Bad Blues Life

***Bad Blues Life*** is a American adult animated sitcom created by Leyla Griffith and Juliette Bright that ran on The WB from 1995 to 2006, before moving to The CW. The series premiered on September 13, 1997, and was produced by Blue-Heart Studios, in association with Warner Bros. Animation as its first adult animated series and syndicated by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution.

The series centers around four blue-haired siblings—Tyler, Melody, Reed, and Marlie Blues—as who all try to live in a normal everyday life, while dealing with their own struggles with adolescence, their family issues, and their limitations. It is set in the fictional town of Brightwood, California, and parodies American culture and society, as well as surrealism. *Bad Blues Life* also features many recurring characters, and became infamous for its graphic violence, sexual content, alcohol and tobacco use, profanity, black comedy, and pop culture references.

*Bad Blues Life* was conceived by Griffith in 1993 while working as a scriptwriter on *Animaniacs*, who came up with the idea of an adult animated cartoon after being inspired by TBS' *Strange Life with David*, Fox's *The Simpsons* and NBC's *Robot West*. They pitched a seven-minute pilot to The WB in May 1995, and the show was greenlit and began production. The series was originally set to premiere in the fall of 1996 with the pilot they showed to The WB earlier, but the episode was declined to be used by The WB (until it was finally preserved on the season 1 DVD in 2003). The producers of the show then decided to "go ahead" and air another first episode as a mid-season replacement in late 1997.

Since its debut as The WB's first animated series made for primetime, the show received acclaim throughout its first eleven seasons, and has won dozens of awards, including 24 Primetime Emmy Awards, 9 Golden Reel Awards, and 20 Annie Awards. However, it has also been criticized for a perceived decline in quality over the years. Currently, *Bad Blues Life* is on its 28th season, which began airing September 17, 2022. Merchandise includes a tie-in comic book series, video games, calendars, clothes and figurines. In 2013, *TV Guide* ranked *Bad Blues Life* one of the top 60 Greatest TV Cartoons of All Time. As a result of the show's popularity, two theatrical feature-length films were produced and released: *Bad Blues Life: The Biggest Baddest Movie Ever* (2005) and *Bad Blues Life: The Second Biggest Baddest Movie* (2021). A spin-off series, *The Krystal Jackson Show*, featuring Krystal Jackson, aired from September 10, 2010 to September 18, 2015. As of May 27, 2020, all prior seasons of the show were made available on HBO Max from May 27, 2020 until May 23, 2023, where it was switched to the Max streaming service

## Premise

The show follows the exploits of four blue-haired siblings, Tyler Blues, Melody Blues, Reed Blues, and Marlie Blues. The siblings live in the fictional small town of Brightwood, located in central California. The town is also home to an assortment of frequent characters such as students, families, school staff, and other various residents, who tend to regard Brightwood as a crazy, loud place to live. Prominent settings on the show include the local high school, the local park, various neighborhoods and the surrounding sunny landscape, actual California landmarks, and the shops and businesses along the town's main street.

### Characters

*Main article: List of Bad Blues Life characters*
*Coming soon!*

## Production

In 1993, Leyla Griffith and Juliette Bright, while working on *Animaniacs* came up with an idea of an adult animated TV show about four siblings in a small town after watching and being inspired by TBS' *Strange Life with David*, Fox's *The Simpsons* and NBC's *Robot West*. Griffith and Bright soon pitched *Bad Blues Life* to Fox in 1994, but the executives rejected it since they doesn't like the idea. However, the show was picked up by Warner Bros. as they planned to produced shows for their new network, The WB. Griffith and Bright immediately left *Animaniacs* in 1996 to focus more on *Bad Blues Life*.

*More coming soon!*

### Voice cast

*See also: List of Bad Blues Life cast members and List of Bad Blues Life guest stars*
*Bad Blues Life* has five main cast members. Billy West provided the voices of Tyler Blues, Mr. Ruby, George Folder and many other incidental characters. West was asked to voice the characters due to his involvement in *The Ren & Stimpy Show*. Catherine Cavadini voiced Melody Blues and other, more minor, characters. The role of Melody was originally assigned to Yeardley Smith, who voiced Lisa Simpson in Fox's *The Simpsons*. However, the producers found Smith's voice acting too similar to Lisa's so Strong was given the role of Melody instead. Tara Strong voiced Reed Blues and E.G. Daily voiced Marlie Blues.

In addition to the main cast, creators Leyla Griffith and Juliette Bright both voiced several supporting and minor characters.

#### Guest stars

Like *The School Teen*, *The Simpsons*, *Family Guy*, *South Park*, *Futurama*, and *I Love Luke*, many episodes of *Bad Blues Life* feature guest voices from a wide range of professions, including actors, entertainers, bands, musicians, and scientists. Many guest-stars voiced supporting characters, although many voiced themselves. Recurring guest stars include Jon Lovitz, Danny DeVito, Maurice LaMarche, Jennifer Hale, John Goodman, Mark Hamill, Ben Stiller, Amy Poehler, John DiMaggio, Eric Idle, Kelsey Grammer, George Takei, Danny Trejo, Patrick Stewart, Dan Castellaneta, Khary Payton, Bryan Cranston, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader, Mandy Moore, and Chris Parnell.

## Episodes

*Main article: List of Bad Blues Life episodes*

## Reception and legacy

### Awards

*Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Bad Blues Life*

## Broadcast

*Main article: Bad Blues Life/Broadcast*
*Bad Blues Life* premiered and originally aired in the United States on The WB network from September 2, 1995 to September 17, 2006. TBS carried the series in the US from May 1, 1998 - present, followed by Adult Swim from October 1, 2001 - present. In 2006, the series was moved to The CW for more episodes and has since aired on that channel. The syndicated broadcast of the series in the US began in September 1999.

*More coming soon!*

## Other media

### Films

*Main article: Bad Blues Life: The Biggest Baddest Movie Ever*
*Main article: Bad Blues Life: The Second Biggest Baddest Movie*

## Merchandise

Since the show's premiere, various forms of merchandise based on the show have been released, such as home media releases, action figures, clothing, food, and more.

## Trivia

* This is Warner Bros. Animation's very first adult-animated project, with the post-April 1998 seasons of *Strange Life with David*, *3-South*, *Helena & Titus: Adult Cartoon Madness*, *Me, You and Myself*, *Toons For Hire*, *Mike Tyson Mysteries*, *Harley Quinn*, *HubPub*, *Upside Down* and *Velma* following up the foot-steps, which leads the creation of Shield Animation.
* This is the only The WB animated show to be produced by Warner Bros. Animation, as well as the only animated show to be moved to The CW in 2006.
* The first six seasons used the Warner Bros. Television Animation logo.
	+ Starting with the seventh season, they start to use WBA's own logo.

*More coming soon!*