Marthalicious

**Marthalicious** is a children's animated series from The Kiddie Channel. It is known for being a blatant ripoff of the popular book, *Pinkalicious*. The series was created by Tracey Bollinger.

## Why This Show Sucks

* To start off the list, the main character, Marthalicious Twinkleton, is at her absolute worst in this show, as she had gone from kind and compassionate in the books, to a spoiled and bossy perfectionist. She is now infamous for her constant whining, crying, and temper tantrums.
	1. These temper tantrums got so out of hand that many parents compared Marthalicious' behavior to Caillou's behavior.
	2. Her voice is ear-grating, especially when she cries. On that note, her crying will most likely get on your last nerves.
	3. She is very selfish and often does not like to share.
	4. She is also extremely cruel to her little brother Diggo, even going as far as punching him in the face in the episode "The Sweet Sensation".
	5. Marthalicious' design is pretty unappealing to look at, at least in the episodes from 2017-2022.
	6. While not often, Marthalicious can sometimes be treated like a Butt-Monkey since things never seem to go her way. Not that she doesn't deserve it however, due to how much a brat she is. **Even worse than Caillou!**
	7. Usually, her friends, and particularly Diggo, can get irritated by her antics at times.
	8. She rarely, if ever, gets punished/scolded by her parents for her actions, making her the most notable example of a Karma Houdini.
	9. This obviously proves that Marthalicious cannot handle her very own show.
* Extremely poor grasp on the source material. Similar to other Kiddie shows, this one has absolutely nothing in common with the book series it's based on. Instead of following any of the elements of the original *Marthalicious* books, this animated adaptation of it, however, is heavily altered into nothing more than an unoriginal rip-off of *Pinkalicious*, and it's not hard to see why.
* The voice acting ranges from bland to just grating and annoying.
* The background music is bland at best. At least with some style in the background music, it should be tolerable.
* The animation took a nose-dive in the later seasons as it switched from traditional animation to Flash animation, which looks very horrendous, stilted and effortless in comparison to the hand-drawn animation in the first three seasons.
* There are very bad morals, which are often shoved right in the viewers' face.
* The plots get extremely clichéd and stale as the series went on in the later seasons.
* Awful and stupid writing with terrible pacing, like the infamous "School Daze" episode.
* The show has painfully slow pacing. Just trying to watch it will probably get you bored, or to exaggerate, put you to sleep.
* Even though the theme song can be fun to listen to, it is extremely overbearing and ridiculous.
* The show sometimes has some gross-out jokes, such as one disgusting scene in "The Birthday Bash".
* It almost ended Tracey Bollinger's career on a sour note.

## Redeeming Qualities

* There are some likable characters:
	1. Diggo is very likable and charismatic. He can also be treated with sympathy, due to how mean Marthalicious can be to him. He is also more intelligent and mature than her as well.
	2. Sarah is very wise, serving as a great figure for them.
	3. Julie is a likable babysitter of Marthalicious, who treats her with respect.
* The concept about an eight-year-old girl who is obsessed with the world around her is pretty good for a children's show, despite being executed poorly here.
* While not so much, Marthalicious is kind of cute sometimes, and when she is not being bad, there are rare occasions where she is nice and helps out.
* Despite her behavior in seasons 4-5 and the reboot, Marthalicious is much better behaved in those seasons and doesn't throw tantrums as often as she did in the earlier seasons.
	+ It's possible that due to Marthalicious still being very young, she doesn't really grasp the fact that you don't always get what you want, as well as it's not okay to act spoiled or selfish.
	+ She does have her fair share of likable moments that happen once in a while. Special mention goes to the series finale, where Marthalicious redeemed herself and doesn't act like a spoiled brat.
* Marthalicious does get her comeuppance (albeit rarely), such as another episode, "The Jail Cell" even had her ***getting arrested*** for her bad behavior. Yes, really!
* The theme song is at least a reference to the original source material, which this series fails to reference at all other than the main character's design, her name, and the logo.
* Some of the voice acting is passable at the very least.
* Funny moments here and there.
* The animation improved after the first few episodes.

## Reception and Controversy

*Marthalicious* initially received generally positive reviews from television critics, and parents of young children, as well as viewership and its target preschool demographic. However, over the years, the show was heavily more panned by older viewers and critics alike, especially in the first season of the show. Tracey Bollinger, the series creator, has become bitter and insane after falling into obscurity when her show has failed.

The titular character's misbehavior throughout the show has made her an infamous character among older viewers and parents, since her actions are very similar to Caillou's troublemaking and whining, and her parents accepting her actions rather than disciplining her didn't clearly show that her actions were wrong, and as such, she rarely learns anything from her mistakes. When Kiddie stopped producing the series in 2022, many parents celebrated online.