Rollbots: Awesomely geeky new kids' cartoon show
MCM sez, "The trailer for my new show, 'RollBots' is up, and I'm stupidly proud of it. It's about a race of spherical bots that race around a city in the sky, and mainly about a kid named Spin who has to cope with being the only bot without a tribe. Spin's a new recruit at the FCPD, and when he's not keeping the peace on the cross-town RMS, he's got to stop things like the crontab from messing up time, or cope with the Do Right Module gumming up the works. Among other things. It's aimed at kids, but I think it will have a certain appeal to BB readers ;) It's is going to air in February on the CW4Kids, and on YTV in Canada."
MCM is the guy who made the killer picture book about DRM and pigs, "Pig and the Box". Rollbots Teaser
the latest
latest episodes
Looks good, hope it's got some decent writing (that doesn't get edited to death, anyway). I think the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy has been my favorite thing in recent years to watch with the kids - though I've had to explain some of the Talking Heads and Dune references to them.
They also enjoyed Avatar, though I never really watched it with them.
I think Futurama had the right idea about geeky jokes - that it's OK to cram in as many as you can, so long as it doesn't detract from the experience for those who don't get it.
I sense some ReBoot in this... Mark Young did put in a few scripts on that show.
@DZYNZ: It's a bit different than ReBoot in that this is less overtly computer-based, and we actually riff off the modern internet world more than the nuts-and-bolts hardware world. But it's definitely got a similar vibe to be sure. That, and kung fu.
Oh, and Mark is a bloody genius writer. We were so lucky to get him on so many eps.
The tagline sounds like it's about to say "Robots in disguise"... and then it just peters out at "Rollbots".
Hopefully, it's better than this video makes it seem-- I don't think we need another "robot with arm cannon" cartoon anytime soon.
"I sense some ReBoot in this"
Not that there is anything wrong with that. I miss Hexidecimal...
This kinda looks like a line of toys and video games were designed before anyone thought of a script, plot or storyline
@Jonathan_V: That would've been so much easier, let me tell you. Actually, there's a very complex story arc that was developed first, and then we worked hard to make the rest of it fun to watch. That said, the toys ARE being done by Mattel. But it didn't start out imagined that way. I'm not that good of an artist.
I love what was done with the text in the trailer, the way it goes from Japanese to Engrish. Me like.
its like sonic meets megaman meets dragon booster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(character)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Man_(TV_series)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Booster
... When does the collectible toy/game line come out?
More spherical robots of yore in Terrahawks from '83: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hgHvOH9mJA
@duffong: Actually, that's not Japanese... it's Danuga, a language I made up for the show. It's pretty functional, too (if somewhat limited). Easily my favourite part of the show has been developing the evolution of the language/culture, showing how/when/why they developed new letters in their alphabet, and making various fonts to use around the city. I'm a bit obsessed with language, I admit.
@ghede: 2010, I hear :P
I don't think those are Japanese symbols...similar though. It looks like a made up language.
...and it looks AWESOME!!!!!!!
Danuga? They have their own functional language? I can't wait to see this!
Well, I have to ask; any girl bots? Anywhere close to half the characters? There's been a lot of analysis of how kids shows disappear girls by making the ratio of female characters one in five or so (or less) instead of half, as in the general population. Which would make me sad, because I love some robots and would hate for the girlgeeks to feel left out...again.
And please for Cthulu's sake, don't let any girl bots be pink....so tired of that crap.
@emjaybee: No worries, there's a good showing of female characters. [It was actually a big challenge to do, because when you're working with spherical robots, you can only do so much to visually communicate "girl"ness. We went through a mind-boggling number of techniques to get it right].
A bunch of the major characters are female (most notably Spin's best friend), and they're not just background noise, either. The leaders of the Zoboshi, Nisen and Zogensha tribes are all female, and competently so. And there are other good female characters (that I can't really talk about) that are vital to the story arc.
Besides, my daughters would kill me if I didn't have any cool girl-bots in the show. They do not tolerate failure or excuses!
I didn't think I was going to like that (I'm not optimistic by default of any weekly kid's program done in 3d CGI) but that looks funny and great. WELL DONE!!!
Looks like this is what you get when you combine Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man. :)