Show name	Kid Paddle
Genre	Animation
Writer	Laurent BounourePhilippe Daniau
Director	Olivier Bonnet
Voices	Jessica Kardos
Country	BelgianFrenchCanadian
Language	French
Num seasons
Num episodes	52
Runtime	13 minutes
Company	Canal JM6PorchLight EntertainmentDupuisFrance 3
Channel	Teletoon
First aired
Last aired
Status	On hiatus
Website	http://www.kidpaddle.com/

Kid Paddle is a Belgian, French and Canadian co-produced animated series. It aired on Teletoon, Sundays at 4:00 am, EST, but is currently on an indefinite hiatus. The show is based on the long running popular Franco-Belgian comic series of the same name, created by Michel Ledent (more commonly known as Midam).

Overview

The show covers all the passions and interests of 8 to 12-year-old boys. The main character, Kid Paddle, is your typical young boy with a passionate love for video games, comic books, Blorks (fictional aliens), and sci-fi television. His two best friends are Big Bang and Horace. Big Bang is more of a kid scientist, who is always creating new gadgets for Kid to try out. He is very intelligent for his age. Horace is more naive compared to the other two, and has a very bizarre appetite. He's always very supportive of Kid and looks up to him. As is typical for young children, Kid often fights with his sister, Carol, who finds her brother to be a degenerate air-head.

Regular features in the show cover video games, movies and DVDs, technology, and comic books. By the second season some of the story lines revolved around crushes and the differences between boys and girls. Two seasons of 26 half hour episodes (each consisting of two 11 minute episodes) have been produced thus far. It's not clear as of 2006 if a third season will be produced. The show has a huge following in its Belgian homeland, as well as in France. It entertains its target market well, but is also appealing for all ages. The show is currently trying to find a home in the US, but plans to air the show there have since gone on hiatus.

Characters

Kid Paddle

Kid is ten years old. He's not a child anymore, but he's not a teenager either. He lives with his dad and his sister, Carole. Kid is not his nickname; It's what's on his birth certificate. He's an artist. He draws well, and is particularly skillful when it comes to illustrating Blork's and Blork-like things. Kid isn't at the head of his class, nor is he flunking out. If he likes a subject he'll do well, but his passion for video games can have dire consequences (or benefits) on his marks. He prefers subjects which allow him to use his imagination like history, or math (Especially when Benjamin, the young math teacher, illustrates problems with Blorks!).

Big Bang

Big Bang is the only child of a couple of scientists who are always preoccupied with obscure research. He has everything he needs at home for his favorite past time, do-it-yourselfing. His "smarts" lend him a certain respect among his buddies, plus he doesn't carry on like a nerdy head of the class, licking boots and demanding extra assignments. No, he prefers to hover somewhere in the middle with Kid.

Horace Beckett

Kid's other best friend. Small, incredibly gullible and naïve, Horace has unlimited admiration for Kid. Of course, Big Bang and Kid adore him right back. Horace believes everything you tell him at face value, even when it's obviously unbelievable and made up. With or without Big Bang, Horace always finds himself mixed up in Kid Paddle's adventures. Another significant trait of Horace is his obsession with Rikiki, the duck (a childish cartoon's character).

The little Barbarian

Character of the favorite Game of Kid.

Mr. Paddle

Thirty-five to forty, he works in an office but we never find out exactly what he does. Nothing exciting apparently. Nor too rigorous or relaxing. He is a single father raising two children. He doesn't oppose Kid's passion for video games, even if he thinks Kid spends too much time in front of the screen. In fact, he himself often spends too much time working in front of the computer.

Carole Paddle

Serious and a good student, Carole is around the same age as Kid. She may be older than Kid or younger—maybe they're twins—but either way she considers herself the mature one and can't stand Kid's foolishness. Despite her serious nature, Carole's not a nag or a nuisance.

Grandpa aka Pappy Paddle

Good old Grandad is a real softy who lives in an old folks home. Perhaps because he's a widower without a girlfriend, he frequently visits his son and grandchildren. He is close to his grandson but doesn't quite get "it" all the time... Mr. Paddle doesn't have the heart to correct his father. Besides, Kid's dad gets a kick out of watching his own son squirm. Grandpa Paddle gets confused about most things, but he's far from senile.

Max

Kid's biggest rival in videogames, Max often beats Kid's high scores at City Game. She is cool, calm and collected, while Kid bounces off the wall in frustration over a girl beating him in video games. Its not totally clear if Max and Kid like each other, but there are small hints throughout the series. If they do like each other, its purely on a competitive level.

Mr. Mirador

The owner of the City Game and Max's uncle. He is a man in his late 40s or early 50s. He is not married, does not have any children (or at least it is never mentioned) and treats his mutt Radar as his own child. He has a slight dislike towards Kid as he always shakes or even destroys the machine and he either kicks him out of the City Game or have Radar bite a piece of his shorts.

Episodes

Four cartoons were developed for television. Then, more cartoons were developed. Mostly, these are the first ones:

1. Arachnoid Menace - Horace accidentally eats a spider under a park bench after Kid and Big Bang talked to him about how to eat bugs. Kid and Big Bang discovers he isn't in school, noticing that Horace is sick! They rush to the hospital, but the nurse won't let them in. So, they sneak in a closet, but then, Kid swallows a arachnid!

2. Lights! Camera! Cut! - Kid wants to enter a contest (Moviemakers Get Into the Picture!), so he asks Big Bang and Horace to help him. But then, things go awry!

3. Summer Camp Fugitives - Kid and his friends are sent to a not-so-fun summer camp, powered by not-so-friendly G.I. Jane! Kid is the only one who can save his pals - By challenging Jane to a thumb wresting battle!

4. Game Not Over! - The school bully starts frightening Big Bang. What he doesn't realize is that the bully just wants Big Bang and Kid Paddle to fix his broken portable video game system. Kid tries it out at City Games, making the games malfunction in the area. The game hater Mr. Mirador notices this, then takes away the game. Kid and Big Bang must retrieve it back! But it is torn in half, so Kid and Big Bang must tell why!

English Cast

Jessica Kardos – Kid

Daniel Brochu – Big Bang

Pauline Little - Horace

Eleanor Nobie - Mr. Paddle

Jennifer Begoin - Carol

Credits

Directed by Olivier Bonnet.

Writing credits:

Laurent Bounoure – scenario

Philippe Daniau – writer

Salome Franck – writer

Aline Leblon – scenario

Midam – comic books

Ghislaine Pujol – writer

Laurent Rullier – writer

Nasser Zeboudj – writer

Original Music by Mark Lipsky and Kevin Morane

Production Design by Marisa Musy

Guy Quelquejeu – character designer

Comics Books

# Villain Games # Total Carnage # Apocalypse Boy # Full Metal Casquette # Alien Chantilly # Rodeo Blork # Waterminator # Paddle... My name is Kid Paddle # Boing! Boing! Bunk! # Dark Love # The Return of the Mummy that Stinks Of Sweat # (Out in 2011)

Production Companies

Canal J

Dupuis Audiovisuel

M6

Radio Télévision Belge Francofone (RTBF)

Spectra Animation

Teletoon

PorchLight Entertainmen

Dupuis

Darguad Media

Darguad Distribution

Runtime: 52 half hours, totaling 104 11 minute episodes

Country: Belgium / Canada / France

Language: French / English

External links

Kid Paddle Official Website

Category:French animated television series Category:Canadian animated television series Category:Fictional characters in comics Category:Dupuis titles

Name	Midam
Birthname	Michel Ledent
Birthdate	16 May 1963
Birthplace	Etterbeek, Belgium
Nationality	Belgian
Area	artist, writer
Notable works	Kid Paddle
Awards	see awards section

Midam (born 16 May 1963) is the pseudonym of Michel Ledent, the Belgian comics author best known for Kid Paddle.

Biography

Michel Ledent was born in Etterbeek near Brussels in 1963. He studied illustration and interior decoration at the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels, and started creating comics in 1989 for the computer magazine Micro-Systèmes. Under the pseudonym Midam, he joined the comics magazine Spirou in 1992 as an illustrator for the videogames section.

The character he created there, Kid Paddle, soon got its own series, which became very popular, with over 4 million copies sold in French. New albums sell some 400,000 copies in French alone, making it one of the top ten best-selling French language comics series. In 2002, a separate Kid Paddle magazine was launched, and an animated TV series was created as well, with so far 104 episodes. The spin-off series Game Over was created in 2004, presenting the misadventures of the main character of the video games Kid Paddle is fond of playing in his own albums. The comic is wordless and is according to Midam inspired by the everfailing quests of Wile E. Coyote. The first album sold 60,000 copies.

Other series by Midam were Le Gowap, which was continued by Curd Ridel, and Durant les Travaux, l'Exposition Continue with Clarke.

Midam is married to Chilean Araceli Cancino, who translates his works into Spanish.

Bibliography

Kid Paddle: Dupuis, 1996 - , 11 volumes

Durant les Travaux, l'Exposition Continue:Dupuis, 1998 - 2000 with Clarke: 3 volumes

Game Over: Dupuis, 2004 - , 5 volumes, with Adam and others

Le Miracle de la vie: Dupuis, 2004, artwork by Clarke, 1 volume

Harding was Here: Quadrants, 2008, with Adam, 1 volume

Awards

2002: Nominated for the Youth Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival for Kid Paddle

2005: Youth Prize at the Prix Saint-Michel for Game Over

2006: Prix Canal J for the best youth comic for Kid Paddle :: Nominated for the Youth Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival for Kid Paddle :: Nominated for the Youth Prize at the Prix Saint-Michel for Kid Paddle

2009: Nominated for the Prix Canal J for Kid Paddle

Notes

External links

Midam homepage

Biography at Lambiek Comiclopedia

Biography at publisher Dupuis

Category:Belgian comics writers Category:Belgian comics artists Category:1963 births Category:Living people