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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

"Kids Next Door" = Invisibles Babies?

  
 
XXII:X:II = XXX
03:57 / 27.12.03
I just did a search for this, and found nothing, so I'm going on the assumption that no one has ever covered this question. If it has, straighten me out. If this is better suited to the Comics forum, shift it. And a final qualification: I have no idea whether Cartoon Network makes it to the UK or anywhere outside of the US for that matter, so I apologize if this leaves anyone out in the cold.

So.

Every year Cartoon Network lets a bunch of what I guess are their apprentice animators pitch a short pilot for a series of their creation. They poll the viewers, and whichever is most popular gets picked up, usually to be added to the Cartoon Cartoon brand. That's how we come to have Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Courage the Cowardly Dog, and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. I may be forgetting some, but that may also be irrelevant.

The newest of these, I believe, is "Codename: Kids Next Door." If you've never seen the show, here is a link to the all-purpose KND homepage on CN's site.

Now. Look verrrry closely at these characters. Each are referred to by numbers. The leader, the bald one in the Oakleys who, by the way, speaks in a British accent? #1. The blonde kid in the orange hoodie? Oh yeah, he speaks in a Cockney accent and is full of piss. The black girl? Kicks ass, wears workout gear, voiced by Cree Summer (from "A Different World" and also voices on "Rugrats," "Tiny Toon Adventures" and countless others). The whole concept is that they're a clubhouse of kids who are international secret agents. One of their main foes are an aristocratic family who speaks in unison, and the whole thing reeks of classic spy series like The Avengers and the like. Beginning to sound familiar?

Yeah, I think we have another Matrix sitcheeation hyar.

Look, I grant you it is not a perfect knockoff; they're not going to reveal themselves that overtly. But it IS damn close. The two main characters who don't match up to the core Invisibles team would be the Asian girl and the fat kid in the aviator's hat. BUT I did just see an episode tonight where the Asian girl is dressed in a frilly dress the likes of which Ragged Robin might wear, and she acts more childish than the rest (a reference to her true chronological age?). One could also make the case for the fat kid's aviator hat being a G-rated stand-in for a wig, seeing as he never takes it off.

Anyone else seen this show and gotten that creepy feeling that an Invisibles cartoon has been made and Grant's not seeing a cent? Surely after people seemed to notice that Matrix was uncomfortably close to Vol. 1 of Invisibles, AOL Time Warner wouldn't be so crass as to try it again, would they? Or is that a silly question?

I suppose another angle to come at this would be to say that the Invisibles memes are spreading, and that KND will eventually serve as a step stool up into Invisibles. Perhaps there's even some truly subversive shit encoded into it that I'm not seeing (mind you, I don't have cable and I've only seen a handful of episodes). But nevertheless, someone wanna back me up on this, or am I flying solo?

VJB2
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
04:05 / 27.12.03
i saw this series and though of the invisibles immediately. however after watching a few episodes i wasnt down. then i realized that not only is the rich familly an enemy, but the "Older Kids" are apparently a huge threat as well.

Older Kids=Older Gods when Younger Kids=Invisibles?

who is to say.

i think grant needs to decide if he wants to see money for people "Ripping off his ideas" or if he wants to feel like a golden buddha because his meme is spreading...
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
05:37 / 27.12.03
Dude, I totally saw this other Invisibles rip off. There was this show K Street, right? And, like, the head character, was bald. And, here's the kicker, he actually exists! He was playing himself!

Grant in a James Carville Fiction Suit?

I THINK SO!!!!

God, that was snarky.

Anyway. I don't see the connections, and I've been staring at the fucking KND posters on trains for almost a year. I hate them for their Doug-esque posture. I hate them because they won and there was a much better cartoon in the running and because they won, I no longer even remember what that cartoon was, and meanwhile, there are threads devoted to KND. I think it maybe involved a robot and was very pretty to look at (but not I Was A Teenage Robot, which is on the air, and fun).

I don't know what KND had to do with Clone High's cancellation, but there IS a connection and I WILL FIND IT.
 
 
A
10:57 / 27.12.03
If this cartoon has borrowed stuff from the Invisibles, I doubt it's borrowed more than Morrison borrowed from Phillip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Terence Mckenna, etc, etc. It's aimed at 10-year-olds, or something, anyway, so I doubt you'll see too much in the way of sex magick, transvestite shamanism, or musings on the holographic nature of reality.

I say, if it is nicking stuff from the Invisibles, it almost certainly falls under the Loving Tribute/Spreading the Meme/Neat category.

The tone of this thread could probably just as easily have been "Holy fuck. there is a cartoon featuring 10-year-old versions of Boy, King Mob and Jack Frost. We. Are. Winning."
 
 
Tamayyurt
16:40 / 27.12.03
Oh yes, I've thought this from the first time I saw it on TV.
 
 
Jack Fear
17:28 / 27.12.03
So nobody thinks that, rather than the one ripping off the other, it's more likely that KND and INVISIBLES both draw from a common set of team-member archetypes (the mastermind; the gadget-freak; the flirt; the hothead; the silent, deadly one)?
 
 
Jack Fear
17:30 / 27.12.03
(substitute "magick" for "gadget" at will, BTW, keeping in mind Arthur C. Clarke's line about any sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from sorcery)
 
 
XXII:X:II = XXX
21:12 / 27.12.03
BB sneered: God, that was snarky.

Yes. It was.

BB: I hate them because they won and there was a much better cartoon in the running and because they won, I no longer even remember what that cartoon was

I'm not sure which one you mean. There was "Robot Jones," which also made it to series. The one from that year's competition that I wanted to win was the one that was a parody of Cap'n Crunch. That one was hysterical.

Adam counted: If this cartoon has borrowed stuff from the Invisibles, I doubt it's borrowed more than Morrison borrowed from Phillip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Terence Mckenna, etc, etc.

Look, we all know there's really not a lot you can do these days that's original, and there's a fine line between "homage" and "ripoff." I think my point is that there are at least three troublingly similar characters in a five character team, and whereas I think Grant would be happy if people sought out his influences, Cartoon Network would probably flat-out deny any connection whatsoever to Invisibles.

C.A.W.K. squawked: The tone of this thread could probably just as easily have been "Holy fuck. there is a cartoon featuring 10-year-old versions of Boy, King Mob and Jack Frost. We. Are. Winning."

I did try to include this angle in my original post. Perhaps my naturally suspicious nature inclines me towards the opinion that somehow, somewhere, somebody is getting fucked over.

Jack fears: it's more likely that KND and INVISIBLES both draw from a common set of team-member archetypes (the mastermind; the gadget-freak; the flirt; the hothead; the silent, deadly one)?

If it were just personalities we were speaking of, that would be one thing. We're talking down to appearance and even bloody accents. Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets/G-Force/Eagle Riders also have a five member team that go by numbers preceded by "G," the fat kid is the pilot, and so on. (And, in turn, Voltron has pretty much the same damn characters, so we can extend the analogy.) But once you get to specifics, it's not so easily dismissed as a product of Jungian psychology.

VJB2
 
 
Spatula Clarke
21:20 / 27.12.03
The blonde kid in the orange hoodie? Oh yeah, he speaks in a Cockney accent

We're talking down to appearance and even bloody accents.

You have actually read the comic, yeah? I must have missed the Cockney kid. Which issue was he in?
 
 
■
06:28 / 28.12.03
Yeah, the only cockney DC character is Constantine!. No... hang on...
[Quickly supresses a scouse gag.]
 
 
cusm
14:50 / 28.12.03
Right. Dane was Liverpool, wasn't he?

That's a completely differnt dialect than Cockney. There couldn't possibly be a connection.

Save that to Americans, its all fucking Cockney, even if a proper Brit can identify your birth place within 3 blocks just by your dialect.

Looks like the archetypes are definitely present, but its really hard to claim on who is drawing from what. Now, if the bald one ingests some funny drugs that transform anything he reads into cartoony virtual reality while the insect-like cousin of the Evil Rich Folks secreets mind control nanites from her tits, there might be something to go on here.
 
 
Jack Fear
15:27 / 28.12.03
That's leaving aside that Numbuh Four's actual accent is astonishingly poor, even for a comedy voice. Honestly, it makes Dick Van Dyke's cock-er-ney chim-er-ney sweep sound like Meryl Streep by comparison.

And I wouldn't say the guy is even trying to do Cockney,or Scouser, or Aussie. Numbuh Four's accent bounces inconsistently around the Anglophone world, never sounding like anything other than what it is: a California-raised journeyman working for AFTRA scale. Indeed, on the show Numbuh Four's given name is "Wallaby Beatles," so the obfuscation is doubtless intentional.

I think you're reaching, Vladimir, I honestly do. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a bad accent is just a bad accent.
 
 
Jack Fear
15:32 / 28.12.03
At the risk of making Vladimir's point, though, there are some elements to the show that he neglects to mention that show Codename: Kids Next Door to be a work of kindred spirits...

First off, the Kids Next Door we see in the show are just one cell in a worldwide network of operatives, in which each cell functions more-or-less-autonomously. They fight for freedom and choice--as opposed to their nemeses, Those Delightful Children From Down The Lane, they of the creepy hive-mind and unison voices, who are agents of conformity and control, and who obey a frightening, demonic figure they call "Father."

But that very conformity, and a certain lack of imagination, is also Those Delightful Children's greatest weakness: in a recent episode they used an age-altering ray to turn Numbuh One into an adult (he looked just like Moby, right down to the glasses--I larfed & larfed), but they could not overcome their conditioning, and ended up obeying him, as they would any adult.

That's no proof that there's a direct influence, of course, and in fact I doubt that there is: fiction has been playing with issues of freedom vs. authority since long before Grant Morrison came on the scene. It's just the zeitgeist, baby.
 
 
XXII:X:II = XXX
13:37 / 29.12.03
Cusm jismed: Right. Dane was Liverpool, wasn't he?
That's a completely differnt dialect than Cockney. There couldn't possibly be a connection.
Save that to Americans, its all fucking Cockney, even if a proper Brit can identify your birth place within 3 blocks just by your dialect.

Yes, of course, you're all right and so very very smart. Nevertheless, it is a more provincial accent than the standard Brit, BBC newsreader diction (which is not to say such regional pecularities are any less legitimate than that, just that the idea is a more working class commonality between Cockney and Liverpudlian, and to be honest, aside from those two dialects, I very much doubt I could identify any others by name, nor could most Yanks, if that).

I think we're all getting a bit too hung up on details on this issue, and I admit I could just as easily be accused of the same. I don't think we'll be able to prove conclusively one way or the other that KND ripped off Invisibles, just as we can't say for certain that Matrix did, either. In the end, it doesn't much matter to the likes of us; whether it does the job we would hope it does is far more important.

VJB2
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
13:44 / 29.12.03
Ro. Bot. Jones.

That was awesome. Thank you.
 
  
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