Gabriel Garza (TV series)

Gabriel Garza is an American animated television series created by Geo G. The first television series produced by Gingo Animation for Universal Television Animation, it centers on a kind and intelligent boy named Gabriel Garza and his brothers Roge, Leno, and Cole, living in the town of Sinking Spring. They try to live in a normal everyday life to occasionally prevent attacks from a wicked mastermind named Vio and his henchmen, so the Garza brothers, along with their other friends, must team up to stop Vio's plans. Geo created the title character for an unpublished comic book series in the late 1980s, and later reluctantly pitched the series to CBS as a Saturday morning cartoon. The network gave the staff a large amount of creative freedom, with the writers targeting both children and adults.

The series originally premiered on CBS on March 16, 1991, and was later moved to MCA TV's Universal Family Network syndicated programming block on September 17, 1994, then to the syndicated Gingo Lineup block on August 31, 1996. It has been commercially successful, establishing the title character as the mascot of Gingo; it has spawned a successful franchise and adaptations into other media, such as comics and video games. The series ended on June 8, 2002 with a total of 12 seasons and 156 episodes, tying Gabriel Garza as the seventh longest-running American animated television series. As a result of the show's popularity, a feature-length film, titled The Gabriel Garza Movie, was released into theaters on July 31, 2002, a month after the series finale.

On July 8, 2011, Universal Animation Studios released a computer-animated reboot film under the same name as a new incarnation of the original series; it was followed by two sequels, Gabriel Garza 2 in 2014 and Gabriel Garza 3 in 2017 respectively. An animated series based on the reboot films, titled Gabriel & Friends, premiered on the Gingo network on June 13, 2015 and ended on June 3, 2017; it received mixed reviews from critics and came as a disappointment to most fans who were saddened that the show did not return to its original formula. Eventually in October 2017, Universal Studios announced that Universal Kids had picked up the original series for 17 new half-hour episodes that began airing on October 6, 2018, with a total of 173 episodes aired so far.

Premise
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Development
After developing the comics, Geo wanted to adapt the series to television. After several unsuccessful attempts between Fox and ABC, the series was pitched to CBS, and was added to the 1991-1992 Saturday morning schedule.

Writing
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Voice actors
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Animation
The series' first season was produced by Hanna-Barbera, and was produced in association with Wang Film Productions in Taiwan, Mr. Big Cartoons in Australia, and Fil-Cartoons in the Philippines. However, due to difficulties with the animation studios, production was switched from Hanna-Barbera to Klasky Csupo for the second and third seasons. By season 4, co-founder Gabor Csupo wanted to have one producer to oversee the animation; Geo refused; and production was switched to Film Roman for the remainder of the series run.

Music
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United States

 * CBS (1991-94)
 * Syndication (1994-2005)
 * USA Network (1998-2004)
 * Univision (Latin American Spanish, 1999-2008)
 * Universal Toons (1999-2006, 2018)
 * Cartoon Network (2001-03)
 * Boomerang (2003-04, 2006)
 * UPN (2003-06)
 * Gingo Channel (2005-, 2018)
 * Telemundo (Latin American Spanish, 1995-2004, 2008-15)
 * Universal Kids (2018-)

Canada

 * YTV (English, 1991-2007, 2018)
 * Teletoon (English/French, 1998-2004)
 * Teletoon Retro (English/French, 2007-2015)

Latin America & Brazil

 * ZAZ (1992-96)
 * Cablin (1993-94)
 * The Big Channel (1993-95)
 * Chilevision (1995-98)
 * Canal 5 (1998-2003, 2011, 2018)
 * Playhouse Disney (2008-2011)
 * Magic Kids (1996-2006)
 * USA Network (????)
 * Rede Globo (1999-2005, 2018)
 * TV Cultura (1992-2013)

Spain

 * Canal+ (1994-2004)
 * Clan TVE (2005-2008, 2019)

Portugal

 * TVI (1994-2002)
 * RTP1 (2001-2004)
 * RTP2 (2019)

France

 * Canal J (1993-2010)
 * Gulli (2005-2012, 2019)

United Kingdom & Ireland

 * CITV (1992-98)
 * Channel 4 (1998-2004)
 * Pop (2008-09)
 * Nicktoons (2018)
 * RTÉ2 (2000-2010, 2018)

Italy

 * Italia 1 (1993-2006, 2019)
 * Frisbee (2010-2012)

Japan
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 * NHK (1993-2007)
 * Fuji TV (1999-2002)
 * TV Tokyo (2019)

Original cancellation
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Universal Kids revival
On October 12, 2017, Universal Studios announced that Universal Kids, an NBCUniversal-owned children's channel launched on September 9, 2017, had picked up the show for 17 new half-hour episodes that will begin airing on October 6, 2018. A smaller writing crew will return. It was originally announced that original main voice actors Derryberry, Paulsen, Daily, Soucie, West, Lawrence, Adler, Cummings, and Bennett would return as well, but on November 5, 2017, it was announced that a casting notice was posted to replace the entire cast when Universal Television Animation would not meet their salary demands. The situation was later resolved, and the entire original voice-cast returned for the new episodes.

Near the end of a message from Rob Paulsen sent to members of the "Save the Classic Gabriel Garza Voices" group on Facebook, Paulsen announced that the original cast would be returning for the new episodes. Similarly, an email sent to fans from Geo reported that Derryberry, Paulsen, Daily, Soucie, West, Lawrence, Adler, Cummings, and Bennett would all be returning for the revival.

Ratings
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Critical reception
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Awards and nominations
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Legacy
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Home media
From 1993 to 2002, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released several VHS tapes of the series, each containing four episodes of the series.

In March 2005, Universal gave Shout! Factory the rights to release the series. Season 1 was released that May, followed by season 2 that August and season 3 in December. That same month, Shout announced that Season 4 would be released "sometime in 2006", but Shout delayed the release to an unknown date before finally releasing Season 4 in April 2009 and Season 5 in September 2009. From there on, Shout made a plan to put out two-three seasons a year. Season 6 saw a release that December, followed by Seasons 7, 8, and 9 in March, August, and October 2010. Seasons 10 through twelve were released between February, July, and December 2011, completing the entire series.

Following the DVD and Blu-ray release of the 2011 computer-animated reboot, Shout released a boxset containing all seasons of the show and a bonus disc. The set went out of print, but Shout re-released the set in May 2017 in "shelf-friendly" packaging.

Trivia

 * In Mexico, the show, along with its titular protagonist, is renamed Gabe Gomez to avoid conflict with the Mexican serial killer Gabriel Garza Hoth, who had been active between 1991 and 1998 in Mexico City.