The Little Lulu Show

***The Little Lulu Show*** is an American animated television series based on Marjorie Henderson Buell's comic book character Little Lulu. The series was produced by CINAR (now WildBrain). The series aired from 1995 to 1998 after the cartoonist's death in 1993.

## Premise

In Peekskill, New York, there is a young preteen-aged girl named Lulu Moppet, who is stubborn. Lulu and her gang of friends are always getting into trouble, solving mysteries, studying, doing something at school or just hanging out. Lulu's father ("George") is always sitting on the couch watching television and bribing Lulu with the money to do his duties, although her mother ("Martha") always catches him. Lulu's best friend Annie is as smart as Lulu and helps Lulu in her plans to get revenge on the overweight Tubby and the Fellers. Then there is Iggy, Tubby, Willie, Eddie and Alvin who are members of The East Side Club and there are the rich couple: Wilbur Van Snobbe and Gloria Goode Darling.

## History

*The Little Lulu Show's* origins began as early as 1992. At a meeting in December 1992, CINAR's founders asked the animation studio's in the house development team to come up with the ideas for the new shows. The execs had been working with outside creators to conceptualize shows, but were not satisfied with the results. Michelline Charest, who is died in 2004, a CINAR founder who was in the film school at the time, was at the meeting. Charest brought her ideas to the group's next meeting and found that she and another CINAR founder, Ronald A. Weinberg, who is later doing a "very bad" scandal, had a similar concept: a stand-up comedy show starring a little girl heroine. CINAR founders, intrigued with the concept, asked Charest and Weinberg to expand their ideas into the TV show. About 4 months later, "The Little Lulu Show" was first introduced. Charest and Weinberg considered with the other characters for their concepts before they decided on Lulu. One version told the story of Lulu, the fairy and her friends who lived in the fields. The creators preferred a little girl all along as the lead character, but initially were restricted by monetary considerations.
"We weren't allowed to consider doing an animated show because, at the time, CINAR couldn't afford animation," Charest said. "It would have been a live action show with people wearing fairy outfits. We called it 'The Butter Kids.' "While they were uncertain about the future of "The Butter Kids," Charest and Weinberg really liked certain elements of the concept: Characters take a journey, characters set and based on *Marge's Little Lulu* comic books, stand-up routines have a lot of witty, mischievous female lead character doesn't easily give up.

Soon enough, animation became an option for the show. Zoe, the past Lulu, was supposed to be a character that lived in the neighborhood, had a sidekick named Thomas ("Tubby") named for the neighborhood term “reborn” who was a boy and together they stand-up routines and 60-second short films. Around this time, the working title for the show was called "Zoe's Stand-up Routines".
There was also supposed to be other characters including Annie, the brown-haired girl, who eventually became a black-haired girl, Willie, Eddie and Iggy, the Fellers members, Gloria and Wilbur, the rich couple and Alvin, the toddler. Together, these group of friends worked towards 7-minute stories and at the end of the episode, Zoe would be leave the center stage away after the last stand-up routine.
Early on in the series development, research determined that Zoe should have an stand-up comedian, and soon Zoe, the red-eyed, pink-pigtailed girl became the curly black-haired, dot-eyed Lulu from the United States. When the crew decided that Lulu would come from the United States and as soon as the show got picked up for production, 10 people traveled to the United States for a fantastic research trip and for the first time they were able to see the interest within a colorful city of New York. It inspired them to make changes to some of the characters. Changes were happening throughout the production and many episodes later. Suddenly, Lulu got a home and a family.
After 6 months, the crew was ready to make a pilot presentation scrapbook. Marjorie Henderson Buell and her husband, Clarence Buell, looked into character development for the characters and the creators were overpowered with their results. On March 1993, the pilot presentation scrapbook was completed. CINAR, who later produced "Mona the Vampire", tested the show for HBO and the rates were highly favorable. The crew waited about 6 months for the good news about the show being picked up and within 4 months, *The Little Lulu Show* was scheduled to air. On May 30, 1993, the cartoonist Marjorie Henderson Buell was died from a heart attack, 2 years later, we will succeeded to the new series.

On Sunday October 22, 1995, *The Little Lulu Show* premiered at 7:30 pm (Eastern Time Zone). At the time of the series premiere, it instantly became the highest rated show in HBO history. The premiere scored a 7.0/10 rating/share (6.3 million viewers) among young girls and preteens of the ages of 9-11, The website, called "The Little Lulu Show Online" (now "TheLittleLuluShow.com") was launched the same year on Xmas 1996 from America Online (now AOL).

## Trivia

* Racism hadn't added without any black characters in the show. Notably, Mandy from the original Paramount version don't appear in the show.
* The first CINAR show was produced by Golden Books Family Entertainment (formerly Western Publishing).
* On Valentine's Day 2002 and 2003, this show does a marathon on HBO Family.