The Aquabats! Super Show!

The Aquabats! Super Show!
Genre	Action/adventure Sitcom
Format	Live-action/animation
Created by	Christian Jacobs Jason deVilliers Scott Schultz
Starring	The Aquabats
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	18 (+ pilot) (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	approx. 22 minutes (per episode)
Production company(s)	The Magic Store Productions
Distributor	FremantleMedia Enterprises
Broadcast
Original channel	The Hub
Original run	March 3, 2012 (2012-03-03) – present

The Aquabats! Super Show! is an American action-comedy television series which premiered on March 3, 2012 on the United States cable network The Hub. The series was created by Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz, both the creators of the Nick Jr. series Yo Gabba Gabba!, and Jason deVilliers.

A mix of live-action and animation, The Aquabats! Super Show! is based on the superhero mythology of The Aquabats, a real-life Californian rock band which series co-creator Jacobs fronts as lead singer. Styled similarly to the campy aesthetic of 1960s and 1970s children's television, each episode follows the comic adventures of The Aquabats, a musical group of amateur superheroes, as they continually defend the world from a variety of villains and monsters.

The series' first season concluded on June 16, 2012 following a run of 13 episodes, having met with a largely positive critical reception, consistently high ratings for the channel and a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Children's Series. The series' second season will begin airing on June 1, 2013.

Series overview

Premise

Chronicled in both live-action and animated storylines, The Aquabats! Super Show! follows the adventures of The Aquabats, a group of superhero rock musicians who travel the countryside on a self-appointed mission to fight evil, destroy boredom and seek justice for all, protecting the world from the villains and creatures who threaten to destroy it.

If the person is over 30, I'd say it's like Batman meets The Monkees, with a little bit of Sid and Marty Krofft in it. If they're under 30, I'd say Power Rangers meets Flight of the Conchords, very sarcastic. If they're kids...superheroes fighting monsters. And at some point, something will explode.

“

”

– Christian Jacobs, on how he'd explain The Aquabats! Super Show! to somebody.

The Aquabats consist of singer The MC Bat Commander (Christian Jacobs), the swaggering leader of the group; bassist Crash McLarson (Chad Larson), who can grow up to 50 feet in size; drummer Ricky Fitness (Richard Falomir), who has the power of super speed; guitarist EagleBones Falconhawk (Ian Fowles), who wields a laser-powered electric guitar and an invisible spirit eagle named "The Dude"; and keyboardist Jimmy the Robot (James R. Briggs, Jr.), a humanoid android. Despite their superhuman strengths and abilities, The Aquabats are quite bumbling, disorganized, and sometimes cowardly when faced with danger; this has in fact led them to be labeled "the world's most inept superheroes". The band lives and travels by way of their "Battletram", a modified recreational vehicle which, despite its small exterior, has an implausibly massive interior (similar to the TARDIS from Doctor Who), which contains, among many things, a science lab, a command center, and a living room.

As of the first season, there has been no concrete explanation for The Aquabats' origins, though series co-creator Jacobs has explained that the group's backstory is intentionally left vague for the sake of the viewer's imagination: "We're always trying to explain to adults why...why is this happening or why is that happening, whereas with kids they just accept it. 'There's five guys. This is what each of the five guys does. There are monsters. They're gonna try to fight them'. It's so simple. And I think that's why it's so awesome with kids — they just take it and run with it".

Format and influences

Super Show! juxtaposes both live-action and animated segments starring The Aquabats, interwoven with various tangential skits and cartoon interstitials. The live-action storylines are the primary focus of each episode, following a self-contained villain of the week formula. At a random point of the show, one of the characters will introduce "A Cartoon" (often represented by a miniature television set hidden in an absurd location), which leads to a brief Anime-styled cartoon short starring an animated version of The Aquabats. Unlike the live-action segments, the cartoons follow a serialized story arc, with each installment ending in a cliffhanger to be resolved in the next episode. Between these segments are pantomime cartoon shorts starring "Lil' Bat", The Aquabats' anthropomorphic bat mascot, and live-action parody commercials for a variety of outlandish fictional products, the latter of which has long been a staple of The Aquabats' multi-media stage shows.

Jacobs says the concept behind Super Show! was something he had always dreamed of doing, making a "campy, live-action, funky kid's show" in the vein of the 1960s and 1970s television that he and the rest of the series' producers had grown up with. While the show pays homage to many facets of pop culture, Jacobs has named the 1960s Batman television series as the primary influence on Super Show!'s "obviously silly" tone and visual style, ranging from set design to the trademark use of dutch angles for villain scenes. Other notable influences Jacobs has repeatedly mentioned include the works of Sid and Marty Krofft and Hanna-Barbera, Japanese tokusatsu series such as Ultraman and Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot, the Shaw Brothers and Hong Kong cinema, and shows including Danger Island, Star Trek, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and Pee-Wee's Playhouse, noting "there’s a good 30 years worth of television culture packed into these 22-minute episodes".

Demographic

The Hub's key demographic are children aged 6 to 12, and while Super Show! is ostensibly targeted towards said age group, Jacobs has stated that the series primarily aims to appeal to an all-ages crowd, with the intent of creating entertainment that both kids and parents can watch and enjoy together or separately. He explained that this is merely an extension of The Aquabats' own family-friendly ethos: "There's just obviously something about the costumes and being superheroes that really appeals to younger kids, and I think we always knew that as a band", he said in an interview, "I think we'll want to put things in [the show] for an older audience, because we realize we have an older audience, but then also we want the young kids, to not have it go over their heads". Due to its scenes of action and slapstick, Super Show! is one of only three original Hub series to be rated TV-PG, alongside the animated sitcom Dan Vs. and the horror anthology series R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour.

Production history

History and previous attempts at a series

Christian Jacobs founded The Aquabats in 1994 and conceived the idea of a television series based on the band.

In 1994, musicians Christian Jacobs, Chad Larson and former member Boyd Terry formed The Aquabats in Brea, California. Influenced as much by cartoons and camp television as theatrical bands like Devo and Oingo Boingo, The Aquabats gained instant notoriety in the Orange County music scene for their eccentric persona - in which they claimed to be a band of superheroes on a quest to save the world - and their elaborate stage shows, which regularly featured scripted fights with costumed villains alongside similar stunts and comedy sketches.

The Aquabats' second studio album, 1997's The Fury of The Aquabats!, proved to be a commercial breakthrough for the group, charting on the Billboard 200 and bringing them media exposure through such venues as MTV, leading Jacobs – a former child actor with ties in the industry – to develop the concept of adapting the band's mythology for television. In 1998, Buena Vista Television helped produce a live-action mini-pilot directed by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait titled simply The Aquabats!, following the comic misadventures of the then-eight member band in a style similar to Saturday morning cartoon shows. The pilot, which has yet to be made available for public viewing, failed to generate any network interest and was ultimately disowned by the band.

Undeterred, the following year The Aquabats used the music video budget granted by their record label for their 1999 album Vs. the Floating Eye of Death! to independently film another prospective pilot, a five-minute promo called The Aquabats in Color!, directed and produced by Jacobs and his creative partner Scott Schultz. In contrast to the wacky and cartoon-like tone of their previous pilot, The Aquabats in Color! was modeled after the action-oriented style of Japanese tokusatsu shows such as Kamen Rider. According to Jacobs, the Fox Family Channel reportedly expressed interest in the series and ordered production on a proper pilot episode, though following the channel's acquisition by Disney in 2001, the project was cancelled.

The Aquabats! Super Show! pilot (2008)

In 2005, Jacobs and Scott Schultz formed the Orange County-based production company The Magic Store, focusing on creating family-oriented television entertainment. One of the company's independently filmed pilots, the children's television series Yo Gabba Gabba!, was eventually acquired by Viacom's Nick Jr. in 2007, ultimately becoming an award-winning international success. In the wake of the series' popularity, Jacobs persuaded Yo Gabba Gabba!'s joint production company Wild Brain to produce a new pilot based around The Aquabats in conjuncture with The Magic Store.

With a new title of The Aquabats! Super Show!, the pilot was again written and directed by Jacobs and Schultz, and filmed on location throughout Southern California in late 2007 and early 2008. Part of this filming took place at a free invitation-only concert for members of the band's official fan club, the Aquacadets, at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles on January 12, 2008. While The Aquabats' previous pilots were short, live-action promotional videos, The Aquabats! Super Show! was a fully realized 22-minute episode featuring two separate storylines following the adventures of The Aquabats, one live-action and one animated, and interspersed with parody commercials and live footage of the band. Speaking on the decision to structure the show in such a varied format, Jacobs said "[w]e did that for a strategic reason – some networks like cartoons more than other networks. We wanted to say, 'this could be both shows'."

Following a period of post-production, The Aquabats began widely self-marketing Super Show! in June 2008, redesigning their website to promote the pilot and releasing a teaser trailer and several exclusive clips through an official Super Show! YouTube channel. On July 25, 2008, the band screened the full pilot at a concert in San Diego held during the weekend of the San Diego Comic-Con, while a segment of the episode was hosted on Boing Boing the same day. In 2009, Cartoon Network allegedly picked the series up for a run of 22 episodes, though following major staff changes within the company - which, according to Jacobs, included the termination of the executives who had green-lighted Super Show! - the project was again cancelled.

The Hub and season one

The Hub is not afraid...[t]hey're looking at new programming and doing things differently, from a different standpoint that a lot of networks are still scared or they aren't able to do. The Hub is fresh and new so they can take new ideas and new shows, things that are kind of funky, or things that other networks would say, 'The Aquabats? That's stupid! Those guys are old and fat!' Whereas The Hub goes, 'The Aquabats? Those guys are old and stupid and fat! Perfect!'"

“

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– Christian Jacobs, on The Hub's acquisition of Super Show!.

Following several more unsuccessful network pitches into the 2010s, Super Show! was finally picked up as a series by family-oriented cable channel The Hub, a joint venture between Hasbro and Discovery which launched in 2010. The Hub formally announced the series in a press release on March 23, 2011, revealing Super Show! would be given a first season run of 13 episodes, produced in conjuncture with FremantleMedia. In promotion of the series, The Aquabats appeared as part of a Hub-sponsored panel at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con, where they discussed their initial plans for the series as well as performed a concert at the nearby House of Blues on the same weekend.

Production on Super Show! officially began in May 2011. The entirety of the first season was shot within and around Orange County, where the members of The Aquabats reside, either on location or in a private sound stage in Santa Ana. A public Aquabats concert held at The Glass House club in Pomona on November 5, 2011 was also filmed to provide live footage of the band which is featured in the series' opening credits montage as well as several individual episodes.

Much of Super Show!'s staff and supporting cast consist of friends and colleagues of The Aquabats, ranging from members of Yo Gabba Gabba!'s production team to fellow musicians within the Southern California music scene. Japanese artist Eriko "Pey" Uruma, who had designed many of the band's t-shirts and posters, was hired to design the series' animated segments, while internet sketch comedy group and occasional Aquabats collaborators Mega64 were commissioned to produce the series' parody commercials. Several industry professionals were also brought in to help work on the show: Dani Michaeli, a staff writer on SpongeBob SquarePants, was hired as the series' story editor, while Matt Chapman, co-creator of the internet Flash cartoon Homestar Runner, served as a writer and director on several episodes. Comedian Matt Walsh of the Upright Citizens Brigade was supposedly brought in to help teach The Aquabats comedic timing and acting, as none of the members other than Jacobs had any previous acting experience.

Although having been originally announced as part of The Hub's 2011 Fall line-up, production delays postponed Super Show!'s premiere to early 2012. The series' marketing campaign began in December 2011, with a later announcement of an official premiere date confirmed for March 3, 2012. Following a run of 13 episodes, the season finale aired on June 16, 2012.

Season two

On October 16, 2012, The Aquabats and The Hub confirmed production on new episodes of Super Show! through the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, stating a tentative debut date of Spring 2013. Principal photography on season two began on October 22 and wrapped on December 1.

In a December 2012 interview, Gerard Way, frontman for the alternative rock band My Chemical Romance announced that he would be directing one of the season's upcoming episodes, which would also be featuring My Chemical Romance bassist Mikey Way in an acting role. Around this time, professional skateboarder and longtime friend of Jacobs Tony Hawk posted several Instagram pictures showing himself and Eric Koston on the set of an upcoming episode as guest stars.

On December 2, 2012, series co-creator Jason deVilliers revealed on his Twitter that the upcoming season would consist of only five new episodes, in what he called more "season 1.5" than a "season 2". On May 1, 2013, it was announced through Entertainment Weekly that the series' second season would begin airing on June 1.

Music

Original music for The Aquabats! Super Show! is primarily composed and performed by The Aquabats themselves, with additional scoring on most episodes provided by Matthew Gorney, Warren Fitzgerald or individual credits for Aquabats members James R. Briggs, Jr. and Richard Falomir. Fitzgerald, the guitarist for punk rock band The Vandals and formerly of New Wave group Oingo Boingo, serves as the series' music supervisor. The Super Show! theme song was co-written by The Aquabats and Fitzgerald.

Whereas most musically oriented shows like The Monkees typically break the narrative of an episode for a music video performance of a standalone song, each episode of Super Show! usually features one or two unique songs that tie directly into the plot, usually about and performed during the events of a particular scene. Most of these songs are rather brief, averaging a running time of just under a minute; Jacobs has stated that many of the show's original songs are recorded as full-length pieces but trimmed down for inclusion in an episode, simply due to the show "trying to pack so much into 22 minutes".

In recent interviews, Jacobs has expressed a desire to eventually compile the series' original full-length songs with the goal of releasing a new Aquabats album and/or a soundtrack accompaniment to Super Show! by the end of the year. Several songs from the series have already become staples of The Aquabats live shows, in particular the Super Show! theme song and the series premiere song "Burger Rain!".

Cast and characters

The Aquabats

The Aquabats appear as versions of themselves in Super Show!.

• The MC Bat Commander (played by Christian Jacobs) – The Aquabats' lead singer and "fearless leader". The Commander possesses great stamina, leadership skills and a swaggering bravado, but unlike his bandmates, doesn't have any actual superpowers.

• Crash McLarson (played by Chad Larson) – The band's burly bass guitarist. The brawniest of The Aquabats, Crash has the ability to grow up to 50 feet in size, though has yet to learn how to fully control his powers, tending to grow mostly by accident when he becomes overly emotional.

• Jimmy the Robot (played by James R. Briggs, Jr.) – The Aquabats' keyboardist. An android, Jimmy has a variety of powers and abilities, including a vast array of built-in weaponry. With his superhuman knowledge database, he also serves as The Aquabats' resident scientist, aiding the band in matters of science and technology. As per his mechanical nature, Jimmy has an emotionless robotic personality, a constant source of teasing from his bandmates. Jimmy's personality was the only notable change from the series' pilot, wherein he had a more sarcastic human attitude.

• Ricky Fitness (played by Richard Falomir) – The Aquabats' drummer, who possesses the power of super speed. True to his name, Ricky is the most health-conscious of the group, eschewing the other members' fondness for junk food and lethargy to maintain a regular focus on keeping fit and trim. Ricky is portrayed as somewhat of a ladies man; a running gag throughout the series finds him flirting or being flirted with by various female characters, even in the middle of fight scenes or other tense situations.

• EagleBones Falconhawk (played by Ian Fowles) – The Aquabats' guitarist, the "sonic shredder". EagleBones is the most confident - and usually the cockiest - member of The Aquabats, exhibiting great skills with his weaponized electric guitar which shoots sonic energy beams. Following a spiritual encounter in the desert, EagleBones was bestowed with a spirit guide, an invisible eagle named "The Dude", who he summons to aide him in battle.

Supplemental characters

Allies

• Pilgrim Boy (played by Samm Levine) – A reluctant superhero who dresses and speaks like that of a 17th century Pilgrim settler, Pilgrim Boy possesses the power to shapeshift into any possible object. Although the act of doing so causes him great physical pain, his Puritanical level of politeness forces him to transform at any given request.
• Chainsaw (played by Courtney Pollock) and Catboy (played by Boyd Terry) - Two fellow superheroes in The Aquabats' metropolis, Chainsaw appears in a lumberjack-themed costume with a chainsaw attached to his hand, while Catboy sports a pair of fuzzy cat ears. The extent of their superpowers is unknown. Pollock and Terry were both original members of The Aquabats, where they also assumed the pseudonyms of Chainsaw and Catboy.
• SuperMagic PowerMan! (played by "Weird Al" Yankovic) and Lanolin Lady! (played by Stephanie Allynne) - The most popular and competent superhero team in the city, SuperMagic PowerMan! and Lanolin Lady! are a husband-and-wife duo who both possess such superpowers as flight, super strength and the ability to shoot lasers with the aide of a "magic headband". Reportedly, they have saved the world many times, and as a result, have sold more t-shirts than The Aquabats. (Prior to this, Weird Al had played President "Stuncastin" in the episode "Pilgrim Boy", holding a press conference about a giant potato bug attacking a Detroit-area "pineapple plantation". The name is a pun on the common TV tactic of "stunt casting", to increase ratings for a show by bringing in a guest star for a single episode.)

Villains

Many of the series' villains were carried over from The Aquabats' stage shows. Pictured above is "CobraMan", appearing as a villain at an Aquabats concert in 2008 (left) and on an episode of Super Show! in 2012 (right).

• ManAnt (voiced by Mr. Lawrence) – An ant-headed humanoid who was inadvertently created by a young Crash McLarson due to a genie wish gone awry. Eventually abandoned, ManAnt turned to evil, recruiting a team of henchmen to assist him in his plan for world domination: siphoning Crash's growth powers to assume human size while give rise to an army of giant ants.
• Mooncheese A villain in the cartoons who threatens to use the MC Bat Commander's brain power to power a laser to destroy the earth.
• EagleClaw Falconhawk (played by Jon Heder) – EagleBones's older brother who inexplicably has eagle talons for hands. He bears a lifelong jealous grudge against his brother for being both the center of attention in his family and stealing his childhood sweetheart when they were kids. Like EagleBones, EagleClaw possesses equal skills on laser-powered electric guitar.
• Eva Mudlark (played by Katharine Towne) – A German-accented mad scientist descended from a long line of lowly garbage collectors, Eva Mudlark uses her research to create garbage monsters to avenge her family name. When The Aquabats destroy one of her creations, Eva attempts to get revenge by creating a laundry monster from dryer lint and the Aquabats' dirty clothes.
• Quera, Hera & Vera (played by Janet Paraiso) – A three-headed siren whose enchanting singing hypnotizes men to carry out their devious bidding. All three heads extend from long necks, with one head out at a time. While Hera and Vera are cruel and mean-spirited, Quera is quiet and sensitive. Ricky Fitness falls smitten with Quera during a party on the Battletram, and after the three are banished to the Underworld, he begins a long-distance relationship with her.
• Cowboy Android Sheriff (played by Paul Scheer) - A malfunctioning robot gunslinger.
• Überchaun (played by Dana Michael Woods) – A sinister blue-skinned leprechaun who lives on a golf course, The Überchaun places curses upon people who he perceives to have wronged him. He gives each cursed person three challenges to complete in order to break the spell, though devises a series of tricks in an attempt to prevent them from succeeding.
• The Floating Eye of Death – Derived from The Aquabats' mythology – namely their album of the same name – the Floating Eye of Death is a giant tentacled eyeball who possesses the power to steal peoples' souls with its deadly glare, turning them into zombie slaves forced to carry out its bidding.
• CobraMan - Another character borrowed from The Aquabats' stage shows, CobraMan is a malevolent half-man/half-cobra hybrid. CobraMan works at a roadside sideshow under the employ of Carl (Matt Chapman), a shady wrestling mask-wearing carnival barker who attempts to steal The Aquabats' Battletram. Carl is directly modeled after the character Strong Bad from Homestar Runner, a web cartoon created by Chapman.
• Space Monster "M" (Dallas McLaughlin) - A gigantic disembodied head from the far reaches of outer space, Space Monster "M" comes down to Earth controlling an enormous robot body with intent of destroying the planet. Space Monster "M" is one of the oldest characters in the Aquabats mythology, having been mentioned in their 1997 song "Theme Song!" as the destructor of the band's fictional homeland. In Super Show!, however, he assumes the role of a standalone villain with no apparent connection to The Aquabats' origins.

Episodes

Main article: List of The Aquabats! Super Show! episodes

Season		Episodes	Originally aired (U.S. dates)
			Season premiere	Season finale
	1	13	March 3, 2012	June 16, 2012
	2	5	June 1, 2013	TBA

Distribution

International broadcast

Outside of North America, The Aquabats! Super Show! currently broadcasts in Australia on the children's public broadcasting channel ABC3 and in the United Kingdom on the children's network CITV.

Home media

During the run of the first season, new episodes of The Aquabats! Super Show! were released concurrently through the iTunes Store for digital download. Prior to the series debut, a season pass was made available for purchase to enable viewers to automatically receive a download of each new episode on its airdate. Super Show! was added to the video streaming service Netflix on December 1, 2012, later being added to Hulu on December 21.

Shout! Factory currently has the DVD publishing rights for The Aquabats! Super Show! within Region 1. The company first announced their acquisition of the series and plans for a future DVD in a press release dated August 6, 2012, though did not confirm a set release date. The series' first season was released on a two-disc DVD set on May 21, 2013.

DVD Name	Episodes	Release Date	Special features
The Aquabats! Super Show! Season One!	13	May 21, 2013 (NTSC)	The original series pilot Commentary for episodes "ManAnt!", "EagleClaw!", "Cowboy Android!", "CobraMan!" and "Showtime!" Blooper reel Behind the scenes featurettes

Critical reception

Critical response to Super Show! has been positive, with most reviewers praising the series' intentionally campy tone and offbeat humor. The Onion's The A.V. Club gave the series premiere an A- rating, describing it as "a loving homage to basically everything ever done by the brothers Krofft": "the show adeptly flips from humor to melodrama to action, providing some awesomely cheap special effects, goofy songs, and gags that range from slapstick to sublime", summarizing "there’s so much here that both kids and parents will be able to enjoy the proceedings on their own respective levels and rarely find themselves bored".

Brian Lowry of Variety wrote "you don't have to laugh at everything to admire the effort and sheer silliness, down to the name, costumes and opening theme song", calling the show a "goofy and nostalgic" throwback to the "children's TV of baby boomers' youth, down to crappy production values and awful-looking 'monsters' that work to its advantage". He summarized "Although this Hub series at times feels like an SNL skit stretched to a half-hour, its sly mix of music, live-action crime-fighting, cartoons and mock ads ought to develop a cult following – and might be more popular with parents, at least those with the geek gene, than their kids".

Common Sense Media, who review shows based on age-appropriate content, gave Super Show! a rating of 4 out of 5 stars, calling it "demented and manic...fun by sheer dint of how many jokes, visual and otherwise, are thrown at the screen, both those calculated to appeal to kids and adults". The site praised the series for its lighter and sillier tone in comparison to more violent live-action superhero fare, and considered the "kind-hearted" Aquabats to be relatively positive role models. However, the reviewer suggested the show's violence and creatures may be too intense for very young children, and pointed out a distinct lack of central female characters.

Technology magazine Wired has been consistently positive towards the series, calling it both "wonderfully strange" and "delightfully deranged", writing "[f]illed with self-deprecating music videos, toon interludes and ludicrous villains, The Aquabats! Super! Show! has become one of television's strangely comforting finds".

Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times offered a more indifferent opinion, calling The Aquabats "indescribably odd" and the series "frenetic, semicoherent and generally harmless. Also somewhat hallucinogenic", noting Super Show!'s writing "may be over the heads of the 2-to-12 set", suggesting its most receptive audience might be "the college drinking-game crowd".

Awards and nominations

The Aquabats! Super Show! has been nominated for the following awards:

Daytime Emmy Award

Year	Award	Result
2013	Outstanding Children's Series	TBA

External links

• Official website
• The Aquabats! Super Show! at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website of The Aquabats