The Annies and Flapjack

On Saturday, the 37th Annual Annie Awards were given out to the Best Animated Features and Television Series of 2009. Pixar's Up took home big prize of Best Animated Feature, nominated against all of its Oscar co-nominees plus the sadly overlooked Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. I think we can expect a repeat of this decision when the Oscars come around, despite my aforementioned preference for The Princess and the Frog.

Further down the list, I had high hopes for Thurop Van Orman's The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, easily my pick for funniest animated series of the decade. Luckily for you, most of the series is available to watch on Cartoon Network's website. Unluckily for you, the aspect ratio has been fiddled with and the episodes are a bit funky to watch in places. Equally unfortunate is the fact that the Madagascar spinoff, Penguins of Madagascar took home the prize over Flapjack in both the Best Animated Television Production for Children category and the Best Direction in a Television Production category. Sadly Thurop's voicework as the lead in Flapjack went un-nominated (as did Brian Doyle Murray's Captain K'nuckels) and the award went to Tom Kenny's SpongeBob Squarepants voice.

The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack is one of the most beautifully produced shows I have ever scene. It follows the adventures of a young boy named Flapjack and his best friend the grizzled Captain K'nuckles, both of whom live in an enormous whale named Bubbie who acts as a surrogate mother to the pair. They both dream of someday escaping from their everyday lives in Stormalong to the legendary coasts of Candied Island. If you haven't seen it, you are missing out.

Hopefully Thurop will garner more nominations next year, but I predict some competition from one of Flapjack's own writers, Pendleton Ward, whose new series Adventure Time was thankfully picked up by Cartoon Network after Nickelodeon passed on the pilot. Ward, by the way, authored my personal favorite episode of Flapjack entitled Gone Wishin' (unavailable from Cartoon Network's episode list). I implore you to check it out. And for those who haven't seen the Adventure Time pilot, check it out on Youtube now. Executive produced by Flapjack's Thurop Van Orman and created by Ward, the Adventure Time series will feature the voicework of Futurama's John DiMaggio, SpongeBob's Tom Kenny, Star Wars's Mark Hammil, and Pendleton Ward himself. If I could write for any kids show, it would be one of these two for sure.