Entertainment
 

Aaahh!!! Real Monsters

From Nickelodeon

Aaahh Real Monsters
Image:Aaahh-Real-Monsters_logo.jpg
Genre {{{genre}}}
Created by Gabor Csupo Peter Gaffeny
Starring Charles Adler
Christine Cavanaugh
David Eccles
Gregg Berger
Country of origin Template:Flag
No. of episodes 52
Production
Running time 30 Minutes
Broadcast
Original channel Nickelodeon
Original run 29 October 1994 – 06 December 1997
Links
Official Site Nick.com
IMDb profile IMDb
TV.com summary TV.com summary

Aaahh!!! Real Monsters was an American animated television series about adolescent monsters in training, developed by Klasky Csupo for Nickelodeon. The show ran for four seasons on Nickelodeon and was rerun on NickToons Network until 2006.

The show focuses on three monsters in particular (Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm) who attend a school for monsters under a city dump and learn to frighten humans. Many of the episodes revolve around the monsters making it to the surface in order to perform "scares" as class assignments.

The show was fairly popular in its time, though it never quite reached the level of popularity attained by various other Nickelodeon shows such as Rugrats, or The Ren and Stimpy Show for example.

Contents

[edit] Characters

Ickis
Ickis is the son of the legendary monster Slickis, a fact that has left him with a bit of an inferiority complex. He is short and magenta, with long ears and big feet. Because of this, his scares often fail when he is mistaken for a rabbit. However, Ickis has the ability to inflate himself to an enormous size when he needs to.
Krumm
Like the rest of his family, Krumm's eyeballs are not attached to his body. Thus, he is usually seen carrying them in his hands, though if he requires the use of both hands, he can carry his eyes delicately in his mouth. His most valuable tool in scaring is his overwhelming armpit stench.
Oblina
Oblina comes from a wealthy monster family, and is considered to be The Gromble's best student. She is shaped like a black and white candy cane, with a pair of big, red, removable lips. One of her favorite methods of scaring humans is reaching within herself and pulling out her internal organs.
The Gromble
The Gromble is the intimidating headmaster of the monster school, who demonstrates his tough love by belittling his students for poor scares. He is a tall, green-gray monster with two tufts of head hair, a beard and a tail, who wears a belt and a red pump on each of his four feet. In a controversial move in the first episode, The Gromble can be seen eating one of his students in one bite (although he spits him out after chewing him up). The Gromble's voice and appearance resemble those of the Chief of the Blue Meanies in Yellow Submarine.
The Snorch
The Snorch is a large and unintelligible monster who performs punishments on students who break the rules. Some of the punishments that The Snorch has handed out are square dancing and listening to human music.
Zimbo
Zimbo is a monster who resembles a bee with one mammalian leg and a humanoid face with green hair. Because of his small size and flying ability, he works as a spy for The Gromble, reporting any unruly behavior by the other monsters. Also, he's the only one who understands the Snorch's speech.
Simon
Simon is an egotistical monster hunter who has dedicated his life to capturing monsters, particularly Ickis, and proving their existence to the world. His character is similar to that of Mr. Crocker from The Fairly Odd Parents with some differences: Mr. Crocker is employed as a teacher and Simon does not appear to have a job of any kind.
Slickis
Slickis is Ickis' famous dad. He is featured mainly in the episode Chip off the Old Beast. We find out some of the reasons he is famous in the "History of the Monster World." Ickis is always under stress to live up to his accomplishments, until he showed him that even he had a rough time in school.
Horvak
Horvak is Krumm's father and thus, not only looks like Krumm but also carries his eyes in his hands. He lost one, literally, at the Battle of Lexington, when a minuteman mistook it for a bullet and used to fire the first shot of the American Revolution. As such, he wears a black glove on that hand. He began working as a mold-farmer after flunking out of Monster Academy, although Krumm believes he dropped out willingly. Carrier of a family curse called "The Curse of the Krumm" which causes those affected to lose their horrendous stench.
Mama Gromble
Mama Gromble is the Gromble's mother.
Sublima
Sublima is Oblina's mother. Oblina calls her "mumsy" but Sublima usually makes Oblina call her "mumsy dearest", a pop culture reference to American actress Joan Crawford. Sublima does not like scaring and wants Oblina to leave the academy to learn how to take care of the family fortune.
Skeetch
Skeetch is Oblina's father. He is skinny just like her and is the nicer one of her parents. He is proud of Oblina, whom he calls "Stripes". While Ickis and Krumm's fathers look identical to them, Oblina takes traits from both her parents (Her mother's black and white strips coloration, eyes and lips, and her father's stick-like body). This may be a hint as to how each monster has his own unique look.

[edit] Episodes

→ Main article: List of Aaahh!!! Real Monsters episodes.

[edit] Monsters vs. Humans

Monsters are different than humans in many ways. These are just a few of them.

  • Monsters have to fill their breathing sacs to survive above ground. Evidently they can also take them out of their bodies.
  • Monsters have an unusual way of reproducing. A male and female monster have to touch fingertips and the female creates a blob (sort of like a living egg with a face that loves to eat). After a while, the blob hatches to form a bonsty (a baby monster).
  • Monsters shed their skin every year at the Festival of the Festering Moon. The monster who sheds last becomes an adult on this special night.
  • Lava lamps hypnotize monsters.
  • Monsters use toenails as money.
  • Monsters must scare to survive. If they don't, the Pool of Elders starts to go down, and the monsters start disappearing.
  • Monsters can spontaneously combust.
  • Perfume is toxic to monsters.
  • Monsters have a program called Hooked on Phobics (playing on Hooked on Phonics) that teaches them how to scare using humans' phobias.
  • Monsters have a much longer life span than humans, and about ten years for a human is equal to one for a monster. (100 for a human is 10 for a Monster)

[edit] Monster Holidays

Monsters have many holidays that are different than humans, and some the same.

  • Halloween- the same, except in a monster version (scaring humans instead of getting candy, even though Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm eat candy in the first episode when they trick or treat)
  • The Great Wave- not really a holiday, but an event. It's when all the toilets flush at the same time during halftime at the Super Bowl and the monsters have a big surfing competition.
  • Monster Mischief Day- like April Fool's Day.
  • Festival of the Festering Moon- when Monsters shed their skin and have a ceremony above ground. The last one to shed becomes an adult.
  • Monster Olympics (also called Scaring Olympics)- like the Olympics, where the monster schools compete in different events, usually involving scaring.

[edit] Monster Vocabulary

Monsters use some different words than humans.

  • Cool- grool
  • Crush(love)- squish
  • Dog- bark and bite
  • Lava lamp- The Lamp
  • Having your picture taken- being flashed
  • A photograph- flash paper
  • Hiccups- nolox or hiccoughs (literally pronounced hic-COUGH)
  • Baby monster- bonsty or blob

Also, everything is opposite in monster terms, so ugly and hideous are like pretty and handsome to humans. Disgusting is like delicious to humans.

[edit] Showtimes

From October 1994 to around 2000, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters was on Nickelodeon. Then in 2002 it started airing on Nicktoons TV. In 2006 it was taken off of Nicktoons Network (formerly known as Nicktoons TV) and now is shown occasionally on Sundays on Nickelodeon's "Nick Rewind." It often appears on Nick.com's Turbonick, an online programming broadcast.

In the UK, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters still airs on Nicktoons every night at 9:30pm. *Still airing as of June 2007

[edit] Airing History

[edit] Video game

→ Main article: Aaahh!!! Real Monsters (video game).

A video game based on the TV series was released for the Super NES and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis by Majesco in 1995 . Ickis also appeared in Nicktoons Racing for the PlayStation, PC and Game Boy Advance (He was missing in the Game Boy Color version). The GBA version would end up being the last Real Monsters and Ren & Stimpy games.

The characters were also created in full 3D for Microsoft's Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker

[edit] Controversy

  • Episodes 1-04 (Monstrous Makeover / A Wing and a Scare) and 4-06 (Nuclear and Present Danger / Loch Ness Mess) have been removed from being shown on US TV and were missed during Nicktoon TV's looped reruns. Reasons for the removal remain unclear. However both these episodes still air on the British version of Nicktoons TV.
  • In one episode, The Gromble is seen chewing up one of his own students.

[edit] Trivia

  • Unlike the vast majority of animated productions, the three principal voice-over actors (Charles Adler, Christine Cavanaugh and David Eccles) recorded their lines together in the same studio. In a Nickelodeon interview they claimed that this greatly helped their characterizations as it allowed them to play off of each other more smoothly.
  • In the episode of Rugrats, "Ghost Story", Ickis, Krumm, and Oblina make a cameo.
  • In the episode of Rugrats where Chuckie gets a bed, David Eccles provides the voice of the monster under the bed.

[edit] Merchandising

While Aaahh!!! Real Monsters was still on the air it had a set of toys made by Mattel. It also had a set of trading cards made by Fleer, as well as books, plush toys and videos.

[edit] DVD release

As of June 2007, select episodes of Aaahh!!! Real Monsters have only appeared on VHS but not DVD. Fans have created a petition to have it released on DVD.[1] According to TVShowsOnDVD.com, it is in the top 100 most requested unreleased shows. It can Obtained by purchasing it on a Illegal DVD on Ebay or it can bee illegaly downloaded. 

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[edit] External links





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