The Little Lulu Show

***The Little Lulu Show*** is an animated series based on Marjorie Henderson Buell's comic book character Little Lulu. The series was produced by CINAR. The series aired from 1995 to 1999 after the cartoonist's death in 1993. It spawned a 11-minute British English version of the show called *Groove High* in 1997, when it first debuted on Disney Channel and ended in 2002.

The series was a launching pad for an entire media franchise including an web series, an book series, an musical comedy spin-off, several CD albums and comics, numerous video games, a multitude of merchandise, and six films. In 2015, the series also received a live action/animated reboot.

In 2011, *The Little Lulu Show* was revamped when Nickelodeon began co-developing new dubbed version of the series. Nickelodeon's parent company, Viacom, became a co-owner of Cookie Jar the following year.

## Premise

In Peeksil, New York there is a girl named Lulu Moppet. She 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 money to do his duties, although Martha (Lulu's mom) always catches him. Lulu's best friend Annie is as smart as Lulu and helps Lulu in her plans to get revenge on Tubby and the fellers. Then there is Iggie, Tubby, Willie, Eddie, and Alvin who are members of The East Side Club and there are the rich couple Wilbur Van Snobbe and Gloria Darling.

## Series overview

*Check out: List of The Little Lulu Show episodes*

## Characters

*Check out: List of The Little Lulu Show characters*
## History

*The Little Lulu Show's* history started as early as 1992. At a meeting in December of 1992, CINAR Films founders asked the production's in-house development team to come up with ideas for new shows. The execs had been working with outside creators to conceptualize shows, but were not satisfied with the results. Michelline Charest, a CINAR founder who was in 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, had a similar concept: a stand-up comedy show starring a little girl heroine. CINAR Films founders, intrigued with the concept, asked Charest and Weinberg to flesh out their ideas into a TV show. About four months later, "The Little Lulu Show" was born. Charest and Weinberg considered 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 suits. 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 named for the neighborhood term "reborn" who was a overweight 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, Margie, the dark-haired girl, the only character that was never changed from the first sketch, Gloria and Wilbur, the rich couple, Willie, Eddie and Iggy, the members of The Fellers, and Alvin, the toddler. Together, these group of friends worked towards 7-minute stories, and at the end of the episode, or segment, 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 green eyed, redheaded Irish girl became the curly black-haired, black eyed Lulu from America. When the crew decided that Lulu would come from America, and as soon as the show got picked up for production, ten people traveled to America for a fantastic research trip and for the first time they were able to see the flavor and colourful 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 six 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 overwhelmed with their results. By March of 1993, the pilot presentation scrapbook was completed. CINAR tested the show for HBO, and the rates were highly favorable. The crew waited about six months for the good news about the show being picked up and within four months, *The Little Lulu Show* was scheduled to air. On May 30, 1993, the cartoonist Marjorie Henderson Buell was died from a heart attack, we will succeeded to the new series in 1995.

On October 22, 1995, *The Little Lulu Show* premiered at 7:30pm (eastern time). 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 of the ages of 9-11. To top its own success, the second airing at 7:30pm for next week scored a 7.2/11 rating/share (6.5 million viewers) among young girls 9-11 years old.
The series even surpassed the December 25, 1996 launch of *The Little Lulu Show Online* (Now TheLittleLuluShow.com) from America Online (Now AOL).

The series aired in reruns on Disney Channel UK from 2002 to 2012, and on POP from 2012 to 2017, and 156 episodes with live action segments were aired in Disney Channel UK. The series is still being shown regularly on many channels throughout the world. The cartoon was produced by Southern Star Entertainment, Film Roman, CINAR, Golden Books Family Entertainment and distributed by HiT Entertainment.

In 2012, the American company Viacom became a co-owner of Cookie Jar. Viacom is also the owner of Nickelodeon, which co-developed the dub versions and seasons 1, 2, and 3 of the show.

## Trivia

* This show is the first CINAR series to air on HBO with the start of the partnership of Golden Books Family Entertainment.
* This show became a hit instantly after its premiere due to its high ratings while the first episode premiered (Green Girl, Rainy Day and Beautiful Lulu (7:30pm)).
* On Valentine's Day 2002, 2003, and 2004, this show does a marathon.