Bubble Guppies

This page is dedicated to Tino Insana (1948-2017).Bubble Guppies is a computer-animated preschool children's television series produced for Nickelodeon and created by Jonny Belt, Sean Carroll, and Robert Scull. The series is produced by using Autodesk Maya 3D software and revolves around the underwater adventures of a group of merperson preschoolers named Molly, Gil, Goby, Deema, Oona, Nonny, and Zooli (later in season 5). The program premiered on January 24, 2011 and originally ended on October 21, 2016, then it came back on September 27, 2019, due to its continued popularity (and merchandise sales) by fans and Nickelodeon's new president Brian Robbins.

While it was primarily computer-animated, the show does features incorporated flash animation for certain characters, such as animals via imagination for each scenes.

Plot
"Bubble Guppies" takes place on Bubbletucky as well as the phrase "school of fish" literally as fish-tailed preschoolers attend school in an underwater classroom. Children learn about topics such as science, math and literacy through original music. Among the main characters featured on the show are turbocharged Gil, leader Molly and drama queen Deema.

Why Its Fin-tastic

 * 1) The computer-animation used by Autodesk Maya is simple but cute and adorable, light-hearted and relaxed, and almost flawless in seasons 3 onwards, especially in revival seasons where it looks really fresh and clean by Jam Filled Entertainment.
 * 2) The seven Guppies (Molly, Gil, Goby, Deema, Oona, Nonny, and Zooli) and Bubble Puppy are all cute, diverse, smart, imaginative and likable main characters who work off each other well, have multicultural designs and personalities and are always eager to learn something as well as amazing chemistry between the characters, like Nonny and Oona (Deema, when not hanging around with Nonny). And Mr. Grouper is a gentle, funny and patient teacher, who changed into random colour, regarding if its the theme for each episodes. Other examples of Guppies including the puppy like:
 * 3) * Molly is a bubbly human guppy girl, who aids Gil in hopes that problems won't arise.
 * 4) * Gil is a silly human guppy boy, who often attempts to do something but with unexpected results.
 * 5) * Goby is a human guppy boy with an imaginative personality.
 * 6) * Deema is a human guppy girl with a wild imagination and often plays the role of shopkeeper in the "store" segments.
 * 7) * Oona is a human guppy girl with a sweet personality, who takes care about plants and animals.
 * 8) * Nonny is a human guppy boy with an intelligent personality, who is the most polite, smart and mature member of the group, despite not smiling a lot.
 * 9) * Zooli is a human guppy girl with an animal exper.
 * 10) * Bubble Puppy is Gil's pet puppy and best friend.
 * 11) Molly and Gil are very welcoming and friendly hosts.
 * 12) The premise of "literal school of fish" literally as fish-tailed human preschoolers is very creative, original, cute and uncommon concept.
 * 13) Beautiful and catchy songs for a preschool/Nick Jr. show standards that use a mixture of different genres, mostly pop as well as notably the theme song by Terry Fryer.
 * 14) * While the songs are catchy, "Big Bubble City" from "Super Shrimptennial Celebration" takes the cake, with has cues used in "Tomorrow" from Annie, "Naughty" from Matilda, "That's What I Do" by Axie, and many more.
 * 15) * "Got A Bunch of Bones" seems to be inspired by Boyz II Men or Bell Biv DeVoe. It starts with Boston drum beats, gives a nod to MindMash in the first verse, and samples "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Ashford & Simpson.
 * 16) ** The reprise is even better, with Squog Belnavis and Jen Taylor joining in.
 * 17) Very educational for the preschool show, as it helps the viewers learn about several parts, such as math, colors, reading, music, the solar system, industries and even hospital treatment as well as message, like teamwork, respect, friendship, good sportsmanship, honesty, conquering fears, and working hard.
 * 18) Awesome episode plots with some continuity.
 * 19) Outstanding and entertaining sketches that sometimes pays homage and parody pop culture, like Indiana Jones and The Lord of the Rings.
 * 20) The talents of Brianna Gentilella, Jay Gragnani and Issac Ryan Brown do not go to waste.
 * 21) After almost three years later, it returned with a fifth season in September of 2019, with the the parts being changed, such as the dance songs and field trips being removed and the introduced the new character.
 * 22) Cute and great voice acting for the main characters, notably the Guppies and Mr. Grouper by the late Tino Insana in seasons 1, 2 and 4 and Fred Tatasciore in seasons 3 and 5 onwards.
 * 23) The seascapes successfully defocus backgrounds to emphasize characters and objects.
 * 24) Promotes teamwork, creativity and imagination in the unique way.
 * 25) The main characters (especially the Guppies) talks to reasonably the toddlers and audience in a charming way to understand isn't pandering at best.
 * 26) While not officially primary antagonists, there are plenty of antagonists in the show throughout the imagination sequence, like Airline Pirate, Anteater, Ball Hog Pig, Coldsnap, Hairball, Humbug, Major Bummer, Mr. Grumpfish (through he has never appeared in imagination sequences), Ms. Goo Goo, Night Wizard, Party Squirrel, Queen of Hearts, Rotten Tomato, Roughy, Sid Fishy, the Sea Witch and Windy Pete.
 * 27) Tons of guest actors who voiced characters as the celebrities, such as George Takei, Keke Palmer, Ozzy Osbourne, RuPaul, and Tracy Morgan.
 * 28) Zooli, who is introduced in season 5, is a good addition to the main cast.
 * 29) Many jokes are really funny for kids, like the lunch jokes, although the sketch formula is repetitive.
 * 30) The UK dub is fantastic, with most of the British voice acting for Molly, Gil, Mr. Grouper, Deema, etc. being passable.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The animation, while nice-looking, also sometimes looks too much like lazy stop-motion with animation errors, especially in pre-Nelvana episodes.
 * 2) Nonny's character mostly consists of being the typical "orangehead with no soul" cliche.
 * 3) Some songs are not that catchy. Notably the theme song, while decently cute and catchy, is also lazy and irritating, with the characters repeatedly saying "bubble" and "guppies", and at some point introducing themselves in 2-word sentences.
 * 4) The show can get formulaic and repetitive at times, like the sketch comedy formula. They put the intro to the episode first, then a learning moment, then a music video showing curiosity, then lunch, then a story (outside sketch), then a song and dance. However, as of season 5, the episodes started focusing more on the outside sketches.
 * 5) Most of the background characters are either crabs, lobsters, or snails, they also reused the same models with different outfits or hair to them, which can come off as lazy.

Reception
Many critics were very happy with the show and agreed that the topics the show teaches are good for kids, especially hospital treatment. The show got 6.3 out of 10 on IMDb.

Videos
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Trivia

 * The idea for Bubble Guppies was inspired by The Backyardigans episode called "Viking Voyage," in which Tasha is a mermaid. When Jonny and Robert set out to make Bubble Guppies, they liked to compare it to a children's vitamin—good for kids, but also yummy and fun.
 * There is an error where the splat and lightbulb logo from Nickelodeon were used in "Happy Clam Day!" and "Can You Dig It?" (with used the current music logo), despite using the current logo from promotional material, although it was justified, since the former was produced in 2008 and used the kids laughing.
 * In the wake of protests against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd, "The Police Cop-etition!" was pulled from television broadcast and online streaming in June 2020, despite not having anything to do with police brutality. In addition, the Nick Jr. channel had scheduled a rerun of the episode for June 12th (two days after it was pulled from the aformentioned playforms), but it was replaced by "Come To Your Senses!". It is currently unknown when it will be put back.
 * However, "The Police Cop-etition!" is still on the Super Guppies DVD.
 * On November 10, 2011, Bubble Guppies's Facebook asked the fans to answer "Which Guppy is your kid most like?" The results were Nonny is in fifth place with 52 votes, and 40 votes ahead of sixth/last place, Goby.
 * On January 24, 2012, Bubble Guppies's Facebook asked the fans to answer "Which Bubble Guppies character would you name your kid after?". The results, Nonny is in fourth place with 29 votes.
 * On March 1, 2013, the Bubble Guppies Facebook page asked the fans to vote on their favorite character, and Nonny won with 89 votes.
 * In some episode specials, the intro song does not play.
 * Despite being aired at television broadcast, the episode "The New Guppy!" was released to the Nick Jr. website and its YouTube channel three days earlier.
 * Some people are speculating that Bubble Guppies shares a verse with SpongeBob SquarePants, as they build a campfire, visit an airport, and at one point, view the moon from a telescope.
 * The "Outside" song became a popular video to send to people on Twitter, telling them to go outside as they spend too much time on online, especially in regards to Dream SMP stans.
 * Although it premiered on Nickelodeon in 2011, the show started production in 2009. Likewise, the first pilot was made in 2006 that was completed on the Learning Alias Maya DVD. The series was being produced at Guru Studio and Nick Digital in September 2006. In January 2007, a complete episode, "Happy Clam Day", was finished and was ready to be produced. The characters had major diferences and possibly there is another pilot of 2007 in 2D differences and some were voiced by different voice actors. In October 2007, Guru and Nickelodeon said to air the show for their 2007-2008 season. But in June 2008, only 10 episodes were produced. In November 2008, Viacom fired approximately 720 staff members -- basically like the whole studio of Guru and Nick. After so many predicaments, the show gave up on production and Wild Brain heard about it. Wild Brain decided to make adjustments to the show. Team Umizoomi was in a competition with them but both series got picked up. In December 2010, the series had 20 episodes ready to launch and was picked up by Nickelodeon.
 * Jam Filled Entertainment, a Canadian animation studio company who produced and animated this show from seasons 5 onwards, were also produced and animated of other shows, including The Loud House.
 * The voice cast is based in New York and California and the dialogue is recorded at New York-based Dubway Studios and Rhumba Recorders and Burbank-based Nickelodeon Animation Studio.
 * SpongeBob SquarePants, a representative mascot of Nickelodeon and Nickelodeon Movies, has a cameo appearance in "Trick Or Treat, Mr. Grumpfish!" as a costume during the song segment where Gil dresses as SpongeBob while Molly says "Or somebody from TV".
 * Similarly, both shows have sea creatures and take places in underwater settings.
 * Canadian animation company Nelvana, the same company that animated other great Nick Jr shows, including Little Bear, The Backyardigans, Max & Ruby, Corn & Peg and Rupert, did the animation and produced on this show from seasons 2-4.