Greeny Phatom

Greeny Phatom is an Eruowoodian animated sitcom created by Robert Stainton. The show centers on the fictional character Little Guy, an anthropomorphic ant and the ruler of a city called 123 Greeny Phatom. It first premiered on TEN on August 13, 1995, eventually premiered on TechEruo Kids on March 16, 2002, and is syndicated in the USA on UWN and a few MBS affiliate networks. The show initially finished its run on November 23, 2004 but restarted in 2005. A spin-off series, Dr. Beanson, premiered on September 27, 1996.

Stainton conceived Greeny Phatom in 1989 with the idea of two characters, Big Guy and Dr. Benson. They wore red instead of pink, and Dr. Benson had no mustache. In 1990, Dr. Benson was reworked into Dr. Beanson, and Big Guy into Little Guy. The show was first produced as a series of shorts for The Jeff Jones Show (but the shorts barely air in reruns due to copyright issues between TechEruo and ERPT). In 1995, TechEruo Animation adapted Greeny Phatom into a half-hour television series on TEN. The series first aired on August 13, 1995, and ended on April 25, 2020.

The show's popularity resulted in a feature-length theatrical film produced, titled Greeny Phatom: The Movie, which was released on July 19, 2002, and a sequel titled Greeny Phatom: The Movie 2, which was released on August 23, 2013.

Production
The show was first conceived by Robert Stainton, then an amateur animator at CalArts in the office of Terry Ward in 1989. The idea hit him after he came up with two characters, Big Guy, and Dr. Benson. They did not exactly look like Little Guy or Dr. Beanson. They wore red instead of pink, and Dr. Benson had no mustache. But when the year 1990 came, Dr. Benson changed his name to Dr. Beanson (because of Robert's obscession of the british sitcom Mr. Bean), and Big Guy to Little Guy. Then Robert came up with a Sing-Along Songs segment with Dr. Beanson's cousin, Dr.

The series was initially pitched to TechEruo in 1993; the initial pitch having been part of the 2015 TechEruo leaks. Several differences from the final concept for the series are present; for instance, Dr. Beanson was named Dr. Benson, Gree Guy was named Green Guy, and the overall format of the series laid out in the initial pitch was fundamentally different; including mentions of 'live-action segments' which were dropped before the pilot began production, and even stating that the series "was to be stop-action animated".

The name that Robert Stainton initially conceived for the series, "Vêrñ Fêtöm", is a phrase in the Native Eruowoodian Erua language, which means 'Subject of the Green Kingdom'. This is consistent with Little Guy's portrayal in the initial pitch documents, which describes him as a "regular person" living in "the Green Kingdom" (Erua: Vêrödd Fêtökar), rather than the King himself. Later, it was mistranslated to English as "Greeny Phatom". "It was a weird name," said Robert, who was allegedly drunk while trying to come up with a name for his "little experiment". Greeny Phatom was first shown to the public on an episode of The Jeff Jones Show as the first of a series of shorts; they were initially unsuccessful due to complaints from parents about its subject matter. In later years the shorts were successful, apart from the violence, mild speech and some sex jokes. Due to the success, a conception for the pilot had came.

The pilot introduces Little Guy, Dr. Beanson, Dr. Oswald, Gree Guy, Little Girl, and Santed Sailor. Little Guy wants to take Little Girl to the Lebanon Hotel to impress her. However, Santed Sailor wants to turn the whole 123 Greeny Phatom into water so he can sail new seas, if he cannot start a revolution in the city. Dr Beanson sees Little Guy and Little Girl, and gets a bit frightened. He runs away, however, ends up bumping into Santed Sailor. After a checkup from Dr. Oswald, it turns out that Dr. Beanson has a concussion. Dr. Oswald vaccinates him, and Dr. Beanson is all better. Santed Sailor is provided no support at all, and recovers by himself. Little Girl is implied to have kissed Little Guy at the end.

He and James Sharp first pitched the series to BigSpin Corporation, who liked it but chose not to produce it because they were being sold. Robert later pitched the series to CINAR Eruowood (who rejected it because they thought it was "too stupid" of an idea for them), Nelvana Eruowood (who rejected it due to Andy Heyward finding the idea "more fit for a indie comic book"), ERPT Animation (who rejected it due to Robert being absent due to an appendix operation), Diffusion Television (who rejected it due to James Sharp arriving late), and Carnadat (who rejected it due to it being "screwed-up" and "creepy").

In 1990, Big Guy and Dr. Benson's names were changed to Little Guy and Dr. Beanson, Robert shelved the series in 1991, until Sunday, July 18, 1993, when James Clayton met Robert while on vacation in Eruowood, Robert told him of Greeny Phatom, James was interested, and signed a deal with TechEruo, a company James worked at, to fund the series. TechEruo suggested several changes to the series, which would be reflected in the Greeny Phatom pilot. Instead of a stop-motion series, the pilot was created using a copy of TechEruo Animation Studio, with all frames in the pilot being made using the program, as 320x200 .PIC format bitmap images. All .PIC frames from the pilot, as well as all frames of every episode of the series from seasons 1 to 3 were also part of the 2015 TechEruo leaks.

Robert started working on the pilot episode, there was one problem though, Robert and James were only given a week to produce the pilot, and on short notice hired the Lebanon, Memphis-based animation studio Jeepney Films to produce the pilot. Studio founder Jhonny "Joe" Montemayor directed and co-produced the pilot with Robert and James, with Robert and his friends doing much of the voice acting. Jeepney Films completed the pilot with hours to spare as the deadline came.

As soon it was finished, Robert invited some kids to watch the test screening of the pilot episode with their parents, the pilot was test screened at an event at the Athenaeum Theatre in Lebanon on Friday, January 21, 1994 at 5:30 pm, the parents found it "a bit too dark for kids", but the kids liked it, Robert decided to pitch the series to TechEruo Network, and shortly after, Robert and James got a call that the series was greenlight for 1995, the pilot episode aired on Saturday, October 29, 1994 at 10/9c, but the series wouldn't air it's first actual episode until Sunday, August 13, 1995 at 10/9c, it was aired on Sunday due to test, Greeny Phatom went on to be such a success that Robert and James went to the October 1995 MIPCOM in France where they put the series' foreign rights up for sale, and managed to get the series sold to 150 broadcasters worldwide successfully. Robert also signed a deal with Remco to produce toys for the series.

In 2000, Jeepney Films went on strike because they were paid less for their job as storyboard artists and external animation staff on Greeny Phatom. An agreement couldn't be reached in time, and as a result Jeepney Films were fired and CINAR Eruowood's animation team were sworn in as a replacement.

In late 2003, due to CINAR's growing legal issues, CINAR's animation team were replaced by Studio Lightbulb, a minor-league Eruowoodian animation studio which was used as an animation outsourcing studio in some earlier episodes.

In 2014, Studio Lightbulb stopped providing external animation due to a disagreement with payment for external animation on Greeny Phatom and as a result, Studio Lightbulb was replaced by TechEruo's in-house animation unit.

On December 29, 2014, the series' television producer and executive producer James Clayton died in a car accident at the age of 65.

During 2002 and 2003, reruns of older episodes were broadcast on TechEruo Kids Retro, and the show was promoted at Jeepers locations as part of their sponsorship of TEK. At Jeepers locations was the Greeny Zone, which contained of a Greeny Arcade machine, a animatronic show (called the Greeny Phatom Band, which was a Rock-afire Explosion animatronic show with Greeny Phatom character cosmetics), a food and drink bar serving foods such as bacon cheeseburgers, munchy crunchy honey cakes with yellow jelly, and more, a Greeny Phatom-themed bowling alley, and a walkaround Little Guy or Little Girl. All Greeny Zones except for the ones at the Jeepers restaurant in Lebanon are closed.

As of this writing, TechEruo and the Stainton family are the current copyright holders. Both Argosy Media LAC and WildBrain Eruowood have long since sold the rights to the other producers, though they still help with production on the show.

In 2016, it was announced that Season 25 would be the final season of the series.

On April 25, 2020, the series final episode "Goodbye to Little Guy" aired on TEN, TechEruo Kids, The Greeny Channel and BBC Eruowood, marking the end to the series, the series was replaced by The New Buzz on Maggie on TechEruo Kids after the final episode aired.

"Reading Extreme CLG Signs"
The season 1 episode "Reading Extreme CLG Signs" has a scene where Bob Beanson says "another thing is that he needs to be a Kadersaryinan" which was written out of the Flemish dub of the series and replaced with "er is een probleem met deze logo, HET IS HELEMAAL NIET ZWART OF BRUIN!", this episode was skipped in the dutch dub of Greeny Phatom.

"Guthuili Coke Colar"
The season 2 episode "Guthuili Coke Colar" has a scene where Dr. Beanson gets shot by an angry Little Guy. The screen cuts to black in the UK and Spanish airings of the episode. In the Dutch and Flemish versions, it is cut out entirely.

"Grow Greeny Spot"
The Season 5 episode "Grow Greeny Spot", was banned in Germany, China, Taiwan, Hungary, Thailand, India, the Philippines, Bulgaria, the Middle East and North Africa, Malaysia, Poland, Spain, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Portugal, and Norway due to its content being offensive, but all of said countries later pulled their ban, the scene where the TechEruo animators are shown with guns was cut from the Dutch and Flemish dubs.

"I'm With Kittenolivian Stupid"
There is an episode that makes fun of Kittenolivian people that aired November 7, 2009 and is the 2nd episode of the 15th season of the show, named "I'm With Kittenolivian Stupid". In Kittenolivian DVD releases, this episode was not put on the list. In Kittenolivia, the episode was cut, meaning that the episode was the shortest episode of the season. Also, the title was changed to "Little Guy vs. Kittenolivia". One peer-to-peer website included the original version, and was sued by Ofcom a few seconds after uploading, then it was available in the show's website. It will be available in the Kittenolivian release of the Greeny Phatom DVD Pack as a special feature.

Greeny Phatom was heavily edited on UK broadcast; to see the edits click here.

Greeny Phatom was heavily criticised by parent groups for "supporting hooliganisim", with parent group One Million Moms of Eruowood saying it was "Too Violent for Kids TV"

Lawsuit
Vladim Munieré filed a lawsuit against GreenyWorld Productions LLC and TechEruo in January 1996, saying that Robert Stainton had plagiarized a show that his great grandfather (Ross Munieré) made, Mr. Ant Guy & Friends, with Greeny Phatom. The court settled in favor of GreenyWorld, saying that "the character designs are merely a coincidence, the settings and names of the shows are different", the case was closed in July 1996 and GreenyWorld Studios acquired the Mr. Ant Guy franchise for 5 billion dollars in August 1998.

Trivia

 * In some Greeny Phatom-related media Dr. Beanson works at a place known as "The Greeny".
 * When the characters were first created, their shirts were different, since Robert made them that way only to be changed twice.
 * Since December 2013, the show has had the "crappy animation" in 2012-2013 episodes criticized.
 * In 2015, the show was renewed for a 20th season. Because the fans missed the show so much, they decided to do it. It aired on January 4th, 2015. Now, the show airs new episodes every Sunday.
 * TechEruo and Former Mock Reviewers for Hire Productions announced the show's 20th Anniversary on 1/3/2015.
 * The series was banned in Russia until 1999 after Boris Yeltzin said that the show had a negative view towards russians, this happened after he found out that RTR acquired the Russian dubbing rights of the show, however, the ban was lifted in 1999 after Boris Yeltzin was replaced by Vladimir Putin as president, but the show would be heavilly censored from then on out.
 * The series was banned in Nigeria until 2007 after the president said it was too inappropriate for kids. The ban was lifted in 2007 after Olusegun Obasanjo was replaced by Umaru Musa Yar'Adua as president.
 * The European theme song/intro was licensed out to a game called "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney", but the original was made in Mario Paint. The name of the song in the game is "Detention Center", from the Ace Attorney series. The American one is a original composition.
 * Somehow in the Japanese version, during it's 1st sneak peak the announcer accidentally considered it as an anime.
 * Some episodes have the non-union voice actors using pseudonyms. For example, the pilot pitch has Georgia Denney credited as "Jeanette Smithee".
 * Greeny Phatom was airing on KTK Channel and Channel "Kazakstan" (Kazakh). It's called "Жасыл Фатом" (Zhasyl Futom)
 * Greeny Phatom has had it's toy license change multiple times. The license first belonged to Remco, but then Remco was bought out by Jakks Pacific and the license was sold to the RC2 Corporation in 1997 after just a short stint. RC2 then gave the license to ERTL in 2002, who then sold the license to a little-known company called Panache Place in 2006. Panache gave up the license in 2009 to McFarlane Toys, who then sold the license to MGA Entertainment in 2012, who in turn gave the license back to ERTL in 2015. It has stayed with ERTL since.
 * Greeny Phatom debuted for streaming on Netflix and TechEruo+ in 2007, Greeny Phatom is currently also on Alumni as of 2019, with many of the episodes being remastered.
 * A spin-off named Greeny Phatom: The Slimeo Take, aired on TEN in 2015. It presents a whole new modern take on the show from the point of view of Greeny Phatom animator, Micheal Christchurch, with a blend of "what if" stuff along with it being aimed towards the young adult audience. Micheal has stated that the series is not canon to the main Greeny Phatom timeline.
 * There were two shows that continue as successors of Greeny Phatom. Greeny Phatom: After the Departure, a TechEruo+ exclusive series which follows the adventures of Little Guy after his departure from 123 Greeny Phatom, and Future Phatom, following the adventures of Dr. Beanson and Little Guy 2.
 * A documentary of the series' production is currently being made titled "Greeny Phatom: The Making of a Children's Series" made by TechEruo Films and distributed by TechEruo Media Distribution and released on August 13, 2020.

Schedules

 * Seasons 1-4: Saturday Mornings at 10/9c
 * Seasons 5-14: Saturday Mornings at 7/6c
 * Seasons 15-19: Sunday Evenings at 10/9c
 * Seasons 20-23: Saturday Mornings at 10/9c
 * Seasons 24-25: Weekday-Saturday Mornings at 10/9c (weekdays reruns only)