The Incredible World of Riddles

The Incredible World of Riddles is a Kuboian animated television series and media franchise created by Ashley Maverick and produced by Kubokartoonz. Based on an original idea, it is the first animated series produced by Kubokartoonz and one of the first Kuboian animated television series in general. The series as a whole ran from 1989 to 1994, with episodes following a loose episodic structure.

Early development
Kubokartoonz was founded in the autumn of 1987. Shortly aftewards, Ashley Maverick was confronted by Arthur Benning if the studio could produce a children's television series that could air on Vision Network. Maverick mentioned that Benning gave her "generous funding and support" as well as a lot of creative freedom, with the only rules being that the show must have some form of educational content in it.

As she thought that a realistic or overly educational-based series would be considered boring to children, Maverick decided to make the series have a fantasy setting. She created the show's main setting, Riddle World, with the original idea that everything in the series would involve riddles and other forms of trick questions. She scrapped the idea over fears the show would get repetitive too quickly, but decided to keep the setting's name.

Maverick admitted that she was seldom reluctant to throw in ideas that wpuld be considered bizarre. Eventually, it was decided that such ideas would be a recurring theme of several episodes but not an overly dominant one. When coming up with the main characters, she and Harlow Morrison decided to make the main cast two girls and two boys with the hopes that the show would have a general-neutral target audience. Maverick went to a nursery in Gutstone in early 1988 where she got children to draw ideas for supporting and minor characters, a few of which ended up being used in episodes.

Animation
Ashley Maverick drew a lot of the characters and backgrounds herself, although polishing up the cels and adding professional colour was done by outsourced studios, especially in later volumes. Maverick claims she has a technique where she can draw characters and objects professionally in a quick and efficient manner, though has never revealed what said technique is.

Most of the show's characters are drawn with round black dots as eyes, which became a staple for most Kuboian animated series in the future.

Broadcasting and series structure
The Incredible World of Riddles premiered on Vision Network in June 1989, with a group of six episodes lasting approximately thirty-five minutes airing on Sunday evenings at 5:00p.m. right before the news, and usually preceded by an episode of The Raggy Dolls. These were repeated in the spring and summer of 1990, except each episode was split in two and ran under a twenty-minute slot.

More episodes and specials followed from 1991 to 1994, with the episodes running for approximately seventeen minutes and the specials often running up to twenty-six minutes. Episodes are often stated as being in "volumes" consisting of four or five episodes instead of series. Maverick claims that episodes were simultaneously produced with the other episodes in the same volume.

Target demographic
When creating the series, Maverick was not told whether to target the show towards older or younger children. She decided to form a "middle ground" by making the series fairly lighthearted and toning the setting to a preschool level, but also having several fantasy elements and occasionally feature darker moments in episodes. Future Kubokartoonz animated series, as well as many Kuboian animated series in general, would follow this trend.

Casting
Originally Maverick and Morrison were going to voice a majority of the series' characters themselves, but Maverick thought that children would be bored "hearing the same two voices constantly", so Morrison spent his own money hiring voice actors.

Whilst Maverick voiced Kacie, she and Morrison were able to hire Edward Reizer as Mr. Riddles, Charlie Karma as Onita, Melissa Emery as Tenet and Avoc Westwind as Paddy. All three went on to voice characters in future animated shows produced by Kubokartoonz. The supporting cast were mostly voiced by Gutstonian locals hired by Morrison, including Bruno Leon Vidal, who voiced multiple supporting characters. Vidal said he enjoyed his job so much that he agreed to continue doing it for free after Morrison said they may not have enough money to continue paying him.

Music
Most of the music heard in The Incredible World of Riddles was composed by Wilfried Montgomery, who took inspiration from the music in both Disney films and programmes produced by DiC Entertainment, which were popular in Kuboia at the time. Later episodes feature new compositions that take inspiration from the hi-NRG and acid house music genres.

Premise and setting
Riddle World is a planet that is hidden in an unknown location in the universe, but one can be teleported from Earth and back by acquiring a special Riddle Gem and rubbing it vigorously. The Riddle World does not follow the customs of Earth; it is mostly inhabited by anthropomorphic non-human creatures and follows a different time structure.

The Riddle World is currently run by Mr. Riddles and his "glowup" assistant Diomo. Mr. Riddles carries a magical wand with him, though rarely uses it. The most common visitors of Riddle World are four children from Earth - two girls; Onita and Kacie, and two boys; Paddy and Tenet, who found out about Riddle World after finding the Riddle Gems on accident. Episodes largely centre around what the children get up to in Riddle World, which mostly involve helping the planet's inhabitants and building up their own confidence. According to Ashley Maverick, most episodes are themed around friendship, teamwork and trust.

The status of Riddle World changes several times throughout the show's chronology. At first, the children are told to keep the existence of Riddle World a secret. Eventually, the rest of Earth end up finding out about it, with several characters with underhanded and malevolent intentions trying to travel from Earth to Riddle World and vice versa.

Series overview
The Incredible World of Riddles follows a very loose structure, with episodes being labelled as being part of "volumes", with each volume featuring between four to six episodes. The main series ran from 1989 to 1992 whilst specials ran from 1991 to 1994.

United Kingdom
The Incredible World of Riddles debuted on Children's BBC in the autumn of 1989. From there, episodes would usually premiere on Saturday afternoons roughly a week after their Kuboian premiere. Volumes 1-5 aired on CBBC until late 2001; they were later transferred over to CBeebies from February 2002 until October 2004.

The show also saw a brief run on POP! around 2004, before reruns were later aired on Tiny Pop until late 2010.

Canada
The Incredible World of Riddles had a long run in Canada, first appearing on Hodge Podge Lodge (later called CBC Playground) from 1991 until 2000. It also aired on the Family Channel round about the same time. Reruns aired on Treehouse TV from 2001 until 2010, and also ran for a short period on Teletoon Retro around 2010 and 2011.

United States
In the United States, the show aired on The Disney Channel from 1991 until 1997, and later on Toon Disney from 1998 to 2002.

Other international airings
The Incredible World of Riddles aired on TF1 in France, Super RTL in Germany, Italia 1 in Italy, Nederland 3 in the Netherlands, Channel One in Russia and KidsCo in several international markets. It also aired on ABC in Australia and Spacetoon in the Arab world.

Legacy
According to many sources, The Incredible World of Riddles set the standards for the typical Kuboian animated series, with many cartoons produced in the country taking some form of inspiration from the series, particularly the characters, tone and setting. Several elements of the show, including its large forest environments, the pseudo-flirtatious nature of several characters and the presence of gravy spiders and deer burgers have went on to become stereotypes associated with Kuboian culture. Ashley Maverick and Harlow Morrison expressed shock over the show's legacy, and never believed it would become very popular, with Maverick noting in 2018 that it was "just a cartoon that we were told to make because Vision needed something to air".

Cult following
Since its original premiere, The Incredible World of Riddles has received a cult following in young adults, who find amusement in the show's bright and vibrant setting and unusual design of some of the characters, believing that it has "trippy" qualities in a similar manner to the Teletubbies. The show also has a cult following in the LGBT community, with several people likening the main children characters are being bisexual, homosexual and/or pansexual due to the effeminate nature of Paddy and Tenet and due to the fact that the four children appear to continuously flirt with each other.

Maverick states that implications that the children were "not straight" were accidental, and that the show is "definitely not a LSD trip".