| Creepy Crawlers | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Science fiction Adventure Comedy |
| Based on | "Creepy Crawlers" by Mattel |
| Voices of | Steve Bulen Joey Camen Cam Clarke Art Kimbro Johnny K. Lamb Heidi Lenhart Tony Pope Jan Rabson O.R. Yarbles |
| Music by | Shuki Levy Kussa Mahchi |
| Country of origin | United States France |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 23 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Joel Andryc Eric S. Rollman |
| Producer | Sam Ewing |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production companies | Saban Entertainment Saban International Paris (seasons 2) Abrams/Gentile Entertainment |
| Original release | |
| Network | Syndication |
| Release | October 4, 1994 – March 30, 1996 |
Creepy Crawlers is an animated television series from 1994, produced by Saban Entertainment, that aired in syndication in the United States. [1]
Ownership of the series passed to Disney in 2001 when Disney acquired Fox Kids Worldwide, which also includes Saban Entertainment. [2] [3] [4]
The show is about Chris Carter, a self-described "normal kid" who is interested in magic. While working at the Magic Shop of bitter discredited stage illusionist Professor Googengrime, Chris designed and built a device he called "The Magic Maker", ostensibly for use in some unspecified magic trick. A particular once-every-thousand-years planetary alignment, the Magical Millennium Moment, rained down cosmic energies on the shop one fateful night, which somehow made the Magic Maker capable of creating strange, man-sized bug/magic trick composite mutant creatures. The three creatures formed that night, Hocus Locust, Volt Jolt and T-3 (dubbed "Goop-Mandos" by Googengrime), despite looking bizarre, turned out to be friendly, and joined forces with Chris, but Googengrime kept the Magic Maker when Chris and the Goop-Mandos escaped from the shop. Each episode thereafter concerned Googengrime's latest attempt to gain power and conquer the world with a Magic Maker-created "Crime Grime" monster, and Chris and The Goop-Mandos' efforts to stop him, and retrieve the Magic Maker from his evil clutches.
As the series went on, more Goop-Mandos were created. In addition, a young girl named "Sammy" Reynolds became a close ally of the group.
Some sitcom style humor was derived by the concept that the Goop-Mandos were required to recharge after missions by hanging upside-down in the large closet in Chris' room. This concept was derived from a small oozing hourglass-like device housed in the lower torso of each Goop-Mando Action Figure. Although the Carter parents never made an appearance on the show (their voices were heard off-screen in a few episodes), Chris' older brother Todd, a vain and surly "valley dude", was constantly suspicious of the extracurricular goings-on around the house. Furthermore, when the Goop-Mandos needed transportation to a battle site, they would often confiscate Todd's custom dune buggy, using doses of "Goop" to transform it temporarily into the Goozooka "Crawler Cruiser" assault Vehicle. The villains used a similar vehicle called the Bug-Eyed Bomber.
At the Opening of Season Two, Professor Googengrime created a formula, Super Goop, to try to destroy the Goop-Mandos, but it backfired, furthering their mutations. The Goop-Mandos changed colors, gained new abilities and became much stronger.
The Creepy Crawlers TV Show was based on ToyMax's Creepy Crawlers Activity toy. A line of 12 action figures were made by ToyMax in conjunction with the show, as well as the Goozooka Assault vehicle. A "Creepy Crawlers Action Figure Playset" was depicted in the 1994 ToyMax toy booklet, but was apparently not produced. Each figure came with a metal mold for use with the Creepy Crawlers toy oven, to make custom accessories for the figure using Plasti-Goop.
The Creepy Crawlers TV show debuted in first-run syndication in the Fall of 1994. The show was produced by Saban Entertainment, known for their Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and other live-action adventure programs. Creepy Crawlers was sponsored heavily by several ToyMax products, including Incredible Edibles and DollyMaker, and other Saban programs such as VR Troopers . The show aired sporadically on weekends through the spring of 1996, airing a total of 23 episodes during its two-year run.
| # | Title | Air Date | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Night Of The Creepy Crawlers | 10/04/1994 | The show's pilot introduces Chris, Professor Googengrime, and the Goop-Mandos, and sets events in motion that will affect the show's entire run. |
| 2 | Sugar Frosted Crawlers | 10/11/1994 | Googengrime sets up shop in an abandoned cereal factory, and is soon flooding the market with the only breakfast food containing a living prize inside: Squirminators. |
| 3 | Who's Afraid Of Bees? | 10/18/1994 | The Reynolds family moves in next door to the Carters, bringing interesting developments for the new neighbors, and an inadvertent Rumble Bee that is mistaken Sammy for Chris. |
| 4 | Chris Explains It All | 10/25/1994 | Recaps the action of the previous three episodes. |
| 5 | Power Play | 11/01/1994 | A supercharged Shockaroach goes on an electricity-consuming rampage, coinciding with brother Todd's heavy metal "Battle of The Bands" competition. |
| 6 | Vanishing Act | 11/15/1994 | Chris and Sammy's "first date" at the "Razzle & Dazzle" Magic Show, which turns out to be a trap by Googengrime. Meanwhile, across town, the Goop-Mandos (literally!) makes a new friend from the Magic Maker: Sting Ring. |
| 7 | One Creepy Brother | 11/22/1994 | Todd Carter becomes involved in the struggle between Googengrime and Chris. Unfortunately, it is on the wrong side of the conflict, due to Googengrime's newest creations: the Spider Patrol. |
| 8 | I Was A Teenage Crawler | 12/06/1994 | A huge chemical explosion at the pesticide factory leaves Chris slowly mutating into a Goop-Mando with grasshopper-like qualities, just in the middle of his first high school prom. |
| 9 | Mauler Amuck | 12/27/1994 | T-Flea goes missing at a Goop-Mando team training session, while Googengrime loses control of Spooky's first Crime Grime creation: the rampaging 2-Ugly. |
| 10 | The Glob | 01/24/1995 | After accidentally creating Commantis by inserting a Shogun movie into the Magic Maker, Googengrime uses a film festival of horror flicks to produce a writhing gelatinous slime that devours all forms of entertainment. |
| 11 | All The Way To China | 01/31/1995 | The new Super Squirminator tunnels to the Earth's core in search of Magma-Goop, wreaking geological disaster, and leading the heroes on a subterranean chase after Sammy's little brother Nick, who has disappeared down the hole. |
| 12 | Double Trouble | 02/07/1995 | Good and evil agendas clash at the County Museum, as an exhibit of Houdini's Magic Trunk leads to a T-Rex skeleton attack and a high-speed chase on the freeway, as well as 2-Ugly's little brother, 2-Ugly 2. |
| 13 | Attack Of the Fifty Foot Googengrime | 02/14/1995 | Googengrime fires Spooky for his perpetual bungling and then (thanks to a lab accident), grows to be 50-feet tall so he can steal the observatory's telescope lens. |
| 14 | Return Of The Crime Grimes | 02/21/1995 | In this season closer, Colonel Ka-Boom jails Chris for Goop-Mando conspiracy, Googengrime conquers the city with the unleashed aid of every Crime Grime creature at once, and the Magic Maker is recovered by the side of good, in a colossal final battle that sets everything right. Or does it..? |
| # | Title | Air Date | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Dawn Of The Super Goop | 09/16/1995 | Instead of destroying the Goop-Mandos, Googengrime's new weapon augments their powers and color schemes to uncontrollable levels. Now, they must regain their self-confidence without Chris (due to his injury) to stop a "Super Crime Grime", Frankenfly from draining electricity in the city. |
| 16 | Deja Goop | 09/23/1995 | Googengrime dabbles in voodoo, placing Hocus Locust under his power, and at odds with the rest of the Goop-Mandos during a visit to an amusement park. |
| 17 | A Real Numb Skrull | 09/30/1995 | Googengrime builds a better monster and commands the gigantic enforcer, Skrull to destroy his "former" servant, Spooky. |
| 18 | Camp Nightmare | 11/04/1995 | Chris wins a trip to a summer camp in an R/C plane-flying contest, but Googengrime turns up to shake down the rich campers by holding them for ransom. |
| 19 | Bugzilla | 11/11/1995 | Chris and the Goop-Mandos must face Googengrime's latest colossal Crime Grime: the rampaging Bugzilla. |
| 20 | T-4-2 | 01/06/1996 | Googengrime plots to gain control of Goop-Mando strongman T-3, but instead winds up creating T-3's younger brother, the four-headed "T-4". |
| 21 | Cold Snap | 01/13/1996 | When Googengrime releases his cold-weather monster "Ice Scream" on the city, Chris and the Goop-Mandos counteracts with the new heat-infused "Fire Eyes" to help them defeat it. |
| 22 | Revenge Of The Mutant Stink Bugs | 01/20/1996 | Googengrime creates a swarm of giant stink bugs and unleashes them against the town so the heroes would surrender. Then, Chris, Sammy, and the Goop-Mandos mixes up a chemical formula to eliminate the stink bugs' odor. |
| 23 | The Incredible Shrinking Creepy Crawlers | 03/30/1996 | Googengrime concocts a new miniaturization goop to shrink every building in the city as part of his Monopoly-based scheme, as well as shrinking both Chris and Commantis. |
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