Numb Chucks

Numb Chucks is a Canadian animated television series that was created by Phil LaFrance and Jamie LeClaire and premiered on YTV in Canada on January 7, 2014.^[1]

The series is produced by Jam Filled Entertainment and 9 Story Media Group, in association with YTV, and was produced with the participation of The Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, The Canada Media Fund, Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit, Ontario Computer Animation and Special Effects Tax Credit and with the financial participation of The Shaw Rocket Fund.^[2]

The series stars Dilweed and Fungus, two woodchucks with big hearts who are obsessed with using their bungling kung-fu skills to protect the lives of the citizens in their town of Ding-a-Ling Springs.

Plot

Before one night changed their lives, woodchuck brothers Dilweed and Fungus never saw themselves as heroes. But during a late-night-TV infomercial, they order a Woodchuck Morris kung-fu video. Now, they have made it their mission to become just as awesome as their kung-fu mentor. Misguided but with good intentions, the brothers become obsessed with using their newfound skills to protect the citizens in their town of Ding-a-Ling Springs. Dilweed and Fungus take on a never-ending quest to fight off danger with Morris' guidance.

Characters

• Dilweed Chuck^[3] (voiced by Terry McGurrin) - Dilweed is a focused yellow woodchuck. He is the eldest of the Numb Chucks by 15 seconds. As the eldest brother of the duo, Dilweed takes himself, and everything they do, a bit more seriously than Fungus. To him, kung fu is a deadly serious matter.
• Fungus Chuck^[3] (voiced by Lou Attia (Season 1) and Cory Doran (season 2-) - Fungus is an emotional, unfocused and overzealous brown woodchuck. He has a happy-go-lucky kind of personality. Fungus secretly wants to be as awesome as his older brother, Dilweed, who he looks up to. Fungus is very emotional and is prone to clumsiness and fears almost anything.
• Quills (voiced by Bryn McAuley) - Quills is a happy, easy going and helpful purple porcupine. She works at "Pin Heads", Ding-A-Ling Springs' popular bowling alley. Quills is the bowling alley's only employee and rarely goes outside. The Numb Chucks are a wacky ray of sunshine in her day. She loves them both and Quills supports the Numb Chucks martial arts vision and yearns to be like them. Even though she tolerates their silliness, she can be annoyed by their stupidity at times.
• Buford G. Butternut^[4] (voiced by Andrew Jackson) - Buford is a jealous, lazy and irritable blue sheep. He lives in a house with his Grandmother. Since Buford's Grandma loves the Numb Chucks and makes Buford look bad, Buford has made it his goal to get rid of the Numb Chucks and expose their stupidity to his Grandma. Buford used to be unlike his current personality when he was around six, before the Chucks accidentally shut a door on him and something inside him snapped before the Chucks came out and wondered where he went.
• Grandma Butternut (voiced by Julie Lemieux) - Grandma Butternut is a feisty, blunt and generous yellow sheep. She is Buford's grandmother and housemate. She is constantly disappointed with him. Grandma is polite and sweet to everyone except to Buford. She adores the helpful Numb Chucks as they remind her of the 'good ole days' in Ding-A-Ling Springs. She is fond of Hooves and often disturbs him.
• Hooves (voiced by Robert Tinkler) - High strung and delicate, Hooves is a nervous moose. And who wouldn't be living next door to the Numb Chucks? Hooves went to High School with Woodchuck Morris which makes the Numb Chucks LOVE him to Hooves' dismay. Hooves enjoys gardening, cleaning, relaxing, reading, fancy living and etc, but doesn't enjoy the Chucks or Grandma Butternut invading his personal space. His full name is Sir Rupert Van Der Hooves.
• Woodchuck Morris (voiced by Joris Jarsky) - A former Ding-A-Ling springs native, Woodchuck Morris is the highly charged and intimidating host of the Numb Chucks' favourite martial arts training video, The Way Of the Chuck, a parody of Chuck Norris' The Way of The Dragon. He fears nothing! He doesn't like pity, evil or compromise of any kind! His main desire is to spread the gospel of kung fu and is the icon that the Numb Chucks have chosen to follow. He is a homage to Chuck Norris.

Episodes

Mobile game

In January 2015, it was announced that 9 Story Interactive, 9 Story Media Group's interactive division, and Splashworks were developing an Numb Chucks mobile game entitled "Chuck Fu." The game was released on March 18, 2015 and can be played on iTunes and Google Play.^[5]

Home media

Episodes of Numb Chucks are available for digital download through the iTunes Music Store, which are in two volumes.^[6][7]

Broadcast

Numb Chucks has been broadcast in Canada on its original channel, The Zone (YTV), since January 7, 2014.^[8] Then on July 4, 2016, the series began airing on Teletoon as well as YTV.

On March 10, 2014, Cartoon Network announced the series as part of its 2014-15 season to air on the network in the United States.^[9] However, it was later moved to Boomerang and premiered there on January 10, 2015, a year and three days after the debut on YTV.^[10] It was removed from the schedule on July 12, 2015. It is currently unknown if the second season of Numb Chucks will premiere in the US.

Numb Chucks has also been sold to Cartoon Network (Latin America), ABC (Australia), Disney Channels (Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia, Israel and Benelux), TG4 (Ireland), Cartoon Network (Italy), Canal+ Family (France) and Super RTL (Germany).^[11] The series also airs on TV2 in New Zealand.^[12] The series premiered in the UK and Ireland on November 1, 2015 on Kix.^[13]

References

External links

• Official website
• Numb Chucks at the Internet Movie Database
• Numb Chucks at the Big Cartoon DataBase