I had a lot of fun with yesterday's post. I was wondering what I could do for a follow up. I figured I was letting NEWFOUNDLAND SECRETS go, why not some CANADIAN SECRETS. I figured that it's always fun to talk about cartoons and it's always fun to talk about obscure crap so I figured I'd talk about some cartoons from Canada. It's all about perspective when it comes to obscure crap. This aired all the time in Canada but Portnoyd and DA BYS (that's what we call each other up her bys it's like the word boy without an o in it. Newfoundland SECRET #2 GIVEN AWAY FOR FREE). This is not the first time I talked about Canadian cartoons. I've talked about the Final Episode of the Raccoons here. I talked about Monster By Mistake which I think just might be my least favorite piece of animation ever here and here. I talked about Flying Rhino Junior High here (which actually showed up on CBS in America for like two years. Wild huh?) I talked about The Smoggies here. So I've talked about a good amount of Canadian Cartoons created by Canadians instead of Canadian-American productions (which I have talked about like Inspector Gadget or the Care Bears.)
So I picked Yvon of the Yukon because it was something I kinda hated as a kid. I mean I could sit down and tolerate it so it WAS better than Monster by Mistake. It's just one of the many things that got stuck in my head and stayed there for decades. I figured it's enough to talk about it. It was a part of the flavour of YTV which was the channel that aired this and many other shows. It was wild. You got the popular NickToons, you got the popular Cartoon Network stuff, just random shit to fill holes, Canadian content, and a lot of anime for the time too. Canada dubbed a hell of a lot of Japanese animation! It was an interesting time and place to be a fan of animation. I look fondly back at the time of 1999. Turn of the millenium. We had such high hopes for the year 2000 and they all got dashed. Now we just wish it was 1983 again.
So this show was created by Terry Klassen and Ian James Corbett. They were both voice actors for things like Captain N, The New Adventures of He-Man (gross) and the Dragon Ball Z dub. Canadian voice actors had their sticky little maple syrup fingers in just about everything! So they teamed up with Story B productions (which I believe are now owned by Wild Brain.) and Corus Entertainment. Corus Entertainment owns YTV and so it was easy for them to put Yvon of the Yukon on the air! The show ran for three seasons and fifty two episodes. The voice cast had a mix of indigenous actors, anime dub actors and Transformers actors. Yes, every Transformers series from like Beast Wars to sometime in 2007 were voiced by Canadians. WE ARE ALL AROUND YOU. YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE!!!
So, uh, what was Yvon of the Yukon even about? Well buddy let me tell you. It was the story of Yvon Ducharme, a frenchman who was tasked with trying to find THE NEW WORLD by King Louis XVIVIXIVGX or whatever one it was. Too many fucking kings to keep track of. Anyway he went and tried to find it and ended up becoming frozen in ice. For three hundred years. Then a dog pisses on him and it defrosts the ice and he tries to work with the people of the Yukon for reasons. I dunno. I didn't make this show! This was one of those gross-out cartoons of the 1990s, like Ren and Stimpy or my favorite Rocko's Modern Life. Those were better cartoons. Probably isn't fair to call Rocko's Modern Life completely gross out as they made jokes about everything. Still this one just went for smelly frenchman jokes and pee jokes. From what I remember they were just missing whatever it was that made Ren and Stimpy funny to me at that age. I think it was because Ren and Stimpy went farther than just pee jokes. I dunno, I don't really like Ren and Stimpy as much as I did then. I really should rewatch some of it and also Rocko's Modern Life.
So I will now watch some episodes and then come back to discuss what I liked and did not like about them! Well, I was going to do something different than explain to plot to you and make dumb jokes but I seriously have to tell you about this amazing and also kind of terrible episode. It's called Fromage to Eternity, you know like the movie From Here to Eternity. I don't think it has anything to do with the story of this episode except for the Fromage part.First off it starts with Yvon watching what is a weird mix of America's Funniest Home Videos and Rescue 911 called America's Funniest 9-1-1s. Everyone ends up farting at the end of the segment which causes Yvon to laugh. He then sees an ad for Meal in a Can and we move on to the rest of the cast. I like how everyone looks kinda messed up like they did too much meth or something. Except for like the lady cop who is a sexy lady cop. I guess no matter what you draw you kinda want to draw something sexy. Weird. They are all getting ready for the local potluck. They all end up making Jello shit for it to win an award or something. Except for Yvon, he makes a fondue, even though he has an flashback to when he lived in France in like 1602 or whenever the fuck Loui XVIVIXIVGX lived about making a meal that was ruined when he farted. He even says he will never cook again but then cooks a fondue. They really were writing great stuff here. The fondue is made from 300 year old cheese that turns everyone into a 1960s hippie stereotype. Even the people who did not eat any of the cheese fondue. So he sees another commercial for Meal in a Can and King Louis XVIVIXIVGX tells him to take over Upyermukluk (great name) and he tries to do that by getting the cast of the show out of the town while they are on their high. Then Yvon eats the cheese to prove it didnt cause everyone to go nuts and then he goes nuts and becomes the pied piper. Yep. This show is fucking weird.
Okay, the second episode I watched was Mad Dog Ducharme. It starts with Yvon and Tommy (owner of the sled dog that peed on Yvon in the ice and bringing him into the year 1999) trying to trap polar bears. It does not go well and we go back to the Mad Cossack which is a bar/resturant of some sort. They serve Moose burgers and seal chunks. You ain't lived until you had a seal chunk! Anyway they see on the TV a wrestler called Killer Koloski or some shit yelling at the camera about cowards and Yvon thinks this is about him because back in the year 1699 or whenever Yvon was at war with Algeria or Alaska or Algebra or some A related thing or country. Anyway he got his shoes tied wrong while everyone around him went into war. King Louis XVIVIXIVGX was there on the battlefield and he called him a coward. Now Yvon is going to take the challenge of Killer Koloski and become a wrestler. So he trains with Bill (Tommy's dad and owner of the Mad Cossack). He trains and then tries to fight some wrestlers. He loses. Badly, even to a man in a wheelchair (which literally made me laugh out loud), however after some guys smack talk France and King Louis XVIVIXIVGX. This causes Yvon to go into a frothing mad lunatic mode and SMASH THE SHIT OUT OF THEM. He then starts doing this to like every wrestler. Then Killer Koloski and his manager a Don King lookalike shows up. I don't think many people even remember Don King these days but if I were given a cartoon I would make reference to him. Anyway it turns out that Killer Koloski is a fake and doesn't want to get hurt so they bring in Ivan the Terrible to fight Yvon who beats his ass until they uh realize that they should have told Yvon he said something bad about King Louis XVIVIXIVGX at the start of the match. However it turns out that Ivan the Terrible is actually French and he and Yvon become friends and even leave the match halfway through to go get something to eat. The crowd then beats the shit out of fake Don King and Killer Koloski. Ivan then tries to get Yvon to come ot his wedding but he can't. He has to trap polar bears with Tommy and Tommy is all sad because he thinks its dumb. What a weird fucking episode.
FINAL THOUGHTS: Uh, this show is not very well written to be fair, yet I enjoyed watching it. The show is all over the place and the comedy doesn't always hit. However some of it was pretty amusing honestly. I loved the guy in the wheelchair as a wrestler fighting Yvon. This show is weird and I respect that. I honestly kinda want to review the other 50 episodes just to find what kind of weird shit is within them. Portnoyd AND THE BYS are you up for at least 25 Yvon of the Yukon posts!??
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