Da Boom Crew was a very short-lived 2004 cartoon series created by Bruce W. Smith (The Proud Family) that aired on Kids' WB!. Thirteen episodes were made, but the show was such a ratings disaster that only four of them were aired in the United States; the last nine aired (un-dubbed) in the United Kingdom. The entire series is streaming on Tubi TV and Amazon Prime with the Ameba addon.
The plot: Four children create a homemade video game, and a power surge throws them into the game. The show details their adventures in this parallel world. They embark on a quest to find their missing game cartridges and stop the villain Zorch from taking control of the cosmos.
This show contains examples of:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The giant robotic bugs, as well as many vehicles.
- Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: "Great Commander" Blurp is a coward who "scares easily" and he speaks with a French accent despite being from outer space.
- The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: The group often struggle with enemies and puzzles in a game they designed.
- Conveniently an Orphan: It's not said specifically, but none of the four kids ever have their parents shown.
- Cut Short: Big time. Only 4 out of 13 episodes were aired in the U.S., though it did have a full run in the U.K. and entire full series was eventually made available in the U.S. when it was released on Amazon Prime in 2020.
- Expository Theme Song: The theme has Justin telling the viewer how they entered the world identical to their homemade game. He doesn't even notice the obvious hole in what he says.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Zorch's entire goal is to "extinguish all light from the universe".
- Genre Blind: The kids demonstrate practically no knowledge of how to succeed in the world they find themselves in, even though it's exactly the same as a video game that they built.
- Jive Turkey: Half of our main characters.
- Mind Screw: It's not made clear whether they got sucked into their game or they just happened to get transported to an alien world completely like it. Thanks to the show being cancelled, we may never find out.
- Not a Game: Nate lampshades it in the opening "This ain't no game no more baby, this is real!"
- Plot Hole: The cast are completely oblivious with a videogame they made.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Half of all main characters.
- Short-Runner: The show was introduced in September 2004 and cancelled outright in early October of the same year. Heck, two thirds of the first season never even aired in North America and weren't officially released there until 2020 when the entire series was put on Amazon Prime.
- The Smurfette Principle: Three guys, one girl on the hero team.
- The Starscream: Headlock wants to take the boom cards for himself.
- Techno Babble: Ricky insists on using highly elaborate names for everything...like when asking for a wrench.
- Totally Radical: The title alone indicates this, several of the characters talk in slang, though Jubei is the worst offender as practically every other line of dialogue out of his mouth is some generic slang.
