Greenwood Forest

Greenwood Forest, known as The Adventures of Fyp in certain countries, is a Kuboian animated television series, and the second animated series to be produced by Kubokartoonz.

Premiering in 1993 on Bumper's Block, a total of three series and 28 episodes were produced, with new episodes running until 1995. The show was ran on television for over fifteen years, with reruns running on KT until 2008.

Premise
Taking place in the titular area, a village located in a bright and colourful forest, the show mostly focuses on Fyp, the son of Greenwood Forest's mayor, and his younger twin sister Billie. Each episode of the show focuses on the twins' day-to-day life and what they get up to.

Most episodes feature a problem or dilemma which Fyp and company try to fix. The problem is usually caused by two mischievous troublemakers, Rosie and Peter, or three malevolent crooks, Stanly, Meredith and Urus. Regardless of who causes the trouble, they always get their comeuppance by the end of the episode. Several episodes also focus on social issues or teaching moral lessons.

When the show originally aired, every episode ended with a two-minute segment titled Fyp's Wise Words. In these segments, Fyp (and/or another character, usually Butler) would teach a moral lesson which would be tied to the episode's premise. These segments were usually omitted when the show aired in reruns on KT, cutting the show's runtime down from nineteen to seventeen minutes. However, these were left intact in most international airings.

Main characters

 * Fyp (voiced by Jack Carole) - an imaginative and adventurous nine year-old boy, and the high-profile son of Greenwood Forest's mayor. Fyp is always looking for something new to do each day, whether it is going on an expedition or learning something new. He typically acts as the voice of reason if one of his friends misbehaves or does something they shouldn't. Although Fyp is mature and sensible, he isn't very physically strong, and is prone to getting kidnapped.
 * Billie (voiced by Ashley Maverick) - Fyp's shy twin sister, who accompanies her brother a majority of the time. Despite being introverted, she is quick at acting when her brother is in trouble, and is usually the one to save him.
 * Edward (voiced by Bruno Leon Vidal) - the mayor of Greenwood Forest, and Billie and Fyp's father.
 * Butler (voiced by Bruno Leon Vidal) - a servant employed by Edward to do chores in Fyp's house. Despite his name, he is frequently seen out and about with Billie and Fyp. His real name is never revealed on the show.

Recurring characters

 * Whitney (voiced by Emily Merletta) - Fyp's best friend who has a one-sided crush on him. She is shown to be quite mischievous, and her curiosity sometimes gets her in trouble. Whitney doesn't put a lot of effort into hiding her crush on Fyp, but he doesn't seem to notice it.
 * Rosie (voiced by Charlie Karma) - a friend of Fyp who is extremely self-important, greedy and frequently jealous of others. Like Whitney, Rosie has a crush on Fyp, but is more interested in trying to date him just to show off and boost her ego. However, she does often show remorse for her actions and does show some care for her friends, and particularly her uncle.
 * Peter (voiced by Emily Merletta) - Rosie's uncle, who is the same age as her, and the only person she treats with proper respect. Coming from a supposedly wealthy household, he often acts snooty towards others.
 * Sky (voiced by Emily Merletta) - a socially confident friend of Billie and Fyp. He is often seen wearing a top hat, and enjoys playing magic tricks.
 * Stanly (voiced by Bruno Leon Vidal), Meredith (voiced by Charlie Karma) and Urus (voiced by Bruno Leon Vidal) - a group of organised but incompetent criminals who sometimes cause trouble for Fyp and his friends. Their goals vary from episode to episode, but usually involve stealing something valuable. However, they always get their comeuppance by the end. Some episodes have Urus appearing on his own without the other two, where he is shown a more sympathetic side.
 * Spider - a large friendly spider who lives in a cardboard box in Greenwood Forest's local supermarket. Although it cannot talk, it can understand human language.
 * Marty (voiced by Marty Rockfield) - a round rock creature who lives in a cave next to the park in Greenwood Forest. He often likes to spend time alone in the dark, and can be very loud and grumpy, especially if he feels other people are disturbing him or invading his privacy.
 * Edwina (voiced by Ashley Maverick) - Billie and Fyp's soft-spoken and insecure mother.

Production
Development on Greenwood Forest began in 1989. Whilst Kubokartoonz were working on The Incredible World of Riddles, Harlow Maynard organised a studio meeting to come up with a new show which they could work on after production on The Incredible World of Riddles was completed. Most of the episodes were written by Kubokartoonz co-founder Lake Caters and screenwriter Marty Rockfield, though two episodes were written by Geri Johnstone.

According to Caters, there was only going to be one series consisting of roughly eighteen episodes. However, the show was broken into three different series in order to let the team work on the show without feeling rushed. Because of this, some episodes of the final series were finished over a year before their premiere.

Characters
Eric Graters was having difficulty deciding whether the protagonist should be a boy or girl - he ultimately chose to make it a boy, but have a girl act as the deuteragonist. Graters insisted that Billie and Fyp should be good role models, and that any dangerous or bad behaviour should be discouraged, and not presented in a manner children could easily copy. The show's main antagonists, Meredith, Stanly and Urus, were originally part of a gang who would carry guns and knives with them. However, they were changed to not carry any weapons, and toned down to becoming mostly incompetent. Graters also made sure that they only appeared in roughly half the episodes, fearing that their personalities contradicted the show's nature.

Graters decided that school "would not exist" in Greenwood Forest to avoid having to come up with too many characters.

Animation
Like their other shows, Greenwood Forest was animated in-house by Kubokartoonz, with Ashley Maverick drawing the character cels. For the first series, the backgrounds were created by AKOM, with Tokyo Movie Shinsua working on polishing the character cels. From the second series, however, Ashley Maverick also drew the backgrounds on her own.

With each episode lasting 16 minutes (not including the opening and closing sequence or Fyp's Wise Words segment), each episode has roughly 7,700 pages of animation - the fewest of any show produced by Kubokartoonz.

Greenwood Forest was the last television series by Kubokartoonz to use traditional ink, as the next series produced by the company, The New Adventures of The Sweet Treets, used digital ink.

Music
The show's music was composed by Wilfried Montgomery, and takes inspiration from 1970s disco music and then-current eurodance music. Montogomery listened to the soundtracks of several musicals, such as Fame and Can't Stop the Music, for inspiration.

Critical reception
Greenwood Forest received critical acclaim upon its release, with praise towards its characterisation, design and music. On KantasyDream, the show holds a perfect rating of 7 out of 7. Users on IMDB meanwhile have given it an average score of 7.0 out of 10.

A review from the gave the show a positive review calling the show "children's edutainment at its finest", although the review criticised Meredith and Stanly as "an incredibly generic bunch of laughable crooks". Another review on noted that the show has aged better than most animated television series of the 1990s.

Controversy
Since the show's inception, a few eyebrows have been raised over the relationship between Fyp's father, Edward, and Butler. Although Butler is supposedly just a servant employed by Edward, he is seen with Edward and his children (Billie and Fyp) frequently outside of the house, and spends a lot of time with them. Because of this, some have questioned if Edward and Butler are actually a gay couple. Show creator Eric Graters has stated that Edward and Butler were created without that in mind. However, Bruno Leon Vidal has admitted that he originally conceived Butler as gay when recording his dialogue for the character.

Home media
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, several VHS tapes consisting of around four or five episodes (in their original format) were released in Europe.

A DVD consisting of all twenty eight episodes was released worldwide in 2003.

Kuboia

 * Bumper's Block (1993-1997)
 * Nick Jr. Kuboia (1996-2005)
 * KT (2000-2008)

Arab world

 * Spacetoon (2000-2011)

Australia

 * ABC for Kids (1994-2001)
 * KidsCo (2009-2013)

Brazil

 * Rede Horizonte (1994-1998)
 * Discovery Kids (2001-2006)
 * RH Kids (2004-2006)
 * PBS Kids (2007-2014)

Canada

 * CTV (1994-1996)
 * Teletoon (1998-2002)
 * Teletoon Retro (2007-2010)

Circlia

 * Setora TV (2000-2010)

France

 * M6 (1995-2001)
 * France 5 (2002-2011)

Germany

 * Super RTL (1995-2008)

Indonesia

 * Spacetoon (2005-2011)

Italy

 * Italia 1 (1995-2002)
 * K2 (2004-2010)

Jetania

 * JT1 (1993-2001)

Netherlands

 * Kindernet (1995-2003)
 * NED 3 (2003-2011)

Philippines

 * RPN (1994-2003)

Scandinavia

 * Disney Channel (2003-2006)

Ukraine

 * Spacetoon (2009-2011)

United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, Greenwood Forest premiered on BBC 1 in September 1994, airing as part of its Children's BBC (later simply CBBC) strand. It was later moved to CBeebies in February 2002, with reruns airing on the channel until December 2004.

Greenwood Forest was one of the first non-music programmes aired by POP! The show started airing on the channel in mid-2004 and continued airing on it until October 2010.
 * BBC One/BBC Two (1994-2004)
 * CBBC (1994-2001)
 * CBeebies (2002-2004)
 * POP! (2004-2010)

United States

 * First-run syndication (from 1994)
 * Toon Disney (1998-2004)
 * PBS Kids Sprout (2005-2010)

Film
A feature-length film based on the show, titled Greenwood Forest: The Golden Key, was released on 1st February, 2002. It grossed €21 million on a €12 million budget.