The Wild Thornberrys is an American animated television series created by Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó, Steve Pepoon, David Silverman, and Stephen Sustarsic for Nickelodeon. 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 in particular on Eliza, who has a magical ability to communicate with animals. The Thornberry family travels to every continent and wildlife environment in the ComVee, a recreational vehicle equipped with safety mechanisms to handle any terrain or body of water, to document their journeys in detail, with typical episodes involving Eliza befriending an animal and subsequently finding herself in peril. Originally pitched by Klasky Csupo as an adult animated sitcom for Fox, the series was then retooled as a family-friendly animated series for Nickelodeon and premiered on September 1, 1998, as the eleventh Nicktoon and the third overall produced by the studio following Rugrats and Aaahh!!! Real Monsters. It ran for 5 seasons containing 91 episodes in total, with the series finale 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 Nickelodeon's Rugrats, was released in theaters on June 13, 2003. Spin-off media include DVD releases and three video games.

Plot

The series focuses around 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

Main

Recurring

Guest stars

Episodes

Production

The Wild Thornberrys was produced by Klasky Csupo. It was initially pitched as an adult animated sitcom under the name, Nigel Thornberry's Animal World, and was to be co-produced by 20th Century Fox Television for the Fox network, but it was ultimately rejected. 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 beautiful. 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 10 – 11-minute stories, using 22-minute stories only 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.

Broadcast

The show aired in reruns on "Nick on CBS" for two years from September 14, 2002, to March 6, 2004. The show aired on Nicktoonsters in the United Kingdom.

Home media

Nickelodeon released all five seasons on DVD in Region 1 with Amazon.com through its CreateSpace manufacture-on-demand service in 2010. Season 1 was released on June 24, 2010, and Seasons 2 through 5 were released on December 1, 2010. 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. ♦ – Shout! Factory select title, sold exclusively through Shout's online store. (refers to region 1 releases)

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:

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

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.

Accolades