The Incredible World of Riddles

The Incredible World of Riddles is a Kuboian animated television series created by Ashley Maverick, and the first series to be produced by Kubokartoonz (now called GeneBox Animation). Targeted towards young children, the show is set in a fictional fantasy-orientated planet, Riddle World. It is the first official animated series to be produced in Kuboia.

The show has a total of two series, aired in 1991 and 1994, both consisting of thirteen 17-minute episodes. The first series focuses on four children, who have never met each other before, who must work together to save the mayor of Riddle World, Mr. Riddles, who has been kidnapped by a unknown figure. The second series, meanwhile, focuses on the adventures the children have after saving Mr. Riddles. Episodes were premiered on Vision Network on Saturday evenings as part of the Bumper's Block programming strand. The series was aired on around the world during the 1990s and 2000s.

The Incredible World of Riddles has had a large impact on Kuboian culture. It is often credited for setting the staples for Kuboian animation, and is the first ever television series to be labelled as a Kantasy series, which has since became the most popular genre/style of animation in the country. Due to its influence, the series continues to be enjoyed worldwide by people of all ages, despite being targeted towards a younger audience.

Setting
Riddle World is a fictional planet located in the solar system between Earth and Venus. Despite being inhabited by humans, it is also the home of many anthropomorphic mammals, birds, plants and objects. Unlike Earth, Riddle World is not very realistic, with many bizarre, sometimes nonsensical events occurring frequently. Supposedly, the planet is very small in size, and is stated to be approximately the size of the continent of Australia. One episode of the series suggests that "Riddle World" is not the actual name of the planet, but is a widely agreed upon nickname due to the actual name being too difficult to spell and pronounce.

Synopsis
The first series of The Incredible World of Riddles features the main cast of characters (Onita, Paddy, Kacie and Tennet) helping the spirit of the Platinum Wand, Diomo, discover the whereabouts of Mr. Riddles, the mayor of Riddle World.

Main characters
Each of the four central children are residents of Earth who get teleported to Riddle World by Diomo after accidentally forming the Platinum Wand. During the first couple of episodes, the children are reluctant at helping Diomo, and are mostly interested in just returning home, but eventually begin to take their mission seriously as the series progresses.

According to Ashley Maverick, each of the main protagonists reflect a different type of child; Tennet is a more effeminate boy compared to Paddy, who has a personality that was more predictable for his gender at the time, whilst Onita is more tomboyish compared to the more girly Kacie.

Onita
Onita generally acts as the unofficial leader of the group. She is usually the one who takes the front seat when the group are progressing through their quest, and is often the one who does the most talking to Diomo. Onita likes to see herself as the "mature" one of the group, but sometimes gets bossy, and occasionally causes the group to lose track. Regardless, she always undoes any mistakes she does, and is often the one to act first if somebody is in trouble.

Paddy
Paddy is generally the most cocky and confident one of the group, but is also the cleverest - he is capable of spotting things the others don't notice, and is good at organising plans quickly when the time to do so is necessary. He is occasionally sarcastic, and has a satirical sense of humour.

Kacie
Kacie is a lot more curious than the other children, and has the tendency to get distracted easily. She is also very giggly and sweet minded, and cares a lot for her friends, as well as all living things that live in Riddle World (minus the evil ones). However, she doesn't have much of a sense of humour and gets angry very easily. Throughout the series, Kacie identifies as homosexual, and appears to have a crush on Onita, but is often embarrassed and tries to hide her feelings. She has a liking for chocolate and sweets.

Tennet
Tennet is very cowardly compared to the rest of the group, and gets very stressed or frightened by minor things. He is not good at fighting back if someone or something threatens him. Because of this, Tennet is often the one who gets kidnapped - and he isn't fond of the fact that he is. As a person, he often has a flirty nature to his dialogue and body language, and enjoys physical contact such as hugging and even kissing.

Production
Ashley Maverick created the premise and characters for The Incredible World of Riddles in 1986. She would often spend several hours each other drawing up designs and animating characters performing different actions in order to get the hang of producing cartoons. After co-founding Kubokartoonz in early 1989, The Incredible World of Riddles was the first series to be pitched.

Ashley Maverick chose to base the show around a fantasy setting because she considered making a cartoon based in a realistic setting to be boring.

Animation
All of the show's characters, backgrounds and objects were drawn and animated by Ashley Maverick. She insisted that the show should run at a minimum of eight frames per second, as she wanted to avoid spending too much time and money on too many frames, but also did not want the animation to appear sloppy or unprofessional.

In The Incredible World of Riddles, the human characters are drawn without noses, ears or eyebrows, and their eyes consist of only round black pupils, completely lacking a limbus and sclera. Ashley Maverick has stated that this was done to make drawing and animating the characters easier. This has since became a staple of Kantasy shows.

Ratings
Series 1 of The Incredible World of Riddles spawned record-breaking high ratings, with each episode receiving approximately 1.75 million viewing figures on average. It is often believed that the high viewing figures were due to the promotion and attention the series received for being the first official Kuboian cartoon. Episodes of series 2 spawned approximately 1 million viewing figures on average. It continued to receive high ratings when reran on Nick Jr. Kuboia during the late nineties and noughties.

Critical reception
On internet database IMDb, the show has a normalised rating of 8.5 out of 10.

Sexuality and LGBT representation
Since the show's initial airing, the use of possibly and supposedly homosexual behaviour has been controversial, especially during the early nineties. By approximately four episodes into the first series, many viewers of the show noticed Kacie's lesbian crush on Onita, as well as the possibility that Tennet may be gay for Paddy. Whilst the show was praised for introducing both heterosexual and homosexual affection to the young children watching the show, several viewers were against the idea. In October 1991, TVVC were allegedly threatened by angry, homophobic parents, who threatened to permanently boycott Vision Network unless they pulled the show from the channel's children's programming lineup.

Kuboia

 * Vision 1 (1991-2012)
 * Bumper's Block (1991-1997)
 * Nick Jr. Kuboia (1996-2010)
 * KT (1998-2008)
 * Kantasia (2018-present)

Circlia

 * Mini (????-present)

Croeya

 * CT Kidstoon (1992-1999)
 * Canal+ Kids (2003-present)

El Kadsre

 * El TV Kadsre 1 (1992-1998)

Internet

 * The Coca-Cola Network (1996-2011)

Mexico
The Spanish dub was titled "La búsqueda de Señor Riddles" and was produced by Lipsync Audio Video in Venezuela.
 * Canal 5 (1992-1999)

South Korea

 * EBS (1995-2007)

United El Kadsreian Nations

 * Nickelodeon (1996-2001)
 * Nick Jr. (2001-2008)

United Kingdom

 * CBBC (1991-2001)
 * CITV (1996-2009)
 * Nick Jr. (1999-2010)
 * POP! (2003-2008)
 * Nick Jr. 2 (2006-2010)

United States

 * First-run syndication (1992-????)
 * Nick Jr. (1996-2002)
 * Toon Disney (2003-2009)