Serial History
"The Angry Beavers" is a Nickelodeon American animated television series about Daggett and Norbert Beaver, two brothers who are beavers who have left their parents and home to become bachelors in the forest. Their many adventures spark them to release their ugly sides very often, drawing in the name Angry Beavers.
The show premiered in 1997 after Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards'97 and was cancelled amid controversy in 2001 (with a handful of unaired episodes remaining). It was created by Mitch Schauer.
The Angry Beavers is about the adventures and misadventures of Norbert & Daggett, two beaver brothers forced out of the family nest when their mother's second litter arrived. Daggett, four minutes younger and vulnerable at the heart, fears entering the great big world while his foolishly optimistic brother, Norbert, embraces the new sense of adventure. Living alone was difficult at first, but now this dynamic duo has formed a swingin' bachelor beaver pad, along with a two-story, state-of-the-art dam, and a life-time supply of Jalapenos and Yahoo. As Norb and Dag travel through their life, constantly providing non-stop humor and brotherly squabbling, they set their differences aside and work together.
The Angry Beavers, being on Nickelodeon in morning and prime time schedule, is perfect for the whole family. The episodes deal with up-to-date humor and quality animation that appeals to all ages, and discusses morals, teamwork, sharing, and how to put up with siblings. It also shows that no matter how much the Beavers differ from each other and no matter how much that they fight, that beaver blood is thicker than pond water, and there's no two truer to each other than these. You can see it on Saturday mornings during Nicktoons TV and Saturday evenings at 7:30. Catch them again on Sunday morning at 11:00.
The Angry Beavers have made several achievements. Their sound editing team at Horta Editorial won an Emmy, and their main title won an Annie award. Along with this, The Angry Beavers have won seven major animation awards for their backgrounds. The Angry Beavers was created and developed by Mitch Schauer, who was also the producer of the US Acres segments on Film Roman's "Garfield & Friends", for its 9-years running. Prior to this, he spent a number of years working on animated series like "Heckle & Jeckle" and "Tarzan", before he co-created "Bobby's World" for Fox TV. For this he received an Emmy nomination. In April of 1997, "The Angry Beavers" premiered, and now remains one of Nickelodeon's top 5 shows, one of the top three Nicktoons, and at the top of all cable programs with "Rugrats" and other critically acclaimed series.
The Angry Beavers is a Gunther-Wahl Production. Lee Gunther and Michael Wahl have also produced TV series such as Jim Henson's "The Muppet Babies", and "Red Planet." After working on Bobby's World, Mitch Schauer moved to Gunther-Wahl Productions, where he's worked his magic to give us The Angry Beavers.
Popularity
Angry Beavers was a generally popular show during its airtime, though some considered it not educational enough. Angry Beavers is widely considered the show that kept adolescents and adults interested in Nickelodeon in the late 90s, thanks to its sophisticated word play jokes and cultural references. For example, in one episode, Scientist No.1 was once transformed into a beaver by one of his own experiments. In addition to his new form, he also had Boris Karloff's infamous "Devil's Hand". In another, Norbert wants to become Canadian because William Shatner is Canadian. Additionally, one episode shows the two title characters becoming famous and claiming to be "bigger than sliced bread". The show was silly and unrealistic enough to attract the attention of young children too. Unfortunately, it was aired in the midst of the success of Rugrats, and many fans believe it did not earn the popularity it deserved. Its influence is evident in other current shows too. SpongeBob SquarePants has a notably similar humor pattern and animation style to this show and is highly successful.
Character quirks, like Daggett's compulsive adoption of a superhero alter-ego named "Muscular Beaver" (whose pathetic costume consisted of an ill-fitting ski mask, a stuffed sweater, vent-front white briefs, stockings, socks and a cape), kept older and younger audiences' interest. Stations also used Dag's catch phrase "That was nuts!" for promos for music marathons, and the show even had a small merchandise line that included T-shirts and plush toys. The word "spoot" was also frequently used throughout the series, often in the derogatory sense, for example "spoot-head".
Controversy
The whole controversy surrounding the series first started in 1998, when “Alley Oops!” episode contained the following lines:
Dag: "You stink!"
Norb: "Oh, shut up, Dag!"
When this episode was first televised in the US on Nick, the "shut" in "shut up" was bleeped out. Apparently, an unknown individual complained that the phrase "shut up" sounded like "shit up". What that bleep did, however, was generate more interest in the show, as some incorrectly thought that it had vulgar language in the dialogue. Between airings, however, Nick changed Norb's line to "Shush up, stupid!" It was only one of the few times a Nicktoon had a line changed between airings since Rocko's Modern Life and Ren and Stimpy. Many people believe this was ridiculous, and it has been shown that many other Nickelodeon programs that aired before and even after (SpongeBob SquarePants used those words several times) used the phrase "shut up". Beavers did use "shut up" and in fact, language that is generally considered to be worse (e.g. Hey Arnold, which, particularly in its later episodes, used a few words many people believe should not air in children's programming, such as "crap," Ren and Stimpy also used that same language in its later episodes), that the Angry Beavers did not use. Regardless of these claims, this was edited by the producers. There are many episodes in the show where there is some violence that is similar to that shown on the Jerry Springer Show.
The final straw was an un-aired episode titled “Bye Bye Beavers”, which was going to be the show's last episode, involving Norb having to convince Dag that they're just characters on a TV show, thereby indicating a destruction of the fourth wall. Staffer Micah Wright said that Nickelodeon hated this episode, as it made fun of the station's practice of not making new episodes of their Nicktoons, preferring to air reruns instead. It is unclear if it was even part of foreign syndication. This is a quote from Wright's website about Nick canceling the show: "Nickelodeon hated this episode because it actually told the kids the truth: that the show was ending!" "Bye Bye Beavers" was never aired and, after reviewing the episode, Nickelodeon cancelled the series. The script was written and the audio was recorded. It is uncertain if the episode was animated or if an animatic was ever produced. All in all, 63 episodes of the show were produced, because Nick cut 2 episodes out of the planned 65.
Final lines from "Bye-Bye Beavers":
Daggett: "Norbie? What happens when you're...over?"
Norbert: "Oh, it's not so bad. If the cartoon's good, even if it isn't, it's rerun-incarnated!"
Dag: "Ooh...does that hurt?"
Norb: "No... Only when you get the later checks. The Cartoon-Being-Over Guys rerun it over and over and they make lots of well deserved money."
Dag: "Which they share with the people who made the cartoon, right?"
Norb: (laughs uproariously) "Right. So you see it's all for the better."
Dag: "Right!"
Norb: "Even though we're vanishing we'll be back over and over again at virtually no cost to the Network!"
Current status
The series has, so far, not yet come to DVD, despite its large fan base. The show continued re-run on NickToons Network and Nickelodeon until 2006. iTunes hosted “The Best of TAB Volume#1” (as part of Nick Rewind) for present time, but Nick does not release Volume#2 yet. The show highly positive rated and aired on Ukrainian-based TV-channel Noviy Cannel and on most of Russian TV networks. The show will air on the Nickelodeon (Canada) channel when it launches on November 2, 2009.
In-jokes
There were several in-jokes throughout The Angry Beavers entire run. One particular one involves Richard Steven Horvitz, the voice of Dag, being mentioned.
Norb: [reading mail] Hey, Dag! Check it out! [reading letter] "Richard Horvitz had a son, 'Jake Elliot Horvitz' on April 11th, 1997.
Dag: Ooo.. who's Richard Horvitz?
Norb: Nobody.
The use of "spoot" in place of swear words, such as an exclamation ("Oh spoot!"), or as a descriptor ("What a pile of spoot" or "You're a spoot-head"), were another form of in-jokes in the series. Although these were said primarily by Daggett, they were used by Norbert from time to time. Both beavers would often mispronounce common words in pseudo-French or otherwise foreign pronunciation, such as calling a refrigerator a "re-frige-er-A-twoah/re-frige-er-ize-or", mine as "my-yun", me as "mee-ah", or speak as "spee-ack." Another example includes "natural" in which Norbert pronounces it as "nature-ral". Sometimes even saying beaver as "bee-vware". As an augmentation to this, they would also elongate words, particularly each other's names, with superfluous syllables such as "Norbie-orbie" and "Dag-a-lag-a-ding-dong." On occasion, they would use foreign words but mispronounce them; for example the French word "moi" pronounced phonetically "moy".
One running gag was Norbert giving Dag a big hug and saying "Come on, biiiiiig hug!".
Trivia
The beavers' postal address is: Norbert & Daggett Beaver, RTE 4 BOX 413, Wayouttatown, Oregon (from episode Omega Beaver)
A lot of the show's music is from or based off of the soundtrack for the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).
In episode Beaver Fever the beavers created a disco/funk band that was very popular until Dag casually said that they were "bigger than sliced bread" causing a very brief period where everyone hated them. This was a clear reference to The Beatles and their "Bigger than Jesus" controversy, where Lennon offhandedly remarked that they were more popular than Jesus. The beavers got over their problem when Dag explained what he meant was that they were physically larger than a slice of bread.
The show's visual style is rather unique, and much humor is made of the fact that the main characters don't actually look much like beavers. They are often referred to by minor characters as weasels, ferrets, or "pointy birds".
The character Barry, a large bear with a smooth, deep voice, may have been intended to reflect Barry White, a soul and disco singer.
If you watch the credits carefully, various jokes are inserted into staff members names, usually in the center.
Favorite Quotes
Your underwear says Wednesday? Thats strange. Mines say October.
- Daggett
spooty spooty spoot-head!
-Norbert & Daggett
Whoo! That was NUTS!
-Daggett
Norbert is NOT a bed wette!
-Norbert
Easy Clone! Easy Clone! First there's one! Then there's two! Easy Clone!
-Dagget
It's the beaver way
-Norbert
Dag, if you bop me again I'LL BOP YOU INTO LAST WEEK!!!!
-Norb
Biiiig Hug!
-Norbert
Desperate times call for desperate desperateness.
-Dagget
Get off me bloomin' flowers!
-Dagget
Norbert: Dagget!!!
Dagget: Oooops!
-Norbert & Dagget
He'll kill you with kindness
He'll kill you with a grin
Kid Friendly
Don't you mess around with him.
-Singers in the Kid Friendly Episode
It's time for the Weather Report. And the forcast says there's a 100% chance of PAIN!!!!
-Treeflower
Baby Dagget: Mine!!
Baby Norbert: Not cool.
-Baby Dagget & Baby Norbert
(as Dagget): Eeh! I forgot how to breath! Help me remember! I'm so stupid! Eeh!
-Norbert
Okay!...you sold me!
-Barry
I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!! I MUST ANNOY YOU!!!!
-Dagget
The Howler Leeches are coming!!
Send more money, I'll send more stuff!
-Conspiracy Kevin
Norbert is NOT a bed-biter
-Norbert
Dag! How long have we been asleep?!?!?!
-Norbert
... For I am Baron Bad Beaver, master of really, terrible, evil... things...
-Norbert as Baron Bad Beaver
Daggett: (milking a cow) Come on, Bossy, get with the moo juice!
-Daggett
What in the name of Kenneth Tobey's cardboard belt are you two doing here?
-Daggett
Oh, by the way, its me, Bing, by the way." "What do you want Bing-by-the-way?
-Bing and Daggett
Spawn means...uh...Smashing...Property...And, uh...Whomping...Norb!
-Dagget
Whoah, that was nuts!!! (falls down) EEEE!!!!!
-Daggett
Daggy-Poo!!
-Norb
What in the name of Daniel Boone mosy undies are you doing, Norbert?!
-Daggett
To the pointy wezel sneaking around in the packing foam:...
-Norbert
Avast com a, half dead but still fearless sidekick!
-Muscular Beaver
Those are some negative waves, baby
-Harrington (Big Byoo-Tox)
Go pick me a lume
-Norbert
Norbert: You should buy a new brain.
Daggett: Can you do that? ......like on the internet?
-Daggett & Norbert (on New Years)
Daggit: Yeah? Well, I know that my friend St- Stue- Stump!
Norbit: You can't even remember his name!
Stump:.......
*Norbit laughing his head off*
Norbit: Oh Stump! You tell the most coolest jokes
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