Meet the Reaper

Meet the Reaper is the pilot episode to both Grim & Evil and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. It originally aired on Cartoon Network on June 9, 2000. A redone version of the pilot was remade at Chesapeake Animation decades later.
== Plot ==
It is Billy's hamster Mr. Snuggles' tenth birthday. All of a sudden, the Grim Reaper appears right in front of Billy and Mandy to take Mr. Snuggles' life. Billy mistakes Grim for Santa Claus, disrupting his reaping. Mandy makes a deal with Grim. If Grim wins, he gets to take both Mr. Snuggles' and Billy's lives. But if Mandy wins, both she and Billy get to keep Grim as their personal servant for all eternity. Mandy wins the game of limbo after shouting "kiss, kiss", causing Mr. Snuggles to unintentionally attack Grim, causing him to fall over. Later, Grim has a sleepover at both Billy and Mandy's houses where his body sleeps at Billy's and his skull sleeps at Mandy's.
== Characters ==
* Billy
* Mandy
* Grim (debut)
* Mr. Snuggles (debut)
== Locations ==
* Billy's house
* Limbo
* Mandy's house
== Trivia ==
* This short was created in 1999, but aired in 2000.
* This is the only short from both the Grim & Evil and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy franchises not to be produced by Cartoon Network Studios. It was instead produced by Hanna-Barbera.
** It is also the only short to use cel animation with traditional ink and paint as opposed to digital ink and paint in both series.
* The pilot plays out the same way for Freaks of Nature, with a few key differences.
** Both Billy and Mandy have quadruped, human-headed dog bodies instead of human bodies.
** Mandy loses the game of limbo to Grim as opposed to winning.
** The animation for the original pilot episode was completely redone in-house with Toon Boom Harmony at Chesapeake Animation.
*** The aspect ratio for the redone pilot is in 16:9 as opposed to 4:3.
** The voices were all re-recorded for Grim, Billy, Mandy, and Mr. Snuggles by their original voice actors.
** The music was also redone for the company by Bleeding Fingers Music as opposed to Guy Moon.
* Mandy technically didn't win the bet the original episode outcome. She cheated.
* In the original version of this pilot, Mandy smiles at the very end. In the redone version of this pilot, she never cracks a smile once, presumably because she lost the bet to Grim.
** This is marks the very first time that Mandy has smiled in any canon that has depicted her. It is also one of the very few times that she actually is shown to be smiling.
Category:Episodes
Category:The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episodes
Category:Grim & Evil episodes
Category:Freaks of Nature
Category:Episodes focusing on Grim
Category:Episodes focusing on Billy
Category:Episodes focusing on Mandy
Category:Canon episodes