Trivia / Fangbone!

• Acting for Two: Stacey DePass voices two of Bill's classmates Stacy and Eddie, while Denise Oliver voices another two classmates, Patty and Selena.
• Creator-Preferred Adaptation: Michael Rex, author of the original Fangbone! Third Grade Barbarian books (and executive producer for the show), has expressed great fondness for the work done on the animated series, particularly regarding the way it handles and expands upon the material present in his original work.
  Michael Rex: My books have been really honored. Michelle and John have just really taken care of the material from day one.
• Crossdressing Voices: Eddie is voiced by Stacey DePass.
• The Danza: Stacey DePass voices Stacy.
• Dear Negative Reader: As a humorous response to people calling the show a ripoff of Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Fangbone's voice actor, Taylor Abrahamse, created a parody of Star's closing theme sung by Fangbone with the intent of highlighting how different the two shows and their protagonists actually are^note Just to be clear, he has no dislike for Star vs. and has called it a very good show. While he originally wrote it as a joke between him and the other people working on the show, he did show it off in The Wacky Delhi's review of the series (see here).
  I think that Earth is a green and docile place.
  My second home, though I think it's rather strange.
  Humans use pill-ows and metal vacation birds
  Why can't I ever seem to find a gore-cow herd?
  I think that strangers are just things I have not slain.
  Son of Mom of Bill and I keep the Toe of Drool in our possession.
  I dream of watching all his minions implode!
• Descended Creator: Mike Kiss, one of the series writers, provides the voice of Twinkle-Stick.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: A variation. While Taylor Abrahamse, the voice of Fangbone, doesn't sing the show's theme song, he did compose the lyrics.
• Dueling Shows: The show competes with Star vs. the Forces of Evil, as both have a similar formula featuring a character who comes from a different world to Earth and meets a human to ally with in fighting monsters. Fangbone's voice actor Taylor Abrahamse has chimed in on the matter, saying that he finds both series to be vastly different in every way aside from the superficially similar premises.
• The Foreign Subtitle: In a weird case of this and something along Cowboy BeBop at His Computer from the translators' part, the show was renamed Fangbone: Aventuras Cavernícolas (Fangbone: Cavemen Adventures) for the Latin American Spanish dub, despite the fact Fangbone is not a caveman from the prehistoric era but a barbarian from a Conanesque setting.
• He Also Did: Series developers Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliot also created Spliced and developed Grossology.
• Inspiration for the Work: According to Michael Rex, the series was directly inspired by the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie and his longtime interest and familiarity with the character and his works. When gearing up to write the original Fangbone! Third Grade Barbarian book, he took the time to read a ton of Conan comics to get some inspiration for the story.
• Invisible Advertising: Disney XD made zero effort to acknowledge the series, having zero mention of the show on their official website (except if one checked the weekly schedule) and absolutely no advertising. Pretty much the only way people ever found out about the show was by randomly stumbling upon it.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Despite being voiced by singer-songwriter Taylor Abrahamse, Fangbone is shown in "The Ballad of Meh" to be unable to get the gist of singing quite as well as Bill can.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Most episodes are rare in the US. A handful of them are on Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu; and the first 10 episodes can be seen on iTunes, but that's pretty much it.
• The Other Darrin:
  • In 2013, Disney XD Canada aired a promo on YouTube in which users could vote on Bill and Fangbone's voice actors, who were neither Colin Doyle and Taylor Abrahamse respectively but completely different (and still unknown) figures.
  • Dibby was voiced by Shemar Charles in the first episode, but in every episode afterwards, he is voiced by Cameron Ansell.
• Production Posse: Quite few of the people on this show had worked with Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott on several of their previous series, notably Mike Kiss (one of the show's writers and the voice of Twinkle-Stick), who was also prominent on Spliced (where he was one of the show's writers and the voice of Mister Smarty-Smarts).
• Prop Recycling: An old woman with shades and a cane who appears as a background character in the pilot also appears as a background character in multiple episodes of Atomic Puppet, which like Fangbone!'s pilot, was also animated by Mercury Filmworks. See here.
• Referenced by...: In the fifth Origami Yoda book, Kellen turns in a book report on Fangbone, receiving a failing grade when his teacher discovers it's an graphic novel.
• Self-Adaptation: Michael Rex was extremely involved in the show's creation and production. While he didn't write any episodes, he did help out a lot with designing the series, including completely redesigning Venomous Drool for the show and developing Twinkle-Stick.
• Screwed by the Network: Disney XD was not kind to this series. It aired with no promotions and during mid-afternoon weekdays when either the target audience was either leaving or still in school until Atomic Puppet took over its slot (ironically, Fangbone! has stolen that same timeslot from Counterfeit Cat just a month earlier). But after Atomic Puppet was purged from the lineup at the end of July 2016, Fangbone! did not return to American airwaves until February 2017 (after Counterfeit Cat and Atomic Puppet were also suddenly brought back and quickly killed off just weeks earlier). Even then, the series continued to be treated the same as before, ultimately dying a quiet death in March of that year and leaving the show on a cliffhanger.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to Michael Rex, author of the original Fangbone! Third Grade Barbarian books, Fangbone himself was originally named Bonesword (and would actually carry with him a sword made of bone) and Bill was originally going to be a Non-Action Guy rather than a Badass Normal. See here.
  • In an interview with Michael Rex, Simon Racioppa, and Richard Elliott, the three revealed they had some ideas for episodes exploring Skullbanian holidays, like Troll-smasher’s Eve and The Feast of Stoneback’s Feast, in comparison to Earth holidays like Christmas and Halloween.
  • The series was originally meant to debut on the Canadian Disney XD in 2014, with the channel even airing the pilot that year as a sneak peek. However, the distribution rights to the series were acquired by DHX Media, which moved the show to Family CHRGD where it debuted in 2016. This was in part due to a reshuffling around Canadian kids' networks at the time that resulted in Corus Entertainment acquiring the Canadian airing rights to all Disney TV series from the DHX-owned Family Channel and its siblings.
  • As can be seen in the series pilot "Warbrute of Friendship" (and mentioned by Michael Rex on posts from his blog about the show's development), the series was originally going to be composed of full half-hour episodes. However, Executive Meddling forced them to switch to the Two Shorts format, with all subsequent half-hour episodes being split in two.
  • The theme song originally had sound effects included. This version can only be viewed on Family Channel's YouTube page... and only for those who live in Canada.
  • According to a comment by Taylor Abrahamse on The Wacky Delhi's review of the series, the producers had some ideas in mind for Season 2.
    • As a result of his defeat in the Season 1 finale, the now-powerless Venomous Drool would be forced to live with Twinkle-Stick, eventually leading to Drool having a small redemption arc as he reconciled with the Skullbanians and joined forces with them to defeat his now fully autonomous Toe of Evil.
    • With Earth and Skullbania now being so close that portals now spontaneously open between both worlds (thanks to Drool temporarily creating a Merged Reality in the finale), the crew also hoped to explore how the two remarkably different worlds would interact with each other more, with Skullbania beginning adopting Earth customs/ideas and both worlds learning more about each other in the process.
  Taylor Abrahamse: I'll share one fun fact as well that I'm not sure I did: the producers were considering all kinds of Season 2 ideas... one I remember them saying was Drool and Twinklestick being forced to live together. Having Earth and Skullbania blended together opened all sorts of possibilities for reconciliation between the Skullbanians and Drool to fight the Toe... and opening all their minds to the customs of Earth and vice versa. It's really a show about accepting the "weird" in every sense — a class at school full of misfits, a weird barbarian planet... and to have that message in a boy-centric show is I think particularly healthy. Weird, perhaps autistic, at least highly eccentric heroes are important to show and celebrate, and are so rare. I really have felt like Fangbone my whole life in many ways, so it was an honor to play him and see other people connect with him. The world wasn't ready for him, but they will be someday if we keep our rallying cry howling into the Nightlands.
• Write Who You Know: Bill is based on Michael Rex himself when he was a 3rd-grader. Fangbone, on the other hand, took some inspiration from a friend he first met in 4th grade, who, like Fangbone, "was fun, a bit wild, and had long black hair."
• Written by Cast Member: Mike Kiss, who voices Twinkle-Stick, wrote the episode "The Ball of Clobbering".
• Written for My Kids: According to executive producer Michelle Cuperus, the idea for the series came about when the producers at Radical Sheep Productions gave their own children copies of the Fangbone! Third Grade Barbarian books, and after seeing how much the kids loved them, decided to contact series author Michael Rex about the idea of making an Animated Adaptation of the books, which he gladly agreed to.

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