Angela Anaconda



""Welcome to my very own show!""

Angela Anaconda is a Canadian Animated Series starring, well, the title character. The imaginative Angela and her friends, Gina Lash, Johnny Abatti, and Gordy Rhinehart, go to school with Nanette Manoir and her Girl Posse, and get into all sorts of wacky hijinks. The series lasted from October, 1999 to February, 2002. A total of 60 episodes.

How's this show different? Well, there's the Clip Art Animation (everyone is animated as a black-and-white cutout). There's also the fact that Once an Episode, Angela would go into a long Imagine Spot, in which Nanette Manoir (And occasionally Angela's Jerkass older brothers and Mrs. Brinks) would get elaborately humiliated. Otherwise... yeah. Though it still has its fans.

Interesting to note, the show actully started off as a short on Nickelodeon's Ka Blam. When it was developed into its own series, it wound up on a different network (in the U.S. it was Fox Family). Furthermore, thanks to the network switch, Fox owned the rights to the series, leading to pretty much any episode of Ka Blam with this show's shorts caught up in copyright disputes.

Another interesting note is that one of the animators was Ian D'Sa, who is recognizable to Canadian rock fans as the guitarist and backup vocalist for Billy Talent.

This show provides examples of:

 * A Lady On Each Arm: Johnny Abatti's uncle travels around with two unnamed girlfriends.
 * Alpha Bitch: Nanette.
 * Amazing Technicolor Population: By virtue of the animation. Oddly, more often than not said color was grey.
 * Be Yourself: The plot of an entire episode centered around Gordy and his father.
 * Big Eater: Gina.
 * Bilingual Bonus: Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of French knows that Nanette Manoir doesn't understand one word of it. Lampshaded on the show itself when an actual French exchange student (who can speak French) visits and very nearly exposes this secret.
 * It's lampshaded all the time by Angela herself, who is constantly berating Nanette for how 'un-French' she is. Among other things, Nanette claims that the word 'viola' is French for 'violin', when in fact they're two different instruments - the actual French word for violin being 'violon'.
 * Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Nanette is something of a subversion - pretty much everyone realises how mean and horrible she is, with the notable exception of Mrs. Brinks.
 * Book Dumb: Johnny Abatti. A bit of a Running Gag is that he can't do math.
 * Angela goes in-and-out; not to the level of Johnny Abatti though.
 * Camp Straight: Gordy Rhinehart.
 * Clip Art Animation: They got a model to come in and they took about 30 pictures for each mouth movement they could have possibly needed. They used different Face Models for most of the main characters; an exception was the episode 'French Connection' where Angela and Nannette Manoir's Face were recycled to make their respective foreign exchange student counterparts.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Angela, and also her friend Gina
 * Cool Old Lady: Angela's grandmother, who goes on all sorts of wild adventures and even keeps an alligator as a pet. Notably, she looks just like Angela, but with white hair, so although Angela is unnerved by (and yet still admires) her wildness, it's implied that this will be her in the future.
 * Crossover With Digimon Adventure In Digimon the Movie.
 * Cryptid Episode: In one episode, Angela and her friends go looking for a yet- erm, sasquatch.
 * Comedic Sociopathy: In the episode where Angela slips on the ice Angela's friends react by insulting her with insults
 * Department of Redundancy Department: Angela was constantly speaking in redundant phrases which are redundant.
 * The Ditz: Johnny Abatti and Candy May.
 * Dumb Muscle: Angela's brothers
 * Fallen Princess: In one episode, Karlean's parents cut off her money and Nanette kicks her out of her Girl Posse. She proceeds to get plenty of Pet the Dog moments...before goes back to being the Rich Bitch.
 * Five Man Band:
 * The Hero: Angela Anaconda
 * The Lancer: Gordy Rhinehart
 * The Smart Guy: Gina Lash
 * The Big Guy: Johnny Abatti
 * French Jerk: Nanette, despite being from Quebec, puts a full-blown stereotypically Parisian act.
 * Full Name Basis: Angela always addresses and refers to characters by their full names, with the exception of her teacher.
 * In Nanette's case she alternates between this and names such as 'Ninny-poo' and 'Ninny-wart'.
 * Some of the characters do it too.
 * Generation Xerox
 * Girl Posse: Karlean and January.
 * Green Eggs and Ham: The town's main export is broccoli, they even have a day celebrating it. Angela hates the stuff, but enters a broccoli themed art competition and wins which necessitates her to give a speech to the town extolling it's taste. She tries to bluff her way through, until she's forced to eat some on stage and it turns out she does like it and has never actually tried it before. Though it could use some ketchup.
 * Happily Married: Mr. and Mrs. Brinks
 * Actually, most married couples on the show
 * Henpecked Husband: Mr. Brinks
 * Imagine Spot: Happens Once an Episode.
 * Jerkass: Nanette, Angela's older brothers. Angela could be one too in her imagination, imagining all of the rather cruel things she would like to do to Nanette, her brothers, Mrs. Brinks...heck whoever made her mad by doing something that made her angry.
 * Jerk Jock: Angela's brothers, and occasionally Coach Rinehart
 * Karma Houdini: When Nanette does something bad, she often gets away with it. One of the worst examples is in Be-Trayed where the teacher makes a huge deal about a tray being thrown away by mistake. Angela confesses despite not doing it...when it was actually Nanette who did it and manages to avoid being punished because she didn't confess. Angela gets punished for lying.
 * And when Nanette does get embarrassed or gets what's coming to her, that's what makes it all the more satisfying.
 * Abatti's uncle also once auctions off the Menorah that belonged to Gina's great-grandmother...and seems to get away with it.
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes
 * Larynx Dissonance: Mrs. Brinks' voice is obviously a man doing an impression of a woman.
 * Laser Guided Karma: This happens to Nanette now and then when she's not being a Karma Houdini.
 * Limited Wardrobe
 * Naked People Are Funny
 * Parental Abandonment: Johnny Abatti appears to live with his uncle and grandmother.
 * Pepper Sneeze: One episode is centered around it.
 * The Prima Donna: Nanette, when starring in a school play, and when having a statue made of her by Angela's mother.
 * Regal Ringlets: Nanette Manoir wears her long blond hair in this style, and speaks with a stereotypically "rich girl" Valley Girl accent and is a complete snob. She's very obsessed with her looks and considers herself extremely beautiful.
 * Rich Bitch: Nanette Manoir. Her Girl Possee of Karlean and January are also the same.
 * Sadist Teacher: Mrs. Brinks is certainly not a Sadist...but holy crap sometimes you just hate her.
 * Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Gordy and his dad
 * Spin Off: From Ka Blam!
 * Shout Out: One whole episode was about Angela and her friends going to see the Digimon movie (obviously the dub version). Said episode was shown before said movie on both theatres and DVD.
 * Mrs. Yamaguchi appears to sound like a certain soup nazi...
 * Squick: In-universe example. During "Snow day", Angela sees Mrs. Brinks and her husband sledding down a hill naked. And yes, before Fridge Logic sets in...the characters even ask why they would be sledding down a hill naked during a snow day and that it's just an invitation to get Hypothermia. Another episode implies they also do the same while ice-skating!
 * Stock Yuck: Angela hates broccoli, until she actually tries it that is.
 * Teen Genius: Gina.
 * Terrified of Germs: Gordy Rhinehart has this happen to him in one episode.
 * Tiny Guy Huge Girl: Mr. and Mrs. Brinks
 * Unreliable Narrator: Invoked for comedy in the "Nanette lock" episode.
 * Uranus Is Showing
 * Verbal Tic: Angela with "on account of".
 * She also uses redundant words in sentences. Like "this week was supposed to be a big week for all us tapwaterspringsians who live in tapwater springs", or "the end of the line starts at the end".