WAIT... Remember Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja?

wait remember randy cunningham 9th grade  ninja it was disney xd's cartoon action   show about a high school ninja not the ninja  whose wife delivers sandwiches on asked for   or the blender along with his best friend fighting  oncoming forces and preserving his identity   as a vigilante every four years a new ninja is  chosen to take up the vigilante mantle and protect   norrisville from oncoming threats by the evil  sorcerer and his dangerous allies bajillionaire   hannibal mcfist and his mad assistant scientist  viceroy together randy and howard must fight   them off with the help of the 800 year old ninja  nomicon a partially sentient book that quickly   teaches randy all of the ninja moves that he  currently needs for each challenge he faces i'd   be careful of that book though the last book that  ended in nomicon nearly took out all of my friends   and i in a cabin out in the woods taking place  mostly at their high school the sorcerer has a lot   of prey to take advantage of he is able to do so  by using their weaknesses or emotions to enchant   them into monsters motivated by these amplified  feelings and it only makes sense that high school   would be a breeding ground for i mean feelings  totally not speaking for my own experiences   get that off the screen the show's first episode  premiered on august 13th 2012 and ran for a total   of two seasons each episode has two segments so  while there are 50 episodes there are technically   a hundred different segments while the show was  never cancelled or renewed it left fans with a   lot of questions what does the future look like  for randy and howard a thank you would be nice you knuckle dragging refrigerators created by  jed elenoff and scott thomas randy cunningham   9th grade ninja was originally supposed to be  a vampire show but randy cunningham 9th grade   vampire just doesn't have that certain ring to  it that genesecua if you will so the two of them   began brainstorming about what kids fantasize  about being in high school sure today it may be   a vampire thanks twilight but back in jed and  scott's high school years of 1990 to 1994ish   being a ninja was all the rage and i guess  they were right i did spend a lot of my   time daydreaming in school particularly  about being an action hero or a superhero   because the pythagorean theorem was as boring  as the pythagorean theorem anyway they landed   on the idea of randy being crowned the new ninja  of norrisville high and despite initially being   written to be a show focused on randy boss battles  and his secret identity over time it became more   of a story about two best friends and their  adventures together howard isn't just the backup   that the hero relies on for support he is actively  in the field with randy every day howard is very   loyal to him and often provides a well-needed  comic relief during more tense situations which   is essential considering the insane amount of  danger they both face on the regular the cast is   packed full of comedic and recognizable actors  ben schwartz voices randy cunningham yes john   i got run over by alexis ralphio and sonic  for both of the sonic the hedgehog movies   his best friend can't be overlooked either howard  weinerman is voiced by andrew lewis caldwell who   is best known for his role as jude in the matrix  resurrection i'm kidding i know him from shredder   man rules the two seem to have had a lot of fun  in the recording process and constantly play off   of each other's energy in fact because there  weren't any concern for what the voice actors   were wearing during recording they frequently  decided to dress up together donning matching   full-body banana costumes and three-piece suits on  one occasion caldwell wore a ball gown there's a   lot of interview footage out there with the two  of them and their energy together is electric   the supporting cast is also iconic we have john  dimaggio as one of the main villains hannibal   mcfist who is also the stepfather of high school  bully bash johnson dimaggio is also recognizable   for his long list of iconic roles as bender from  futurama jake and adventure time and i could spend   about 10 minutes reading out a longer list but  i'm not gonna he's also marcus phoenix tim curry   voices the sorcerer also known for his on-screen  work as wadsworth and clue and dr frankenferter   in the rocky horror picture show he also voices  nigel thornberry and the wild thornberries and   professor calamitous and jimmy neutron okay just  like john the list is so long that i am 93.7   sure you know who he is and know his voice very  well we are also blessed with the voice of kevin   michael richardson another alum with an incredible  resume as willem viceroy iii richardson has also   voiced trigun and teen titan shredder and the  2012 animated teenage mutant ninja turtles   martian manhunter and young justice and jerome  in family guy last but most definitely not least   jim rash voices principal slimovitz also most  recognizable as dean craig pelton in community and   that's like 70 bonus points right there and while  the show wasn't nominated for or awarded anything   the actors certainly did get some attention for  their performances on the show jim rash tim curry   and kevin michael richardson were nominated for  annie awards and behind the voice actors awards   now that we know vocally how this show was brought  to life let's take a look at how it was brought to   life visually and just how it all came to be not  helpful but cute there's more randy cunningham   9th grade ninja on disney xd randy cunningham 9th  grade ninja continues on disney xd the art design   is one of the most eye-catching things about  this show with heavy influence from japanese art   its action sequences are vivid and entertaining  however it is pretty evident that this is pretty   explicitly only used for aesthetic purposes the  writing in the ninja nomicon is complete nonsense   just a bunch of characters that aren't quite real  the characters are a form of hiragana or katakana   but like a knockoff version come on disney i know  language isn't copyrighted why not use it properly   and i know they have the budget to hire someone  that can actually write something that's you know   real but i guess it could be argued that the  lessons that are being taught to randy by the   nomicon aren't supposed to be read but experienced  through randy alone but still it emphasizes that   the animators used these tools to capture an  eastern aesthetic to fit the general vibe of   the show at least shows like american dragon  jake long in the life and times of juniper lee   didn't just use a culture for purely aesthetic  purposes now when you look at this art style   the first thing that came to my mind was that  this has a lot of invader zim character design   choices in it from the faces to the fingers it was  clear that this was the same person behind it all   jonen vasquez the creator of invader zim worked  on this show he wasn't given much direction with   the design for randy he just had to look like a  ninja he initially wanted to give randy red hair   but decided that he wanted more of a cohesive  color palette for him to juxtapose ninja randy   and regular high school freshman randy and he  ended up giving him a deep purple hair and the   red hair feature went to howard instead vasquez  characterized howard as a horror movie metal fan   mixed with a whole mess of nick frost and a whole  lot of cargo shorts his personality complements   randy very well while randy is much more calmer  and a bit of a rule follower howard tends to   slack off a lot and is extremely driven by his  own desires like food and not losing his food   in fights that break out man's pulled out  the used popcorn hat as for the villains of   the show while most times coming off repetitive  from the major evil doers the way in which like   i mentioned earlier students would have their  emotions and feelings used to turn them into a   beast of some sort for randy to take down was  a cool idea it was not only to introduce new   interesting and one-off villains that they also  had a purpose regarding the emotions or feelings   that person was going through giving a slightly  deeper layer to the overall story and in some   cases something to stick on to for randy that he  can learn from or understand better and that's   thanks to the sorcerer's stank literally stank yes  the sorcerer puts some stank on it he's also like   800 years old and dwells trapped underneath the  school constantly finding ways to battle randy so   that he can eventually escape now he has a deal  with the latest mcdonald's menu item mcfist and   that is if he is able to help defeat randy and set  the sorcerer free he can have a superpower of his   choice not a bad deal whatsoever as for the robots  that randy faces viceroy over here is the slightly   overconfident mad scientist who likes to show off  his latest and greatest before randy figures out   how to destroy it he works directly for mcfist  as the two constantly fail to foil a freshman's   fearsome fists as fun as this was how was the  reception of the show did all of this lead to   many viewers tuning in every new episode what  does protecting the balls have to do with the   whole digging contest we'll be right back to randy  cunningham on disney xd get your ninja on randy   cunningham is back disney was busy cranking out  all of the randy cunningham 9th grade ninja flash   games and i was able to find just 18 of them right  off the bat let me say that again 18 flash games space so yeah the show must have been  received really well uh while critics   give the show pretty mid reviews audience ratings  seem pretty high i can attest to that personally   as i have been asked to cover this show at least  a million times over the past several months   there clearly is a fan base out there that wants  this show talked about more or have bare minimums   seen by more eyes the people who like the  show really like it and i get it the show   may not hit every emotional box or have a complex  underlying plot but it is fun and by the end of it   you get left wanting more and let's talk about  that there has been a lot of confusion regarding   the future of this show while clearly nothing  is in production nothing has been announced   after the second season disney was silent they  didn't announce a renewal but they also didn't   announce a cancellation this left a lot of  fans with a sense of hope but also a lot of   questions the final episode of season 2 leaves us  off in a semi cliffhanger moment the creep who we   see in almost every episode speaks for the first  and evidently last time to say something ominous   about randy's greatest ninja battles still  being ahead of him it was also confirmed in   a scott thomas tumblr post that he is immortal  so it's clear that they left the show open to   another season the series clearly is not done  with the story it wants to tell and it seems   that the fans aren't done either there's a  change.org petition going around which i know   i know i initially see these happen and i  don't expect anything as they rarely ever   end in the thing being petitioned for to happen  but then i remembered that for shows like this   it's really audience demand that brings shows back  it has about 26 000 signatures at the time so who   really knows what could happen i wouldn't get your  hopes up but i also would never say never but i   will say for me personally i'd love more of this  show i want to see randy go through all of his   high school years as the ninja up until the moment  the mantle is passed down to the next person eager   and nervous to start high school while being  tasked as the ninja protector of it i originally   overlooked this show for the fact i never saw  anything about it but i thank you the audience for   non-stop commenting about this show to me without  that it may have been a long time or even never   that i would have given this show the time of  day i didn't know about it and i'm glad i watched   through its two seasons knowing very little  going in because i'm taking more going out than i   thought i would for jed and scott a month before  the last episode of randy cunningham 9th grade   ninja aired they premiered their new live-action  show titled best friends whenever so it could   be that the creators were ready to try something  new or maybe randy cunningham really was over and   they had their next job lined up but if it does  return they may have less of a major role in any   of the potential future episodes thomas though did  reblog the change.org petition on his tumblr so he   definitely is on board with another season but  then again that's all just speculation would you   like to see this show come back for a third season  and did you enjoy watching it when it first aired   let me know in the comments as always thanks  so much for watching make sure to hit the like   button and subscribe for more content like this  or i'll cry myself to sleep without your support   and validation follow me on twitter and i'll be  back with another video soon but until then later you

Channel: Jordan Fringe

Views: 259,783

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Id: 7R2xbG5tU7o

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 15 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/randomAndfree]

Nice knowing that there's still quite a few of us out there who still remember or enjoy the show.