Cartoon Night in Canada

In the second installment of our new series - The Untitled Barbie Movie Side Series ? or maybe The MFBCU (Mainframe Barbie Cinematic Universe) ? - we are returning to the janky CG Barbieland produced right here in Canada with a classy, 100% faithful Tchaikovsky adaptation. Canadian girls love ballet, Barbie toys, tragedy, and the dulcet tones of Kelsey Grammer, so how could this go wrong? Film cov...

We're back! After a long summer hiatus, Chris and Sylvie are back to push their pro-dubbing agenda once more with the latest episode of CanaDUB. While Studio Madhouse's The Story of Saiunkoku is a perfectly competent shōjo romance surrounding court intrigue and economic disparity, the real interesting story can be found in the state of the anime distribution industry at the time. Chris and...

On this week's episode, we tackle an ugly little footnote in the career of Ed Edd n' Eddy creator Danny Antonuuci that has been memory-holed from the line-up of MTV Animation. A grotesque gross-out comedy featuring five perpetually pained creatures who tortuously fill your eyes and ears with bad vibes. It's The Brothers Grunt , and it is not what we would call an easy watch. "Epis...

We are back with a favourite topic of ours we will always go far out of our way to dissect and ramble on - the awkward growing pains of CGI animation. We've entered the mid-2000s and what we are calling CGI's "scene kid years" with Jane and The Dragon . A beloved children's book adapted by two veritable titans of the film industry: our beloved Nelvana with their noted pedigre...

On this week's episode, we are returning to an absolute classic - another steamy monster-of-the-week chapter from Cybersix, a show that burned briefly, but burned brightly to set high standards for television animation and storytelling unseen at the time beyond the likes of Batman: the Animated Series. Will our gender-fluid, leatherclad antifa supersoldier overcome the sociopathic nazi child a...

For our annual celebration of all things queer at the National Film Board of Canada, we have a hell of a double feature for Pride month. You wouldn't think we could pair a hand-drawn, deadpan porno-parody tale of repressed Fox sexuality with a touching, empathetic, clay-on-glass portrait of queer romantic love within the developmentally-disabled community. But we found a way! It's a tonal...

On this week's Pride special, we are taking you back to a dark time for LGBT representation in children's entertainment where the idea of a same-sex kiss was shot down by corporate meddling in the pre-production phase. Ok...maybe not that far back. Back in 2017, a little Nelvana magical girl show could have been one of the first steps forward for moderate representation of LGBT characters....

On this week's episode, we are stepping into the cutesy goth aesthetic once more with a stop-motion series that we could politely classify as being "inspired" by the works of Tim Burton. A misfit group of unfortunates at a ramshackle orphanage trying desperately to be adopted despite their colourful deformities - you'd think that would lead to a couple of good chuckles over this...

On this week's episode, to celebrate the early access release of a Greek mythology inspired roguelite sequel that one host is hooked on, we are taking another look at a wonderful artifact from the 2000s pop culture Greek mythology craze - Class of the Titans. While debating whether or not we've entered into another phase of this phenomenon, we breakdown a classic episode involving bait-and...

On this week's episode, Chris and Sylvie program a fashionably (heh) late Mother's Day episode, and wind up accidentally programming a Pride celebration episode! In the next installment of our big hitter series, just in time for the new reboot season, we are taking look at the flagship series from Marathon Media that blends action, style, and barely disguised fetishes - OMG it's like,...

Howdy campers! On this week's episode, Chris and Sylvie are talking about the strangely lucrative trend of "celebrity vanity cartoons" with one of the most beloved Canadian comedians of all time. John Candy conquered Hollywood in the 1980s, but the '90s brought a new venture - Saturday Morning Environmentally Conscious Cartoons! It's Camp Candy, and if you think John Candy wa...

Prompted by the ongoing genocidal campaigns effecting the people of Palestine, Chris and Sylvie decided to tackle an animated documentary from 2017 that endeavored to portray the Israel-West Bank Barrier in a nuanced perspective based on an outsider's perspective. It failed. Miserably. While visually it stuns through a masterful mixing of animation techniques by Alberta based filmmaker Cam Chr...

We are back on our anime bullshit with another all-time classic series that was introduced to us Canadians by a dub produced in Vancouver. It's Rumiko Takahashi's seminal Shonen series Inuyasha, a beloved series that Sylvie and Chris were first introduced to through the YTV anime programing block "Bionix." As with all CanaDUB episodes, we break down the phenomenon of the series,...

Howdy Campers! Ever want to spend your summer vacation with some cryptid counsellors and a boundless hyperactive energy?? Then do we have a surprise Canadian entry in the Disney XD lineup for you! It's Camp Lakebottom - a sugar-rush of a throw-everything-at-the-wall camp comedy that gave one of the hosts an ear-splitting headache. Otherwise, it's a fun time! #SasquatchFraser Episode covere...

Like...whatever , it's Daft Planet. On this week's podcast, we are looking back at a time when the vibe of the young generation was blasé, sarcastic, and all-around disaffected, which made it very hard to make cartoons that spoke to them. In the early 2000s, Teletoon tried to court this demographic with a flash-animated, pop culture-obsessed portrait of dispassionate teens who are too cool...

For the 100th episode of Cartoon Night in Canada, Chris and Sylvie tackle a big hitter in the Canadian cartoon canon. A formative series for both hosts whose latent film buff personas could be traced partially back to it, it seemed like the only choice for a milestone episode to finally cover personal favourite Being Ian. A hilariously relatable portrait of an amateur filmmaker finding his way aga...

On this week's episode, we get downright filthy (yet educational) as we chat about the "thin gross line" that is the Bureau of Grossology and how they are the last line of defense against acts of gross themed terrorism committed by a rogues gallery of barely disguised fetishes. We are back grappling with the mid-2000s obsession with gross-out humour and edutainment with the aesthetic...

On this week's episode, Chris and Sylvie finally put to bed the hot-button media debate of our age - Is RoboCop PoLiTiCaL?? While the Paul Verhoeven 1987 masterpiece is unassailable on this front, what about the oft forgotten attempt to soften the hard edges of the NSFW sci-fi satire for Saturday morning television that premiered a year later? What gets lost in translation when you take one of...

On this week's episode, Chris and Sylvie do what they do best and ponder the grotesque biological and terrifying existential implications of a show for literal preschoolers with William Joyce's George Shrinks. How does a three-inch child with the ingenious mind of an inventor make his way through a world not built for his size? Can his tiny worldview help save his dismal local hockey team?...

In honour of Black History Month, we are using our side series highlighting the innovative and significant animation produced through the National Film Board to spotlight the work of one trailblazing black artist. The paint-on-glass animation of Haitian-Canadian animator Martine Chartrand has been used in her visually stunning work to explore the enduring flow of Black history and culture througho...

Believe It or Not, those coffee table books of weird and strange facts from around the world were once a part of a thriving media empire that at one point included cheaply produced French-Canadian Satutday morning cartoons. Sylvie and Chris catch up with the Ripley brand in the late 90s and discover a surprisingly educational and admirable attempt to translate the compendium of global oddities int...

On this week's episode, Chris and Sylvie boot up an old copy of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and contemplate the history of CGI animation while talking about a wrongfully forgotten show from that history's awkward, transitional years. It's Xcalibur - a sword-and-sorcery tale that was made with so much passion the still nascent technology behind its animation could not match. If you put...

On this week's episode, Sylvie and Chris look back at the mid-2000s flirtation with martial arts cinema and wonder aloud what exactly a legendary claymation company from jolly ol' England was doing collaborating with Decode Entertainment. It's Aardman Animation's Chop Socky Chooks (no, that's not a slur! It just Aussie for Kung-fu Chicken). A high-concept tribute to martial art...

On this week's episode, Chris and Sylvie struggle to find anything of value to say about a show for preschoolers that is the epitome of lazy edutainment. A cobbled-together variety program which lets the creators of Thomas the Tank Engine and stock footage from 60 years ago pad the runtime, there is nothing to the paltry animation of Salty's Lighthouse beyond the decades old footage it rec...

This week on the program, the CNIC Detour takes us back to college to work through those awkward, zany growing pains of living on our own, finding our identity, and never going to class or bothering with our actual education. From the desperate offices of MTV Animation comes a surprisingly touching, superbly crafted, and well-aged exploration of college life from the mind of a 19-year old who won...