The Wild Thornberrys is an American animated television series created by Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó, Steve Pepoon, David Silverman, and Stephen Sustarsic for Nickelodeon. It was produced by Klasky Csupo and Nickelodeon Animation Studio.
The series portrays the zany hijinks of a family of nomadic wildlife documentary filmmakers known as the Thornberrys, which consist of the nature documentary television host Nigel, his wife and camera operator Marianne, their 16-year-old daughter Debbie, their younger daughter Eliza, their adopted son Donnie, and a chimpanzee named Darwin. The series focuses particularly on Eliza, who has a magical ability to communicate with animals. It ran for 5 seasons containing 91 episodes in total, with the final episode airing on June 11, 2004.
The series' fourth season premiere, "The Origin of Donnie", is a television special focusing on Donnie Thornberry's life before he was adopted by the family. A feature film, The Wild Thornberrys Movie, in which Eliza embarks on a quest to save a cheetah cub from poachers, was theatrically released on December 20, 2002. Rugrats Go Wild, a crossover feature film with Rugrats, was released in theaters on June 13, 2003. Spin-off media include DVD releases and three video games.
Plot
The series focuses on a family of documentary filmmakers known as the Thornberrys, famous for their televised wildlife studies, as they travel the world in the "Comvee", a large, amphibious, multifunctional overland motorhome which doubles as their base of operations. It primarily centers on the family's younger daughter Eliza, and her secret gift of being able to communicate with animals, which was bestowed upon her after having freed a shaman masquerading as a trapped warthog.
The gift enables her to talk to the Thornberrys' pet chimpanzee Darwin. Together, the pair frequently venture through the wilderness, befriending many species of wild animals along the way, and discern moral truths and lessons through either their experiences or a particular animal species's lifestyle; often this means simply assisting the creatures by which they become acquainted in their difficulties.
Characters
thumb|upright|right|The Wild Thornberrys, left to right, Nigel (bottom left), Marianne (with camera), Eliza (with glasses), Darwin (the chimpanzee), Donnie (with brown hair), and Debbie (sitting down, bored)
Main
- (voiced by Lacey Chabert) is a 12-year-old girl
- (voiced by Tim Curry) is Eliza, Debbie, and Donnie's father and Marianne's husband. He is also the son of Radcliffe (also voiced by Curry) and Cordelia Thornberry (Lynn Redgrave), an aristocratic British couple. Born in the U.K. and having attended Harrow School near London, he travels around the world with his own family making wildlife documentaries. He is eccentric, enthusiastic, and cheerful even in the face of danger, and is also known for his exaggerated facial features and love of kippers, which he offers frequently.
- (voiced by Jodi Carlisle) is Eliza, Debbie, and Donnie's American mother and Nigel's wife. She is the daughter of Frank (Ed Asner) and Sophie Hunter (Betty White). She is the director and camerawoman of the Thornberry documentaries, even willing to put herself in danger to capture a shot. She mentions that she attended the University of California, Berkeley as revealed in "Rebel Without a Trunk".
- (voiced by Flea) is a feral boy adopted by the Thornberrys, who speaks mostly in gibberish and (as revealed in the 4-part TV film The Wild Thornberrys: The Origin of Donnie) was raised by an orangutan in Borneo after his parents, Michael and Lisa, who were old friends of the Thornberrys, were killed by poachers. It was then picked up by Nickelodeon under its own animation studio and was retooled as a family-oriented series with Nigel's youngest daughter Eliza (originally named Alex) being promoted to the main protagonist role. According to Eryk Casemiro, SVP of Creative Affairs at Klasky-Csupo Productions at the time of the series production, she was originally designed to look "quite frankly, very ugly" in order to contradict the stereotype that all young heroines are physically attractive. However, her design was later retooled to look "cuter" at the request of Nickelodeon. It premiered on September 1, 1998, and was the first Nicktoon to exclusively use 22-minute stories (episodes of other Nicktoons usually featured two 11-minute stories, using 22-minute stories on occasion).
The series was designed to have a focus on parents, after focus groups run by Klasky and Csupo uncovered that children were talking about the real struggles of the parent-child relationship; this was opposed to Nickelodeon's view of only featuring kids in children's programming. It was also designed with the potential of being used in science curriculums. To accomplish this, the production crew hired a specialist who did research on different regions of the world, different cultures, and different species of animals, all of which were provided to the writers to help them develop ideas for episodes. and Seasons 2 through 5 were released on December 1, 2010.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! CreateSpace Releases
!style="text-align:center;"| Release Date
! Discs
! Episodes
|-
|Season 1 ||June 24, 2010 || style="text-align:center;"|4|| style="text-align:center;"|20
|-
|Season 2, Volume 1 || rowspan="7" |December 1, 2010 || rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;" |5|| style="text-align:center;"|13
|-
|Season 2, Volume 2 || style="text-align:center;" |24
|-
|Season 3, Volume 1 || rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;" |3|| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;" |N/A
|-
|Season 3, Volume 2
|-
|Season 3, Volume 3
|-
|Season 4 || rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;" |2|| style="text-align:center;" |6
|-
|Season 5 || style="text-align:center;" |8
|}
On February 16, 2011, Shout! Factory announced that it had acquired the rights to release the series on home media and would be releasing Season 1 on DVD on May 17, 2011. Season 1 was released on May 17, 2011, followed by Season 2, Part 1 on November 8, 2011. Season 2, Part 2 was released on April 24, 2012. Season 2, Part 3 was released on January 15, 2013, as a Shout Select title. Season 3 was released on June 11, 2013, as a Shout Select title. Season 4 and Season 5 were released in a box set on September 10, 2013, as a Shout Select title.
On December 1, 2015, Shout! Factory released The Wild Thornberrys: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.
In Australia, all 5 seasons have been released via Beyond Home Entertainment. A 13-disc set titled The Wild Thornberrys: The Essential Episodes was released on June 3, 2015.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! rowspan="2" | DVD Name
! rowspan="2" | Episodes
! colspan="2" | Release Date
|-
! Region 1
! Region 4
|-
|Season 1 || style="text-align:center;"|20 || May 17, 2011 || April 3, 2013
|-
|Season 2, Part 1<br>Season 2, Part 2<br>Season 2, Part 3♦ || style="text-align:center;"|13<br>8<br>16 || November 8, 2011<br>April 24, 2012<br>January 15, 2013 || April 3, 2013
|-
|Season 3♦ || style="text-align:center;"|20 || June 11, 2013 || December 4, 2013
|-
|Seasons 4 & 5♦ || style="text-align:center;"|14 || September 10, 2013 || April 2, 2014
|-
|The Essential Episodes || style="text-align:center;"|75 || N/A || June 3, 2015
|-
|The Complete Series || style="text-align:center;"|91 || December 1, 2015 || N/A
|}
♦ – Shout! Factory select title, sold exclusively through Shout's online store.
Films
The franchise was extended through three movies (one television film and two theatrical films), which were released toward the end of the series' run:
- The Origin of Donnie (2001): This television film prequel discovers Donnie's life before he was found by the Thornberrys.
- The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002): This theatrical film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.
- Rugrats Go Wild (2003): This theatrical film was also the final Rugrats film, and a crossover between Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys.
Video games
A video game based on the television series titled The Wild Thornberrys: Animal Adventures was released only for PlayStation on November 8, 2000. During this time, another game was released, The Wild Thornberrys: Rambler on PC and Game Boy Color on August 7, 2000, and November 2000 respectively. The Wild Thornberrys Chimp Chase was released only for the Game Boy Advance on October 1, 2001. Characters from the series also appear in the Nickelodeon crossover games Nicktoons Racing, Nickelodeon Party Blast, Nicktoons: Freeze Frame Frenzy, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and its sequel (where Nigel is voiced by Jim Meskimen), and Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis.
Reception
Box office performance
{| class="wikitable sortable" width=99% border="1" style="text-align: center;"
! rowspan="2"| Film
! rowspan="2"| Release date
! colspan="3"| Box office gross
! colspan="2" text="wrap"| Box office ranking
! rowspan="2"| Budget
! rowspan="2"|
|-
! North America
! Other territories
! Worldwide
! All time<br>North America opening weekend
! All time<br>North America
|-
| style="text-align: left;"| The Wild Thornberrys Movie
|
| $40,108,697
| $20,586,040
| $60,694,737
| 2,867
| 2,049
| rowspan="2" | $25,000,000
|
|-
| style="text-align: left;"| Rugrats Go Wild
|
| $39,402,572
| $16,002,494
| $55,405,066
| 1,774
| 2,081
|
|-
! colspan=2| Total
! $79,511,269
! $36,588,534
! $116,099,803
! colspan=2|
! $50,000,000
! colspan=1|
|-
| colspan="10" style="text-align:left;" |
|}
Critical response
Common Sense Media gave the series a rating of 5 stars, praising it for its ability to encourage young viewers to be empathetic toward animals, to want to find out about other cultures and ways of life, and to understand the vastness and diversity of the world. Knight Ridder called the series "sympathetic". The Native Voice complimented the series on its commitment to fun, adventure, detail, accuracy, and honesty.
{| class="wikitable sortable" width=99% border="1" style="text-align: center;"
! Film
! Rotten Tomatoes
! Metacritic
! CinemaScore
|-
| The Wild Thornberrys Movie
| 80% (88 reviews)
| 69 (25 reviews)
| A
|-
| Rugrats Go Wild
| 40% (88 reviews)
| 38 (27 reviews)
| A−
| The Wild Thornberrys episode "The Trouble With Darwin"
|
|-
| 2003
| Casting Society of America Artios Award for Best Casting for Animated Voice Over, Television
| Barbara Wright
|
|-
| 2004
| NAMIC Vision Award in Children's Category
| The Wild Thornberrys
|
|}