Funpak

Funpak is an animated anthology series produced by Nelvana, that aired on Ricochet and YTV in 2005. All 10 shorts were intended to be pilots for upcoming shows, and 3 of them (The Manly Bee, Rotting Hills and Sidekick, which aired on CTN Kids instead of Ricochet) actually did become full shows. It's usually compared to other similar shows such as Cartoon Network's What a Cartoon, and Nickelodeon's Oh Yeah! Cartoons.
Despite positive reception to the show and its idea, Funpak only lasted 13 episodes, as the series was intended to be little more than an experiment by Nelvana to see what ideas its animators could bring to TV.
The show got rebooted in 2023 on CTN Kids with 10 new segments.
== Segments ==
The series had 10 different short segments, all with 5 episodes each. These include (in premiere order):
* Gruesomestein's Monsters (created by Mark Ackland and Riccardo Durante) is the only short without a specific main character in every short. It's instead about various famous monsters, such as witches and yetis.
* Martini & Meatballs (created by Mike Csunyoscka) is a surrealist series of shorts featuring 2 dogs who speak entirely in gibberish and do random things.
* The Wild Wild Circus Company (created by Jean-Christian Knaff and Claude Micéli) is a very surreal 3d series about circus performers doing random things. Much like the previous one, all dialouge is gibberish.
* Coolman (created by John van Bruggen and Arna Selznick) is about the black-and-white life of the mute, boring Lester, who dreams of a much more exciting life as his suave beatnik alter-ego "Coolman".
* The Not-So-Superheroic Adventures of Sidekick (created by Todd Kauffman and Joey So) is about the misadventures of Eric Needles, the kid sidekick of now-vanished superhero Maxum Man, and his buddy Trevor Troublemeyer, two students at a school for superhero sidekicks. Eventually in 2010, the show would get picked up by YTV and CTN Kids (as opposed to Ricochet), with the name shortened to just Sidekick.
* Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme (created by Matt Ferguson) is a parody of old action cartoons, which follows the adventures of Harold Rosenbaum, who is an accountant who's employed to thwart and evil plot to destroy the city.
* Miracle Koala (created by Mark Cappello) is about a mute koala named Joe, and his partner-in-crime Nero, a penguin with an attitude problem, who escape from an animal testing facility and find themselves on the run as they try to find a way to Australia, while everyone else tries to capture them. This segment sometimes has really random bursts of reeeally fluid animation, which is always hilarious
* The 9th Life of Sherman Phelps (created by Todd Kauffman and Mark Thornton) is about a cat named Sherman, unaware that he's on his ninth and final life, who goes about his life happily with his buddy Ronald, oblivious to the fact that the ghosts of his previous eight lives constantly take over Ronald's body and try to kill him so that they can finally get into Cat Heaven. This is also the third show with no/gibberish dialouge (aside from the theme song). In 2024, it was announced that it had been picked up by CTN Kids for a full series, set to release sometime in the next few years. Also see Fraidy Cat, another anthology show segment (this time from Uncle Croc's Block), that shares extreme similarities with this segment.
* Rotting Hills (created by Glen Wyand) is about a cowardly kid named Clark McWeeble who moves with his family to the titular town Rotting Hills, a town populated entirely by zombies. In it he befriends a snarky zombie girl named Zoe (and her zombie dog Buddy) who shows Clark around the town, and they have adventures together. The show got picked up for a full series which started airing in 2007 on YTV and Ricochet.
* The Manly Bee (created by Steve Daye) is about an elderly retired bee-themed superhero of the same name, who is forced back into crimefighting again, despite his old age. Much like Rotting Hills above, this show also got picked up for a full series, which ALSO!!!!!!!!! started airing in 2007 on YTV and Ricochet.
There are also random shorter shorts not in series that play in-between the stuff you actually care about.
== Episodes ==
=== Episode 1 (February 5,2005) ===
* Gruesomestein's Monsters - "Home Sweet Home"
** Former child eating witch Witchy Wart Witchelson almost gets arrested, but runs away, decides to stop her child-eating habits, and moves to the suburbs in a new house made entirely of candy. However, this quickly backfires when children eat the house. She then rebuilds the house to be made of vegetables.
* Martini & Meatballs - "Avery's Game"
** Meatballs makes the statue of David out of scrap metal, and then a video game controller TAKES CONTROL OF METABALLS' STATUE AND BEGINS ATTACKING THE CITY, LEAVING THE MAYOR TO GIVE SQUIDWARD COMMUNITY SERVICE FOR THE DAMAGE HE CAUSED, EVEN THO SPONGEBOB AND PATRICK WERE IN HIS HOUSE THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME, AND WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING. GAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!! FUCK THIS EPISODE!!!!!!!! theres also an uncensored penis in this episode
* The Wild Wild Circus Company - "Off the Map"
** i literally JUST watched it and i have no idea what the fuck happened
* Coolman - "Deep Sea Blues"
** Lester overhears a woman say everyone needs a dog, so he decides to get one for himself. When he does, he seems to be allergic, so he gets a fish instead. He then has a Coolman daydream that involves him underwater in a submarine, seeing fish, but he gets too distracted, and accidentally overfeeds and kills the fish.
=== Episode 2 (February 12,2005) ===
* The Not-So-Superheroic Adventures of Sidekick - "Maximmobile"
** Eric and Trevor are snooping around Maxum Man's lair, when Trevor wants to drive in the Maximmobile in order to go somewhere "dope". Eric is hesitent at first, but eventually they go, and it turns out the place Trevor wanted to go to was a car wash, which shrinks and ruins the Maximmobile.
* Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme - "Audit of Evil"
** In the first chapter of this ongoing story, Harold Rosenbaum, who's just about to go on vacation, learns about a criminal organization trying to destroy the city.
* Miracle Koala - "Belt for Punishment"
** Joe and Nero get mistaken for wrestlers and get forced into the ring, and Nero gets his ass kicked by an actual wrestler after destroying his foot with a wrench.
* The 9th Life of Sherman Phelps - "Serenity Now"
** how tf am i supposed to describe these episodes they're all basically the same
=== Episode 3 ===
* Rotting Hills - "Clark's New Home"
** Clark and his family move to the titular town of Rotting Hills, which Clark, being a coward, is not happy about. Eventually, zombies come into their house, but they're nice :)
* The Manly Bee - "Return of Manly Bee"
** The titular elderly retired superhero The Manly Bee is forced out of retirement, in order to fight the evil Doc Zombie.
* Gruesomestein's Monsters - "Dr Heckyl and Mr. Jerk"
** A robber escapes onto a train after a heist, where he meets a very small guy named Dr. Heckyl, who becomes a giant monster who beats the shit out of him when the train goes through a tunnel.
* Martini & Meatballs - "Hiccups Begone"
** Martini and Meatballs get hungry, but they have no food in the fridge and no money to spend, so a worm suggests for them to play music on the street for money, but Meatballs gets the hiccups, and they have to find a way to get rid of his hiccups.
== Spin-offs and reboot ==
3 of the segments got turned into full shows, and the entire series got rebooted in 2023, which you can read more about here:
* The Manly Bee
* Rotting Hills
* Sidekick
* Funpak (2023)
== Broadcast ==
The show premiered on YTV in Canada on February 3,2005, and Ricochet in Cuboxia 2 days later on February 5. Reruns of the show never aired in Canada, but reruns have aired on Ricochet ever since it ended, and it has been shown on various other Cuboxian channels, such as CTN Kids from 2005 to 2006 (and again in 2023), Nickelodeon in 2006 and additionally Nicktoons in 2011, and Toonivision from 2017 to 2018. It also started airing on Adult Swim on March 11,2024. Segments have also been aired seperately on random channels in syndication. Internationally, several of the shorts were aired in the United States on Nicktoons via the Nicktoons Film Festival.
== Trivia ==