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chapter 1 - obscurity
...
Once upon a time, way back in the late 1990s, there was an animation studio. It wasn't a big one, like Disney or Dreamworks. Rather, it was a tiny, unassuming little animation house in the middle of a big city, and it went by the name of Starlight Studios.
This animation house produced a few cartoons here and there. None of them became very popular, but the ones that did attract even a little bit of the public view were critically acclaimed. You'd expect this to bring in hordes of viewers, wouldn't you? Sadly, that wasn't the case. For its entire life, Starlight Studios remained a small, low-budget affair. None of its cartoons achieved any importance in the history of animation...
None except one.
The year: 1998, the era when classics like Mulan, the Hercules TV show, and Yu-Gi-Oh! premiered in theaters and TV screens all across the globe. The month: The beginning of an oddly gloomy June in which cool temperatures and high chance of rain figured prominently in the city where Starlight Studios was nestled. Working at his desk at Starlight that rainy June, a small-name animator named Vincent Vasquez had an idea.
"I got it!" he shouted at the next group meeting the Starlight workers had, the purpose of which was to discuss the next cartoon they would make.
"What have you got?" asked the other animators.
Vincent pulled a sketchpad out of his bookbag, and flipped it open to a certain page. "This is gonna be our next big thing!"
On the page, there was a drawing of a young grey wolf. Not just a regular wolf, though-- an anthropomorphic wolf, one who stood on two legs and had big yellow eyes, without pupils. He was wearing a purple robe and conical hat, giving him the appearance of a wizard, and was smiling widely. "Meet Charlie! Charlie Wolfenheimer!"
~~~
From there, things kicked into overdrive at Starlight Studios. A setting was hacked together: the Kingdom of Furovia, a fantasy world populated entirely by magical creatures. Charlie was designed and redesigned many different times, and eventually, he ended up as two characters: an older wolf named Carroll, and a younger one named Kit. Carroll kept Charlie's grey fur and yellow eyes, but was made larger and older, while Kit was given brown and white fur with blue eyes, and retained Charlie's youthful stature. The two were meant to be a pair- Kit would be the main character of the new show, which would focus around his adventures in Furovia, while Carroll became a deuteragonist, Kit's mentor in the ways of magic.
Soon after, a plot was made: Carroll was the greatest wizard in all the land, who had taken little Kit under his wing to teach magic, and to help defend Furovia against any who would conquer and topple its noble King Veritas from his throne, especially Markus, the wicked tiger sorceror. Stories set in the world of the show would mostly be contained to individual episodes, with the occasional hint of a larger story arc here and there, and Kit would be the star of the show.
However, for all their plotting and planning, the producers would soon find their vision of magic and adventure crashing and bursting into flames right before their eyes.
~~~
The year: 1998.
The day: June 30.
Seven episodes of the series, still untitled, had been created, and were ready for release. Seven thirty-minute collections of Kit's lively, wacky escapades. Seven cartoons that had been painstakingly sketched, animated, voice acted, given test runs and revised.
Seven dreams that would never be fulfilled.
Because on June 30, 1998, Starlight Studios closed its doors. They had been losing more and more money with each cartoon they made, and they had poured almost all that was left of their cash into the creation of Kit's show. On top of that, none of the big animation channels that were around at the time would take the show on - Disney Channel was focusing on its own original series. Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon were focusing on their Cartoon Cartoons and their Nicktoons. FOX Kids was preoccupied with its cash cow franchise, the Power Rangers. There just wasn't any room for another show to join the flock of any of those channels.
Kit was doomed to fade into the annals of the forgotten, just like his studio.
But perhaps not so.
Sometimes, life has a way of turning things around and making what we least expect come to pass.
...
Once upon a time, way back in the late 1990s, there was an animation studio. It wasn't a big one, like Disney or Dreamworks. Rather, it was a tiny, unassuming little animation house in the middle of a big city, and it went by the name of Starlight Studios.
This animation house produced a few cartoons here and there. None of them became very popular, but the ones that did attract even a little bit of the public view were critically acclaimed. You'd expect this to bring in hordes of viewers, wouldn't you? Sadly, that wasn't the case. For its entire life, Starlight Studios remained a small, low-budget affair. None of its cartoons achieved any importance in the history of animation...
None except one.
The year: 1998, the era when classics like Mulan, the Hercules TV show, and Yu-Gi-Oh! premiered in theaters and TV screens all across the globe. The month: The beginning of an oddly gloomy June in which cool temperatures and high chance of rain figured prominently in the city where Starlight Studios was nestled. Working at his desk at Starlight that rainy June, a small-name animator named Vincent Vasquez had an idea.
"I got it!" he shouted at the next group meeting the Starlight workers had, the purpose of which was to discuss the next cartoon they would make.
"What have you got?" asked the other animators.
Vincent pulled a sketchpad out of his bookbag, and flipped it open to a certain page. "This is gonna be our next big thing!"
On the page, there was a drawing of a young grey wolf. Not just a regular wolf, though-- an anthropomorphic wolf, one who stood on two legs and had big yellow eyes, without pupils. He was wearing a purple robe and conical hat, giving him the appearance of a wizard, and was smiling widely. "Meet Charlie! Charlie Wolfenheimer!"
~~~
From there, things kicked into overdrive at Starlight Studios. A setting was hacked together: the Kingdom of Furovia, a fantasy world populated entirely by magical creatures. Charlie was designed and redesigned many different times, and eventually, he ended up as two characters: an older wolf named Carroll, and a younger one named Kit. Carroll kept Charlie's grey fur and yellow eyes, but was made larger and older, while Kit was given brown and white fur with blue eyes, and retained Charlie's youthful stature. The two were meant to be a pair- Kit would be the main character of the new show, which would focus around his adventures in Furovia, while Carroll became a deuteragonist, Kit's mentor in the ways of magic.
Soon after, a plot was made: Carroll was the greatest wizard in all the land, who had taken little Kit under his wing to teach magic, and to help defend Furovia against any who would conquer and topple its noble King Veritas from his throne, especially Markus, the wicked tiger sorceror. Stories set in the world of the show would mostly be contained to individual episodes, with the occasional hint of a larger story arc here and there, and Kit would be the star of the show.
However, for all their plotting and planning, the producers would soon find their vision of magic and adventure crashing and bursting into flames right before their eyes.
~~~
The year: 1998.
The day: June 30.
Seven episodes of the series, still untitled, had been created, and were ready for release. Seven thirty-minute collections of Kit's lively, wacky escapades. Seven cartoons that had been painstakingly sketched, animated, voice acted, given test runs and revised.
Seven dreams that would never be fulfilled.
Because on June 30, 1998, Starlight Studios closed its doors. They had been losing more and more money with each cartoon they made, and they had poured almost all that was left of their cash into the creation of Kit's show. On top of that, none of the big animation channels that were around at the time would take the show on - Disney Channel was focusing on its own original series. Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon were focusing on their Cartoon Cartoons and their Nicktoons. FOX Kids was preoccupied with its cash cow franchise, the Power Rangers. There just wasn't any room for another show to join the flock of any of those channels.
Kit was doomed to fade into the annals of the forgotten, just like his studio.
But perhaps not so.
Sometimes, life has a way of turning things around and making what we least expect come to pass.
Here we are. The official backstory for Kit. The first part, at least.
Comments19
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It figures that the tiger would be evil. -n-"