Histeria! was a short lived cartoon show made by Warner Bros. Animation in the late 1990's. Unlike other similar shows by Warner, Histeria's purpose was not simply to entertain but, to attempt to teach history as well. A regular cast of characters would visit a different period or event in history and try to explain the event using humor. Some critics have suggested that the humor created a biased or even harmful image of historical figures. Others observe that sketches were more or less direct rip-offs of old "Monty Python's Flying Circus" bits. Notable of these is "The Cheese Shop Sketch / Boston Tea Shop". Sometimes musical numbers were also involved. The cartoon did not last very long; one episode even featured a sequence in which many of the characters performed a carol asking their audience to please watch the show or it would be cancelled. (to a beat reminiscent of the 1970s Coca-Cola commercial "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing")
Loud Kiddington and Froggo were voiced by sons of the show's producer, Tom Ruegger.
Histeria! aired on Kids' WB from 1998-2000. It will air in reruns on Warner Bros. and AOL's new broadband internet channel Toontopia TV.Histeria Characters
- Father Time- the 'host' of Histeria. According to one segment, he is the reason the cast 'travels' through time.
- Big Fat Baby/Big Fat Baby Girl - re-occurring egg-shaped babies(There are sometiemes several) who occasionally have dirty diapers, which one of the kids usually tries to get the current historical figure they're bugging to change. When they ask the kid the last time it had a clean diaper, the kids refer to a point in history a long time ago, and says it happened before that.
- Miss Information- a ditzy tour guide who also leads the same group of tourists through various moments in history. Has a habit of getting facts wrong, like claiming that George Washington was named after the monument, rather than the other way around.
- Loud Kiddington- a young boy who talks extremely loudly (as the name suggests). Does segments with Father Time that depict really loud moments in history (e.g. the creation of gunpowder)
- Pepper Mills- A crazy teenage girl who constantly bugs people in history for their autograph, thinking it is someone else, and realizing the mistake after the autograph is given (e.g. To Dwight D. Eisenhower- "Hey! You're not Elmer Fudd!")
- Toast- A clueless surfer teen. Has a couple segments on the show called "Ask Me If I Care", where a historic figure has three shots to try to tell Toast something that interests him, or they are ejected into space.
- Froggo- a frog-mouthed kid with a really low voice. Often asks historical figures for various strange items, and will either go into a panic if he doesn't get them, or tells the person not to come crying to him afterwards.
- Charity Bazaar- a little blonde girl who talks in a deadpan tone and is constantly unhappy ("I'm not happy.").
- Cho-Cho- a little asian girl with no real role, but hangs out with the kids of the show and is always seen with Lucky Bob.
- Lucky Bob- A dumb kid who doesn't seem to be a real lucky charm, but when he sneezes, coins fly out of his nostrils. Often mimics Ed McMahon and says, "High-oooo!" and, "You are correct, sir!"
- Aka Pella- an African-American girl who also has a minor role on the show.
- World's Oldest Woman- a really old woman who claims to have dated every historic man in history. Dating all the way back to Adam in the Garden of Eden.
- Mr. Smartypants- a strange person who wears his pants so high up, it covers half of his face.
- Lydia Karaoke- the 'network censor'. Appears at times in the show where the scene is considered 'inappropriate', such as nudity found in many classic works or art, and the entirety of the Vomitorium sketch.
- Nostradamus: the real life fortune teller. Predicts the future for the cast and predicts the next segment. His catchphrase is "SHUT UP!".
Depictions of Historical Figures
- Joan of Arc acts a little like a Valley Girl. As she was burned at the stake in real life, she constantly puts out all flames near her.
- Napoleon Bonaparte talks like Tattoo from Fantasy Island. In one point, he gets injured and groans: "The pain boss! The pain!", a parody of Tattoo's famous line.
- Plato is depicted as a Greek version of Fred Rogers, while his mentor Socrates is a dry stand-up, similar to Bing Crosby.
- Julius Caesar is meant to look and sound like Frank Sinatra and performs a musical number called "That's Why They Stabbed Me in the Back."(Members of the Roman Senate resembled other members of the Rat Pack)
- Molly Pitcher acts like Martha Stewart.
- Attila the Hun is similar in stature, voice, and temperment to the Tazmanian Devil
- General Sherman is a parody of Pee-Wee Herman and even has his own segment called "Sherman's Campsite," complete with Pee-Wee's Playhouse-esque characters.
- George Washington acts like Bob Hope, and sometimes even seen with a golf club in hand.
- Abraham Lincoln acts like Johnny Carson
- Captain Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition acts like Jerry Lewis. While William Clark speaks and acts like Dean Martin, he was drawn to look like the DC Animated Universe version of Superman(i.e. Clark Kent).
- Moctezuma II is shown as an easygoing, hospitable man who always offers a drink of water to other characters, who wisely decline.
[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Histeria! ]
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