The Angry Beavers

The Angry Beavers
File:AngryBeavers.png Daggett and Norbert Beaver
Created by	Mitch Schauer
Voices of	Richard Steven Horvitz Nick Bakay
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	63 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	22 minutes (11 minutes per segment) (approx. per episode)
Original release
Network	Nickelodeon
Release	April 19, 1997 – November 11, 2001

The Angry Beavers is an Emmy-nominated Nickelodeon American animated television series about Daggett and Norbert Beaver, two beaver brothers who have left their parents and home to become bachelors in the forest. Their many adventures spark them to release their ugly sides very often, drawing in the name Angry Beavers. The show premiered in 1997 after the 1997 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and was canceled amid controversy in November 11 2001 (with a handful of unaired episodes remaining). It was created by Mitch Schauer. In 2006 & 2007, "The Angry Beavers" was dropped from Nicktoons Network due to unknown reasons.

Characters

• Daggett Doofus Beaver: Daggett (usually shortened to "Dagg") is the younger twin brother of Norbert (by four minutes). He is crazy and hyper. He says an assortment of strange phrases and likes to call people names. His trademark phrase is "That was nuts!". He also known for adding 'Eh' and also "dot dot dot" at the end of sentences (which Invader Zim did as well in the episode Door to Door, in homage to Daggett). Dag also says "SPOOT!" when upset. He is generally considered the less intelligent of the two beavers. He has dark brown fur, a red nose, and is voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz.
• Norbert Foster Beaver: Norbert (usually shortened to "Norb") is Dag's laid-back older twin brother (by four minutes). He has many hobbies (including playing the French Horn in a Baroque chamber ensemble) and frequently (and intentionally) mispronounces words for humorous effect. He comes across as the smarter of the two, more down-to-earth, and sarcastic than his brother, Daggett. His trademark phrase is "Biiiiig hug!" (often accompanied by him hugging Dag). He has yellowish-tan fur, a purple nose, and is voiced by Nick Bakay.
• Stump: Stump is a tree stump that Norb met. He introduced Stump to the other creatures of the forest in the episode, Guess Who's Stumping to Dinner. Stump often moves on his own while he is off-screen; in Brothers...To The End? he is seen drinking punch with the others, which was the first time he actually moved on screen.
• Barry Bear: Daggett and Norbert's funk-loving friend, introduced in the episode Enter The Daggett; based on Barry White. He is a famous singer, whom Norb and Dag try to exploit. He is voiced by actor John Garry who also provided the narration for the pilot episode of Invader Zim and the voice of the host of "Mysterious Mysteries", a show-within-a-show seen on Invader Zim.
• Treeflower: Treeflower is the love of Norbert's life whom he met at a hippie concert in Bummer of Love. Once a hippie beaver, she successfully works in versatile jobs, e.g. as elevator-music composer (Tree of Hearts) and firefighter (A Little Dad'll Do You). She was voiced by Cynthia Mann.
• Bing: Bing is an annoying lizard who hangs around Norb and Dag, introduced in episode The Bing That Wouldn't Leave. Bing talks extremely fast and often employs circular logic. Victor Wilson provided Bing's hyperactive voice. It is not confirmed what kind of lizard Bing is; however, he is seen changing colors like a chameleon and losing his tail like a gecko.
• Truckee: Truckee is a trucker shrew who thinks only about trucks and shrews, introduced in the episode Tree of Hearts. Truckee hates Daggett and the feeling is mutual. In addition, he briefly dated Treeflower, causing animosity between him and Norbert.
• Oxnard Montalvo: He is Norb and Dag's favorite B-movie actor, introduced in the episode Up All Night. Norb and Dag often watch black and white horror movies (these are very seriously drawn, contrary to the regular style of the show), which are an obvious homage to 1950's horror movies. Named after two streets in Los Angeles, Montalvo resembles B-movie stars like John Agar and Peter Graves (who guest stars in the Halloween special, The Day the World Got Really Screwed Up!).
• Toluca Lake: She is another B-movie actor, introduced in Up All Night, who often accompanies Oxnard Montalvo as the damsel in distress. The name plays on the eponymous California city Toluca Lake, and is also a reference to 1940s actress Veronica Lake .
• El Grapadura: The beavers' (especially Daggett's) favorite vale tudo/lucha libre wrestler, introduced in Kandid Kreatures. His name is Spanish for "The Stapler." Daggett has an autographed copy of his board game, "El Grapadura and Ladders" (an obvious reference to Snakes and Ladders).
• Scientist #1 and Pete: A pair of scientists introduced in the episode Stinky Toe. They call the beavers "pointy weasels" and try to use them for very strange experiments. Scientist No. 1 (voiced by Edward Winter) has a distinctive cleft chin and always wears sunglasses; he is just as arrogant as he is incapable. Since Season three, he has a name plate with a "1" on his coat, although his real name may likely be Todd based on his dialogue in a later episode where he mentions about wanting to name the world Todd. It is revealed in one episode that he never even went to college. Pete greatly resembles Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, and speaks in an unintelligible mutter that only Scientist No. 1 seems to understand. At one point, they wore green coats, making them environmentalists.
• Bill Licking: Presenter of TV shows and prototype of a touting salesman. He wears an impressive black wig. He was introduced in the episode Born to Be Beavers. Licking has often been known to manipulate Daggett and Norbert into being filmed for fraudulent documentaries.
• Stacy and Chelsea: The twin younger sisters of Norbert and Daggett, their birth led to their eviction from their family's home. They were first identified in the episode If You In-Sisters, though before their official introduction they are shortly shown in Born to Be Beavers as newborns without their names or even their genders identified. Chelsea bears a resemblance to and acts much like Daggett in her hyperactivity and speech patterns, while Stacy apparently takes after Norbert in appearance and personality. They are much more familiar and united than their brothers. They are named after and voiced by creator Mitch Schauer's daughters.
• "Mum" and "Dad": They are the parents of Norb and Dag. The mother's name was never revealed, but the father's name was said to be "Leonard" in the episode If You In-Sisters. Mrs. Beaver has the same fur color as Dag (although her color was the same as Norb's in Born to Be Beavers), but her intelligence level is similar to Norb.

Episodes

Main article: List of The Angry Beavers episodes

DVD Release

There are currently no plans for a DVD release

Some episodes are available for viewing on TurboNick and the first two episodes are available on iTunes.

In-jokes

There were several in-jokes throughout The Angry Beavers run. One involves Richard Steven Horvitz, the voice of Dag, being mentioned in the episode "Tree of Hearts".

Norb: [reading mail] Hey, Daggett! Look at this! [reading letter] "Richard Horvitz had a little baby boy, April 11th! Jake Elliot Horvitz".

Dag: Wow! That's great!

Norb: Yeah, I think so.

Dag: Who's Richard Horvitz?

Norb: Eh... Nobody.

The use of "spoot" in place of swear words, such as an exclamation ("Oh spoot!"), or as a descriptor ("What a pile of spoot" or "You're a spoot-head"), were another form of in-jokes in the series. Although these were said primarily by Daggett, they were used by Norbert from time to time. Both beavers would often mispronounce common words in pseudo-French or otherwise foreign pronunciation, such as calling a refrigerator a "re-frige-er-A-twoah/re-frige-er-ize-or", mine as "my-yun", me as "mee-ah", or speak as "spee-ack." Another example includes "natural" in which Norbert pronounces it as "nature-ral". Sometimes even saying beaver as "bee-vware". As an augmentation to this, they would also elongate words, particularly each other's names, with superfluous syllables such as "Norbie-orbie" and "Dag-a-lag-a-ding-dong." On occasion, they would use foreign words but mispronounce them; for example the French word "moi" pronounced phonetically "moy".

One running gag was Norbert giving Dag a big hug and saying "Come on, biiiiiig hug!".

Censorship

Shut up

The controversy involving The Angry Beavers first started in 1998 when "Alley Oops!", a story in the series' 24th episode (seen during its 2nd season), contained the following lines:
Dag: "You stink!"
Norb: "Oh, shut up, Dag!"

After its first airing, a viewer anonymously complained about the phrase "shut up" in a Nick program, although it had been used by Dag twice in the episode "Go Beavers" in Season One and also on a sign of his in "Utter Nonsense" 2 months earlier. The second time the episode was aired,"shut up" was censored, using the traditional "bleep" noise. The censor only generated more controversy surrounding the show, as many viewers were led to believe that a profanity was masked by the "bleep". However, between airings, Nickelodeon changed Norbert's line to "Shush up, stupid!" It was the first time any Nicktoon had a line changed between airings.

Bye Bye Beavers

The final straw was when the developers of the show came up with what was to be its final episode, titled "Bye Bye Beavers." The plot consisted of Norbert being told that he's part of a TV series that has been canceled, and that he has to convince Daggett that they were not real, only cartoon characters.

According to Micah Wright, a staffer who wrote several of the episodes for the show, Nickelodeon rejected this episode, as it ridiculed the company's practice of profiting off re-runs instead of new episodes. This episode also disobeyed a rule Nickelodeon imposed on its shows: neither point out that the show has ended nor reveal that you're from a children's cartoon.

Bye Bye Beavers was never aired and after reviewing the episode, Nickelodeon canceled the series.

Daggett will be playable in Nicktoons: Globs of Doom.

There was going to be a reference to "Alley Oops," where Dag would say, "Norb, there's something I've always wanted to say... SHUT UP!."

Awards and nominations

Award	Category	Nominee	Result
World Animation Celebration	Best Animation Produced for Daytime	Mitch Schauer	Won
World Animation Celebration	Best Director for Daytime Series	Robert Hughes	Won
Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA	Best Sound Editing - Television Animated Series	Unknown	Nominated
Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA	Best Sound Editing - Television Animated Series	Tim Borquez, Thom Syslo	Nominated
Daytime Emmy Awards	Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing - Special Class	Timothy J. Garrity	Nominated
Annie Awards	Outstanding Achievement in a Daytime Animated Television Program	Mitch Schauer	Nominated
Annie Awards	Outstanding Individual Achievement for Effects Animation	Joel Krasnove	Nominated
Annie Awards	Outstanding Individual Achievement for Production Design in an Animated Television Production	Dan Chessher	Nominated
Annie Awards	Best Individual Achievement: Production Design in a TV Production	Mitch Schauer	Won
Annie Awards	Best Promotional Production (for main title)	Unknown	Nominated

See also

• Nicktoons

External links

• The Angry Beavers at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Sound clip from last episode that never aired-This is from Micah Wright's official website. These are the lines that slam Nick for "re-re-re-runs" of its Nicktoons as spoken by Daggett and Norbert.