.

Not On The Other Team.

Today I received another one of those kind of search engine hits that make me shake my head. The query was "nikki wong from 6teen is a lesbian." Nikki is one of the characters on Teletoon's series 6TEEN, the charming young lady in the picture at left. I can only wonder at why the searcher used that phrase. If they've seen much of the series they'd know that Nikki is not portrayed as a lesbian. Even if we ignore the fact she dates Jonesy, one of the other main characters, for several episodes, we know she has a crush on a member of Dawgtoy, a fictitious boy band. So I find myself wondering if this person figured Nikki might be a lesbian because of how she dresses. Oh yeah, wearing cargo pants and having dyed hair are both well known signs of lesbianism. Well, I suppose in someone's world they are.

If someone had asked something along the lines of "jonesy from 6teen is gay" I would have found that somewhat more convincing given that the show has actually had a couple of bits of what could be seen as gay subtext between Jonesy and Jude, another one of the main characters. Given what Teletoon allows the show to get away with I would imagine if the writers and producers wanted one of the main characters to be openly gay or lesbian they would have written him or her as such already.

How peculiar. It seems the writing staff of the cartoon 6TEEN have a strong interest in vomit. So far they've had two episodes in which barfing was a major plot point. In "The Sushi Connection" everyone's favourite shopaholic Caitlin blows chunks all over a car of rollercoaster riders, and the dress she's "borrowing" from a department store, after eating sushi and wasabi. In last night's episode "The Khaki Girl" Jonesy's new job giving out meat "chunklets" leads to massive barfing by just about everyone when they go bad. So what's up with these guys? One barf scene a season is probably enough, unless you're talking about South Park, which incidently last night's regurgitation made me think of. Or could it be they associate slighty ditzy blondes with vomit? After all both episodes focus on Caitlin. I bet that in some markets those two episodes may not end up being shown due to nervous nellies worried about offending someone.

It seems there are more than a few people out there that like Teletoon's current teen mall comedy 6teen. The couple of mentions I've made of the series here keep generating hits for me. And it seems that Teletoon must be doing well ratings wise with the program, as they've apparently decided to purchase a second season of episodes according to Emilie-Claire Barlow, who has been doing some of the voices. Perhaps they're considering it as a potential replacement for Braceface, which they've beaten into the ground pretty heavily with repeats, and which has apparently ended its production cycle. I do have to wonder about Teletoon playing 6TEEN 6 nights a week when they've to date only played 14 episodes, with the 14th premiering this week after a couple of weeks of no new episodes. Then again this is the same station that managed to play the 13 episodes of Undergrads over and over again for long stretches.

Watching the Christmas episode of 6teen brought up an interesting thought. The episode ends with the kids in the mall the day after Christmas, and they realise that its Boxing Day, which in much of Canada is a day jampacked with sales, and hence stores and malls jampacked with often bargain crazed shoppers. Given that Boxing Day sales are a very Canadian thing I can't help but wonder if that segment will be changed if the series sells outside of Canada. Certainly most Americans wouldn't have a clue about Boxing Day madness.

Here's an interesting opinion piece by John Doyle of the Globe and Mail above the arrival of
Fox News on Canadian tv. He thinks many Canadians will find it funny. He may be right, at least about those that can see it that is. Fox News is going to be on the digital cable channels, which means you'll need to be a digital cable subscriber and have to specifically subscribe to a package that includes Fox News. I can't help but wonder if this won't lead to whining in some circles that Fox News is being "censored" since it won't be on the analog cable channels like CNN and MSNBC are.

Just as a followup to my last post about the new series 6teen I see that one of the characters is named Nikki Wong. First of all, tv writer folks, there are other Chinese surnames besides Wong and Lee/Li. Would it hurt you to use them? Of course given that last name I can't help but jokingly speculate that the character is in some way related to Maria Wong on Teletoon's long running teen comedy Braceface, a cousin perhaps. A more real connection is that the character of Nikki is voiced by Stacy Depass, who took over the role of Sharon Spitz, the title character of Braceface, after Alicia Silverstone found herself unable to continue doing the role.

Caught an episode tonight of Teletoon's new series 6teen, so I decided to enter the term into Google and see what came up. It seems the series creators are hardly the first ones to use it. There are quite a few folks using it, including the inevitable porn merchants. Is there a word that some porn merchant doesn't use in association with a website? Interestingly this is another series where Teletoon has fronted for 26 episodes as with Delta State(heh, another Delta State ref to generate hits here). Too bad they didn't have the cash a couple years ago to produce some more Undergrads episodes. Even a one hour special of some sort would have been nice.

And speaking of cartoons, if you were a fan of MTV's short lived series Downtown you might want to check out Cartoon Network's current giant robot action-adventure/parody series Megas XLR. One of the secondary characters on Megas is Goat, and may very well be the same Goat who was on Downtown. Not only are the character designs near identical, both Goats are voiced by voice actor Scot Rienecker. This may have something to do with the fact that series creators Jody Schaeffer and George Crstic were part of the writing staff for Downtown. In the Megas world there's a tv video station called Pop, and its MTV-ish logo has been smashed in various episodes. Are these blokes perhaps a little pissed at their former employer? Canadian viewers can catch Megas XLR on Teletoon Saturday and Sunday.