Surprise! Again!!
Hey, everyone. Andrew here once again for another review of another series deserving of becoming a classic. Soon.
Today, I will be review the newest Nicktoon, Harvey Beaks.
This series premiered on Nickelodeon on March 28, 2015, after the 28th annual Kids Choice Awards, in it’s plum new-show after-show time slot. And to be quite honest, I was surprised about it, because I’ve never heard of it before. I’ve never followed developments of it online, no one has ever told me about it, I’ve never gotten a full understanding about it, and I’ve never noticed it ever.
And I’m disappointed about it now.
I’ve never noticed Gravity Falls existed when that premiered,
and even I knew about it a couple episodes in. And I knew a lot.
So what about this show that has gotten everyone talking so highly about it?
The series is created by CH Greenblatt, well-known to animation fans as the creator of Chowder and a writer/storyboard artist on SpongeBob SquarePants (he left at a good time). Again, it premiered after the 28th annual Kids Choice Awards, and began airing regularly soon after.
The series is about the titular Harvey Beaks, a shy, sweet, timid, well-meaning young male bird who meets two wild, crazy, offbeat and goofy imps, Foo and Fee. While their new friendship seems rocky, the new group become more well-bonded and close through many new adventures within the magical forest of Littlebark, made to make Harvey loosen up and become more open and spontaneous in life.
The title sequence and theme song are beautifully awesome.
The tune is a light, soft, yet groovy and jammin’ beat, guaranteed to make anyone happy and to stay in your head for a long time. The sequence is equally amazing; it shows Harvey leaving his home wna his parents and going to hang with Fee and Foo for the day. All it is here is still moving images of the main three having a great time. It really says so much from so little; it’s astonishing and warm as it is calm and sweet.
The episode I’m reviewing is “The Spitting Tree” (ugh) and “Pe-Choo!” (heh).
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The scene in the beginning where it’s raining, but later became a spitting exhibition between the kids was really gross, and the part where princess fell down the tree was overwrought and pretentious. But the rest of it is really sweet and heartwarming, watching the friends discuss founding a new colony on the tree, and getting even more heartwarming when Foo and Fee stay with Harvey when he’s too afraid to jump off the tree and land on a pile of leaves (which the other kids land on in safety) . Also, Princess’ father is a laugh riot; his looniness and reliance and trust on crystals is hilarious.
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In “Pe-Choo!”, Harvey tries his hardest to ride on a splashing ride at the neighborhood watering hole, which Foo and Fee ride regularly because of their overall bad behavior and icy reception by other inhabitants of the forrest. I love how Foo and Fee help Harvey be bad to get him to ride the ride, even if he can’t be because of his sweet and warm-hearted personality. That shows how much this trio cares about one another and does whatever to help out. You can just feel the emotion and love from this.
Let’s talk about the animation. When I first watched The Beaks, I seriously thought it would be a show on Nick Jr. No big deal. The animation looked like something that would air on it, and the voice acting (which I’ll get to later) sounded like such, too. So I was surprised after the preview ended to learn that it would regularly air on the main network instead. But it’s worth it, because the writing and humor is more fitting on Nick than on Jr.
It’s really beautiful and gentle, yet packs a deep, rich, well-done punch of color and shade that you can’t stop looking at in awe. It’s up there with Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and Over the Garden Wall. It’s beautiful, eye-pleasing and very enjoyable. It pretty much continuing the long trend of animated shows that are really good with so much time and effort put into their animation.
As for the characters, there’s so much to say about them, as they are such a wonderfully quiet and calm, yet amazingly bright and complex, but I can’t say as much because I get tongue-tied even when thinking about it. They’re just amazing. Among others:
--Harvey is so sweet, kind, caring and open-minded, it’s sickening.
--Fee and Foo are crazy and inappropriate at times, but that’s endearing, and their friendship with Harvey is one of the best I’ve seen in a recent cartoon so far.
--Princess is obnoxious, but she’s hilarious too. I will have to get used to her voice though.
--Dade is a jerk (mostly to Fee and Foo), but that’s because of his...closeness to Harvey. He used to be friends with Harvey before the twimps came along. Also his “closeness” is weird, but endearing, too.
Together, they’re a group of characters that will hold on to your heartstrings and play with them even during lighthearted or funny moments.
Now, I’ll discuss the voice acting.
Just like on Chowder, Greenblatt chose to have child actors voice the roles of the kid characters. The voice of the titular main character is Max Charles and Fee is voiced by Angelina Wahler. I’d also like to point out that early in the first season, there was a change up for the voice actor of Foo. In the first several episodes, he’s voiced by Jackson Brundage, with him being replaced by Matt Robinson from "Old Fashioned Dade" onward. It's obvious that it's because Brundage grew up and reached puberty.
Here, it fits amazingly, hearing kids voice kids instead of adults gives more real and raw emotion and believability into the characters, and makes a lot of episodes more enjoyable.
I looooove this series, and I’m glad I got into it when I did because had I didn’t, this would be another cartoon I would've watched later after everyone else. But this series will become yet another series everyone (not just kids) will love and appreciate for a long time. And this I say, because we need more cartoons to watch and love, because the ones we also have are terrible, and since they’re either just as popular or even more than that, we need more like these to balance the line. And I’m glad we have this to help out with.
I have a feeling that Nick has another gem on its hands. Yet I have another feeling that they’ll screw this gem horribly, just like other highly-regarded Nicktoons that were well of their prime, like Legend of Korra, Robot & Monster, El Tigre, Catscratch and Danny Phantom, among others. If Nick fucks this up, I’m never standing by them again. Truth.
Well, I wish this show, and it’s cast and crew very well. This is a show that deserves to be a hit and to stay on the air for a long while (probably 3-4 seasons). This is a breath of fresh air in the sea of farts and gross in the Nick line-up (literally), and hopefully, we’ll breathe that air for a while until the next rare breath comes in, even if we’re covered by raindrops of little animals' saliva.
Well, thanks for joining in this surprise review of Harvey Beaks, and I hope you will love and appreciate this series as much as I and everyone that loves it already have. I think you will.
Goodnight!
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