Western Animation / Funpak

"Hey, you wanna be a hotshot TV bigwig?! You think you can pick out the next SpongeBob?! Well, check out Funpak, an assortment of wacked-out groovy little movies!"

— YTV promo for the show

Funpak was an Animated Anthology series that aired on the Canadian kids' channel YTV in 2004. Produced entirely in-house by the staff of the Canadian animation studio Nelvana, it was made with the purpose of showcasing various animated shorts that could potentially become the pilots for brand-new animated series on YTV, with viewers being encouraged to go to YTV.com to vote on their favorites. It can essentially be thought of as the Canadian answer to Cartoon Network's What A Cartoon! Show and Nickelodeon's Oh Yeah! Cartoons, although it differs in key areas (as explained below).

Despite positive reception to the show and its idea, Funpak only lasted 13 episodes, as the series was intended to be little more than an experiment by Nelvana in what ideas its animators could bring to TV. In contrast to its American counterparts, Funpak was much smaller in its scope, featuring only a handful of recurring series of pilot shorts as opposed to multiple potential pilots (and series of pilots) in every episode. Each episode was composed of 4 five-minute segments (with quick transitional segments interspersed between them), for a total of 10 series of shorts being featured on the show and each series having exactly 5 shorts.

Funpak featured the following series:

• The 9th Life of Sherman Phelps — A cat named Sherman goes through his ordinary life with his buddy Ronald, oblivious to the fact that his previous eight lives constantly take over Ronald's body and get him to try and kill his friend so that they can get into Cat Heaven. Created by Todd Kauffman and Mark Thornton.

• Coolman — The black-and-white life of Lester, a silent, diminutive, and bespectacled average joe who constantly daydreams about a much more vivid and exciting life as his suave beatnik alter ego "Coolman". Created by the husband and wife duo of John Van Bruggen and Arna Selznick.

• Gruesomestein's Monsters — The only series not to have a main character in every short; it instead tells different stories about people and their encounters with some of the world's most famous monsters. Created by Mark Ackland and Riccardo Durante.

• Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme — A parody of old newspaper comic and movie serials starring Harold Rosenbaum, a chartered accountant whose pencil-pushing skills are employed to thwart an evil plot to destroy the city. Created by Matt Ferguson.

• The Manly Bee — The crimefighting exploits of an elderly bee-themed superhero who has been pressed out of retirement to once again protect his city from villainy.... even if his advanced age tends to get in the way of his ability to save the day. Created by Steve Daye.

• Martini & Meatballs — The zany and frequently surreal no-dialogue adventures of two dogs, one big and one small, both of whom speak entirely in expressive gibberish. Created by Mike Csunyoscka.

• Miracle Koala — A mute koala named Joe and his partner-in-crime, a penguin with an attitude problem named Nero, escape from an animal testing facility and find themselves on the run as they try to find a way to Australia. Created by Mark Cappello.

• The Not-So-Superheroic Adventures of Sidekick — The misadventures of Eric Needles, the kid sidekick of now-vanished superhero Maxum Man, and his buddy Trevor Troublemeyer, two students at a school for superhero sidekicks. Created by Todd Kauffman and Joey So. Became its own show in 2010, making it essentially the winner of the contest held behind these shorts.

• Rotting Hills — Cowardly 10-year-old Clark McWeeble and his family move to Rotting Hills, a town populated entirely by zombies where he befriends a snarky British zombie girl named Zoe (and her zombie dog Buddy) and has adventures with her around his strange new home. Created by Glen Wyand.

• The Wild Wild Circus Company — An extremely trippy series about a group of circus performers and the bizarre situations they find themselves in. Created by the husband and wife duo Jean-Christian Knaff and Claude Micéli.

All of these shorts were animated in Adobe Flash, with the exceptions of The Manly Bee, which was done in traditional 2D, and The Wild Wild Circus Company, which was done entirely in 3D animation^note Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme did use a bit of hand-drawn animation, while Martini & Meatballs used some cutout animation. Additionally, The 9th Life of Sherman Phelps used live-action miniature sets for its 2D characters. The overwhelming majority of these series were created by Canadian veterans of the animation industry, with many later moving onto larger projects^note The Wild Wild Circus Company is the exception, as its creators don't work in the animation industry but are instead high artists, meaning you're more likely to see their work at a fine art gallery or an art collectors' auction than on a cartoon TV show. Several of the shorts were also showcased outside of Canada as part of the Nicktoons Film Festival.

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The Funpak shorts contain examples of^note Tropes specific to the Sidekick, Rotting Hills, and The 9th Life of Sherman Phelps shorts should go on their respective pages.:

• Action Girl: Jenny Florence, Harold Rosenbaum's female companion in Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme. In the first short, she helps Harold defeat some thugs who arrive to stop him from investigating the mystery driving the show's Story Arc.
• Affectionate Parody: Many of the shorts; the Harold Rosenbaum shorts for instance parody the film and comic strip serials that were popular in the early and mid-twentieth century.
• Alien Abduction In the Miracle Koala short "Close Encounters of the Bird Kind", Joe and Nero are captured by aliens. Since the aliens turns out to be friendly, Joe wants them to drop the two off at Australia, but Nero gets distracted by all their offerings of pleasure and instead decides to waste his time aboard their saucer enjoying himself.
• All-CGI Cartoon: The Wild Wild Circus Company is animated this way.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Grace Schmelling in the Coolman shorts. Lester has obvious feelings for her, but is too timid to confess them despite regularly interacting with her. This is contrasted with Lester's Imagine Spots as Coolman, where her alter ego Miss Dee Vine is in love with his.
• Animated Anthology: As an example of an anthology within an anthology, we have Gruesomestein's Monsters, which featured no central protagonist but focused on different characters in every short.
• Beatnik: The eponymous Coolman is one of these. He wears the classic beret and a peace symbol necklace, plays Jazz music, talks in a suave hippie-like style, enjoys fine art, and is all about taking things easy and keeping things, well, cool.
• Big Bad: The X of Evil is this in the Harold Rosenbaum shorts. His evil conspiracy is what drives the show's story. His secret identity is the paperboy behind the shorts' Spinning Newspapers.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Featured in the third Gruesomestein's Monsters short, "Freddy and the Yeti", in which a boy and his father, as well as a park ranger, search for a troublemaking yeti in a national park.
• Binomium ridiculus: The Coolman short "A Daydream in the Life" features these. Lester is "Timidus everymanicus"; his boss Houston Brinks is "Bossicus uptighticus"; and Grace Is "Loveinterestia unrequitica". It even appears in the episode's Imagine Spots, with Coolman going by "Hipsterus maximus" and Miss Dee being "Vava voomica".
• Book Ends:
  • The first and last animated shorts shown on Funpak are both from Gruesomestein's Monsters.
  • Every Miracle Koala short begins with Joe and Nero fleeing from a mob of pursuers and ends with them having to go on the run again.
• Brown Bag Mask: The Ugly Duckling from The Manly Bee shorts (and the sidekick of the title hero) wears one with a duck bill attached to emphasize his title.
• Catchphrase:
  • Lester's eponymous alter ego in Coolman frequently drops "That's cool, man!" He even says it in the shorts' opening sequence.
  • The Manly Bee has "Bumble! Bumble! Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!" for whenever he transforms from Clay and "Brace yourself for a manly beating!" as his Pre-Asskicking One-Liner
• Christmas Episode: The Martini & Meatballs short "X-Mas Salmon" sees the eponymous duo celebrate Christmas while ice fishing, only for things to start getting weird after they get eaten by a gigantic salmon.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Coolman uses this to contrast Lester's mundane life with the fully colored Imagine Spots of the character as Coolman.
• Deranged Animation: Some of the shorts, particularly those from Martini & Meatballs and The Wild Wild Circus Company. Also the interstitials between shorts.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: The incidental paperboy turns out to be The X of Evil in the final Harold Rosenbaum short.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: In the Miracle Koala short "Albino", Joe and Nero manage to get a bunch of police officers off their trails by crashing their car into a donut shop, where the officers become distracted by the donuts, giving the two the opportunity to sneak away.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Every Miracle Koala short ends this way for Joe and Nero. No matter what attempts they make to escape their pursuers and get to Australia, they will always eventually be exposed and find themselves on the run once more. And it's always the same guy who shouts "It's the miracle koala! Get them!"
• Fat and Skinny: The title duo of Martini & Meatballs, with Martini being the skinny one and Meatballs being the fat one.
• Gingerbread House: The first Gruesomestein's Monsters short showcases the troubles of living in one, as a witch who moves to the suburbs discovers when the neighborhood kids quickly end up devouring her entire home.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: The stars of Miracle Koala, Nero and Joe. Nero only wears a Hawaiian t-shirt, while Joe only wears a pair of shorts.
• Henshin Hero: The Manly Bee. Clay is just a doddering old man, but when The Ugly Duckling feeds him a spoonful of honey, he transforms into the superpowered (but still senile) Manly Bee.
• Hiccup Hijinks: The Martini & Meatballs short "Hiccup's be Gone" is about Meatballs getting the hiccups and Martini trying to cure them for him. True to tradition, the short ends with Martini getting the hiccups.
• Hit Flash: Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme features these. Given the theme of the show however, they instead read things like "DEBT!", "AUDIT!", and "BANKRUPT!"
• Hollywood Voodoo: In The Manly Bee short "Voodoo Cursed", a villain curses Manly Bee action figures to have this effect on the eponymous hero.
• How We Got Here: The first Harold Rosenbaum short begins this way, with Harold and Jenny tied up at a dam that the villain is about to blow up and Harold explaining to the viewers how he ended up in the situation from his day-to-day accounting job.
• I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: This is what kickstarts the plot of Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme. Just as Harold is wrapping up his tax season work to go on vacation, an old colleague of his who had gotten involved with the criminal underworld shows up with a coded file containing important information about an evil conspiracy. Before he can tell Harold what's in it, he is knocked out by a blowdart, and thugs arrive to beat up Harold and take the file.
• Imagine Spot: Coolman made frequent use of these due to Lester imagining himself as Coolman being a central element to the series.
• Jekyll & Hyde: Or rather, Heckl and Jyde, as is the case with the second Gruesomestein's Monsters short, in which a bank robber making a getaway via train makes the mistake of pushing around his tiny cabin mate...
• Just Desserts: The second Manly Bee short "Bad Dream Machine" ends with the octopus villain of the short, Octofreak, being caught on a passing sushi barge to be cooked offscreen. Octofreak isn’t too happy about this, to say the least.
• Kid Sidekick: Ledger Lad is this to Harold Rosenbaum in the Harold Rosenbaum shorts. According to Harold, he's an orphan that Jenny lets stay around in the office. Harold generally finds him irritating, but he's helped him out on several occasions.
• Left Hanging: The final Harold Rosenbaum short ends this way. Harold Rosenbaum, Jenny Florence, and Ledger Lad discover the true identity of the X of Evil, but the short ends on one of the usual cliffhangers as the X of Evil prepares to fire his sonic ray cannon at the city while Harold and his allies are still imprisoned.
• Limited Animation: Harold Rosenbaum is deliberately done in this style to add to the show's retraux feel.
• Mad Scientist: The Gruesomestein's Monsters short "Worst Date" features one who torments a man who has come to date his "daughter" (read: his Bride of Frankenstein-esque creation).
• Medium Blending: The Martini & Meatballs shorts combine the show's standard Flash animation with heavy usage of stock photos (primarily with objects the characters interact with) to add to the surreal tone of the series.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme. The title character thwarts criminals and solves mysteries by using accounting skills, and scenes featuring them prominently tend to to be played as a tongue-in-cheek kind of drama.
  • The Martini & Meatballs short "Ping Pong Panda" features Meatballs getting into a table tennis match with a panda that essentially plays out like an epic tournament with intense action scenes and a giant crowd of thrilled spectators.
  • This is the entire point of Lester's Imagine Spots as Coolman. In contrast with Lester's boring and monotonous life, Coolman takes mundane activities and makes them exciting, such as making an arcade game of Pong about playing tennis with a robot for the fate of mankind or watching a goldfish in its bowl becoming exploring an undersea paradise.
• The Narrator: Several of the shorts have these, notably The Manly Bee and Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme (the latter as a parody of the kind you hear in old film serials).
• National Animal Stereotypes In the Martini & Meatballs short "Sputnik to Paris", the Russians are all depicted as bears.
• Old Superhero: The eponymous hero of The Manly Bee is this, having been brought out of retirement to fight crime again. His sidekick, The Ugly Duckling, has similarly aged, although unlike The Manly Bee, his age hasn't hindered his competence as badly.
• Pro Wrestling Episode: The first Miracle Koala short, "Belt for Punishment", sees Joe and Nero accidentally become tag team wrestlers when they hide at a wrestling stadium to escape their mob of pursuers.
• Rain of Something Unusual: The Manly Bee features some in the short "Under the Weather", with the Villain of the Week causing it to rain bats and frogs and a literal brainstorm.
• Red Herring: Parodied in Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme with the government agent known as the Red Mackerel, who helps Harold solve the mystery. Throughout the story, he is hinted to be the X of Evil, but ultimately, it turns out he has nothing to do with the villain, who is actually the incidental paperboy that appears from time to time.
• Retraux: Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme is very much designed to look like it came straight from the 1950s or 1960s, as evidenced by its narrative and animation style, as well as the material its parodying.
• Scout-Out: In the second Miracle Koala short "Girly Guys", Joe and Nero disguise themselves as girl scouts in order to win a contest to sell the most cookies so they can win a camping trip to the Australian Outback (read: finally get their hordes of pursuers of their tails).
• Silence Is Golden: Some of the shorts contain minimal to zero dialogue, notably Martini & Meatballs, The Wild Wild Circus Company, and The 9th Life of Sherman Phelps.
• Speaking Simlish: The characters in Martini & Meatballs and The Wild Wild Circus Company engage in this.
• Spinning Newspaper: Harold Rosenbaum shorts feature these, with the third or fourth newspaper shown usually being something silly or irrelevant (like the day's Crossword Puzzle or the weather report).
• Story Arc: Unlike all of the other Funpak shorts, the Harold Rosenbaum shorts are structured around one, and every episode ends with a cliffhanger or new development in the plot.
• Villain of the Week: The Manly Bee operates this way. Every short features a new enemy for The Manly Bee and the Ugly Duckling to fight, although the second short's villain Octofreak is mentioned in the first short.
• The Voiceless:
  • Lester in the Coolman shorts. While other characters do talk, Lester himself only speaks in his "Coolman" Imagine Spots.
  • Joe in Miracle Koala leaves all the talking to his partner Nero.
  • The Manly Bee's sidekick, the Ugly Duckling, never speaks, although he does occasionally make a quacking sound.
• Wicked Witch: The first of the Gruesomestein's Monsters shorts stars one, who moves from Fairytaleland to the suburbs after deciding to give up on eating kids, only to find her gingerbread house under assault from the hungry neighborhood children. She also appears in the fourth short, where she goes on a date with a Wizard Classic.

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