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(Originally posted on 2022).
I very recently became aware of this show and it was because (I don't think) it never aired on my area. I thought that was extremely odd for a show that was released as late as 2008, but that was precisely the reason why I had never even heard of it... becuase Nickelodeon gave up on it extremely quickly.
How quickly, you ask? It didn't even stay on for a month. That's how quickly it was dropped.
The whole series run of "Making Fiends" was six episodes (SIX!), plus two shorts that are honestly as long as a normal seven-minute segment, so I don't even know what was going on there, but that's fitting, honestly.
And you know what the saddest part is? Nickelodeon picked up "Making Fiends" after being impressed by it when it was a normal, lovely-made webseries. They bought it, they added it to their mish-mashing "Turbo Nick" website and then let it die as quickly as it had been born. And they still hold the rights for it, so there's absolutely no chance of ever seeing these characters again without Nick's express approval (and likely without it being under their flag). That's heartbreaking to me, because I saw potential and got laughs in what little of it I got to witness.
So, now that I have picked up your interest, should I tell you what's the fuss about? Oh, it is a good one.
Vendetta is a girl who essentially holds her hometown (a run-down hellhole called Clamburg) hostage because she can make fiends to wreck everything and keep anything she doesn't like either banned, vanquished or extremely in line (she has a fiend specifically harassing her teacher so he wouldn't use class time in any productive form). We later found out that she even shrunk her parents and holds THEM hostage on a hamster cage. It is glorious.
Charlotte is the new girl in town. She's loving, caring, fun-loving and admittedly stupid. She only ever wants to be Vendetta's friend and doesn't seem to realize the latter's constant attempts to either have her severely hurt or simply killed. It is like "South Park" for kids and it doesn't dissappoint one bit.
As you can imagine, Vendetta's plots never work (and usually backfire massively on her and her giant, obedient hamster bodyguard). Things get so desperate that Vendetta even creates a TOUPEE FIEND to give her teacher a boost of confidence in exchange for him killing Charlotte, which he has plenty of opportunities to do but ultimately never does.
This *ISN'T* the greatest cartoon of all time by any stretch of the imagination, but I still think that it deserved much, MUCH better. The fact that they have held the dormant rights for it for what amounts to fifteen or so years now is truly tragic and honestly deserves righting. I would LOVE to see it back to life in its original webseries form... it might have even gotten a bit of a following out of its misadventures on Nickelodeon. But alas, all we can do is wish.
The creator has been nothing but classy when it came to discussing these very unfortunate turns of events, but she has said something that I think resonates heavily with many of us: Nickelodeon doesn't care about any shows that show even a semblance of originality and they have vanquished many to the vaults of their archives, instead favoring the new Spongebob spin-off. All of them.
All I can really say as this point is: If you haven't watched "Making Fiends", I recommend that you do. It is a really good experience and you'll soon see the amount of passion that went into making every episode of its short run as fun and unique as possible. It is worthy of your time and I won't be surprised if you feel the urge to revisit it every now and again after being done with it. It is easy to binge and easier to love.
I very recently became aware of this show and it was because (I don't think) it never aired on my area. I thought that was extremely odd for a show that was released as late as 2008, but that was precisely the reason why I had never even heard of it... becuase Nickelodeon gave up on it extremely quickly.
How quickly, you ask? It didn't even stay on for a month. That's how quickly it was dropped.
The whole series run of "Making Fiends" was six episodes (SIX!), plus two shorts that are honestly as long as a normal seven-minute segment, so I don't even know what was going on there, but that's fitting, honestly.
And you know what the saddest part is? Nickelodeon picked up "Making Fiends" after being impressed by it when it was a normal, lovely-made webseries. They bought it, they added it to their mish-mashing "Turbo Nick" website and then let it die as quickly as it had been born. And they still hold the rights for it, so there's absolutely no chance of ever seeing these characters again without Nick's express approval (and likely without it being under their flag). That's heartbreaking to me, because I saw potential and got laughs in what little of it I got to witness.
So, now that I have picked up your interest, should I tell you what's the fuss about? Oh, it is a good one.
Vendetta is a girl who essentially holds her hometown (a run-down hellhole called Clamburg) hostage because she can make fiends to wreck everything and keep anything she doesn't like either banned, vanquished or extremely in line (she has a fiend specifically harassing her teacher so he wouldn't use class time in any productive form). We later found out that she even shrunk her parents and holds THEM hostage on a hamster cage. It is glorious.
Charlotte is the new girl in town. She's loving, caring, fun-loving and admittedly stupid. She only ever wants to be Vendetta's friend and doesn't seem to realize the latter's constant attempts to either have her severely hurt or simply killed. It is like "South Park" for kids and it doesn't dissappoint one bit.
As you can imagine, Vendetta's plots never work (and usually backfire massively on her and her giant, obedient hamster bodyguard). Things get so desperate that Vendetta even creates a TOUPEE FIEND to give her teacher a boost of confidence in exchange for him killing Charlotte, which he has plenty of opportunities to do but ultimately never does.
This *ISN'T* the greatest cartoon of all time by any stretch of the imagination, but I still think that it deserved much, MUCH better. The fact that they have held the dormant rights for it for what amounts to fifteen or so years now is truly tragic and honestly deserves righting. I would LOVE to see it back to life in its original webseries form... it might have even gotten a bit of a following out of its misadventures on Nickelodeon. But alas, all we can do is wish.
The creator has been nothing but classy when it came to discussing these very unfortunate turns of events, but she has said something that I think resonates heavily with many of us: Nickelodeon doesn't care about any shows that show even a semblance of originality and they have vanquished many to the vaults of their archives, instead favoring the new Spongebob spin-off. All of them.
All I can really say as this point is: If you haven't watched "Making Fiends", I recommend that you do. It is a really good experience and you'll soon see the amount of passion that went into making every episode of its short run as fun and unique as possible. It is worthy of your time and I won't be surprised if you feel the urge to revisit it every now and again after being done with it. It is easy to binge and easier to love.
