PAW Patrol

Paw Patrol (stylized as PAW Patrol) is a Canadian animated children's television series created by Keith Chapman (who is also well known for creating Bob the Builder). It is produced by Spin Master Entertainment, with animation provided by Guru Studio. In Canada, the series is primarily broadcast on TVOKids, which first ran previews of the show in August 2013. The series premiered on Nickelodeon in the United States on August 12, 2013. Nickelodeon holds airing rights to the series in various countries outside of Canada. A theatrical feature film, titled Paw Patrol: The Movie, was released on August 20, 2021, with a sequel, Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie, which premiered on September 29, 2023. A spin-off series, Rubble & Crew, premiered on February 3, 2023.

Paw Patrol

"No job is too big, no pup is too small!"

Genre:	Education Fiction Action Adventure Comedy
Running Time:	11 minutes
Country:	Canada
Release Date:	August 12, 2013 - present
Network(s):	Nickelodeon & Nick Jr. (United States and International) TVOKids (Canada) Channel 5 (Milkshake UK)
Created by:	Keith Chapman
Distributed by:	Elevation Pictures (Canada) Paramount Domestic Media Networks (Worldwide)
Starring:	Kai Harris Lucien Duncan-Reid Justin Paul Kelly Jackson Reid Jordan Mazeral Christian Corrao Lilly Bartlam Ron Pardo
Seasons:	11
Episodes:	262
Next show:	Rubble & Crew

Plot

In Adventure Bay, Ryder, a ten-year-old boy, leads a team of rescue dogs consisting of six original members: Chase, Marshall, Rubble, Skye, Rocky, and Zuma. The dogs have specific jobs to help them on rescue missions. The six usually report to their base, known as the Lookout, so that Ryder can explain the episode's problem to them. The team's most frequent caller is a marine biologist named Cap'n Turbot, who serves as an occasional member in episodes focusing on the aquatic Merpups of Adventure Bay. Other occasional members are the snow rescue pup Everest, the jungle rescue pup Tracker, and Ryder's robotic helper Robo-Dog.

Why It's on a Roll

The idea of rescue puppies coming to the town's aid for daily emergencies is captivating.
The CGI animation is nicely executed and has shown significant improvement in the later seasons.
Most of the episodes have very intriguing plots.
Many of the characters are likable and interesting:
- Ryder is a good role model as he demonstrates leadership efficiently.
Adorable character designs, especially the rescue pups.
Morally educational, as it teaches good lessons about teamwork, the importance of where you live, social responsibility, and taking care of difficult situations.
Catchy songs, especially the theme song.
It spawned a pretty great theatrical movie in 2021, which is a lot more action-oriented and was also praised for its tackle on trauma and anxiety. It even got a sequel in 2023 titled PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie.
- It even managed to spawn a amazing spin-off show titled Rubble & Crew in 2023.
Might encourage children to help their fellow residents, which is beautifully executed in the show.
Decent voice acting, for the most part, especially from Ron Pardo.
Reasonably easy for toddlers to understand, and it's not pandering.
Some of the emergencies the pups have to face are relatable, especially to children, and sometimes to adults.
Despite looking like a generic, mean-spirited villain, Mayor Humdinger is a decently fun villain who steals the show and comes with a lot of evil and interesting plans for the series and he even manages to prove himself at his best in the show's 2021 theatrical film.
- In addition, several antagonists, such as the Kitten Catastrophe Crew, Harold Humdinger, Copycat, and The Cheetah are entertaining and interesting.
The town where Ryder and the pups live (Adventure Bay) is an amazing city full of amazing and memorable places.
Sometimes there can be emotional or cute moments, like in the episode "Pups Pit Crew", where Alex was too fast on the street with his tricycle putting himself in danger, although he only did it because he wanted to be like Ryder.
It has some memorable catchphrases, such as when Ryder speaks at the end of most episodes, the classic line: "Whenever you're in trouble, just yelp for help!"
The scenes where the puppies go down the lighthouse slide stopping on top of their houses where they live where they are transformed into their vehicles are quite fun.
The series has improved significantly since Season 2 with the introduction of new characters, missions, vehicles, gear, antagonists, and stunning locations, though Nickelodeon has capitalized on this for merchandising purposes.
Unlike many Nick Jr. shows such as Dora the Explorer, Blaze and the Monster Machines or Team Umizoomi, the constant breaking of the fourth wall is not present in this show, and does not treat the children as if they were part of the show, and it perfectly treats them as if they're watching the show with no interruption of questions from the show's characters.
Amazing direction by Charles E. Bastien for seasons 3 to 10.

Qualities That Should Be Sent To The Dog Pound

The majority of the episodes adhere to a consistent formula, which renders them predictable:
- When a citizen of Adventure Bay or the surrounding area faces an emergency, they reach out to the PAW Patrol for assistance.
- The PAW Patrol answers the call and rushes to the rescue.
- Ryder and the pups come to the rescue, ensuring a happy ending for everyone.
Chase, Marshall, and occasionally Skye, tend to be overrepresented in the episodes, often overshadowing other main characters like Rocky, Rubble, and Zuma, who then receive less attention.
When the pups sing, they sound scratchy.
It sadly tries hard to be hip and cool with target audiences, such as the scene where Ryder and Cap'n Turbot floss and dab (no joke; for real) in the Season 8 episode "Pups Save a Glow-in-the-Dark Party", as both of which were long-dead trends by the time the episode had aired in 2021. Seriously, dabbing and flossing have gotten extremely old fast, and annoying.
Mayor Humdinger, though an entertaining antagonist, often comes across as a typical petty schemer, akin to many villains from Nick Jr. His outlandish plots tend to make him seem more foolish compared to Mayor Goodway, who at least attempts to fulfill her mayoral duties competently. Additionally, his character has arguably been overused in the later seasons.
The animation from Season 11, while great, can be a bit uncanny at times, with some textures looking off.
Similar to bad shows like Peppa Pig, Postman Pat (Special Delivery Service) and Fireman Sam since season 6, it has become cash cow for Nickelodeon, TVO, Spin Master and Channel 5 to the point where the show commonly introduces new characters, vehicles, concepts and locations just to sell the merchandise toys for money and nothing else. As a result, it becomes quantity over quality, due to Nickelodeon keeps milking the show that pushed way too much and the network's pets.
- Due to this, the series started declining in quality in season 6, making the show jump the shark by introducing dinosaurs and dragons in-universe. However, its not as bad as other cartoons that declined in quality over the years.
Quanity Over Quality: Like South Park, Family Guy, The Simpsons, and SpongeBob SquarePants, the series ran for way too long (it started in 2013 and there are no signs of the show ending anytime soon), spanning a total of 11 seasons and 262 episodes.
- It is often alleged that director Charles E. Bastien died from cancer due to toxic work environment behind the scenes.
Season 1 is considered the least compelling of the series, owing to its inferior animation quality and less captivating storylines, despite being fairly decent overall.
A lot of the games based on the show are horrible, especially On a Roll, Grand Prix and World, with many of them being rip-offs of many well-known franchises, such as Grand Prix being a Mario Kart rip-off, and World being a Grand Theft Auto rip-off.
Like SpongeBob SquarePants, Nickelodeon milks this show to death, to the point that most of Nick Jr.'s schedule is taken up of this show and its spinoffs & whilst being good, it did cause Nick Jr. to go downhill in 2018. To make it even more worse, there's a month-long marathon of PAW Patrol running on Nick Jr. for the entirety of August 2024. Sound familiar?

Reception

PAW Patrol has received largely positive reviews from critics. It got a 6.1/10 on IMDb and an 8/10 on TV.com. Randy Miller of DVD Talk recommended the show, calling it "packed with all the harmless action and cornball jokes that kids can't help but snicker at".

Criticism had been directed toward the show's unequal gender representation because initially the team of dogs was primarily male and included only one female character. Brandy King of the Center on Media and Child Health "found the gender imbalance immediately noticeable" while watching the program. Today's Parent noted in April 2015 that PAW Patrol images appeared frequently on Twitter with the hashtag "#IncludeTheGirls". In response to these criticisms, the writers added female character named Everest, a Siberian Husky and snow rescue dog, starting in season 2.

In a 2020 paper published in the journal Crime, Media, Culture, PAW Patrol is criticized for sending the message that corporations are more capable of providing social services than the state. Author Liam Kennedy argues that the show "encourages complicity in a global capitalist system that (re)produces inequalities and causes environmental harms." Kennedy suggests that PAW Patrol echoes the "core tenets of neoliberalism" by depicting the state and politicians as either unethical or incompetent while the PAW Patrol corporation is entrusted with crimefighting and conservation.

The show was satirized by The Onion in a 2018 parody article; referencing police brutality in the United States, the article claimed that the show's writers defended police dog, Chase, for shooting an unarmed black lab. In the wake of the George Floyd protests, the show was criticized for presenting a "good-cop archetype" after a post appeared on the show's Twitter account announcing that they would go dark in memory of Floyd received negative backlash. In July 2020, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed the show was canceled due to "cancel culture", but the show denied any such termination.

Thanks to the success and popularity of the show, it spawned several merchandise, like toys and media, notably video games and a pretty great theatrical movie in 2021, which is a lot more action-oriented and was also praised for its tackle on trauma and anxiety.

Trivia

A film, based on the show, was released on August 20, 2021, with Cal Brunker, the director of Escape from Planet Earth and The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature directed this film. Kingsley Marshall, Keegan Hedley, Shayle Simons, Lilly Bartlam, and Ron Pardo reprised their respective roles, while they will be joined by Iain Armitage (in place of Justin Paul Kelly), Randall Park, Marsai Martin, Yara Shahidi, Kim Kardashian West, Jimmy Kimmel, Dax Shepard, Tyler Perry and introducing Will Brisbin (in place of Beckett Hipkiss). Callum Shoniker, the voice of the Copycat in the main show, was also announced to be the voice of Rocky in the film in place of his current voice actor, Jackson Reid, the film was then well received by the public and went on to box office success and becoming the highest grossing G rated film of 2021, resulting the sequel being announced for the release date of October 13, 2023.
Some of the voice cast are also voice actors/actresses in PJ Masks and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, while a few of the cast members starred in live-action roles for the Fred Rogers series Odd Squad, with cast members CJ Dubé, Samuel Faraci, Jaiden Cannatelli, Christian Distefano, and Carter Thorne. Elijha Hammill and Alex Thorne also appeared in the series; Moses Rankine guest-starred.
All of the voice members and producers/writers are mostly Canadian, except Jim Gaffigan, Al Schwartz, Keith Chapman, and Anya Cooke.
Kallan Holley and Katherine Forrester also provided their voice roles on the Disney Junior animated series Whisker Haven.
A handful of cast members have appeared in Murdoch Mysteries. The most notable example is Charles Vandervaart as John Brackenreid; other appearances include Christian Distefano and Blair Williams.
It spawned some internet memes, such as "I thought the show was called Papa Troll!" (because the target demographic of the show is young toddlers, many of them cannot pronounce the name of the show correctly, causing their parents to hear it as "Papa Troll". This has led to jokes on threads about the show about parents wondering what the show's incorrect name would be like.). Papa Troll is simmilar to the name of a Brazilian YouTube channel Pai Troll.
PAW Patrol marks the first Nick Jr. series to hit its ninth season, since the original Dora the Explorer ended at its eighth season in 2019. The show is now the longest-running Nick Jr. show in terms of seasons.
During his opening monologue for the 90th Academy Awards, host Jimmy Kimmel joked that Timothée Chalamet was missing PAW Patrol to attend the ceremony, but "Ryder and his team of pups saved the day, so". Ironically, Kimmel himself would later wound up getting cast in the show's movie.
"Pups Save a Sniffle" was temporarily pulled from Nick's line-up in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic because it dealt with most of the pups coming down with an illness. However, Nickelodeon accidentally aired the episode at least twice during this period.
Chapman's original pitch focused on the idea that the six PAW Patrol dogs were rescued by Ryder before joining the team. Scott Kraft, the show's first writer, and Jamie Whitney, the show's first director, decided to abandon the rescued dog theme in 2012. The name of the series' protagonist, Ryder, was changed multiple times during production; he was originally called Raffi, Roddy, and Robbie before Spin Master settled on Ryder.
The show's mobile app game, PAW Patrol: Air and Sea Adventure, was accused of behaving manipulatively towards younger viewers in a 2018 study by the University of Michigan which focused on app-based advertising techniques. Within the game, characters recognizable from the show would express disappointment if players did not purchase items with money.
According to Spin-Master on social media and the PAW Patrol Twitter page, they claim that the pups aren't in any way in love with one another. Some fans have questioned them, the fact that there have been numerous hints the studios have (purposely) put in the show implying signs of there being secret crushes between Chase X Skye and Marshall X Everest. Later in a Twitter reply, they confirmed that it's the fans' decision whether or not the boy and girl pups should be in relationships.

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