Bobby's World

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Bobby's World
Format	Animated television series
Created by	Howie Mandel
Starring	Howie Mandel Christine Ebersole Gail Matthius Edie McClurg Tino Insana Kevin Michael Rob Paulsen Gary Owens Frank Welker Debi Derryberry
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	80 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	30 minutes per episode
Broadcast
Original channel	FOX Kids (1990-1998), FOX Family (1998-2000)
Original run	September 8, 1990 – February 23, 1998
External links
Official website

Bobby's World is a children's animated series, which ran from 1990 to 1998, on FOX. It was about the daily life of Bobby Generic (pronounced /ˈdʒɛnərɪk/ JEN-ə-rik) and his very overactive imagination on how he sees the world. This show was created by actor-comedian Howie Mandel. Mandel also provided the voice of both Bobby and his father Howard Generic, who looks like a cartoon version of Mandel himself. It was produced by Film Roman for Alevy Productions and the FOX Kids. The theme song for Bobby's World was composed by John Tesh, along with Michael Hanna.

History

The character of "Bobby" can be traced back to Mandel's stand-up comedy performances; Mandel would commonly go into character with the same voice as Bobby, often conversing with an unseen "parent".

The voices of Kelly Generic (Bobby's sister) and Martha Generic (Bobby's mom) are based on two recurring characters Gail Matthius played when she was a cast member on Saturday Night Live in 1980. Martha is based on the character Roweena, a chain smoking hair stylist with a Upper Midwestern accent who gets into arguments with her best customer Nadine (Denny Dillon), while Kelly Generic is based on the character Vicky, a valley girl who annoys others with her shallow questions and rambling stories and often is seen with her friend Debbie (also Dillon).

In the US, during the show's final season on-air, the show was open-captioned; this was intended as an aid to help younger children learn to read.

In an April 2006 online interview, Mandel expressed his desire for a possible re-launch of the series.^[1] Episodes can occasionally be seen in syndication, or on a variety of websites.

According to a stand up video posted on YouTube.com^[2] Howie mentions that they are working on new episodes.

On February 12, 2007, Bobby made a surprise appearance on an episode of Deal or No Deal.

Show format

Episodes often consist of a short live-action segment either before or after the main story (and sometimes both before and after). The segment would include Mandel describing some aspect of the story and often relating it back to his personal childhood. Sometimes during these segments, the character of Bobby would appear in animated form and converse with Mandel. Other times, a live action child would appear and exchange words with Mandel. Endings of the show also featured Mandel breaking the proverbial "fourth wall" by talking to viewers about the preceding episode. In some part of the episode, Bobby will break the fourth wall by giving advice to the viewer.

Characters

• Bobby Generic, 4-year old (voiced by Mandel)
• Howard Generic, Bobby's father (modeled upon and also voiced by Mandel using his regular voice)
• Martha Generic, Bobby's mother, who speaks with a heavy North Central American English accent and often punctuates her speech with phrases like "Fer cryin' in the mud", "gee golly", "gosh darn" and "don't 'cha know".
• Kelly Generic, Bobby's 14-year-old sister, sporting a shag haircut, purple eye shadow and a valley girl accent
• Derek Generic, Bobby's 10-year-old brother, with a rat-tail hairdo and a sarcastic manner.
• The Generic Twins, Bobby's infant brothers
• Aunt Ruth, Bobby's aunt and Martha's sister (voice of Edie McClurg)
• Uncle Ted, Bobby's uncle and Martha's brother. He loves to give noogies to Bobby and is a collector of various things, one of which is a novelty item called Socks In A Can. (voice of Tino Insana)
• Roger, the Generic family dog
• Jackie, Bobby's next door neighbor/classmate with the floor-length pigtails who has a crush on Bobby and always kisses him. (voiced by Debi Derryberry)

Episodes

DVD releases

• Classic Scratch 'n' Sniff Episodes and The Signature Episodes were both released on DVD in North America by Anchor Bay Entertainment.

Video Game

A video game base on the Bobby's World television show was for the Super NES and it was developed by RSP and published by Hi Tech Entertainment though it is unknown whether the game was released or not. Most likely it was not released for the fact that there are no cartridges to be found but many ROMs are found around the internet. The plot of the game is about Bobby, whose mom tells Bobby that his room is a complete mess. Bobby was sent to his room to be cleaned. As he is cleaning his room Bobby starts day dreaming about a toy that he spots. After you beat a level Bobby has another day dream about another toy that he puts away. All levels of the game are Bobby's day dreams such as what he does on the show.^[3]

Quotes

"In Bobby's world, there's Bobby, but no world"

"Gimme, Gimme never gets, please and thank yous are best bets" (Aunt Ruth)

"In Bobby's world, there are wheels, but no circles."

"Underwater the fish don't stink"

"Animals don't wear underpants"

"Wish you were here. Love, Bobby."

"If he's the best man, why isn't she marrying him?"

Syndication

For it's entire run, the program was mainly broadcast by FOX Kids. The show was discontinued on the network in 1998, and began broadcasting reruns on FOX Family until 2000.

References

External links

• BobbysWorld.net
• Bobby's World at the Internet Movie Database
• Bobby's World at TV.com
• Bobby's World at TV.com
• Toon Tracker Audio File - The Bobby's World Theme
• Bobby's World at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
• Bobby's World on Kabillion.com