Mona the Vampire

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Mona the Vampire
MonaVampire.jpg
Title card
Genre
Created bySonia Holleyman
Hiawyn Oram
Developed byFancy Cape Productions
Farnham Film Company
Directed by
  • Louis Piché
  • Jean Caillon (season 1-3)
  • François Perreau (season 4)
StarringEmma Taylor-Isherwood
Justin Bradley
Carrie Finlay
Oliver Grainger
Louis Negin
Sonja Ball
Michael Yarmush
John Stocker
Opening theme"Mona the Vampire" by Judy Henderson
Ending theme"Mona the Vampire" (instrumental)
ComposerMark Giannetti
Country of originCanada
France
Hong Kong (Season 3)
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons4
No. of episodes65 (130 segments) (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers
Producers
  • Lesley Taylor (S3-4)
  • Cassandra Schafhausen (S1-3)
  • Emannuelle Colin (S3-4)
  • Natalie Dumoulin (S4)
Running time22 minutes (two eleven minute episodes per show)
Production companiesAlphanim
CINAR Corporation
Animation Services (season 3)
DistributorCinar
Release
Original networkCanada
YTV
France
France 3
Canal J
Tiji (Seasons 3-4)
Picture formatNTSC
Audio formatDolby Surround
Original releaseSeptember 13, 1999 (1999-09-13) –
February 22, 2006 (2006-02-22)

Mona the Vampire is an animated children's television series that was created by Sonia Holleyman. The series is based on a series of 1990s children's books of the same name that was written and illustrated by Sonia Holleyman and later also by Hiawyn Oram. The series is co-produced by the CINAR Corporation and Alphanim, with Animation Services (in Hong Kong) for Season 3, produced in association with YTV in co-production with France 3, Canal J (Seasons 1-2) and Tiji (Seasons 2-4), with the participation of the Independent Production Fund, the Shaw Children's Programming Initiative, and Telefilm Canada. It originally premiered in Canada on YTV on September 13, 1999, and later in France on France 3 on October 30, 2000.

Synopsis[]

The series follows the adventures of Mona Parker, who refers to herself as "Mona the Vampire", as well as her two best friends, Lily Duncan ("Princess Giant") and Charley Bones ("Zapman"), and her pet cat, Fang, as they imagine themselves confronting a new supernatural foe, or solving a supernatural mystery, in every episode, but there are always rational explanations for what they see.

Episodes[]

Main article: List of Mona the Vampire episodes
SeasonSegmentsEpisodesOriginally aired
First airedLast aired
15226September 13, 1999 (1999-09-13)February 14, 2001 (2001-02-14)
22613September 15, 2001 (2001-09-15)December 9, 2001 (2001-12-09)
32613February 28, 2002 (2002-02-28)June 14, 2002 (2002-06-14)
42613January 26, 2004 (2004-01-26)February 22, 2006 (2006-02-22)

There are a total of 65 full episodes of Mona the Vampire. Each episode is approximately 22 minutes long, and each full episode contains two 11-minute episodes. Four seasons of Mona the Vampire were produced. The first season contains 26 full episodes, while seasons 2, 3, and 4 each contains 13 full episodes.

Cast[]

Main[]

  • Mona Parker ("Mona the Vampire") (voiced by Emma Taylor-Isherwood) - A ten-year-old girl with a vivid imagination and a naive personality who imagines herself as a vampire hero coming out to save the day. She believes the town she lives in is overrun with supernatural monsters, and she plans to stop them all and save the town on a daily basis. Although Mona's imagination can cause trouble at times, her imagination has more often than not proven to be helpful.
  • Fang - Mona's pet cat, he is a feline sidekick who always follows Mona everywhere. Fang is her accomplice in the nether realms of her imagination. When going with Mona while in her vampire costume, he has fake wings tied to his back.
  • Charles "Charley" Bones ("Zapman") (voiced by Justin Bradley in Seasons 1-3; Evan Smirnow in Season 4) - One of Mona's best friends, he is an intelligent but also timid bespectacled boy in real life. His alter ego is Zapman, who wears a green costume and is armed with a Zapp-A-Rama gun, which really is a water pistol, though he can be seen holding another kind of toy gun. Charley's nemesis is the local school bully George.
  • Lily Duncan ("Princess Giant") (voiced by Carrie Finlay) - One of Mona's best friends. She has a timid and slightly paranoid personality at times, but she is still helpful to the team. Her alter ego is Princess Giant, who wears a long blond wig topped with a crown and holds a kind of cat plushie.
  • Mr. and Mrs. Parker (voiced by Marcel Jeannin and Carole Jeghers) - Mona's parents. Mrs. Parker is shown to be the stricter of the two, while Mr. Parker is more light-hearted and somewhat clumsy, as he is more likely to believe what Mona thinks in her imagination.
  • Angela Smith (voiced by Tia Caroleo) - Mona's snobbish rival, she is a filthy rich girl who frequently flaunts her wealth to her classmates. She also regularly enlists George in her schemes to cause problems for Mona. Her parents won the lottery, explaining her sheer wealth and her resulting spoiledness.
  • George Jamell (voiced by Oliver Grainger in Seasons 1-3; James Harbour in Season 4) - A school bully, he is a mean boy who picks on other kids at school, especially Charley. He is friends with Angela, and often does the job for her schemes, essentially serving as her right hand man.

Recurring[]

  • Madeleine Gotto (voiced by Jennifer Seguin) - Mona's teacher. She is very stern, yet also has a habit of falling in love easily. She is often exasperated by Mona's strange ideas and arguments for supernatural occurrences which are ordinary events.
  • Principal Ivan Shawbly (voiced by Rick Miller in Seasons 1-3; Stephen Spreekmeester in Season 4) - The strict principal of Mona's school, St. Faith's Elementary. He easily grows tired of Mona's behavior and is quick to discipline her.
  • Lawrence (voiced by Michael Yarmush) - Friend of Mona and the gang, and student at St. Faith's Elementary.
  • Officer Halcroft (voiced by Gary Jewell in Seasons 1-4; Richard Dumont in Season 4) - The chief of local police. He's become used to Mona's antics, and is quick to offer a more rational explanation to Mona's stories which, ironically, Mona finds rather outlandish and unbelievable.
  • Mayor Rosenbaum (voiced by John Stocker) - The town's mayor.
  • Mrs. Bryerson (voiced by Sonja Ball) - Mona's elderly neighbor. She has a poodle named Blitzy.
  • Reverend Gregory (voiced by Louis Negin) - The local reverend.

Production[]

Book basis[]

Mona the Vampire is based on a series of books of the same name that were each published in the early to mid 1990s and were written and illustrated by Sonia Holleyman, who was later partnered with Hiawyn Oram in the writing of that same book series. Holleyman's original idea of Mona, as represented in her first three Mona the Vampire books, led more towards a girl with a great imagination who, like many children, likes to experiment with multiple different obsessions. However, after Oram joined Holleyman in the writing of the next six Mona the Vampire books, they decided to modify Mona into a character who is solely obsessed with her vampire superhero persona. These ideas later developed into the modern television series.

Television Adaptation[]

The series began development in the mid 1990s. It was originally pitched around to various British networks, but after no success, Ian Lewis, along with his production company, The Farnham Film Company, took the project to Canada, where it found a home through Cinar.[1] By 1997 the series was still in development, but it would soon be announced in early 1998 that the series had been greenlit for 26 half-hour episodes. Production would officially begin in June 1998.[2][3][4]

Before Mona the Vampire, Cinar and Alphanim, two of the series' main production companies, had partnered in several other television series, including Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Lassie, and Animal Crackers. In a press release in PR Newswire from June 9, 1998, the leaders of both of these companies predicted that Mona the Vampire would be a great success, and hoped to further the relationship between the two companies with this production.[5]

The series was renewed for a 2nd season containing 13 half-hour episodes in early 2000. Due to the events of the CINAR scandal, Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Television Fund had suspended business with Cinar.[6] This would affect funding for the 2nd season, although Peter Moss, then the President of Cinar, stated that the funding was "not a very high percentage of the budget."[7]

A 3rd season, containing an additional 13 half-hour episodes, was greenlit in 2001. After production of the 3rd season wrapped up in Spring 2002,[8] production on the series went on a hiatus, before the series was eventually renewed for a 4th season, once again containing 13 half-hour episodes, in Fall 2002.[9] Production wrapped up in early 2004.

Reception[]

Critical Response[]

In a retrospective review from The Arcade, Luka Costello was positive about the show, stating that despite the young demographic, "the show was never too preachy. It had witty dialogue and the simple animation is still admirable. It was definitely the humble origins of my love for the supernatural and that theme song was catchy as hell."[10]

Broadcast and streaming[]

The series was originally premiered in Canada on YTV on September 13, 1999, and later in France on France 3 on October 30, 2000. For Seasons 3 and 4, the series moved to Tiji. In the United Kingdom, the series aired on CBBC, and later on Pop for a brief period.

Despite its success in other territories, the series was not broadcast in the United States during its original run, though attempts were made in the early 2000's.[11] In 2009, Cookie Jar launched Jaroo, a streaming service that housed a majority of their animated properties, including the DIC library, which they had acquired the previous year. Mona was available to stream on Jaroo, being advertised as having its U.S premiere on the platform.[12] The streaming service has since been discontinued.

It would not be until 2011 when the series would finally make its U.S. broadcast premiere on This TV, as part of the Cookie Jar Toons children's programming block. The series would premiere on September 26, 2011, and would run until October 27, 2013. The block was discontinued four days later.[13][14]

Currently, the first season is available to stream for free on Tubi. The entire series in full is also available on iTunes, Vudu, and Google Play.

Other media[]

Home media releases[]

During and after the production of Mona the Vampire, several various DVDs containing episodes of the series were published, especially by Cookie Jar Entertainment. These DVDs sometimes included extra features, such as episode and language selection settings and voiced character descriptions by child voice actors. An example of a popular Mona the Vampire DVD is Mona the Vampire: The Complete First Season, released by Mill Creek Entertainment under a deal with DHX Media, a DVD that, as the name states, contains all the episodes of the first season in numerical order. It also includes bonus episodes from Busytown Mysteries, Horseland, Wimzie's House, Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings, Happy Castle and The Wombles.

Website[]

On August 29, 2000, after the production of the first season of the series, Alphanim, Tiji, and Cinar created a bilingual Adobe Flash-based website under the domain name monathevampire.com. This website included several children's games and activities that included characters and settings from the series. On August 29, 2016, the domain was deactivated, but archived versions of the site still exist. Due to the discontinuation of the Adobe Flash Player at the end of 2020, archived versions of the website may be inaccessible.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Let's Talk About Luck". Storymachine. Retrieved November 23, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ "Cinar targets library opps, classrooms". Playback. Retrieved November 23, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ "Believe it! Cinar pacting with Alphanim for kidvid". Variety. Retrieved November 23, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ^ "1998 Year in Review". Cinar. Archived from the original on November 4, 1999. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
  5. ^ ""MONA THE VAMPIRE(TM) in Production."". PR Newswire. Retrieved November 23, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ "Cinar says troubles won't slow production". Kidscreen. Retrieved November 24, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. ^ "Quebec Scene". Playback. Retrieved November 24, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ^ "Cinar seals deals in Japan and Spain". C21 Media. Retrieved November 24, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. ^ "Cinar In Production On Two New Shows". Animation World Network. Retrieved November 24, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ^ "Mona The Vampire - Forgotten Childhood". The Arcade. Retrieved November 26, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ^ "TV Time". License Global. Retrieved December 1, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ^ "Jaroo.com - a Hulu for kids - debuts". Fierce Video. Retrieved December 1, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ^ "September 26, 2011". This TV. Archived from the original on September 24, 2011. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
  14. ^ "October 27, 2013". This TV. Archived from the original on October 22, 2013. Retrieved February 26, 2022.

External links[]

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