What if the Gumazing Gum Girl debuted in the 1960s/Rico: The Curse of the Were-Ninja

Rico: The Curse of the Were-Ninja is a 2004 American direct-to-video animated comedy film based on the comic series, The Gumazing Gum Girl!. In this film, Franken-Gum-Wad devises a plan to discredit Dr. Gomez, steal the secret formula and take over the world by stealing Stage Mom's tiara and framing Dr. Gomez for the crime. Gum Girl, Rico, Ninja-Rina, and Natalie team up to retrieve the tiara from Goo City to save Dr. Gomez from Neptune's wrath and the world from Franken-Gum-Wad's rule.
== Plot ==
A group of pirates find tickets to the Rico Gomez movie in a treasure chest and enter a theater to watch the film after raiding the concession stand.
The movie begins with Rico having nightmares of meeting the Were-Ninja, leading to him wake up screaming in fear. Gabby and Dr. Gomez conclude that Rico's been watching too many horror films at night. Rico says that it is because their new neighbor creeps him out and speculates that he is hiding something. Ninja-Rina is having trouble with Natalie and will not go to the principal for help. However, Gabby sticks up for him. Meanwhile, Franken-Gum-Wad, complains about his failures to her computer, being unable to steal the Secret Formula. When her computer points out plan "Z", a scheme which she has yet to attempt, Franken-Gum-Wad decides to implement it.
That night, Gabby drowns her sorrows in ice cream with her brother, Rico. Elsewhere, Franken-Gum-Wad steals Stage Mom's crown, leaving false evidence to frame Dr. Gomez for the crime, and sends the crown to the distant land of Goo City. The next morning, Dr. Gomez barges into the Fillmore School 2 and threatens Dr. Gomez for his alleged thievery. Gum Girl and Rico arrive and chastises Dr. Gomez under the influence of an ice cream headache, but seeing her father's life at risk shocks Gum Girl back to her senses and he promises Stage Mom that she will retrieve the crown from Goo City. Neptune is convinced by his daughter Mindy to spare Dr. Gomez for the time being and freezes him instead, ordering Gum Girl and Rico to return with the crown in six days. Soon after Gum Girl, Rico, Natalie, and Ninja-Rina leave for Goo City, Franken-Gum-Wad steals the formula and uses it to produce and sell food at his castle. He also gives away free "Franken-Gum-Wad Helmets" to customers, which are actually mind-control devices that Franken-Gum-Wad activates to control Fillmore's residents and take over the city.
As their journey continues, when the gang reach a dangerous, monster-filled trench, Ninja-Rina transforms into the werewolf. Coming to the conclusion that they cannot complete their quest due to their immaturity, they tearfully give up. Mindy however, arrives at the trench and tells the gang of Franken-Gum-Wad's plan. She pretends to magically turn them into men by giving them Gum Girl costumes, except for Gum Girl. With their confidence boosted, they brave the trench ("Now That We're Gum") but are confronted by Dennis, a hitman. Dennis is stepped on by a friendly Cyclops, who leads them to his toy store, revealed to be Goo City.
In the store, the gang find the crown, but are frozen by the thief and die. Their tears short circuit the store, reviving them and the toys intended to be sold as the children's toys. As the vengeful toys attack and overwhelm the thief, the gang take the crown and head for the beach, where David Hasselhoff appears and offers them a ride. He swims from the beach to Fillmore carrying them on his back. Dennis catches up to them but is knocked by a catamaran back into the sea.
At the Fillmore School 2, King Neptune arrives to execute Dr. Gomez, but the gang return with the crown just before he is able to do so. They confront Franken-Gum-Wad, who drops a mind-control bucket on Neptune, enslaving him. Before Franken-Gum-Wad can direct Neptune to kill them, Gum Girl and Rico accept their childlike nature and hires the very powerful toy robot named Iron Tin to burst into a song called "Iron Tin" (a parody of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man"). He shoots lasers from his guitar, destroying the mind-controlling helmets and freeing Neptune and Fillmore's residents from Franken Gum Wad's rule. Franken-Gum-Wad tries to escape, but is stepped on and crushed by other citizens. Franken-Gum-Wad is arrested and Neptune thanks Gum Girl and Rico for his bravery. Neptune thaws out Dr. Gomez, and Ninja-Rina turns back to a normal human. After that, Mr. Hansen and Dr. Gomez thanks Gum Girl and Rico too.
In a post-credits scene, the pirates which have been watching the film are told by an usher to leave the theater, which they begrudgingly do.
== Cast ==
* Audrey Wasilewski as Rico Gomez
* Janice Kawaye as Gabby Gomez/Gum Girl and Franken-Gum-Wad
* Mila Kunis as Ninja-Rina
* Cree Summer as Natalie Gooch
* Tim Conway as Dr. Gomez
* Moira Quirk as Mrs. Gomez
* Matthew Lillard as Mr. Hansen
* Jeffrey Tambor as King Neptune
* Scarlett Johansson as Princess Mindy
* Alec Baldwin as Dennis
* David Hasselhoff as himself
* Stephen Root as Computer
* Frank Welker as Ravi Rodriguez
* Carlos Alazraqui as King Neptune's squire
* Neil Ross as the Cyclops
* Chris Sanders as the voice of the Parrot
* Kristopher Logan as Squinty the Pirate
* D.P. FitzGerald as Bonesy the Pirate
* Cole McKay as Scruffy the Pirate
* Dylan Haggerty as Stitches the Pirate
* Bart McCarthy as Captain Bart the Pirate
* Henry Kingi as Inky the Pirate
* Michael Patrick Bell as Fisherman
* Mageina Tovah as Usher
== Production ==
=== Development ===
In September 2003, Jules Engel died. Chris Sanders dedicated the film to him: "He truly was the most influential artistic person in my life. I consider him my 'Art Dad.'" 
=== Casting ===
The film stars the What's New Gumazing Gum Girl series' main cast members. It also features Carlos Alazraqui as King Neptune's squire and Neil Ross as the Cyclops. In addition to the series' cast, it was reported on March 23, 2004 that Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Tambor, Alec Baldwin, James Earl Jones, Bill Murray, Kevin Pollak, Don Novello, Keith Carradine, Ted Danson, Kathy Najimy, Barry Pepper, Paul Winfield, Bob Hoskins and Robert Keeshan would play new characters Princess Mindy, King Neptune, Dennis, Mr. Marlon (deleted scene), Ralph (deleted scene), Danny (deleted scene), Jim (deleted scene), Robert (deleted scene) Mr. David (deleted scene), Miss Betty (deleted scene), Ken (deleted scene), Phil the Pirate (deleted scene), Jake the Pirate (deleted scene) and Charles(deleted scene), respectively, and David Hasselhoff would appear as himself. 
Johansson accepted the role because she likes cartoons and was a fan of The Ren & Stimpy Show. When Jeffrey Tambor signed for his voice cameo, he saw his character (King Neptune) and joked, "This is me." He remembered the first cartoon he saw, Bambi: "My first cartoon, I had to be carried out crying... It was Bambi. It's like the great American wound: the death of Bambi's mother. 'Run, Bambi, run!'" Another guest voice was Alec Baldwin; Chris Sanders said that the actor recorded his character Dennis on a "phone": "I wouldn't say that about his performance. He might be mad if we said that. Technically, it was like he was in another booth in the studio." 
Baywatch and Knight Rider star David Hasselhoff accepted the role when his daughters, Taylor-Ann and Hayley, urged him: "I got an offer to do a cameo in this Rico and I turned to my girls, who were like 16 and 14, and I said, 'Who's Rico?' and they said, 'Oh my God, Dad, it's the number one cartoon in the world, you gotta do it.'" Hasselhoff enjoyed his cameo: "It was great fun and to this day around the world kids stop me and say, 'Are you David Hasselhoff?' because I was the only human in the picture." Hasselhoff said that the film gained him new fans: "It's amazing - so many of the kids were so young and didn't see Baywatch and Knight Rider so I got a whole new legion of fans." 
=== Animation ===
There were a number of stages involved in the making of the film, beginning with a rough animation process of ideas drawn on Post-it notes. The writers drew, working from rough outlines rather than scripts (which made the humor more visual than verbal). The storyboard artists, including Sherm Cohen, then illustrated ideas conceived by the writers. In the series Tom Yasumi and Andrew Overtoom do the animatics, but director Sanders and writer Derek Drymon did the animatics for the film. Yasumi and Overtoom were the film's animation-timing directors, concentrating on the sheets. Rico: The Curse of the Franken-Gum-Wad was animated at Rough Draft Studios in South Korea. The animators worked semi-digitally; pencil-drawn poses would be composited into layouts in Photoshop. 
Series writer and storyboard artist Erik Wiese left the television show for a year to work on Samurai Jack and Danny Phantom, but returned to do storyboards and character layout for the film. He "always wanted to be a feature animator, and the movie felt like I was on the character animation end", describing the experience as "a blast—it felt like coming home." 
Sanders enjoyed the process of making the film: "The TV schedule is tight, and you don't always have a lot of time to work on your drawings." He appreciated the film's hand-drawn animation: "I think the movie's drawings are much superior than the TV show", although CGI animation was flourishing at the time of the film's release. "There's a lot of talk about 2-D being dead, and I hope people don't think that. Even Brad Bird is a proponent of 2-D. He would agree with me that it's all about what you're trying to say. There are many ways to tell a story, and what's unique about animation is that there are many styles with which to tell a story." The clay animation scenes were shot by Mark Caballero, Seamus Walsh and Chris Finnegan at Screen Novelties in Los Angeles. 
=== Filming ===
The ship used during the 30-second opening featuring the pirates singing the theme song was the Bounty, a 180-foot (55 m)-long, enlarged reconstruction of the 1787 Royal Navy sailing ship HMS Bounty built for 1962's Mutiny on the Bounty. The ship appeared in a number of other films, including Treasure Island (1999), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007). In film trailers, live-action scenes were taken from Das Boot (1981), The Hunt for Red October (1990) and U-571 (2000). 
=== Deleted scenes ===
The releases include animatics of deleted scenes from the film, including the gang's meeting with a squirrel on the surface after their escape from Goo City. Natalie repeatedly vomits. The squirrel is pursued by black-suited exterminators, and defends herself with acorns. She informs the gang that they can return to Stockton by taking a sea-bus.
When Rico awakens with a hangover on the Goofy Goober party house, he asks a waiter for a "Double-Fudge Spinny"; the rejected line was used in a tie-in book, Ice-Cream Dreams, which was based on the film. In 2013 the film's lead storyboard artist, Dean DeBlois, released a storyboard panel of a deleted scene from the film with Rico and Gum Girl awakening from his dream saying "WEEEEE!" and Dr. Gomez holding a manager's hat.
== Home Media ==
The film was released on VHS and DVD on October 1, 2004, in wide- and full-screen editions, by Walt Disney Home Entertainment. This film and the previous one, The Curse of the Franken-Gum-Wad, can be on a double feature DVD in 2010. The DVD special features include an 18-minute featurette, The Spooky Tale Behind The Rico Gomez Spooky Adventures, featuring interviews with most of the principal cast and crew; a 15-minute featurette, Case of Rico, hosted by Jean-Michel Cousteau; a 20-minute animatic segment featuring scenes from the film with dialogue by the original artists, and the film's trailer. As a tie-in to the film's DVD release, 7-Eleven served a limited-edition spooky orange Gum Girl Slurpee in November 2004.
It was re-released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 30, 2013.
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