Melanie (TV series)

Melanie is a Kuboian traditionally animated preschool television series created by Hollis Davies. Produced by Twinkle, the show premiered on KT in April 2005.

Premise
The show centres around Melanie, a blonde seven year-old girl who often causes trouble due to her impulsive and mischievous behaviour. Episodes normally involve Melanie being faced with a problem or conflict and having to use wit and other problem solving skills to overcome it.

Characters

 * Melanie (voiced by Suzie Hersham) is the show's main protagonist and titular character, a mischievous blonde seven year-old girl who, despite meaning well, is notorious for habitually getting into trouble at school. She is often very cheeky, thrill-seeking and having difficulty acting sensibly, but is also shown to have a heart of gold, and is often very determined once she commits to something. Some episodes imply that Melanie's misbehaviour is a reaction due to stress, boredom or being treated unfairly.
 * Vivian is Melanie's mother, who spoils her daughter and is often the one to defend her when Melanie is faced with criticism, although there are times where she can get too clingy towards her. The second series reveals that she has her own brand of soft drinks and fragrance, though it's never made clear exactly what her job is.
 * Edwin is Melanie's stepfather and Vivian's partner who works as an audio visual technician.
 * Mr. Crook is the PT teacher of Melanie's school, who is frequently at odds with Melanie due to her antics. He is very bossy, stubborn, and short-fused. Although Mr. Crook has a genuine interest in the school's standards, he is also willing to act underhanded to get his own way, though he will also make compromises if his plans don't work out in the end.
 * Mr. Fliess is Melanie's Luxembourgian teacher who has a mixed relationship with her. He seems to have difficulty doing his job, and gets stressed easily trying to control his class.
 * Nathan is one of Melanie's classmates who she has a complicated relationship with. An effeminate, fashion-conscious blonde boy, he is shown to get annoyed over Melanie's mischief, and is often teased by her because of his personality and reactions. Nathan becomes more friendly towards Melanie in series two, where the two are shown to have a crush on each other and his personality is fleshed out more. Later episodes reveal that he is quite spoilt by his parents and naive towards others in worse conditions than him, though he will occasionally show more selfless acts, such as surprising Melanie when she leasts expects it.
 * Yusuf is one of Melanie's best friends who is a lot better at tolerating her behaviour. He often acts as the voice of reason when she or one of the other children are acting up, though he can also get carried away joining in with Melanie's antics. He has light brown hair and speaks in a Dutch accent.
 * Gabriele is Melanie's other best friend alongside Yusuf. A brown-haired girl who speaks in a German accent, she takes both school and her daily life a lot more seriously than the others, and as such occasionally finds herself clashing with Melanie and getting competitive with her.
 * Mr. Watts is the elderly head teacher of Melanie's school, and seems to be on better terms with her compared to Mr. Crook. A recurring gag throughout the series is that the characters cannot understand what he is saying due to his very thick beard.

Development
Production on Melanie began in early 2003 shortly after production on Olly, another show created by Davies, ended. Although the show was initially produced by Red Grape Studios, production was put to a temporary hault when the studio was closed after its founder Ruth Tucker decided to partially retire. Davies ended up setting up his own studio, Twinkle, in order to complete production on the first series. Melanie's voice actress, Suzie Hersham, was chosen through auditions that took place in the spring of 2003.

Davies wanted production of episodes to be fun, and admitted in an interview he was "not above" poking fun of people and trends he did not like. Originally, episodes would run in a half-hour format and feature two stories each, although Davies decide to make it a "quarter-hour" show in order to reduce production time and cost, as well as favouring a "quality over quantity" approach. Most episodes run for approximately thirteen minutes, though some of the "special" episodes run for up to fifteen minutes.

Melanie is the third television show part of the "Heatherwood" series, and as such, takes place in the same timeline as Ouraine and Olly. Melanie herself draws similarities to an unnamed baby character who makes a non-speaking cameo in an episode of Olly sleeping. In 2020, Davies confirmed that the two were the same character. Both Ouraine and Olly make appearances in a series three episode, with Emily Merletta and Jack Carole reprising their roles as the respective characters. Ouraine also makes a cameo appearance on a poster in an episode of the first series.

Despite the show's popularity, Davies decided to end production of Melanie after the fourth series was completed, wanting to end on a high note and to avoid the show entering a "filler era".

Episodes
Episodes of Melanie were typically broadcast on KT on Wednesday mornings, though the first episode of the third and fourth series were instead aired on Tuesday evenings as part of the Children's Appeal Day telethons of 2006 and 2007.

Reception
Ericka Streets claimed in 2006 that Melanie was amongst KT's most popular programmes at the time, stating "the kids love it. It's really funny but it's also very heartwarming too." In spite of this, the show also drew criticism for the misbehaviour caused by the titular character and the lack of consequences given by the adult characters. American organisation Common Sense Media awarded the series a 2/5 rating, criticising the show for glamorisig bad behaviour and lacking educational value.

Other common complaints came from the stereotypical nature of the characters, as well as the supposed sexualisation of the child characters, who some sources claimed regularly wore short and skimpy clothing. Davies responded by stating those who criticised Melanie were "missing the point of the show" and that criticism towards the titular character's antics were "hugely exaggerated".

In the spring of 2019, Davies uploaded all of the show's episodes onto his personal YouTube channel, which resulted in it gaining another wave in popularity.

Broadcast history
Melanie premiered on KT on 13th April 2005, and continued airing until the channel closed in 2008. The show also aired on Nick Jr. Kuboia from 2006 to 2010, airing in a half-hour block featuring two episodes. Reruns were aired on Little Disney from 2013 until 2020.

In the United Kingdom, the show aired on Milkshake! from June 2005, whilst pay TV broadcasting rights were handled by Tiny Pop. It was still airing on the latter channel as late as October 2013. In Canada, the show aired on Treehouse TV.

The show also aired on Z@ppelin and Jetix Play in the Netherlands, France 5 in France, Super RTL in Germany and Playhouse Disney in several European countries.

In the United States
In the United States, an Americanised version of the first two series of Melanie aired on Cartoon Network as part of its short-lived Tickle-U block. PBS later acquired rights to the original Kuboian version of the show, airing it on its PBS Kids Sprout channel from 2006 to 2010.

The Americanised dub of the show features several changes, such as Mr. Crook's role changing from PT teacher to vice principal and altering some scenes to make the show more suitable for an American audience. It is very rare as of 2023, as Davies had no involvement in it and as such never acquired master copies of the dubbed episodes. He was reportedly unimpressed with the changes made.