Big Nate (Television Series)

***Big Nate*** is an American CG-animated television series that premiered on Paramount+ on February 17, 2022. It follows the adventures of a boy and his friends in sixth grade. It is based on Big Nate, the comic strip and book series by Lincoln Peirce. The series is executive produced by Mitch Watson and John Cohen. Peirce is collaborating with the producers for the show.

## Summary

The series revolves around the adventures and misadventures of an 11-year-old trouble making middle schooler named Nate Wright, who along with his friends Francis, Teddy, Dee Dee, and Chad get into all sorts of trouble and bizarre situations at P.S. 38 in an attempt to make it awesome.

## Why It's **BIG**

1. This show stays very true and faithful to the premise of the comics by having the usual pranks and trouble making misadventures of Nate Wright that the series is known for.
2. Great 3D animation that not only stands out for imitating the movement and textures of stop motion animation, but it also causes the characters to translate to 3D very nicely.
	* The show also has some 2D animation, which also looks good.
	* It also has a similar style to the Peanuts Movie, where it looks like the characters walked right out of the strips. Despite some differences in the character designs such as the characters having actual eyeballs rather than lines for eyes, the character designs look relatively the same and they are quite pleasing and welcome.
3. Lots of great comedy, particularly the adult humor which is common in both this series and the comics.
4. Really good voice acting, particularly from Ben Giroux as Nate Wright who captures the character's arrogance and desire to be awesome very well, all the while putting so much energy into his deliveries.
5. The episode plots don't copy any ideas from the books, as Lincoln Peirce didn't want any episodes doing that instead be original. And the episodes are very creative and have a lot of engagement to them.
6. At the end of every episode during the credits scene, there is a new comic based on the episode that is drawn by Peirce and they are funny.
7. The show portrays LGBTQ+ representation in a positive light, particularly in the scene where Dee Dee's female substitute teacher, Donna, introduces her to her wife, Kathleen.
8. The soundtrack is nothing short of awesome, with awesome rock and roll music, and a great and catchy theme song.
	* Also, the Buttcheeks song, despite being about buttcheeks, is admittedly funny and catchy.
	* It even includes Savage Garden's "Truly Madly Deeply," which is probably one of the last songs anyone expected to be in a show like *Big Nate*.

## Bad Qualities

1. There are some very poor attempts at gross out humor. For example:
	* In the "Valentine's Day of Horror" episode where the main comedic gag was that every character was puking on screen
	* There is a very infamous scene in one of the shorts where as a prank, Nate farts in Francis' face after telling him to do a sit up with his eyes closed.
	* Nate's pimple in the episode titled "the Pimple" look very disgusting. To make matters worse, it was used to advertise the show.
	* While the Buttcheeks song is a catchy song, it (along with the short with the same name) is pretty disgusting as it's all about butts. Heck, it even turned some fans away from the show, which is really unfortunate.
2. Some of the content from the original comics were changed drastically in this series. For example:
	* Nate developed a fear of cats by being attacked by a scratchy kitten named Cinnamon when he was younger, but in the show, he developed his fear when his dad told him that cats suck out the souls of little boys through their noses.
	* Also, they changed the name "Enslave the Mollusk" to "Fear the Mollusk". They probably wanted to censor the word "slave", but that word isn't even that inappropriate. Also, "Enslave the Mollusk" is overall a better name for a rock star band than "Fear the Mollusk".
	* Let's not forget that they changed the name "Cheez Doodles" to "Cheesy Snacks". Though that is excusable since Cheez Doodles are a real life snack, and they probably wanted to avoid product placement, considering it was sometimes a common thing in the strips.
	* Most noticeably, the eyes on most of the 3D characters aren't lines anymore. Instead, they are actual eyeballs. Depending on your view, they are a bit unsettling since they weren't in the original comic strips.
3. There are a few bad casting choices such as Nik Dodani as Randy. While it is understandable that the director probably wanted to make him sound like he's going through puberty, his voice just comes off as annoying and ear grating.

## Trivia

* The series was initially going to release around September 2021 but was postponed to February 2022. Despite this, clips from the series have already appeared on the Nickelodeon game show *Tooned In*.
* A sneak peek of the series was shown during halftime in Nickelodeon's broadcast of the 2022 NFL Wild Card Game on January 16, 2022.
* Dove Cameron, who voices Ellen Wright, also played the titular twins in the Disney Channel comedy series *Liv and Maddie* and Mal from the 2015 Disney Channel Original Movie *Descendants*.
* Arnie Pantoja, who voices Teddy Ortiz, is also the English dub voice of Kazuma Sato from Konosuba.
* The aforementioned scene where Nate farts onto Francis' face while doing sit ups with his eyes closed spawned internet memes along with some other scenes from other episodes, dubbing "Big Nate is Sus/Sussy" by a lot of YouTubers.