El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera

Starting from clockwise: Grandpapi Rivera/Puma Loco, Manny Rivera/ El Tigre, and Rodolfo Rivera/ White Pantera

Before I will start about this entry, let me apologize for having a long-term waiting to see my new post. It's just because I'll have to fix my college subject classes starting this week.

When I saw this cartoon show on TV5 and Nickelodeon cable channel, I was suddenly amazed and I thought it's Nickelodeon's cartoon rivaled for Cartoon Network's Mucha Lucha. Maybe I'm wrong and Nick Jr's. Dora the Explorer is not only a cartoon with Mexican language. El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (sometimes nicknamed as "El Tigre") is another Nickelodeon show aired around year 2007 to 2008. Set in fictional place Miracle City in Mexico, El Tigre tells about the adventures of 13-year old boy Manny Rivera. He has superpowers and deals whether if he's going into good or evil side. His father Rodolfo Rivera (a.k.a White Pantera) is a superhero and wanted his son to be like him, but Granpapi Rivera (a.k.a. Puma Loco) likes his grandson as a super villain.

For us, we can say that we are on the good side but sometimes we are in the clutches of doing bad things. For El Tigre, while his villains show up to do crime his conscience is his real challenge. He has to learn to distinguish what's right and what's wrong. Like does Manny use his father's money to buy a tattoo maker instead of a can of guacamole? Or letting his prized animal die and revive it in a horrible way? Those are examples of issues that Manny deals with it.

Manny is just like a tween who never know what responsibilities are and instead to have fun. While he decide which side he will be, he makes trouble along with his best friend Frida Suarez as happy time. Manny also likes to fight for good or worst. He transforms into El Tigre by spinning his buckle belt. He (sometimes along with his family) face many villains including El Oso, Sartana the Dead, Titanium Titan and many super villains in order to protect Miracle City from ruin.

Another exciting reason why El Tigre is that the animation uses Flash plus the hand-drawn animation for effects. The creators and staff of the show added many Mexican culture stuff - from costumes up to famous Mexican people. Whether if your not a Mexican resident, you'll still like to watch it's action and comedy moments. There's even one moral lesson you'll learn in El Tigre , not even Grandpapi Rivera can't resist this value - "Family comes first, whether you're a superhero or not".

If you wanted to find out more about El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, you can check out the creator's DeviantArt account at http://mexopolis.deviantart.com/ and their Blogger account at http://tigreroar.blogspot.com/.

The Last Airbender Movie Poster

Image from Avatar Aang the Last Airbender on Friendster

Wonder Pets

Before I get through this entry, I would like to apologize for being absent for previous few weeks because I'm finishing my final exam in college I studied. Our final exam seemed to be hard but oh well, starting next week I'm going to take a break from school studies for a while.

I couldn't help watching this show from Nick Jr. Wonder Pets is another television show which premiered in 2006 in Nickelodeon cable network then premiered last year on TV5 in the Philippines. The show features three (cute) pets from a small elementary school who saves different animals every episode. Linny the Guinea Pig, the leader of Wonder Pets and she's also the most intelligent of the group, Tuck the Turtle, a sweet male turtle fellow and also emphatetic of the group (he loves to put their saved animals for company), and Ming-Ming the Duckling who is overconfident and she speaks stutterly.

The animation Wonder Pets used "photo-puppetry" which contained photographed animals and manipulate them to be animated. Scenes also show drawn objects which the program may be considered having mixed media format. The best of that show aside from being educational, is their musical and orchestral theme. Dialogues and storylines are actually followed with mix of musical. It is goes something like this:

-Children says goodbye to Linny, Tuck and Ming-Ming before they go home
- Then a tin can telephone ring and the pets answer it.
-The three heroes dress their capes and hats to be Wonder Pets then they assemble their vehicle called "Flyboat".
- Usually there is an obstacle where Wonder Pets need to solve before they leave the school.
-They rush of to school while they sing then goes to a place where they will rescue an animal.
-At that location, the Wonder Pets tried few attempts on how to rescue until they remembered the solution like they did before leaving school.
-When an animal is saved, a relative (usually a parent) pops up somewhere to thank Wonder Pets for rescuing his/her baby.
-As a reward, the Wonder Pets celebrate by eating celery sticks (sometimes adds it with flavor). In some episodes, the Wonder Pets are rewarded from the animals they met.
- They returned to the school. The Flyboat disassembled itself while the Wonder Pets returned to their cages. Then, before an episode ends, Linny takes a bite of celery and winks in front of the camera.

What I like the show are their songs especially when TV5 decided to dub it into Tagalog. It is very somewhat similar for singing opening theme songs from Bananas and Pajamas or Batibot. Here are the catchy lyrics from Tagalog-dubbed Wonder Pets:

Si Linny, Tuck, at si Ming Ming
Ang Wonder Pets tutulong sa inyo
Anong kailangan? Magtulungan!
Anong kailangan? MAGTULUNGAN!

Wonder Pets, Wonder Pets
Ngayon ay masaya
Hindi malalaki at hindi malalakas
Pero pag nagtulungan lahat nalulutas
GO WONDER PETS! Yehey!

Catch Wonder Pets on TV5 Mondays to Wednesdays every early mornings.

Tweenage Dora the Explorer (aka Dora the Streetwalker)

The original Dora

She speaks both Spanish and English, has a best friend monkey, a bag and a map on her side and also loves adventures. Yup, she's Dora from Dora the Explorer one of the current Nick Jr.'s show. But what if the creators of the show and Nickelodeon decided to make Dora as a teenager? We bet we're gonna be surprised if we found out the image you see below:

Dora in her tweenage makeover

If you have a Nickelodeon network on your cables or free-TV's out there and watched many episodes of Dora the Explorer, you'll get mixed reactions about that picture. According to the Wikipedia article about the show especially to the article from Google here, Mattel and Nickelodeon announced that Dora will have a tweenage makeover and also attends middle school. The new look will reveal sometime around fall this year but the image (like you see above) revealed to the public last March 16th. After revealing the image, many parents made mixed complaints about the plans that both Mattel and Nickelodeon made but soothes down for a moment. The reason why Dora turned into grown-up because Dora suppose to be a "role model" for young girls not being a "fashionista". The issue is still misunderstood by complaining parents and they demanded as a request that Dora should be the same 6-year-old girl like on TV.

It is unknown whether tweenage Dora will be appear in a TV sequel after Dora the Explorer (not the spin-off like Go! Diego! Go! which featured her cousin Diego). In the meantime, merchandises will sell first but unknown it will be ever reach in the Philippines. To me, the new look of Dora seems not a bad idea because of her Latina look but I prefer she should wear pants and T-shirt for more adventurous look. Honestly, aside from T-shirts and pants I would rather feel discourage to Nickelodeon who pushes some of their popular cartoon characters beyond far for just of their business - not the viewer's demand. We don't have to worry because tweenage Dora is still Dora we knew before who teach bilingual languages, encounter many friends and gets many adventures. I'm not sure what Boots looks like when he grows-up too *shrugs*.

Networks In The Philippines - Part 6

Another continuing bump in the last part of Networks In The Philippines segment...I may not know other small networks so I'm trying to figure out their distributions and their progress.

TV5
Before TV5, it was known as the Association Broadcasting Company or ABC back in 1960. A fine and well-made success had improved of the station since 1994. ABC was known to show many local programs, foreign shows and cartoons. One of the success in that station was the popular Sailor Moon franchise which ran about late 90's to 2002. Then in 1996, Wow Mali was created and it is still considered as the longest running comedy show in the Philippines including it's successors and alternate versions: Wow Maling Mali (2003), Wow Mali Bytes (2005) and Wow Mali Express (2008). In 2003, ABC made it's renovation including the broadcast of Philippine Basketball Association or PBA and WWE.

In August 2008, the name ABC was changed into TV5. The changed was showed by it's final sign-off featuring previous local programs that ABC succeed. After the sign-off, a timer countdown was showed until TV5 was launched one day later. A lot of fresh and new programs are shown in this station. TV5 operates 24 hours a day provided with the music-video show All Hot Music.

At first I wonder myself when it comes to available children's shows, I jump into TV5 first. Well for one thing, TV5 put up many schedules mostly for children and teens. Some shows from Nick on TV5 (previously Nick on ABC), and new anime shows success them. Not only for children, many new-local programs are also available too like Lokomoko (formerly Wow Mali), Ogags, Shock Attack, etc. At the early months since the launch of the new station, TV5 became the third station to received higher ratings from the AGB Nielsen survey. TV5 turned into good-start moment in televisions today.

Net-25
Launched in February 1999, Net-25 is owned by Eagle Broadcasting Network which contains local and foreign programs though not as much as Studio 23 or QTV have. That network is best known for for having detailed coverage of EDSA III and receive seven Anak TV Seal Awards in 2002. It also air shows about information technology like Conevrgence which considred as the number one I.T. show in the Philippines.

Net-25 also aired few television programs for children mostly from PBS like Zooboomafoo, Between the Lions and Lil' Horrors. They also aired Cyber Dodo which is the 5-minute animated show that features a "dodo" as a main character and promotes how to save the environment from extinction. Currently, the network aired a children's show made from Japan which airs every Saturday mornings.


UNTV 37
(reads the article in Wikipedia)
It doesn't really mean that there is no children's programming there. UNTV 37 is a 24-hour operating network that provides shows for public service like Checkpoint and D'X-Man. I guess Ang Dating Daan returns it's company which made UNTV 37 into a top-notch show. There is only one religion show (and current) that fits for children, The KNC Show or "Kawad ng Cordero".

UniversiTV
This network was dedicated and operated by the college and university students back in 2006. UniversiTV was first started as a free-network. There are few good shows that air which the hosts are the students like the Chopsuey segments, Kabataan News Network, U-Turn and others. In April 2008, UniversiTV moved as a cable TV network. No wonder why they decided to turn the network in cable TV, then?

ACQ-Kingdom Broadcasting Network
It is a channel mostly promote religious programs via broadcast, satellite or cable. ACQ is under the name "Sonshine Media Network International". Since it's released in year 2003, ACQ produced religion-theme programs under the supervision of Kingdoms Programs which includes Tagalog and English. Like in UNTV 37 there are also religion-theme children's programs like Batang Kaharian and the special program Christmas from the Heart.

I guess that's all. If I have any networks that I never wrap here you can search others in Wikipedia. In the meantime, airing foreign or local children shows seems to be minimized or shown for the sake of the ratings. But then, they really progress the prime time or scheduled block for showing children and teen programs. There are lot of network stations which usually lined-up a lot of cartoons like Cartoon Network, Disney and Nickelodeon. By observing and remembering the year's progress, it's like in the blink of the eye there's a part of something to be watch and later turned ourselves into nostalgic.

Rocko's Modern Life

It's very lucky to see a classic Nicktoon like Rocko's Modern Life. Premiered in 1993, Rocko's Modern Life is the fourth Nicktoon that air on Nickelodeon and created by Joe Murray. The show tells about the anthropomorphic wallaby named Rocko and his life around O-Town. Rocko's life does go into different situations and mishaps in living in the modern life in a cartoon way.

The plot centers or follows the life of Rocko from Australia and moved to America after graduated in high school. Together with his pet dog named Spunky, Rocko encounters different situations and various problems along the way. What else the solution without his big best friend Heffer Wolfe the cow and other characters who are Rocko's neighbors like Mr. and Mrs. Bighead, Filburt the turtle and others.

I started watch this series since few months ago in TV5 and I notice something about this show. The drawing style seems to be bent but with a feel too. There are also many parallel lines in building designs and also it's environment. According to the staff especially Joe Murray, they did those designs including the characters because it shows it's "twisted version in real life" in portraying the modern life in many people. As living in the fictional city in O-Town, Rocko is related to a person who lives in the city and also who encountered different problems around him. What really surprises me that each of their episodes there are some few adult-themes were present such as sexual innuendos, social commentaries and others that I could not explain. I guess the writers during those years of producing that cartoon were allowed to do them unlike today's Nicktoons. Maybe it was really intended for entertaining children and even adults who later enjoyed the show. Rocko's Modern Life maybe still reair on Nickelodeon Network but unlike before, some episodes we're re-edited just for the sake of the viewers. I've seen some character designs that portray gross humor but it shows to be funny. Some episodes like "Love Spanked" showed to be proven that Rocko is single that ended up with Heffer as his love partner in a game show. I thought it messages something wrong about that episode though but ended up to be a funny one. Another one is this video in Youtube which explains well... a message you will find out if you watch that one. In the old days,Nickelodeon allowed to show scenes that are potty or gross but later continued it's tradition to Ren and Stimpy which was another old Nicktoon.

I've been searching in the internet for Rocko's Modern Life fan sites or any fandom stuff like this one here and until there is a fansite dedicated to Joe Murray here. I guess many people probably quite or still recognize that classic Nicktoon show until Youtube suddenly showed up it's old clips. You can hear the old opening theme song here. As of this year, Rocko's Modern Life was chosen to set and release in DVD's in Amazon. com entitled "The Best of Rocko's Modern Life" which it has two DVD volumes available. Rocko's Modern Life is an awesome cartoon from Nickelodeon show, that is.