Cindi and Friends

Cindi and Friends is a Kuboian animated television series created by Fyp Housin and produced by Scopescreen Media.

The show ran on KT for five series airing from 1999 to 2003. After the show came to an end, reruns continued to air on the channel until its closure in November 2008. Reruns were also shown on Nick Jr. Kuboia until 2005 and during Vision One's unbranded children's programming block from 2009 to 2011.

During its initial run, Cindi and Friends received positive reception from critics and audiences alike, which praise going towards its writing, animation and music, though the show did receive some criticism over some of its characters and their personality traits.

Premise
Cindi Sophia Roberts is a nine year-old girl who does not attend school. Instead, she spends her life attending a daycare group which is located in an indoor entertainment centre called Rainbow Dome. Although Cindi prefers to spend time alone and typically dislikes the company of others, she learns to spend time with and appreciate the other children who attend the same group as her. Since she is good at helping others with their problems, Cindi is popular amongst her friends and acquaintances, though she does has a rivalry with Todd, the snobby father of her friend Tanya.

Show format
The first series of Cindi and Friends was originally broadcast with a runtime of nineteen minutes. However, the main story only lasted fourteen minutes - the remaining runtime was used for brief interstitials and "music videos", which were actually just songs from the show's soundtrack with random clips of episodes of the first series playing in the background and lyrics appearing at the bottom of the screen. Starting from the second series, this format was scrapped, with each episode focusing entirely on the main story, thus the runtime was cut by approximately five minutes.

Development
The character of Cindi Sophia Roberts was based on Cynthia Frewburg, a close friend of Fyp Housin when he was a child - Cynthia died in 1995 at the age of 12 due to an illness she had suffered from her whole life. Fyp stated that the character of Cindi "honoured" her.

Production
Production on Cindi and Friends began in 1996. Originally, the show was going to be aimed towards older children, and Cindi was going to be far more aggressive than she eventually turned out to be. Fyp originally drew her wearing a bumbag which had cigarettes and a gun in it. However, Fyp Housin was encouraged to make the show for younger children, so this idea was also scrapped. Fyp also feared that making Cindi too aggressive would make his deceased friend be seen in a bad light.

Fyp said in a 2004 interview that he had many ideas for episodes that got shelved due to the target audience being changed, including an episode where Cindi would save Rainbow Dome by deactivating a bomb and killing the man responsible by throwing a knife at him. According to Fyp, Evan Ridley nearly fell off his chair with shock when he heard about the episode idea.

Cancellation
Cindi and Friends ran for five series, with the final series running during the spring of 2003. Fyp Housin had plans for a sixth series and "had no real plans on stopping". However, Fyp started to have a bad reputation due to the behaviour his father, Xiam Housin, was causing at the time, thus he decided to cancel the show.

Reception
Cindi and Friends received high ratings during its initial run, with most episodes receiving 1.5 million viewing figures on KT.

The show received very positive reviews from critics and audiences alike, with praise going towards its premise, writing, music and development, as well as educational and entertainment value for both older and younger children.

Controversy and criticism
Despite its positive reception, Cindi and Friends has been the centre of controversy.

Some audiences have pointed out that the character of Cindi Sophia Roberts appears to be a dated Karoul stereotype. [TBA] commented that Cindi "has every expected trait of a Kuboian preteen girl imaginable, except for traits that are too inappropriate to be displayed on preschool television". The LGBT community has also criticised the show as generalising bisexual people with Florence, a girl who is seen being attracted to both boys and girls.

After Fyp Housin, the show's creator's father, Xiam Housin, was arrested for [TBA] in February 2004, Cindi and Friends was removed from the lineup of several children's channels worldwide - CBeebies pulled it from its programming selection entirely, though it returned to the channel in 2006. Noggin temporarily pulled the show from its schedule, although it slowly began to return back to being a regular programming over the next few months.

Kuboia

 * Vision One (1999-2011)
 * KT (1999-2008)
 * Nick Jr. Kuboia (1999-2005)

Canada

 * TVOKids (1999-2010)
 * AnimatTV (2005-2009)

Central and Eastern Europe

 * Minimax (2000-2004)
 * KidsCo (2007-2013)

Israel

 * Hop! (2000-2008)

Middle East

 * MBC3 (2004-2013)

Netherlands

 * Kindernet (1999-2003)
 * Nederland 3 (2000-2011)

Saudi Arabia

 * KSA 1 (2000-2013)

United Kingdom

 * CBBC (1999-2001)
 * Nick Jr. (2000-2004)
 * CBeebies (2002-2004, 2006-2008)

United States

 * Nick Jr. (2000-2003)
 * Noggin (2004-2007)
 * AnimatTV (2001-2009)