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.

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.

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 Morrison voiced Mr. Riddles whilst Maverick voiced Kacie, they were able to hire 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.

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.