The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

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The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy
BillyAndMandy.png
Genre
  • Comedy
  • Animation
  • Fantasy
[1]
Created by Maxwell Atoms
Written by
Directed by
Voices of
Composer(s)
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 7
No. of episodes 139 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) Maxwell Atoms
Producer(s) Louis J. Chuck
Running time 22 minutes
Production company(s) Cartoon Network Studios
Hanna-Barbera Productions (pilot episode, 1999)
Release
Original network Cartoon Network
Original release June 13, 2003 (2003-06-13) –
October 12, 2008 (2008-10-12)
Chronology
Preceded by
Related shows Evil Con Carne
External links
Website

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (also known as Billy & Mandy) is an American animated television series created by Maxwell Atoms for Cartoon Network, and the 14th of the network's Cartoon Cartoons. It follows two children named Billy — a slow-witted boy — and Mandy — the cynical best friend — who, after winning a limbo game to save Billy's pet hamster, gain the mighty Grim Reaper as their best friend in eternal servitude and slavery.

Billy & Mandy was a spin-off of Grim & Evil, along with Evil Con Carne. The show ran from June 13, 2003 to November 9, 2007, but a spin-off film titled Underfist: Halloween Bash aired on October 12, 2008. In addition to the episodes, three movies, two special episodes, and nineteen shorts were made, with 3 award wins for the series as a whole. Billy & Mandy has also been made into a video game as well as various licensed merchandise.

Premise

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Main article: List of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy characters
The show's main characters. From left to right: Billy, Mandy and Grim.

The series is centered around the exploits of Billy (voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz), a dimwitted, happy-go-lucky boy; Mandy (Grey DeLisle), a cynical, cunning and merciless girl around Billy's age who loves absolute power and hates everything and Grim (Greg Eagles), the Grim Reaper who is often tormented by the duo. After cheating at a limbo match against Grim (out of retaliation for putting the limbo rod too low for them to go under), he is enslaved in a perpetual, unwanted friendship with the children.[2] Grim is miserable in the first days of his servitude, and even fantasizes of killing them multiple times. However, as the time passes, he gradually adapts to the new life, and even grows to care for Billy and Mandy somewhat. Despite this, he retains a love-hate relationship with the two and desires that he will eventually break free from his servitude.

Billy and Mandy use Grim's supernatural abilities and powers to venture into supernatural locations or environments, such as the underworld, inhabited by an assortment of grotesque monstrous beasts. The pair also may use Grim's enormously strong supernatural abilities or ties with a number of beastly characters to achieve goals or desires for themselves, often with twisted results. Famed fictional monsters including Dracula, the Wolfman, and the bogeyman are also comically depicted in the series.

Supporting characters include Irwin (Vanessa Marshall), a nerdy, awkward boy who has a crush on Mandy; Harold (Richard Steven Horvitz), Billy's father who is even dumber than his son; Gladys (Jennifer Hale), Billy's loving yet mentally unstable mother; Mindy (Rachael MacFarlane), the snobby, stuck-up, and spoiled queen bee of Billy and Mandy's school; Sperg (Greg Eagles), the local bully who has a sensitive side; Fred Fredburger (C.H. Greenblatt), a simple-minded, irritating underworld creature who loves frozen yogurt and nachos; Dracula (Phil LaMarr), a selfish elderly vampire;

The show lacks continuity for the most part, as many episodes end with characters killed, exiled, or stuck in a situation. Characters sometimes display an awareness of some events from previous episodes, but there are no clear character arcs or coherent plot lines tying the show together.

History

Billy and Mandy started out as a short made by Maxwell Atoms during school. In the short, Billy was trying to drill his head to free the evils from within. The short has never been shown publicly.[3] The show's existence is the result of a viewer poll event by way of telephone and the Internet called Cartoon Network's Big Pick which was held from June 16 to August 25, 2000.[4] The three final choices were The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? and Longhair and Doubledome.[4] Out of the three, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy attained the most votes with 57%; Robot Jones came in second place at 23% while Longhair and Doubledome received 20% of the vote.[4][5]

Originally part of Grim & Evil, Billy & Mandy served as the main show. In each episode, an Evil Con Carne short was put between two Grim shorts.[4] On occasion, it was the other way around, with two Evil shorts and one Grim short. The series premiered on August 24, 2001, during the Cartoon Cartoon Fridays Big Pick Weekend.

On June 13, 2003, the network separated the two and gave each their own full-length program. The short-lived Evil Con Carne show was cancelled once the already-produced season had aired. Some characters from Evil Con Carne occasionally appeared on The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. General Skarr would become a permanent recurring character by moving next door to Billy. And in one episode Major Doctor, Hector, Bozkov and Stomach tried convincing Skarr into coming back to the team but once he finally did go back his plans were foiled by Billy.

Episodes

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Main article: List of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episodes
Season Episodes Originally aired
Season premiere Season finale
Grim & Evil 13 August 24, 2001 (2001-08-24) October 18, 2002 (2002-10-18)
1 10 June 13, 2003 (2003-06-13) October 31, 2003 (2003-10-31)
2 8 June 11, 2004 (2004-06-11) July 30, 2004 (2004-07-30)
3 13 October 1, 2004 (2004-10-01) June 10, 2005 (2005-06-10)
4 14 June 17, 2005 (2005-06-17) December 2, 2005 (2005-12-02)
5 13 January 6, 2006 (2006-01-06) August 9, 2006 (2006-08-09)
6 11 October 6, 2006 (2006-10-06) November 9, 2007 (2007-11-09)
Movies 3 March 30, 2007 (2007-03-30) October 12, 2008 (2008-10-12)
Special 1 November 11, 2007 (2007-11-11)

Reception

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy became one of Cartoon Network's top rated series. Commonsense media gave the show a 3/5 star rating and stated that it has "Goofy punchlines and obscure cultural references" and recommends the viewer age be at least 8 years old.[6] The series has won one Annie Award, two Emmy Awards and including those three wins, has been nominated a total of nine times for various awards.

Awards and nominations

Year Award Category Nominee(s) Result
2002 Golden Reel Awards Best Sound Editing in Television Animation[7] Glenn Oyabe, Jesse Aruda, and Rob Desales
for "The Smell of Vengeance: Pt. 1 & 2/Fiend is Like Friend Without the "R""		 Nominated
2003

2004

 Best Sound Editing in Television Animation – Music[7] Glenn Oyabe
for "Little Rock Of Horror/The Pie Who Loved Me/Dream a Little Dream/Billy and Mandy's Jacked-Up Halloween/Billy and Mandy's Thanksgiving"		 Nominated
2005 Best Sound Editing in Television Animation[7] Glenn Oyabe, Jesse Aruda, Erik Sequeira, and Cecil Broughton
for "Super Zero/Sickly Sweet"		 Nominated
Annie Awards Directing in an Animated Television Production[8] Brian Sheesley
for "Nursery Crimes"		 Nominated
Shaun Cashman and Phil Cummings
for "Attack of the Clowns"		 Won
2006 Annie Awards Directing in an Animated Television Production[9] Shaun Cashman
for "Hill Billy"		 Nominated
Emmy Awards Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation[10] Michael Diederich Won
2007 Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation[11] Phil Rynda
for Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure		 Won
Daytime Emmy Awards Broadband-Children's[12] The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy Nominated

Media

TV movies

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Main articles: Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure and Underfist: Halloween Bash

Three TV movies were made for the series. The first one was called Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure and was released on DVD in April, 2007.[13] Commonsense media gave the movie 2/5 stars and is meant for kids over the age of 8 calling it "Undeniably gross and just as undeniably funny".[14] DVDverdict.com gave the movie a good review as well.[15]

A second movie, Wrath of the Spider Queen was also released in 2007. It was based on a spider queen from Grim's distant past, who tries to take revenge on Grim, because she was meant to be the reaper. Meanwhile, keeping up with the spider theme, Billy learns to love his spider son Jeff.[16]

On October 12, 2008, a third and final spin-off movie titled Underfist: Halloween Bash, premiered. The movie's primary focus is on Irwin, Jeff the Spider, Hoss Delgado, General Skarr, and Fred Fredburger accidentally coming together to defeat an invasion of chocolate bar monsters, led by an evil marshmallow bunny, on Halloween night. Billy, Mandy and Grim Reaper always go in other Cartoon Network shows for charity.[17]

Music

The score composers for the series are Gregory Hinde and Drew Neumann and Guy Moon.[18][19][20] In addition two songs were made for the show by Voltaire, the episode Little Rock of Horror, which parodies the musical Little Shop of Horrors, features a song titled "BRAINS!"[21][22] and, in Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure, the song "Land of the Dead" is played in the opening credits.[23] Both songs are a part of the album Spooky Songs For Creepy Kids.[21] The season two episode "Battle of the Bands" also featured the song "Darkness" by metal band SPF 1000. There was also an instance at the end of the Christmas special entitled "Billy & Mandy Save Christmas", where the end credits music is the song Round and Round by heavy metal band, Ratt.

Video game

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Main article: The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (video game)

A video game inspired by the series based on the movie Billy & Mandy was developed by Midway Games, and released on October 2, 2006,[24] and is a 3D fighting game inspired by the show based on the movie. The video game received fair to good reviews: GameSpot gave it a 6.6/10 by Greg Mueller, he goes on to say that while it is fun for the "first few hours" and has "Fast-paced gameplay" the game action "gets old quickly" and has a very short story mode.[25] IGN gave the game a good score of 7.2/10 highlighting its presentation and appeal.[26] Metacritic gave the game a rating of 61/100 based on 10 critic reviews.[27]

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy - Metacritic.com
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  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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