The Incredible World of Riddles

The Incredible World of Riddles is a Kuboian media franchise created by Ashley Maverick and owned by TVVC, which is mostly known for its multitude of television specials. The franchise chronicles the life of a pre-teen girl called Kacie as she and her human friends explore a planet called Riddle World, secret to most humans on Earth. The specials and other merchandise based on the franchise have been released worldwide.

Setting
Riddle World is a small planet that is located close to Earth but unknown to most human beings on the latter planet. Inhabited mostly by non-human creatures and objects coming in all shapes and sizes, it is ruled by the enigmatic Mr. Riddles, who was declared a hero after defeating the planet's previous ruler, the Diamond King. In spite of this, a lot of the planet is mysterious, unexplored and not part of Mr. Riddles' rule.

The main inhabited area of Riddle World is the Riddle Central where Mr. Riddles and a majority of the other characters live, which features elements of both a fairy tale-like forest and a contemporary (for 1980s standards) urban village.

Characters
The main characters of The Incredible World of Riddles are four children from Earth who visit the planet by using special Riddle Gems and rubbing them vigorously. They include Kacie; the somewhat clumsy heroine who helps to protect the planet, Onita; a laid-back, sarcastic tomboy, Paddy; an adventurous and intelligent boy, and Tenet; a very feminine boy who lacks confidence in himself. Kacie plays the central role in the franchise and is typically the one to save Riddle World when it is in danger or somebody is in trouble. She usually does this by using a wand, the Crimson Sceptre, given to her by Mr. Riddles, though she is advised to not use it carelessly as doing so can lead to unexpected events.

Residents of the Riddle Central include Flowral; a mischievous clown head creature, Chica; a cardboard puppet who habitually makes a lot of physical and verbal tics, Mr. Nether; is a grey humanoid creature who acts and speaks in a monotonous and robotic manner but shows occasional bursts of competence, and Yowie; a cynical brown crow who speaks in an Australian accent.

Other creatures and species are also seen throughout the franchise, most notably the Glowup species, a group of white legless creatures who can float in air. One of them, Diomo, serves as Mr. Riddles' personal assistant whilst another, Synther, plots to destroy both Earth and Riddle World one day. In the show's forest environments, mushrooms, trees and even cottage doors are shown to have sentience, and are normally shown to be hostile.

Content
The Incredible World of Riddles is, generally speaking, a lighthearted franchise largely centred around friendship, responsibility and imagination with occasional moments of bizarre and over-the-top scenery. In spite of this, the franchise has occasional dark moments. Some of the later specials and films took a more experimental approach, such as showing previous stories from other characters' perspectives or lacking an overarching story in favour of showcasing scenes with very detailed animation.

Although the 1989 film was designed as a family film for all ages, the franchise was later marketed as being suitable for a preschool audience only in spite of Ashley Maverick stating on numerous occasions that the franchise can be enjoyed by both children and adults.

History
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. She and Harlow Morrison spent months coming up with premise ideas, eventually going along with a fantasy setting inspired by the novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. When coming up with the main characters, she and 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. However, one of the girl characters, Kacie, ended up being the central character. Maverick went to a nursery in Gutstone in early 1988 where she got children to draw ideas for supporting and minor characters. According to Maverick, she suffered from a lack of vitamin D due to spending long periods indoors drafting the franchise.

The Incredible World of Riddles was intended as a television series consisting of thirteen 15-minute episodes that could be aired in the same timeslot alongside Animal Barn. However, as Benning felt Maverick's plan was a bit "ambitious" for his liking, he instead asked Kubokartoonz to make a single television special first before making anything else. Maverick stated in a 2009 interview "I didn't want it to be some shitty cartoon with juvenile writing and animation. I wanted it to set the standards for Kuboian animation. Looking back, it certainly did."

Animation
Ashley Maverick drew a lot of the characters and backgrounds herself, although polishing up the cels and adding colour was done by other professionals. 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 franchise's specials and television episodes were produced entirely in Kuboia with no outsourcing at all.

Most of the show's characters are drawn with round black ovals as eyes, which Maverick went with because they were easy to draw and felt that given the characters more realistic eyes made them look "ugly" and "too anime-esque". This became a staple for most Kuboian animated series in the future.

Casting
Maverick and Morrison were originally going to voice a majority of the franchise's characters themselves, but Maverick thought that children would be bored "hearing the same two voices constantly", so Morrison personally spent 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 four 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 if they did not have enough money to continue paying him, although he later said he was still paid for all of his roles.

All of the franchise's specials and other films were dubbed in Dutch in-house. As a result, a majority of the English voice actors also voice their respective characters in the Dutch dub.

Reizer has since adapted the nickname Tone Riddles, which he based off the character of Mr. Riddles.

Music
The franchise's music, composed by Wilfried Montgomery. For the soundtrack, Montgomery wanted to include lighthearted orchestral pieces similar to ones found in Disney movies, though he did also take inspiration from some contemporary music genres, such as synth-pop, disco and trip hop. Notably, a remix of Giorgio Moroder's 1978 composition "Chase" appears in the special The Test of Time.

Television specials

 * The Incredible World of Riddles (1989)
 * Kacie's Grand Adventure (1989)
 * The Test of Time (1990)
 * A Christmas Riddle (1990)
 * The Search for Mr. Riddles (2000)
 * Kacie and the Surreal Dimension (2024)

Feature-length films

 * The New Adventures in the Incredible World of Riddles (1993)
 * Tenet's Time (2004)
 * The Incredible World of Riddles (2021)

Television series
A television series for The Incredible World of Riddles was broadcast on Bumper's Block from September 1991. A total of twenty-six episodes were produced. Each episode is centred around the adventures Kacie, Onita, Tenet and Paddy have in Riddle World, with a majority of the episodes being centred around teamwork, responsibility, caring for others and the environment and overcoming difficult situations and personal flaws. Although Chica, Flowral, Mr. Nether and Yowie all make regular appearances, Mr. Riddles, Diomo and Snappy rarely appear in the show; Ashley Maverick said she had difficulty finding ways to fit Mr. Riddles into the storyline of most of the episodes.

The series noticable has an inconsistent episode runtime, with each episode running for a different amount of time, although most episodes run for approximately eighteen minutes. The longest episode, "Castle in the Sky", runs for exactly twenty minutes. The shortest episode meanwhile, "A Tale with a Twist", runs for sixteen minutes and forty seconds.

In July 2021 to coincide with the show's thirtieth anniversary, a remastered version of The Incredible World of Riddles with all the cels now featuring digital ink (in contrast to traditional ink) premiered on Junior Vision.

Direct-to-video films

 * An Incredible Halloween (1997)

Interactive DVDs
Two interactive DVDs featuring "choose your own adventure"-style stories were released in the 2000s.
 * Kacie's Wild Adventure (2002)
 * Onita and the Magic Candle (2005)

Legacy
When talking about the franchise's success in a 2018 interview, Ashley Maverick said "I think the reason so many people like The Incredible World of Riddles is because they like how 'personal' we made it. We added what we thought made a good story, not what a greedy executive thought made a good story. I think since we had so much fun making the films, the public had fun watching them." However, she also admitted she wouldn't have given it "such a stupid name" if she knew it would become so popular.

To date, The Incredible World of Riddles remains a very popular franchise in Kuboia and is frequently used for tourism attractions in the country. It has also developed a cult following amongst multiple fanbases, with some believing it has psychedelic qualities and that a majority of the characters, particularly Kacie, appear to be on the LGBT spectrum. As of 2023, it is the highest-grossing media franchise to originate from Kuboia.

In 1997, Kacie was included in the Kunning Hall of Fame. She is currently the only fictional character to be added. In 1999, to coincide with the franchise's tenth anniversary, a statue of Kacie was erected outside Reichetto Airport, which has since became a popular tourist attraction.

Criticism and censorship
The Incredible World of Riddles franchise has been criticised in the press for its content. Although branded as a preschool friendly media by both Kubokartoonz and TVVC, a few sources claim the franchise has content inappropriate for young children. Several critics claim the media features music and characters that children could find frightening. Others argue that Kacie and the other human characters manifest stereotypes associated with Kuboians and regularly wear short and skimpy clothing.

Although unedited in Kuboia, the films, specials and television series have all been censored in various ways in some international regions. Arguably the most censored special is A Christmas Riddle. The scene where Chica and Mr. Riddles both appear to be under the influence of alcohol and the former falls off her seat was edited out in several markets. In 1993, a revised version was later released in which their antics are implied to be caused merely by their clumsiness. Another scene in The Test of Time in which Chica's eyes pop out of her sockets was censored to edit out the "build up" music and tone down the cinematography.

All four of the main human characters are seen topless and half-naked on at least one occasion. These scenes were censored in some regions to censor any visible nipples and bellybuttons, although some countries opted to either edit out the scenes or not screen the specials/episodes at all.

United Kingdom
The original 1989 special had its UK premiered on the BBC in the autumn of 1989, with the following specials airing over the course of the next year and a half. This was notably the first time a Kuboian television medium aired on British television. Following high demand, the Incredible World of Riddles television series premiered on Children's BBC in the autumn of 1992, and also began airing on The Children's Channel shortly afterwards. The franchise was popular amongst children in the country throughout the 1990s. As a result, it continued airing on CBBC until late 2001. In February 2002, reruns of the television series began airing on CBeebies, which continued until the autumn of 2005. Since 2021, BBC Four has began to show the original specials on a sporadic basis.

Merchandise based on the franchise was sold in the United Kingdom in the 1990s and early 2000s. Both the specials and television series were released on VHS through the BBC Video label.

Other countries
The Incredible World of Riddles specials and television series have been broadcast in many countries worldwide. They aired on ABC in Australia, Rede Globo in Brazil, TF1 in France, Super RTL in Germany, Italia 1 in Italy, Nederland 3 and Kindernet in the Netherlands and Channel One in Russia. A Japanese dub also aired on TV Asahi. The specials and television series were aired on The Disney Channel in the United States throughout the early 1990s before airing on Toon Disney from 1998 to 2001 and Gio Network from 2001 to 2014.

Amongst the countries where The Incredible World of Riddles is most popular are Brazil, where the specials and series saw a successful run on Rede Globo for over twenty years, and Canada, where they aired on Hodge Podge Lodge (later called CBC Playground) from 1991 until 2000. They 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.

Home media
Each of the specials based on The Incredible World of Riddles were released on VHS roughly six months after their original Kuboian premiere.

Home media releases were distributed by Vision Video in Kuboia and BBC Video in the United Kingdom.

Television series releases
The Incredible World of Riddles television series was released on VHS in eight volumes from 1993 to 1996. Each volume featured three episodes and a short made-for-VHS segments (typically a short story or music sequence) after the second episode. Some episodes were slightly altered to fit the theme of the tape.

The television series was later released on DVD in Region 2 in five volumes released from 2002 to 2004, with each volume having five or six episodes as well as multiple extras, such as deleted scenes and new clips in which the central characters (each volume starring Kacie, Tenet, Paddy, Onita and Flowral respectively) discuss themselves and any achievements they earn throughout the series and specials. Each of the respective voice actors reprised their roles for the clips.

YouTube
An Incredible World of Riddles YouTube channel was launched in October 2020, operated by several of Ashley Maverick's "close associates". The channel has uploaded every episode of the television series and clips of the main specials and films. It has also uploaded some other content, such as gameplay videos of the franchise's respective video games.

Despite being a family-friendly channel uploading content designed for young children, the Incredible World of Riddles YouTube channel does not market its content as "for kids", citing that they "don't believe in [it]".

Books
Books based on The Incredible World of Riddles have been published worldwide. The franchise and its characters were regularly featured in the Bumper's Block Magazine.

Kacie's Adventures
A series of books titled Kacie's Adventures was published throughout Europe and Australia from 1993 to 2005 starring Kacie in a variety of action-based adventures intended for younger readers. Despite including the characters from the Incredible World of Riddles franchise, they did not necessarily follow the main timeline of the franchise, and the book's setting is left ambiguous given Riddle World itself is never mentioned, though later entries would occasionally reference previous books.

Generally, each book would have two stories, followed by a page with questions encouraging the reader to reflect on what has happened in each of the stories (e.g. whether a certain character made a good decision).

Video games
Various games based off the Incredible World of Riddles franchise have been released.
 * Kacie's Adventure (1991)
 * Tenet's Fun House (1993)
 * Kacie and the Lost Star (1993)
 * Kacie's Adventure 2 (1994)
 * Kacie's Fun Pak (1994)
 * Riddle Pinball (1995)
 * The Incredible World of Riddles GP (1996)
 * Kacie's World (1997)
 * Kacie's Fun Castle (1999)
 * Dancing Stage Riddle Mix (2001)
 * Kacie's World 2 (2001)
 * Tenet's Riddling Adventure (2004)

Other merchandise
A cereal based on the franchise, Lucky Riddles, was launched in 1993. The cereal consists mostly of crunchy wheat cereal pieces, with some additional pieces such as cookie pieces shaped as Diomo and chocolate cereal pieces shaped as Riddle Gems.

Other merchandise based off the franchise include board games, children's puzzles, costumes and clothing, inflatable castles, posters and soft toys.

An Incredible World of Riddles version of several board and card games have been released throughout the years, including Snakes and Ladders, Cluedo, Monopoly, Top Trumps and Uno.

Other attractions
Merchandise based off The Incredible World of Riddles is sold at Kubokartoonz World.