I Fantaeroi

The last Canadian flash cartoon I'm going to review this summer. This review will be on a cartoon, called "Sidekick." Its plot is about a boy named Eric, who along with his friends attend an accademy to train to become sidekicks. Like with Scaredy Squirrel, I have watched this cartoon in my youth. When I rewatched this show. While better than the other two. It's bad.

It has bad flash animation. But the character designs, and action sequences can get decent. The episodes. I'm rather mixed on them. Some of them have good ideas. Like in "Virtual Mayhem." But other times it is pretty mean spirited. Don't get me wrong, mean spiritedness can work. Even in this show where Eric sometimes acts like a jerk. But in episodes like for one example, "Everybody is Side-Fu Fighting." Bleh. The jokes are hit or mixed to me.

Let's look at the characters. Which I'm also mixed on. Some of the characters are likable. Eric, Kitty, Mandy, and Master XOX. Other characters are bad. Trevor, Vana, the teacher, and Maxum Man. Let's start off with the likable characters. Eric is normally a good and relatable kid. Kitty has a crush on Eric. But is also a good, and smart friend to the team. Mandy appears in some episodes. She is like the catwoman to Eric. The best character on the show is Master XOX. He is a cool villain, who also has a split personality good side.

Now onto the bad characters. Trevor is Eric's best friend. Who is a lazy jerk. Vana is your typical selfish popular girl. Granted she can also care for Eric, Trevor, and Kitty. So I find her more likable then them. Professor Pamplemoose is the mean spirted teacher. Maxum Man disappears in the cartoon. But is shown to be a jerk to Eric, and his other sidekicks.

So in conclusion. I find this cartoon mediocore. I will give it a 4/10.

Edit Feb 28, 2023: Rewatched this show, I was too kind towards it. I wouldn't put it as one of the worst cartoons, but the show is worse then what this review puts it out. This includes now disliking Eric, Mandy (who is just bland) and Master XOX (who is not a cool villain). I think Kitty is okay though. Sometime I am going to make a lot of edits for this review, with my updated thoughts.

It's got its ups and downs. 1/10th of the time it seems that it wants to be Stressed Eric again because its main character is named Eric. But most of the time it is still a funny show. Like Ed, Edd n Eddy or The Loud House, they know when to give main characters the punishment they deserve or else we would really hate their unlikable behavior. Every character is really funny and distinct. I find Eric, Trevor, Kitty, Professor Pampelmoose, XOX, and even Vana on occasion to be amusing. It's not my favorite show in the world, but it's still less annoying than Almost Naked Animals and has better characters than Almost Naked Animals. I want to give it a TV movie finale akin to Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show to make sure its brief final episode ends better.

Hey, uh, do you think The Ridonculous Race may have borrowed their Kitty from Sidekick? I think so, but since both Sidekick creators used to work on Total Drama Island (Todd Kauffman directed every Season 1 & 2 episode and Joey So animated every Season 3 episode but the last two), they probably gave the Total Drama Island creators permission to use Kitty in The Ridonculous Race, which is helped by Corus Entertainment owning YTV, Teletoon and most of the market on Canadian kids' entertainment. It would be cool if we finally got to see what Kitty's sister Emma was doing in Sidekick. She must be at a different school in a different city studying international laws, which is useful knowledge to protect Kitty from legal troubles when she becomes a super sidekick.

This is ctually a pretty good series. It has a great cast of charcters and good slapstick/action comedy. The only real problem is the toilet humor and it's not really for everyone but it's still a good watch.

this show is awesome! It has clever jokes & great stories... There is lots of attention to detail & the voices are done very well...

i hope they keep this show around for a few seasons... its much better than "total drama action" or "gym partner"

this show is good humor the whole family can enjoy... seriously i'm 22 years old and i liked this show enough to log into my computer and type a review about it... its been a long time since I've enjoyed a show this much...

i also recommend "almost naked animals", cartoon network has been doing good work recently

Saw 'Sidekick' as someone in my late teens as a big fan of animation, whether Disney, Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, Hanna Barbera, Tex Avery. Even back then 'Sidekick' didn't do much for me. Actually have loved much of Nelvana's work, with 'Babar', 'Redwall', 'The Care Bears', 'The Magic School Bus', 'Tintin', 'Rupert' being childhood favourites. Much of their output has held up really well in my view, 'Redwall', 'The Adventures of Tintin' and 'The Magic School Bus' being among their best still.

While there are far worse animated shows out there ('Johnny Test', 'Uncle Grandpa', 'Angela Anaconda', 'Breadwinners', 'Problem Solverz', 'Fanboy and Chum Chum', 'Chalkzone', 'The Cleveland Show' for examples), 'Sidekick' still isn't good. As far as Nelvana's output goes, it is for me definitely in the lesser end and actually had a hard time believing that it came from them. This could easily pass for past prime Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon, and it would be understandable if anybody ever mistook it as one of theirs.

There are good things with 'Sidekick'. The voice acting is game with the voice actors doing all they can injecting some degree of energy into their very tired material. Did like the backgrounds, which does have some nice colour and detail.

Some of the music is quite cool. Did like Eric at times and Master XOX is a very interesting and sinister antagonist.

All the other characters are poorly written and really irritated me. The show always overdid it with Trevor's jerkish-ness, while Pamplemoose is insufferably annoying (haven't seen an animated character this annoying in a long time), a character with no redeeming qualities and his rambling over-explanatory dialogue makes one want to turn off the television fast. The character interaction lacks wit and any kind of connection, with not much chemistry. Even the friendships don't feel like a friendship and the antagonistic teacher-student chemistry is very mean-spirited. The father-son relationship potentially had heart, but hurt by that the father is an under-developed character and his behaviours vague.

Didn't care for the humour, gross out, crude humour has worked very well in animation numerous times. The writing and jokes just come over as really juvenile and generic, as well as lacking in variety and overdone in the gross out aspect to a distasteful degree. Like Pamplemoose and the teacher-student chemistry, there is too much of a mean spirited edge. The concept sounded quite nice and potentially original, but the execution is paper thin, bland and very generic and repetitive. Nothing original whatsoever. Despite some nice backgrounds, the animation is not to my tastes. The colours are flat and the character designs hideous.

Very mediocre overall. 4/10.