My Life Me (found Canadian/French animated series; 2011)
My Life Me is a Canadian/French animated show aimed at pre-teen audiences, which ran for one season. Although less than half of the episodes were originally considered to be found, in early 2017 all episodes have resurfaced.
Premise
The show centers around a girl named Birch Small, who plans to be a comic book artist, trying to survive high school with her friends. Birch is a manga and anime fan, and the art style of the show reflects this, using aesthetic elements typical of anime such as sweat drops, characters comically popping into 'super-deformed' mode, and comic book style speech bubbles. It was produced in part by Svetlana Chmakova, a Russian-Canadian artist who rose to fame with her comics for US manga publishers Tokyopop and Yen Press. The show attained mild infamy, however, for its attempted copying of manga aesthetics and tropes.
Availability
Although it was only broadcast on Télétoon, the show was nominated for a few Canadian TV and animation awards during its run-time.
It was listed as being run on three TV stations (KI.KA in Germany, Once TV in Mexico, and PBJ in the US). Following some investigation, the My Life Me web page on KI.KA's website states: "No longer airing - last broadcast 26.09.2015."[1] Once TV no longer carries the show or has any mention of it on its website, and PBJ no longer exists as a channel in the United States. Thus, as of 2016, My Life Me is no longer showing on any of the TV channels mentioned on its Wikipedia page, but it is currently airing on Dreamworks Channel Asia. (Some clips (in English) are available on the site, if you can get it to work.)[2]
My Life Me supposedly had an entire line of merchandising planned, as well as a "heavily interactive website." While the Flash-heavy website remained available until some time in 2015, it is now defunct, and none of the Wayback Machine captures seem to be functional aside from the very first placeholder page.[3]
It seems that the show's investors, a German company called TV Loonland, were eager to promote My Life Me in 2009, yet were forced into bankruptcy and insolvency in early to mid-2010. Thus, the show got lost in the shuffle and only one season was ever produced and sold to worldwide markets.
In April 2016, Lost Media Wiki user ianolivia was able to reach out to Canadian animator J.C. Little (who worked on the show) via Twitter.[4] She revealed that despite the criticism in the US, My Life Me had a fanbase in Malaysia, Mexico, and France. The Canadian Télétoon channel also delayed broadcasting the show until 2011. She revealed that Dreamworks bought the catalog that the show is included in, hence the current airing on Dreamworks Channel Asia.
Several episodes (in English) remain missing. A YouTube playlist exists for all 52 episodes in Spanish. (Mi Vida y Yo.)[5] Ianolivia has also taken HD video from the Spanish episodes and added in English audio.[6] There also exists footage of the show in Korean,[7] and episodes in German[8] on YouTube.
However, against all odds, all the remaining lost episodes of the animated series were found by Tumblr user Mellow Margarine in January 2017. All episodes were subsequently posted on Vimeo. The Vimeo page has since been deleted, however, every episode has since been uploaded onto YouTube.[9]
Gallery
External Links
- The Wikipedia page on My Life Me. Retrieved 30 Dec '14
- Internet Archive page containing every episode. Retrieved 25 Apr '20
References
- ↑ The My Life Me web page on KI.KA's website states about how the show is no longer airing. Retrieved 12 Apr '16
- ↑ A Dreamworks Asia page on My Life Me. Retrieved 17 Apr '16
- ↑ The Wayback Machine screenshot that captured part of the "heavily interactive website." Retrieved 12 Apr '16
- ↑ Candian animator J.C. Little's Twitter account, where she described the fanbase. Retrieved 17 Apr '16
- ↑ A YouTube playlist containing all 52 episodes of My Life Me (in Spanish). Retrieved 17 Apr '16
- ↑ A MEGA folder containing several HD Spanish episodes spliced with English audio. Retrieved 17 Apr '16
- ↑ An episode of My Life Me in Korean. Retrieved 21 Apr '16
- ↑ A couple of German-dubbed episodes of My Life Me (courtesy of YouTube user Leona12354). Retrieved 21 Apr '16
- ↑ A YouTube playlist consisting of all the episodes. Retrieved 15 Mar '20