Dave the Barbarian

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Dave the Barbarian
Dave the barbarian Cover.jpg
Promotional poster
Created by Doug Langdale
Directed by Howy Parkins
Voices of
Narrated by Jeff Bennett
Composer Shawn Patterson
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes21 (42 segments)
Production
Executive producerDoug Langdale
Running time22 minutes
Production company Walt Disney Television Animation
Original release
Network Disney Channel
ReleaseJanuary 23, 2004 (2004-01-23) 
January 22, 2005 (2005-01-22)

Dave the Barbarian is an American animated television series created by Doug Langdale for Disney Channel. The show centers on a barbarian named Dave and his friends and family, who go on surreal Medieval-themed adventures. [1] The series premiered on January 23, 2004, [2] and ended on January 22, 2005, with a total of one season with 21 episodes.

Contents

Premise

The series takes place in the kingdom of Udrogoth during the Middle Ages. It centers on Dave (voiced by Danny Cooksey), a powerful yet cowardly barbarian who lives with his fashionable yet self-centered older sister Candy (voiced by Erica Luttrell) and feisty younger sister Fang (voiced by Tress MacNeille). His parents, Throktar and Glimia, are the King and Queen, but are away "fighting evil" across the world (though they sometimes communicate via a magic crystal ball or cauldron), and have left Candy in charge of the kingdom as Princess Regent while Dave is supposed to defend the kingdom (since he is the biggest). Together the three siblings, along with their gluttonous and mildly incompetent "wizard" uncle Oswidge, are left to run and protect the kingdom from the villainous yet dimwitted Dark Lord Chuckles the Silly Piggy (voiced by Paul Rugg).

There is a Narrator, referred to either as "the Narrator" or "the Storyteller", voiced by Jeff Bennett. He is able to talk to the characters of the show, and vice versa, which breaks the fourth wall to the extent where he was once captured by Dark Lord Chuckles the Silly Piggy and was forced to tell the story according to his kidnapper's commands.

Characters

Main

Supporting

Villains

Production

The show was created and written by Doug Langdale. After premiering on Disney in 2004, it began broadcasting on Toon Disney a year later. In Latin America, the show was broadcast on Jetix.

Much like its predecessors Hägar the Horrible , The Flintstones and the short-lived The Roman Holidays , Dave the Barbarian juxtaposes both the ancient and modern. Candy, for example, shops in the local mall and uses the crystal ball for online shopping sprees.

Occasionally, the series breaks the fourth wall with a character complaining about a plot, directly addressing the audience, or communicating to the narrator. Characters can sometimes be offended by how the narrator describes them, including Oswidge in "Sorcerer Material". In "The Maddening Sprite of the Stump", the show's narrator skips over a fight scene, asking viewers to imagine an epic battle and explaining that "a low budget show" like Dave the Barbarian did not have the expenses to animate such a scene. In "A Pig's Story", the series antagonist realizes the show's narration leads to his losses, so he types favorable situations and hypnotizes the Storyteller into reading the voice-over, culminating in a theme song for the antagonist; ultimately, the narrator's laryngitis makes him lose his voice and foil the evil plan.

Episodes

  1. Perlmutter, David (2018). The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 148. ISBN   978-1538103739.
  2. "Dave The Barbarian". www.bcdb.com, May 13, 2012
No.TitleDirected byWritten byStoryboarded byOriginal air dateProd.
code
1"The Way of the Dave" Howy Parkins Doug Langdale David Feiss & Brad VandergriftFebruary 6, 2004 (2004-02-06)101
"Beauty and the Zit"John Behnke & Rob HumphreyChong Lee

Candy's quest for an ultra-trendy antler hat takes her outside of the kingdom and in direct conflict with Chuckles the Silly Piggy.


Candy demands Oswidge come up with a magic spell to remove a pimple from her face on the night of the Barbarian Ball, but the zit turns into a zit monster and he's bent on taking her back. However, as it turns-out the monster only wants to be her date to the dance and then the two perform a song that strongly parodies the song Beauty and The Beast. Candy and the Zit's song is called Candy And The Zit.
2"Sorcerer Material"Howy ParkinsDoug LangdaleWendy GriebFebruary 20, 2004 (2004-02-20)102
"Sweep Dreams"John Behnke & Rob Humphrey Dave Filoni
Uncle Oswidge has the "hiccats" and the gang needs to go to Malsquando's for a cure, only to disccover that Malsquando knew Oswidge way back when. The villainous Malsquando tells Dave and Fang that Uncle Oswidge worked in a cafeteria and never went to sorcery school, hoping to break Oswidge's confidence and clear his path to world domination.
The rest of the family runs away from the castle to avoid Dave's spring cleaning. Dave uses Dusty, the magical cleaning broom, and sweeps the castle. After months of cleaning, Dave is in need of one more thing, Castle Polish, causing him to be lured into Chuckles' lair without Lula. Chuckles imprisons Dave, Fang, Oswidge, and Faffy, making them clean for him and leaving Candy and Lula as their only shaky hope.