KaBlam! | |
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Season one title card
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Created by | Robert Mittenthal Will McRobb Chris Viscardi |
Starring |
Noah Segan Julia McIlvaine Mischa Barton Rick Gomez Scott Menville Mo Willems Danielle Judovits |
Opening theme | "Two-Tone Army" by The Toasters |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 4 |
No. of episodes | 48 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Running time | 24 minutes |
Production company(s) |
Nickelodeon Animation Studio Flying Mallet, Inc. (season 4) |
Release | |
Original network | Nickelodeon |
Original release | October 11, 1996 | – January 22, 2000
Chronology | |
Related shows |
Action League Now! All That |
KaBlam! (stylized as KaBLaM!) is an American animated sketch comedy that ran on Nickelodeon from 1996 to 2000. The series was created by Robert Mittenthal, Will McRobb, and Chris Viscardi. The show was developed as a fully animated showcase for alternative forms of animation that were more common in indie films and commercials. Each episode thus features a collection of short films in multiple innovative styles of animation, bridged by the characters Henry and June, who introduce the shorts and have adventures of their own in between.
Although SNICK aired many Nicktoons not part of its block, KaBlam! was the only Nicktoon created for SNICK. The show became TV-Y in 1997 (when the American content ratings were put to use), until later that year. KaBlam! was a critical and commercial success and earned a cult following.
The segment creators include David Fain, Tim Hill, Steve Holman, Emily Hubley, Mark Marek, Mike Pearlstein, Mo Willems, and Cote Zellers. The theme song and all of the original background music on the show was provided by the Moon Ska Stompers, a band composed of King Django, Victor Rice, and members of The Toasters and The New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble. The bulk of the soundtrack was 30-second instrumental clips of songs from The Toasters' album D.L.T.B.G.Y.D., while the theme song itself is a shortened version of the Toasters song "2-Tone Army". Tracks from the Associated Production Music library were also utilized.
KaBlam! was the first show to be spun off of All That. It was pitched to Nickelodeon in 1994 and aired two years later. The pilot episode, "Your Real Best Friend", was created in 1995 and finished in 1996. One of the shorts, Mo Willems's The Off-Beats was initially produced as stand alone short films for Nickelodeon; but after it was nominated for a cable ACE award, more segments were produced for KaBlam!
The show began production in 1996 and premiered October 11. The show ran for four seasons, however almost getting canceled by the twenty-ninth episode. The last episode was broadcast on January 22, 2000. Reruns continued to show on Nickelodeon until 2001. In 2002, Nicktoons was launched, and the channel began airing reruns of the program, though not all episodes were aired. During commercial breaks, various shorts from the show would play, not including any shorts involving Henry and June or music videos. In August 2005, Nicktoons changed its appearance and schedule, and canceled many shows in the process, including KaBlam!. After the show was cancelled, the "KaBlam! Presents:" shorts would continue to be shown, until 2008 when the channel did away with all of their in-between shorts, for more commercial space. The program would only be seen one more time in June 2008 for Nicktoons Network's "100 Greatest Nicktoon Moments" marathon although it wasn't shown when Nick had a marathon of the first episodes of each Nicktoon on Thanksgiving Day 2007, despite having Henry and June on the cover of the now-defunct Nickelodeon Magazine; it has also been omitted from Nickelodeon's 1990s block for five years.