negativecreepmaniac все записи автора
Invader Zim is an American animated television series created by comic book writer/artist Jhonen Vasquez and aired on Nickelodeon. The show's strange animation, quirky humor, and dark, cynical style gave it a devoted cult following, with an audience of an older average age than those of most of Nickelodeon's other cartoons. Because of this, ratings for Nickelodeon's core demographic, 2-11 year olds, were fairly low. Disappointed with its low ratings and high production costs, Nickelodeon cancelled the show. One and a half seasons of Invader Zim were completed. It was first broadcast on March 30, 2001. Invader Zim DVD compilations have been released by Media Blasters. The series has since been translated into several different languages for foreign broadcast.



Plot
Zim is a member of the mighty Irken race, a species of aliens whose social hierarchy is based on height. The Irken leaders are the Almighty Tallest (during the course of the show, leadership of the Irken Empire is shared by two Tallest, Purple and Red, who are exactly the same height). Zim was banished to the planet Foodcourtia as a frycook for the remainder of his life for destroying a sizable portion of an Irken city with a giant robot, known as the Frontline Battle Mech. The robot was part of Operation Impending Doom I, a major galactic conquest venture by the Irkens. Zim was overeager (as usual) and activated his robot before leaving his home planet, much to the chagrin of his leaders.

Upon hearing of Operation Impending Doom II, Zim "quits" being banished and arrives at the Great Assigning where Irken Elite soldiers are chosen to become Invaders, special soldiers whose mission it is to blend in with the indigenous life forms of their assigned planet and collect intelligence. Zim pleads with the Tallest to assign him a planet, and in a desperate act to get Zim as far away as possible, they assign him to a "Mystery Planet", which turns out to be Earth.

The show features the exploits of Zim trying to conquer the Earth while his arch-nemesis Dib tries to stop him. The exact year on Earth is unknown, but given some rather striking technological and societal changes, the series is evidently set at some point in the future.

In a Nickelodeon Magazine Special there was a short 4 page comic of Invader Zim that ended the series with Zim taking over the world while Dib wasn't looking, then inviting Dib to go into space with him and ride giant alien bunnies. But another possible ending would end up with Zim failing to take over the world in the episode "The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever", which was the last episode made of the series, where we see 2 million years into the future and the humans are not conquered or destroyed. Santa, however, has become an intergalactic chaos beast. It is also known that aside from the X-Mas finale, there was the alternate plan to produce story editor, Rob Hummel's "10 Minutes to Doom" script as the series' dramatic conclusion. In the original script Zim did survive, but the ending would been tampered so that he would have failed to retreive his Pak at the end of his ten minute lifelock (the final product of the countdown would have Zim reduced to a fine pile of goo). Finally, a fourth 'alternate ending' could be said to spawn from an illustration Jhonen Vasquez created shortly after the show's cancellation- a dark silhouette of Dib standing, smoking gun in hand, foot on a fallen figure that is clearly Zim, beneath the hastily scrawled phrase 'Zim is Dead'.

In an IGN interview Vasquez has stated that if the series had continued Zim would eventually see the beauty in human life and would become Earth's spokesman to the Irkens, although this could be interpreted as a joke considering the character and the direction of the show as a whole.

Main characters
Zim is a short, green, almost stereotypical looking alien from the planet Irk. He is also a narcissistic megalomaniac who usually has enormous outbursts claiming his normality. He is trying to conquer the Earth, and is generally unsuccessful. He is aided in his mission by a robot named GIR, who is a dysfunctional version of the Irken SIR (Standard Information Retrieval) units given to Irken invaders. GIR rarely helps, but sometimes assists Zim unintentionally by doing destructive things to Dib. Zim's main rival is Dib, a member of Zim's class at the "Skool" they both attend. Dib is obsessed with the paranormal and supernatural and is often criticised by his classmates for being "crazy" or mentally unstable due to his outlandish theories. He apparently is the only human to recognize or care that Zim is an alien and makes it clear that he will live to stop Zim at every turn. Seemingly everyone he comes into contact with claims Dib has an unusually large head, even though it does not appear abnormal. Dib's sister Gaz also plays a prominent role in the show, but rarely takes an active part in stopping Zim's schemes. She knows and admits that Zim is an alien, but doesn't care because she thinks he's too stupid to take over the world.

Music
The music for Invader Zim was composed by Kevin Manthei and is in a digital techno style. The title music was composed by Mark Tortoroci, but Manthei arranged it. Manthei, however, did do the music for the end credits and all the music for the actual episodes.

In September of 2002, Anime Stuff-R, an internet radio website, broadcasted the "Zimphony". A 5 hour broadcast of all the music from the 26 episodes of Invader Zim composed by Kevin Manthei. This session, presented by DJ Richard Rae is the most popular that Anime Stuff-R has broadcasted. In this session it was also included an interview with Kevin Manthei by Richard Rae in August of 2002, where Kevin talked mostly about how the music of Invader Zim was composed and was inserted in the show.

Because of the popularity of the broadcast, Anime Stuff-R made 100 MP3 CDs with the entire broadcast. They made only 100 because of copyright and financial reasons.

Kevin Manthei also realised a Promo CD containing some music from Invader Zim. This Promo CD is still available but one needs to get in touch with composer Kevin Manthei to accquire it.

Criticism
Despite its strong core of devoted fans, some find Invader Zim to be lacking in appeal. The main reason for this is its overall dark, dreary, unpleasant atmosphere. Indeed, the show seems to delight in emphasising everything disapproved of or ungenteel in its depictions of today's world, showing children bursting into manic fits with enlarged neck arteries and bulging, veiny eyes, depicting buildings and cities as dirty and unkempt, and portraying children as neglected and mentally unstimulated and adults as tools of a corrupt society. As a whole, the human race is often portrayed as being mind-numbingly idiotic or just plain ignorant. Sometimes the show even goes one step further and includes mildly disturbing content (a group of baby-like aliens mutate into a creature composed of their flesh; Gir dips a live chicken into mayonaise and eats it off-screen; a boy has his eyes ripped out and replaced with a pair of mechanical ones). Others however enjoy the show precisely because of its dark tone. There have also been a few references to or innuendos made about feces in the show, (the brand of soft drink that appears in the show is called "POOP" and also the same with their chocolate) and the show is considered by some to be lacking in inspiration on the whole in its humor and plots.

References and "inside jokes"
Fans of Vasquez's pre-Zim comic books will instantly identify Zim as "his" work; the show is suffused with the same highly-developed visual style and unique sense of humour that are showcased in series like Squee! and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. Furthermore, some characters—such as schoolteacher Miss Bitters—are direct adaptations of similar characters seen in those two series, and even some of Vasquez's lesser known characters and symbols (like Filler Bunny, the giant-toothed vampire, the "Z?" logo, Devi's doll, or the moronic aliens from Squee #1) have cameo appearances. Also, an alien that appeared in Squee #2 looked exactly like Zim with human hair and alien eyes. One of Vasquez's comics (Titled "Happy Noodle Boy") appeared on one episode on a child's shirt on while leaving the "Skool" on the bus. Also appearing in cameos are Vasquez himself and many members of the show's cast/crew (e.g. director/producer Steve Ressel).

Recurring gags include frequent references to meat (of various types), pigs, squirrels, moose, snacks, the large size of Dib's head, stuff, and doom. The show also makes occasional references to classic works of horror or science fiction, ranging from Dawn of the Dead to Fantastic Voyage, and from Jurassic Park to Alien. In one episode called "Rise of the Zit Boy", Gaz is seen sitting on the steps to the school's back entrance reading a book called "Punch Club" which also has an image of a clenched fist on its cover, doubtless a reference to Fight Club.

The biggest reference to Vasquez's work, aside from Ms. Bitters, is the brief appearance of what appears to be Johnny C. in The Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom wherein one of the Halloweenies looks exactly like a shadow form of Johnny during the period of his life where he had two locks of hair shaped like a rabbit's ears (Specifically when he returns from hell).

Some of the references are hard to miss for those who read the comics. For instance, Gaz wears the same clothes as Pepito, the antichrist, from Squee!. Also, the episode Gaz, Taster of Pork is based off an idea from a Meanwhile comic with the Tickle-Me-Hellmo doll.

Trivia
Jhonen Vasquez says he made the episode "Bolognius Maximus" because he wanted an episode like The Fly, only stupid.
Jhonen Vasquez has a few cameo appearances in the show; in the first episode The Nightmare Begins, one of the two disguises Zim reviews before choosing his regular, is Jhonen himself. Similar to that, in the episode Germs, in MacMeaty's, Jhonen is seen to be eating with the personified second disguise from the first episode. In both of the episodes, Steve Russel (the director of the show) is seen as well; first, as the "too stinky" disguise, and second, eating with Jhonen. Other cameos of Jhonen Vasquez include the episode Attack of the Saucer Morons (in which he is a "saucer moron") and The Wettening (dying from drinking a piranha). The Wettening was the last cameo of Jhonen. He stopped the cameos of himself because he said it was distracting people from the show itself.
Writer, Eric Trueheart stated that if Zim had gone on longer, Dib eventually would have found out he was actually a clone of Professor Membrane.
Jhonen's favorite episode of the show is "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars."
The credits of Intestines of War (the movie Gir watches in "FBI Warning of Doom") supposedly originally contained some "sexually explicit language" when it was first storyboarded, including names such as "Jenny Talls". It was immediately changed and one of the names was replaced with "J. Duffi," which is the name of one of the crew members of Rugrats, and other Nickelodeon shows.
In the episode, Zim Eats Waffles (and also featured in GIR Goes Crazy and Stuff) is a child named "Nick" who is constantly happy and whom Zim keeps to inspect on that matter. This is a reference to Nickelodeon.
Zim has starred in the Game Boy Advance game Freeze Frame Frenzy (look in the backround of the picture) and in the Xbox, PC, and Gamecube game, Nicktoons Party Blast.
The last episode aired on Nickelodeon (as of now) was "Battle of the Planets" on May 1, 2004 (as part of a special block featuring many cancelled nicktoons)
Later, the last episode aired on Nickelodeon (Australia) was Gaz, Taster of Pork

Other notes
Due to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, several episodes were edited to remove material which, at the time, might have been considered in poor taste. Those episodes include "Walk For Your Lives" (the explosion was changed from red to green), "Door to Door" (the VMU helmet sequence is completely different due to the presence of a burning statue of liberty, however, the new sequence could possibly be considered even more violent), "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars", "The Girl Who Cried Gnome" (there was a scene in this where we see rescue workers trying to get Moofy's foot out of the hole, but Nickelodeon thought this scene made fun of the rescue workers involved in 9-11) and the majority of season 2.

However, in the case of "Door to Door" when the episode first aired, Nickelodeon accidentally showed the uncut VMU helmet sequence. This version showed a flaming New York City with the Statue of Liberty in the background. On the initial DVD release this scene is not featured.

In some episodes, an image of GIR covered in blood (known to Zim fans as a "bloody GIR") can be seen for a split second. Vasquez apparently wanted to create an episode which featured a blood-covered GIR, but as Nickelodeon would not let him, he decided to slip the image into several episodes without their knowledge.



taken from wikipedia ;DD
im not sure anyone was actually reading that o_O