Bobby's World is a children's animated series, which ran from 1990 to 1998, on FOX. It was about the daily life of Bobby Generic (pronunciation [ˈdʒɛnəɹɪk], JEN-a-rik) and his very overactive imagination on how he sees the world. This show was created by actor-comedian Howie Mandel. Mandel also provided the voice of both Bobby and his father Howard Generic, who looks like a cartoon version of Mandel himself. It was produced by Film Roman for Alevy Productions and the Fox Kids Network. The theme song for Bobby's World was composed by John Tesh, along with Michael Hanna.

History

The character of "Bobby" can likely be traced back to Mandel's days as a stand up comedian in Canada and later the United States. Mandel would commonly go into character with the same voice as Bobby, often conversing with an unseen "parent".

The voices of Kelly Generic (Bobby's sister) and Martha Generic (Bobby's mom) are based on two recurring characters Gail Matthius played when she was a cast member on Saturday Night Live in 1980. Martha is based on the character, Roweena, a chain-smoking hair stylist with a Midwestern accent who gets into arguments with her best customer Nadine (Denny Dillon) while Kelly Generic is based on the character, Vicky, a Valley Girl who annoys others with her shallow questions and rambling stories and often is seen with her friend Debbie (also Dillon).

In the US, during the show's final season on-air, the show was open-captioned for the hearing-impaired; the show's closed-captions were not encoded and all viewers could see them. This is despite the fact that most network programming by this time were closed-captioned, and most televisions made after 1993 had closed-captioning capabilities.

In an April 2006 online interview, Mandel expressed his desire for a possible re-launch of the series. Episodes can be occasionally be seen in syndication, or on a variety of websites.

Show format

Episodes often consist of a short live action segment either before or after the main story (and sometimes both before and after). The segment would include Mandel describing some aspect of the story and often relating it back to his personal childhood. Sometimes during these segments, the character of Bobby would appear in animated form and converse with Mandel. Other times, a live action child would appear and exchange words with Mandel. Endings of the show also featured Mandel breaking the proverbial "fourth wall" by talking to viewers about the preceding episode.

Characters

• Bobby Generic, 4-year old (has a voice similar to Skeeter from Season 1 and 2 of Jim Henson's Muppet Babies)
• Howard Generic, Bobby's father (modeled upon and also voiced by Howie Mandel using his regular voice)
• Martha Generic, Bobby's mother, who speaks with a heavy Minnesota accent and often punctuates her speech with phrases like "Fer cryin' in the mud", "gee golley", "gee darn" and "don't'cha know".
• Kelly Generic, Bobby's 14-year-old sister, sporting a shag haircut, purple eye shadow and a Valley Girl accent
• Derek Generic, Bobby's 10-year-old brother, with a rat-tail hairdo and a sarcastic manner.
• The Generic Twins, Bobby's infant brothers
• Aunt Ruth, Bobby's aunt and Martha's sister (voice of Edie McClurg)
• Uncle Ted, Bobby's uncle and Martha's brother. He loves to give noogies to Bobby and is a collector of various things, one of which is a novelty item called Socks In A Can. (voice of Tino Insana)
• Roger, the Generic family dog
• Jackie, Bobby's next door neighbor/classmate with the floor-length pigtails who has a crush on Bobby and always kisses him

Episodes

DVD releases

• Classic Scratch 'n' Sniff Episodes and The Signature Episodes were both released on DVD in North America by Anchor Bay Entertainment, now called Starz Home Entertainment.

References

External links

• BobbysWorld.net
• Bobby's World at TV.com
• Toon Tracker Audio File - The Bobby's World Theme
• Bobby's World at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
• Bobby's World on Kabillion.com