Detective Tricky

Detective Tricky is a Kuboian preschool traditionally animated television series created by Lake Caters and produced by Kubokartoonz. The show premiered on Tiny Vision in 2004, running for a total of four series until it came to an end in 2007.

Premise and format
The show focuses on, Tricky, a sentient teddy bear with a curious personality, who is often faced with some sort of conflict or difficult solution, and must use problem solving skills in order to resolve any task at hand. Often times, he is acting on behalf of others, hence the show's title.

Creation
The origins of Detective Tricky trace back to as early as 1995, when Ashley Maverick and Lake Caters were coming up with ideas and characters for Magma Eye. One of the characters who appeared in said show, Mark "Munch", was originally going to have a stuffed teddy bear as a companion, though the idea was eventually dropped. Caters, however, got an idea for a new show in 1999 after seeing his niece play with her stuffed toys. He explained in an interview "She had them all being part of some great big mystery. Some of them were acting as detectives whilst others were being interviewed so the detectives could find clues to the crime. It was surprisingly in-depth for an introverted young girl."

Maverick and Caters produced a three-minute pilot in 2001 which the rejected teddy character from Magma Eye investigating a crime. For the series however, they decided to use a new character altogether. The name Tricky was chosen because as Maverivk said "it's tricky to solve a crime that's right on time", referencing the Run-D.M.C. song of the same name. There was some debate over whether Tricky should be able to talk - ultimately it was decided he would remain mute except for some sound effects in order to give the character a more "innocent" and "cute" nature. It was at one point suggested that Tricky and other animals present on the show would be able to communicate with each other, but not to humans, but Maverick dismissed the suggestion because she felt it was a "tired trope".

Production
Each episode of the first series of Detective Tricky lasted for twelve minutes including the opening and credits sequence, with some stories running across two episodes. Maverick explained that this was done because some stories needed "more time" than others. During the production of series two, however, Maverick felt that less than fifteen minutes was not enough runtime to write good storylines, so the runtime was changed to approximately twenty two minutes per episode, with a few episodes instead being made up of two stories.