Noddy, Toyland Detective

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Noddy, Toyland Detective
Noddy, Wasteland Detective
Genre: Animation
Comedy
Mystery
Running Time: 11 minutes
Country: France
United Kingdom
United States
India (animation production)
Release Date: March 26, 2016 - March 22, 2020
Network(s): France 5 (France)
Milkshake (Channel 5; UK)
Universal Kids (US)
Created by: Enid Blyton (original characters)
Distributed by: NBCUniversal
Starring: Louis Ashbourne Serkis
Jonathan Kydd
Seasons: 2
Episodes: 104
Previous show: Noddy in Toyland

Noddy, Toyland Detective (French: Oui-Oui, Enquêtes au Pays des Jouets) is a French-British-American computer-animated series featuring the character Noddy created by Enid Blyton. DreamWorks Animation Television and Gaumont Animation produced the series. Commissioned by France Télévisions, it premiered on March 26, 2016, on the platform Zouzous and aired on France 5 on April 2, 2016.

Plot

Noddy travels to the corners of Toyland with his car, Revs, and dog, Bumpy, to investigate some intriguing mysteries.

Bad Qualities

  1. The animation style (despite it looking good) is the same to the Netflix era of VeggieTales, but with Noddy slapped onto it.
  2. With a miserable grasp and awful research of the source material, Toyland looks nothing like it was from the original books. Also, Noddy is more of a resident rather than a detective, and some of the recurring characters are nowhere to be seen or are even replaced by other pointless newer characters that appeared out of nowhere whatsoever.
    • It didn't help that DreamWorks killed Noddy since none of the people working at DreamWorks even did any research, or understanding of Noddy in general, showing evidence that their contribution to the Noddy franchise is pointless.
  3. Plot hole: When did Noddy even become a detective? There was no explanation for why he became one, making it happen out of the blue and for no reason whatsoever. The lack of explanation on when Noddy became a detective makes this Noddy reincarnation 100% full-on pointless.
  4. Much like Bob the Builder (2015), Fireman Sam since Season 6, Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service, Monster High (2016), The Powerpuff Girls (2016), Caillou's New Adventures, and Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures! & All Engines Go, the incarnation tries way too hard to modernize Noddy, but not in a good way, instead of modernizing the show but keeping the same elements and charm from the original show, it tries to modernize Noddy so much to the point it doesn't feel the same show anymore.
  5. Despite being a Noddy show, the character designs are badly made, poorly thought of, and look like Doc McStuffins or A Hat in Time rejects (Ironically, the latter was released 1 year later than this series).
    • The worst offender is Noddy, whose face looks awful and badly thought of with a badly made mouth and weirdly animated eyes that look too anime-like for a kids' show and are missing his iconic red cheeks and his eyelashes, he doesn't resemble a wooden doll anymore and looks way more like a human or resembles Hat Kid from the game, dumbed down to only having four fingers, and WHEN DID HE GET TEETH!?
    • On top of that, his iconic yellow neckerchief was removed from his design and the logo as well.
    • Big Ears is changed to a squeaky toy (with a squeaky sound effect that plays whenever he moves to match) instead of being a brownie like the original series though it could be to fix a glaring plot hole in the original books and previous shows on how he was able to go to Toyland despite the first book stating that only toys could go there.
    • Bumpy Dog is now brown and has beady eyes rather than having either grey (original series, Make Way For Noddy and books) or light yellow (Noddy in Toyland) fur and is now Noddy's dog due to Tessie Bear being absent in the show(although to be fair, he was Noddy's dog in Noddy in Toyland).
    • Noddy's car/Revs is given a mouth for his face even though he has headlights for his eyes. For some obvious reason, his steering wheel is not in the right position since Revs has always been driven on the left side of the road since cars from the UK, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Macau, and some former-British countries drive on the left instead of the right like in the US, France, Italy, China, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Canada, Mexico or others
      • What was the point of naming Noddy's car Revs? It’s like naming SpongeBob's pineapple "Pina" or The Simpsons' house "Housey"
    • Some of the concept art for the cut characters even look terrible with Dinah Doll looking like a Polly Pocket reject and Mr Plod looking more like a postman than a police man.
  6. Despite being animated by the same Indian animation company, Xentrix Studios, for the direct video LEGO Scooby-Doo movies and Kamp Koral, the animation, while cute, looks bland and soulless looking, almost feeling like a poorly made game developed by Ubisoft Pune, another Indian company.
  7. The direction from Albert Lazaro (known for directing Pablo the Little Red Fox and Watch My Chops) is just as bad as the lack of proper research.
  8. In the US Dub, Big Ears' name is changed to Mr. Squeaks for no reason despite previous shows keeping the name Big Ears in the US dubs.
  9. All the characters, except for Big Ears and Bumpy Dog, are either unlikable, boring, or/and were flanderized beyond relief.
    • Noddy went from a likable but naive character to a generic "kid detective" with no personality.
    • Clockwork Mouse, in addition to a gender change and a design change, is now a strict and uptight jerk(ironically, this was mr plod's personality in the original series although he was likable) who is quick to jump to conclusions. For example, she accuses Noddy of stealing Fuse's eyebrows in "The Case of the Amazing Eyebrows".
  10. The newer characters appeared completely introduced out of nowhere and are just there. Understandably, DreamWorks wanted to take Noddy on a modern-day approach, but that didn't work out any well nor was it well-executed because none of the older characters have returned all except for Noddy, Bumpy Dog, Big Ears, Clockwork Mouse, and Noddy's car (now called Revs for some reason).
    • The lack of character introductory reasoning shows that there's a huge lack of self-awareness from Toyland Detective, not only is that the same problem with the Bob the Builder reboot, which is also another bad reboot.
  11. Gross-out and unfunny moments here and there that cannot be explained.
    • The gross-out moments are unacceptable for the Noddy franchise since Noddy never relied on gross-out.
  12. The voice acting is just plain awful (minus the voices of Noddy, Big Ears, and Pat Pat). It ranges from annoying and grating to laughably bad, even when compared to the infamous US dub for Noddy’s Toyland Adventures (though Catherine Disher as Noddy is still worse), it's still bad.
  13. The songs are poorly sung and sound very annoying due to the bad voice acting (as mentioned in bad quality #11).

Good Qualities

  1. Big Ears, despite his mediocre redesign, is still likable as he still has his friendly and fatherly persona from previous incarnations of Noddy (not to mention he wasn't flanderized unlike the other returning characters).
  2. Bumpy Dog also wasn't flanderized and while it doesn't look like his original design (due to being brown), his redesign in the reboot looks adorable and makes it clearer that he is a toy dog while the original design didn't make it clear that he is a toy dog (especially in Make Way For Noddy and Noddy In Toyland).
  3. Noddy, despite being flanderized, is at least still friendly and kind towards the others and can be likable at times (Unlike Thomas in the All Engines Go! Reboot), not to mention, he still has his iconic blue hat as it is recognizable and wouldn't be Noddy without it.
  4. There are episodes where Clockwork Mouse isn't a jerk and is even likable, not to mention that she does apologize for accusing people after the mystery is solved in every episode she's in despite bad quality #8
  5. Despite bad quality #5, the idea of giving Noddy's Car/Revs a name is understandable as he is confirmed to be sentient
    • Sometimes the other characters are likable such as Pat Pat (Despite replacing Tessie Bear), Fuse, or Deltoid.
  6. As stated above, DreamWorks taking Noddy on a modern-day approach is understandable nowadays, you're unlikely to see children play with toys from the previous Noddy shows like Victorian teddy bears and Round wobbly dolls and Clockwork mice, and instead more modern toys like Playmobil figures, MLP dolls, and Power Rangers action figures. That doesn't excuse much.
  7. Despite the mediocre voice acting as mentioned above, Louis Ashbourne Serkis and Jonathan Kyrdd do great jobs voicing Noddy and Big Ears.
  8. There were plans for Dinah Doll and Mr Plod to return (albeit with mediocre redesigns) as shown in concept art but unfortunately, they were cut.
  9. There are some good/decent episodes.
  10. The animation is cute and decent at times.
  11. Some decent (or at least passable) funny moments here and there.
  12. Despite what bad quality #5 says, Noddy's design does look a bit adorable despite not resembling a wooden doll and is atleast somewhat faithful, unlike the original concept art for his design[1]

Reception

The series received mixed-to-negative reviews from fans of the Noddy series with criticism for being unfaithful to the books, unlikable characters, bad voice acting, and bland animation.

However, not everyone stood against the reboot. James A. Williams liked the reboot, was very understanding of the changes made, and made a point that not that many kids from the 2010s would play with Victorian teddy bears, round wobbly dolls, and clockwork mice, being why DreamWorks chose to take Noddy on a modern-day approach.

It holds a 5.9/10 on IMDb.

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