Supernoobs

From Qualitipedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article was copied (instead of imported) from the now-deleted Terrible Shows & Episodes Wiki.
Supernoobs
Genre: Comedy
Action
Science Fiction
Superhero
Running Time: 11 Minutes
Country: United States
Canada
Release Date: November 2, 2015 – February 7, 2019
Network(s): Teletoon
Cartoon Network
Family Channel
Created by: Scott Fellows
Distributed by: DHX Media
Starring: Michael Adamthwaite
Richard Cox
Matt Hill
Bill Mondy
Tabitha St. Germain
Seasons: 2
Episodes: 52 (104 segments)


Supernoobs is an American-Canadian animated TV series created by Scott Fellows (who also created Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Johnny Test, and Big Time Rush). Created for Cartoon Network and Teletoon, it later moved to Family Channel in Canada. It ran from November 2, 2015, until February 7, 2019.

Plot

Nerdy middle-school students Tyler, Kevin, Shope, and The Roach aren't typical 12-year-olds. Sure, they face the same obstacles as other kids their age, but the members of this foursome also have secret lives as superheroes, going by the collective name the Supernoobs. The heroes use their powers to fight virus-carrying assassins trying to infect people on the way to destroying the world. Group leader Tyler can teleport and read minds; irresponsible Kevin can shapeshift into various forms, although he often turns into things other than what he intended; Shope, who considers herself to be the smartest, is the only female in the group and she can harness natural forces like water and electricity; and The Roach has the powers of flight and super strength. Each member gets his or her powers from a different-colored battle ball, all of which can be combined to create a vehicle to transport the heroes.

Why It's Considered Noobed

  1. This show overuses a lot of humor even though its tone is meant to be action-oriented and serious, and as such it barely has any dark and lighthearted themes, emotional scenes, and backstories. The fact it has an 11-minute running time for most of the episodes doesn't really help.
  2. Extremely clichéd and disappointing concept.
  3. The characters are just built upon stereotypes with little to no character development and flaws, like the Normal Kid/the Boy (Tyler), the Cool Kid/the Greaser (Kevin), the Nerd/the Girl (Shope), and the Weird Kid Who's Only There For Filler/a Fat Kid who also acts as the comic relief (Roach) and it feels like the writers wanted the superhero characters to become weaker and more useless than we thought.
  4. It seems the protagonist of the show seems to be inconsistent. It gives Kevin and Roach lots of screen time, even though Tyler is supposed to be the main protagonist in the show!
  5. Barely threatening villains/antagonists on Earth.
  6. The powers of the protagonists are inconsistent.
  7. Roach and Kevin's voices are raspy, and it sounds like they're going through reversed puberty. They are so raspy they make the voices from The Christmas Tree or My Life Me sound like a thrilling and euphoric experience. What doesn’t help is that Kevin and Roach are voiced by Richard Ian Cox (Famous for the voice of the iconic Anime/Manga character Inuyasha) and Lee Tockar, who are known for their work on Community and Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series, respectively.
  8. It teaches poor life lessons in a couple of episodes.
    • In one episode "Noob Kids on the Block", Kevin promotes cutting classes and there's no explanation for it at all.
    • Towards the end of the first season, Kevin was flanderized to become even more of a jerk who bullies and teases Jennifer, because she is a girl. Now isn't that the stupidest reason for teasing somebody you've ever seen? The worst part? Kevin never learns from his mistakes, and it's almost like the show is encouraging its audience to harass and tease their female friends, simply because they are not your gender, and it was sexist. Also, he made Roach and Tyler (which is the tolerable one) join his side. Also, it almost ruins Shovin (which is the fans' favorite ship between Shope and Kevin).
    • Some episodes also encourage rude things like ruining dates or messing with stuff that doesn't belong to you.
    • "Go Noob Outside" and "Noob It or Lose It" teach kids that buying a game that is not suitable for your age is okay.
    • "Noob's Day Out" teaches kids that skipping school is a good idea.
  9. The show often makes jokes that are inappropriate for a kids show. For example, "To Catch a Noob" makes a joke about pedophilia and inappropriate teacher/student relationships by having Count Venamus disguise himself as a school play teacher Roach likes and acting flirty with him to lure him into a trap.
  10. The plots may be good, but they are simultaneously nonsensical in certain episodes, a la Atomic Puppet.
  11. This show can be mean-spirited at times, though not that much.
  12. The writers treat Jennifer like a Butt-Monkey. There are two episodes where she is bullied by the writers, "Who, What, Where, Noob" (she almost gets sent to another school against her will), and "Noobs VS. Sour Persimmons" (a picnic she made is continuously getting ruined).
  13. The Noobs are very unlikable protagonists as they frequently misbehave and act very immature and selfishly, often getting away with very bad behavior in multiple episodes and never punished for it.
    • The most abysmal example: They straight up MURDERED Incredibly Amazing Man, another superhero in "The Supernoobs Meet the Incredibly Amazing Man" by tricking him to go to another planet to find his new fans and ended up being eaten ALIVE by a ball pig. (Though it is justified because he is reckless, narcissistic, and impulsive, and doesn't care about the rules of being a superhero, but it's still far too harsh to see how selfish the Noobs are).
  14. Almost all of the adults in the show are portrayed as complete idiots and morons as the police never tried to intervene when virus attacks occur and are often after the heroes more. The school principal also never fires Mr. Wertz for his horrible and villainous behavior and often sends him to an asylum instead of jail. As also the alien adults are more intelligent and rational than human adults but even then the IQ comparison between the human and alien adults is very slight.
  15. Several of the main character’s parents never make an onscreen appearance on the show even when they are mentioned and it’s never explained why they are absent. Examples include Tyler’s father who was never seen or mentioned, Kevin’s mother who was mentioned yet never made an appearance especially in episodes that focused on parent teacher conferences and career night, and Memnock’s father, who was mentioned in an early episode as a legendary warrior but has never made an appearance.
  16. Memnock and Zenblock get dumber in Season 2. They are also portrayed as wimpier than the Noobs in this season as in one episode, they have trouble pulling off a move their mentor taught them, but the episode never reveals why that is the case and instead has the Noobs pull it off successfully, which just makes the Noobs look more superior and powerful over Mem and Zen, not to mention that it made the Noobs look Mary Sueish at that moment.
  17. Several of the episode plots are boring, do not go anywhere, and are shoehorned onto Memnock and Zenblock frequently.
  18. It excessively focuses on The Noobs by giving them so much screentime that almost every episode is about them. This results in Memnock and Zenblock getting sidelined frequently and treating them like secondary characters even though the intro the show advertised them as main characters alongside the noobs.
  19. A few episodes in season 2 end abruptly with several plot lines left unresolved with a couple involving the heroes put in cliffhangers involving them in grave danger, only for these cliffhangers to be glossed over and resolved without explanation.
  20. The show can’t decide whether it wants to be serialized or not as the first few episodes connected in the narrative but afterward got crammed with a lot of filler with only a few continuity nods in place. While the second season established an arc that focuses on ancient superweapons on Earth that could destroy the virus creator and culminate in the series finale, it was supposed to be a story involving heroes defeating villains instead of villains being defeated by a superweapon; as a result, that arc had its five episodes separated by a lot of filler between each other.
  21. Some of the episodes in season 2 have rendered others from season 1 completely pointless as it rendered “A Noob Divided Cannot Noob” pointless by giving Memnock and Zenblock a needed expansion to their house including new beds to get them to stop fighting, only for these new features to not only disappear without explanation but Mem and Zen start fighting again in later episodes.
  22. There are also several continuity errors present in this show. For example, “High Noob” established that Memnock owns a time-traveling device that allows him, Zen, and the noobs to travel into the past and future. However, a later episode “The Good, The Bad, and The Nooby” devotes a subplot focusing on Memnock and Zenblock trying to discover the secrets of time travel to validate what the future girl said about the noobs was true or not. Because Memnock tries to discover time travel when he already owns a time-traveling device, it causes the entire plot of “The Good, The Bad, and The Nooby” to completely fall apart.
  23. It focuses way too much on Earth and the human characters. Because of this, it wastes a lot of opportunities to show off potential sci-fi settings like the home planet of Memnock and Zenblock.
  24. Some of the character designs are rather uncanny and ugly as the characters have simplistic bodies with their eyes being super small and squeezed together. But while the animation is nice looking, it can be clunky and cheap sometimes despite being animated in flash.
  25. The creators and writers of the show do not take any form of criticism towards the show well as some of the episodes were seemingly made to lash out at the criticism towards this show and Scott Fellow's other animated series, Johnny Test. Such episodes made to jab back at criticism include “Superdoods”, “The Noob Kids at School”, and “Noob 4 Mayor”.
  26. Hypocrisy: Several episodes in this show are filled to the brim with hypocrisy. Although hypocrisy is used on this show for the sake of comedy, there were many moments where the show contradicts itself. For example, it seems to be going for the “It’s made for boys” kind of show yet it released “Noob A Rella”, which seems to be a desperate attempt to get female viewers to watch the show by making that episode a very forced and lame parody of Cinderella.
  27. It has many bad/mediocre episodes that are filled to the brim with crammed filler, such as:
    • "Noobies vs. Smoothies" (which started the whole crammed filler episode plots)
    • "License to Noob"
    • "Curb Your Noob"
    • "Noob Kids on the Block"
    • "Where No Noob Has Gone Before"
    • "Dude, Where's My Noob?"
    • "Tyrannosaurus Noob"
    • "Noob 4 Mayor"
    • "Go Noob Outside"
    • "Noob It or Lose It"
    • "Fourth Down and Noob to Go"
    • "Noobsitters"
    • "A Noob Divided Cannot Noob"
    • "Nooby Friday"
    • "Noobie Noobie Boo"
    • "Cave Noobs"
    • "Noobs vs The Earth-Sterminator"
    • "Noob-A-Rella"
    • "The Noob Kids at School" (arguably the worst episode in the series)
    • "Electric Ave-Noob"
    • "The Green Noob"
    • "The Noob Watchman"
    • "The Good, the Bad, and the Nooby"
    • "The Supernoobs Meet the Incredibly Amazing Man"
    • "Noob Kid in Town"
    • "How To Use Your Noob"
    • "To Catch a Noob"
    • "Let It Noob, Let It Noob, Let It Noob!"
    • "Noobs vs. Venamus 12!"
    • "I Know You Noob"
    • "The Noobs vs. Sour Persimmons"
    • "Eyewitness Noobs"
    • "Dude Or Noob?"
    • "Ring Around the Noob"
    • "Noob Storm Rising!"
    • "The Noob Trap"
    • "All Mixed Up and Nowhere to Noob"

Redeeming Qualities

  1. While the animation can look cheap and clunky at times, it looks decent.
  2. Some likable characters, e.g. Shope, Tyler (sometimes), and the alien characters Memnock and Zenblock.
    • Tyler is the most moral member of the Supernoobs.
    • But also, the immature and childish behavior that Memnock and Zenblock often display is often hilarious.
  3. There are a handful of passable or surprisingly good episodes because they've shown a few continuity nods and would've been better if this entire show had been plot-driven instead of being crammed with filler later on such as:
    • "A Noob Hope" (which kickstarted the show with high hopes)
    • "The Noob Strike Back"
    • "The Noobs Meet Count Venamus"
    • "When Good Noobs Go Bad"
    • "Noobot Vs Venabot"
    • "Shake Your Noobie"
    • "Super Natural Noobs"
    • "The Supernoobs Super Cup"
    • "Noob Tube"
    • "Noob Colored Glasses"
    • "Parent Teacher Noobs"
    • "Count Noob-A-Nus"
    • "The Noobie Bluebie Booby"
    • "To Noob or Not to Noob"
    • "Happy Noob-o-ween"
    • "The Noob Cave!"
    • "To Noob or Not to Noob"
    • "Noobie Mama"
    • "Noobs of the Round Table"
    • "Super Noob Super Cup Redux"
    • "Noobs Go Viral"
    • "A Noob World Order"
    • "The Noob-i-nators 2: Save the Earth!"
    • "Operation: Noob!"
    • "High Noob"
    • "Supernoobs vs. Supertights!"
    • "The Dark Noob Rises"
    • "Call of Nooby"
    • "Pie-ramid Pizza with Extra Noob!" (which concluded the show with a bang)
  4. Similar to Scott Fellows' previous animated show, most of the character designs are good (despite some of them looking uncanny and ugly) with Memnock and Zenblock’s designs being very well drawn.
  5. The theme song is very nice to listen to.
  6. Sometimes, it has hidden morals that may be helpful.
  7. Though Roach and Kevin's voices are annoying as mentioned before, the rest of the voices are decent like Shope, Tyler, Memnock, and Zenblock.
  8. The show improved a bit in Season 2, as it established an arc that focuses on ancient superweapons on Earth that could destroy the virus creator and culminate in the series finale. The second season also gave Mem and Zen more focus and an episode that explained some of their backstories.
  9. Most fans may have enjoyed the show for some reason, considering its major improvement over the modern seasons of Johnny Test.

Trivia

  • When the show started to air on Cartoon Network, their broadcast of the show was erratic. The last six episodes of Season 1 (as well as the entire second season) haven't aired in the United States, though they are available on Hulu and aired on CN across Europe.

Reception

Supernoobs received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and audiences. It currently holds a 3.1/10 on IMDb, making it the lowest-rated Scott Fellows show on that site. The show was review bombed by some haters of the show with one of the reasons being that it was created by Scott Fellows, the same person who created Johnny Test.

On Google Users, it has a rating of 63%.

Episodes with Their Own Pages

Comments

Loading comments...