Snap: Why didn't ya draw an anvil? Don't you watch cartoons?
Rudy: Oh, is that what this is? A cartoon?
Snap: No, Rudy baby!
(Intro)
Well, they can't all be winners, unfortunately. ChalkZone is one of those shows that you forget about until someone out of the blue brings it up. Maybe talking about one of its holiday episodes, or something like that. You had fond memories with the show, so you decided to rewatch it, you know, if you could find it. And then you forget about it again for years until the cycle repeats anew.
To pull off the bandaid really, really quick, ChalkZone does not have a lot going for it. And that's a crying shame, because ChalkZone has a really good premise for a cartoon. ChalkZone follows Rudy Tutti-Fruitti, or whatever his name is, as he comes across magic chalk, that allows him to create a portal into a world made of nothing but chalk. Anything ever erased from a blackboard exists in "ChalkZone."
Now, from what I could tell, that premise might sound a little bit confusing to some of my viewers [Caption: Trust me, I have experience in concepts that seem simple, but some people have an extremely hard time understanding]. Maybe some of the younger viewers who didn't have shows like this. So...let me explain a little bit further. "Chalk" is this white drawing utensil that's basically a very powdery rock. Unlike a more practically writing device like say a pencil, chalk could really only be used on certain surfaces like a sidewalk or a blackboard. Oh, oh that's right. "Blackboards" were these things that used to be in schools, and they were obsolete about a few years before ChalkZone became a show, when they were replaced by smartboards. Yeah, and if you think that's confusing, some blackboards were actually green. Try explaining that one to me!
Okay, I get it, most people probably know what chalk is, but it's very hard to deny that the premise of ChalkZone loses a lot of its luster knowing how unused chalk is nowadays. It's basically an outdated artist tool. I'm sure that some artists use it, I know that kids use it on the playground, but chalk itself is a very temporary medium, and someone who actually wants to keep their drawings around will probably use something else. All it takes is a little bit of water like rain and your creation is gone. These are definitely minor nitpicks though, I'm sure that ChalkZone is an easy premise to understand. Unless of course, you're the creators of ChalkZone.
Alright, let me start by saying that ChalkZone actually has a very good premise for a cartoon. It's probably the thing that it's remembered the most fondly for. It sparks the imagination like a good cartoon premise should. It's filled with a world of possibilities. Could you imagine a world where every erased creation is forced to go? You could go in all sorts of directions with that. Charming like ChalkZone tries to go for, engaging, or, even sad. However, ChalkZone doesn't really put in any effort into working around the implications of its concept. And no, I'm not talking about this in an adult way like, "what about all the people who drew something obscene?"
Snap: Hey, and there's the old lady in the bathtub you drew last year!
Old Lady: Thanks a lot, kid. You've given me a wonderful life.
No. I'm thinking about it like this: in order to get to ChalkZone, Rudy has to draw a portal to get there, and he just draws these things...everywhere. Like, literally anywhere [Caption: This scene takes place at school during school hours]. In one episode, he does this in front of his entire class like it's nothing. Yeah, unlike most cartoon protagonists, Rudy isn't tasked with keeping ChalkZone a secret or anything. He's not Eliza Thornberry or Timmy Turner. But many, many conflicts are caused by real-world objects getting into ChalkZone or ChalkZone objects getting into the real world. Rudy comes across as really, really irresponsible for this. I get it, Rudy is a kid and all. But other cartoons with magical worlds can keep theirs a secret. I think that it should be simple for Rudy.
In ChalkZone, Rudy meets his creation, a superhero-type character called Snap. I call him a superhero-type character because he has no powers. He was erased earlier that morning on the school's blackboard [Caption: Despite this, he's got...like years' worth of Chalkzone knowledge right off the bat.]. This leads to the question: is this the only time ever 100% that Rudy drew his favorite character, on a chalkboard, despite having a chalkboard in his room? As far as I can tell, there aren't a million copies of Snap around, and I know for a fact, that artists like to draw their favorite creation again and again and again. It's incredibly hard for me to believe that this is the only time that Rudy has ever drawn Snap.
Maybe this is me thinking too hard about this, but you can only walk a few feet before you've hit another big problem like this. Like, when it comes down to actually explaining the show, they don't get their own details right; details that they had already established. In the episode where we meet the Two-Eyed Cyclops, Rudy explains that two years ago, he angered the guy. Two years ago apparently Rudy not only had the magic chalk already, but he had the same exact teacher in the same exact class.
(A caption reads: The pilot also mentions Rudy getting the chalk "two years ago" while having the same teacher. And looking no different. The pilot also starts "in media res"-i.e. the modern day, and then they flashback halfway through, which is...confusing for this type of episodic show. It just wasn't thought through.)
I understand this show was planned to air two years after its pilots were aired, but it was held back a grand total of four, but if you're watching from episode one to the next, without understanding this meta bit of information, it can really feel like ChalkZone changing its own backstory willy-nilly. And let's talk about that backstory, shall we?
Rudy gets the magic chalk because the teacher, who hates cartoons, just had this magic chalk just lying around! Don't know where the hell it was manufactured, why the teacher had it, or what would have happened when they had eventually used it. Oh, and can we talk about this teacher? His character trait, yes, his character trait, his only one, is yelling at Rudy for making cartoons and saying that cartoons will never get you anywhere in life. It's a cartoon and he's saying that cartoons are pointless, ha, ha, I get it, can we please move on and drop this joke already?
The concept of ChalkZone is a fantastic one, but this show is a perfect showcase of a concept that's almost...meaningless. Not only did they not really think of the implications, and quite honestly I'm not asking for much, but they don't really do anything interesting with this concept. And because the way they use their concept, it really hurt the show. Rudy can draw anything with his magic chalk, it's completely up to his imagination to how he gets out of any situation. This can make for a pretty good video game...
(Cut to a youtuber playing Scribblenauts: Unlimited)
Youtuber: Oh, I just aided in a kidnapping. Well, that's too bad...anyway, I need a flaming pegasus...*screams*
...but it does not make for a very good story. When Rudy can draw up anything he wants, he can get out of any situation with very little conflict. The only time conflict really does show up is when he loses the chalk, or the chalk becomes meaningless. Which uh, kinda gets away from the point of the show, doesn't it? I'm sorry, but it's hard to make a story with someone who has literal omnipotence interesting.
The show's not funny...either. I don't think that I laughed once? Honestly, half the time I don't think that it's even trying to be funny. Things just...kinda happen. They go to random places that feel very disjointed, like they're being made up as they go along. And here's the kicker: in one episode, the episode about futuristic stuff, they go to a place that has a bunch of futuristic devices that don't work. There, Penny says this line: she says "it makes sense that futuristic ideas that don't work would be there." She says that "good ideas never get erased." While Snap's uh..."Snap Back" did get the closest of me breaking a smile at this one, thinking about that line, I really have to facepalm. "Good ideas never get erased." Oh, okay! It's a good thing that your entire show takes place in a world of only ideas that were erased! See what I mean when this show doesn't really think anything through? Logic is very important when you're a writer. It allows you to connect these pieces together, and not litter implications everywhere. And ChalkZone has a terrible flow. Random, disjointed nonsense can work, but you still do need to think it through, at least to the point where you're not calling your own entire premise "a bad idea."
That episode is also a good showcase of how bad the humor is. They're being chased by a robot called Crainiac 3, who claims to be the top of the line, best robot ever. So Rudy draws Crainiac 4, getting Crainiac 3 frozen, and declared obsolete. And then Crainiac 4 starts chasing them like nothing happened. It-it-it's kinda like...the form of a joke, like, it knows what a joke looks like, but it's not remotely funny. Not even in like a Family Guy anti-humor kind of way.
The show boasts some really good voice actors, and that's another bit of tragedy with this one. I found the voice acting here, one of the worst aspects of the show. Rudy sounds way too much like Tommy Pickles. Bullnerd, is incomprehensible. Snap's voice is completely unfitting for his character, and yes, Snap is a "he." A lot of people think that Snap is a female, because the voice makes no sense for this kind of character, to the point where I actually misremembered Snap's voice, and I had to do a double take the first time I heard it going back. And then there's Penny. It's not so much the voice with her, but the character as a whole that's the problem. In the first episode, she just goes on and on about spiders, continually interrupting the episode. Like, Rudy's story, the actual interesting part of the episode. Relatively speaking, anyway. And yes, I say this as someone with Asperger's Syndrome who is prone to do literally the exact same thing; talk on and on about an inane topic that no one but me cares about. But I put in the ChalkZone DVD to watch a cartoon, not a mirror or read the Wikipedia article about spiders.
With all said and done though, there is one thing that is really good about the show. Not just good, but really good, one thing that I will defend, and that is the music.
Characters: Tasty, tasty! Mm, mm, good!
Tasty, taste, we're in the flavor neighborhood
Tasty, tasty! Here we come
I'm not just talking about the theme song either, which I still think is the second best of any Nicktoon. No, every single episode ends with a full-on musical number. They're no Class of 3000, but they're still something a little extra special and they're all really catchy. Some people didn't like them because they're not the most complex things in the world, they are children's songs after all, but honestly, they were my favorite part of the whole show. And if you didn't like them, it really wasn't any foul, since they only took a minute and they played when the rest of the episode was over. So if I wanted to be funny, I-I could say that my favorite part of each of the episodes was the ending. But, I-I don't have that much hostility towards ChalkZone.
I guess another thing that's kinda interesting is that a segment of ChalkZone doesn't have a standard length. Most cartoons will have their episodes in three segments of seven, two of eleven, or one in twenty-two to twenty-six minutes. While each episode of ChalkZone has three segments, [Caption: Some have three, some have two. It's usually three.] minus the music video, they can be any length they wanted to be. This is another good idea in theory: not every story is locked into a certain length. Some you need to throw in filler to hit an arbitrary timeline or even worse, cut down on needed plot threads.
But once again, ChalkZone proves that a good idea means nothing if you don't do anything interesting with it. If you wanna watch the idea of ChalkZone, I would recommend Stickin' Around, it's basically a better version of ChalkZone in every way, theme song notwithstanding. It's a master of that "random, kid-created world storytelling" that ChalkZone tried to make happen, and it really proves what you can do with this kind of thing. As for the actual show...look up the music videos and just, leave it at that.
Announcer: Next on Nickelodeon, it's-
(Shows clip of All Grown Up theme song)
(End Credits Theme: "Making Faces", an original ChalkZone song)