The Moxy Show (partially found episodes of Cartoon Network CGI animated anthology series; 1993-2000)

Title card.

Status: Partially Found

The Moxy Show, also known as The Moxy Pirate Show and The Moxy & Flea Show, was a CGI animated anthology series developed by Colossal Pictures and produced by Hanna-Barbera for Cartoon Network. It began airing on December 5th, 1993 and ended on January 2nd, 2000. It was an anthology series of classic cartoons that Cartoon Network commonly aired back in the early 1990s, and in-between them were interstitials of Moxy (played by Bobcat Goldthwait), a goofing off, fun-loving dog who has a crush on Melody from Josie and the Pussycats, and Flea (Penn Jillette in the show, Chris Rock in the "Moxy & Flea" pilot), a flea who likes to hang out and watch TV with Moxy.

Premise[edit | edit source]

According to the website NickandMore, the show was a "whimsical mesh" of retro pop culture and comedy, with wacky jokes and references.^[1] Betty Cohen described it as "The premise is that Moxy's the toon who didn't quite make it, so we gave him a job as a janitor at the Cartoon Network", adding that for The Moxy Pirate Show, "he jams our signal once a week".^[2] A New York Times article from 1993 can also be found online, which further explains the motion capture CGI process that was used for the series.^[3]

Production[edit | edit source]

The format was originally motion capture CGI from 1993-1998, but then turned to traditional hand-drawn animation with CGI and live-action effects from 1998-2000, which may have had something to do with how Colossal Pictures stopped working on it by that point. It may also be because of something to do with Chapter 11 bankruptcy which their company suffered in Winter 1997. It is considered the very first Cartoon Network original series barring the fact that it was an anthology series based around re-existing cartoon shorts; the first fully produced Cartoon Network original series was Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

As mentioned earlier, the series originally began as The Moxy Pirate Show and only featured Moxy before adding Flea in 1994. Then it was retitled The Moxy Show in 1995 and The Moxy & Flea Show in 1998 with changes like:

Moxy's design changing into green/black striped shirt, black jeans and non palette-swapped shoes and having no whiskers or freckles, a black nose and smaller eyes.
Flea's design changing into a blue fez, yellow eyes with red pupils and growth in size to half the height of Moxy, as well as now being voiced by Chris Rock.
The opening sequence widely changed from the original sequence, as seen in the video below.
The shortening of the timeslot from an hour to thirty minutes.

The show (at least during its CGI run) is considered to be the first "real-time" or "live" cartoon, though it was never broadcast directly live. Through motion capture, a puppeteer would act out Moxy's motions while Goldthwait provided the voice and a technician would control the facial expressions.

Status[edit | edit source]

In a 2003 online IGN interview, Andy Merrill (who worked on the show) talked about how Moxy was apparently unpopular and unsuccessful with audiences, despite being on the air for seven years.^[4] Reruns stopped on April 1st, 2000, which was the same day where all of the classic cartoon programmings was moved from Cartoon Network to Boomerang except for this series, and it hasn't been seen on Cartoon Network, Boomerang or home media releases of any kind since, and not even during Cartoon Network's 20th anniversary.

Frank Gresham's directing reel and website contain more footage of the episode featured in Ben Friedman's reel and what may be enough to be a full episode. His reel can be found here and the longer version of the footage can be downloaded here. According to him, no other Moxy & Flea episodes were produced. ^[5] Brad DeGraf of the show claims to have an amount of footage from the show on DV tape in storage but can't upload it to the public because, as it turns out in a later email sent to someone else, a complete restoration would require financial support. On YouTube, there's several playlists for the show, including a playlist of complete segments and The Moxy & Flea Show pilot, a playlist of available footage, and a playlist of available Great International Toon-In segments.