''I Spy'' is an American

stop-motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

claymation Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay. Tra ...

television series that aired on the

HBO Family Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

digital pay-TV channel in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

from December 14, 2002 to September 21, 2003, based on the children's book series created and written by

Jean Marzollo Jean Marzollo (June 24, 1942 – April 10, 2018) was an American children's author and illustrator. She wrote more than 100 books, including the best-selling and award-winning ''I Spy'' series for children, written completely in rhythm and rhy ...

and

Walter Wick Walter Wick (born February 23, 1953) is an American artist and photographer best known for the elaborate images in two series of picture book activities for young children, ''I Spy'' (1992 to 1999) and ''Can You See What I See?'' (2002 to 2013), ...

. Produced by The Ink Tank in season 1 and JWL Entertainment Productions in season 2 and Scholastic Media, the show lasted for two seasons and 52 episodes.

Episode format

: The episode starts off with Spyler (who had a tennis ball head) and CeCe (who looked as though she was made of blocks) trying to find something to do. When they find something, they discover that they need other items. Duck arrives and gives Spyler and CeCe four (or sometimes three) items to find, which she says in a riddle. Spyler and CeCe then start finding for the items. After each item is found they sing their "Whoop! We Found It!" song. Duck appears again and tells them what they have found and what they need to find in riddle. Spyler also calls for Wheeler to take their items home. After all the items are found, Spyler and CeCe do their activity/task. They always find a use for every item. Each episode also has a super challenge, announced after the episode’s title, involving finding a certain number of a specific object throughout the episode, such as four wingnuts or six triangular blocks.

Characters

* Spyler – Spyler is one of the main characters in ''I Spy''. He is a

plasticine Plasticine is a putty-like modelling material made from calcium salts, petroleum jelly and aliphatic acids. Though originally a brand name for the British version of the product, it is now applied generically in English as a product categor ...

clay model, with a tennis ball head, red pipe cleaner hair, green gloves for hands, a pink eraser, and buttons as feet. In every episode of ''I Spy'', Spyler and CeCe find four items, with an exception for "A Broom, a Whistle, and a Drum/"Sky High" where they find three items, that are in every riddle that Duck gives, hence beginning to play the game

I spy I spy is a guessing game where one player (the ''spy'' or ''it'') chooses an object within sight and announces to the other players that "I spy with my little eye something beginning with...", naming the first letter of the object. Other players a ...

. The items they find are used for a certain purpose, such as getting rid of CeCe's hiccups in "I Spy a Tick-illy Hiccup", or building a robot in "I Spy a Runaway Robot". While playing I spy, when they find an item, Spyler and CeCe sing their "Whoop! We Found It!" song. Occasionally, when they are carrying other large items and need help doing this, Spyler and CeCe call for Wheeler, their big red dump truck, to carry these items back home. :Gender: Male :Voiced by:

Tara Jayne Tara Jayne Sands is an American voice actress and co-host of Cartoon Network's ''Fridays'' from 2005 to 2007. Sands has voiced in anime dubs and cartoons, including Bulbasaur in the '' Pokémon'' anime series, Spyler in the US dub of ''I Spy' ...

* CeCe – CeCe is Spyler's best friend and pet

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...

. Like Spyler, she is made of plasticine clay with orange building blocks and yellow and green paper dots on her. She talks, like Spyler. She has jokes for Spyler when they are around things that are in the game, around things that are not in the game, around what they use for a purpose and around and in places where the things in the game are. :Gender: Female :Voiced by: Ellen Lee * Duck – Duck is Spyler and Cece's friend. She is a

rubber duck A rubber duck or a rubber duckie is a toy shaped like a stylized duck, generally yellow with a flat base. It may be made of rubber or rubber-like material such as vinyl plastic. Rubber ducks were invented in the late 1800s when it became poss ...

on wheels who gives out things to find for Spyler and Cece. :Gender: Female :Voiced by: Cindy Creekmore * Wheeler – Wheeler is a big red

dump truck A dump truck, known also as a dumping truck, dump trailer, dumper trailer, dump lorry or dumper lorry or a dumper for short, is used for transporting materials (such as dirt, gravel, or demolition waste) for construction as well as coal. A typi ...

. He is called upon every so often to bring items Spyler and Cece can use for their activity back home. :Gender: Male :Voiced by: Big Al * Domino General – Domino General is the leader of the

dominoes Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also ca ...

who has a white mustache in the front of his face. He talks half indistinctly. :Gender: Male :Voiced by: Big Al * Mumble Monster – Mumble Monster is a monster that has yellow fur and wears purple, yellow and blue striped socks. He speaks in a mumble voice, hence the title of his name. :Gender: Male :Voiced by: Big Al * Silly Knights - The knights are people who wear armor and have shields, who live in a sand castle on the beach. In every episode that features them, they always argue over who is better than the rest of them or who is right, like who is the tallest, who is the best singer, etc. :Gender: Males * Polka and Dot - Polka and Dot are

ladybug Coccinellidae () is a widespread family of small beetles ranging in size from . They are commonly known as ladybugs in North America and ladybirds in Great Britain. Some entomologists prefer the names ladybird beetles or lady beetles as they ...

twin sisters. When Spyler and Cece come by, they ask Polka and Dot if they can borrow a missing item after they find it. Polka and Dot say they cannot "borrow" the item, but they can "have" it. :Gender: Females * Clankenspy - Clankenspy is a

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...

made with a tin-can body, a light bulb head, and a red button on the center of him. He was invented by Spyler and Cece in "I Spy a Runaway Robot" to help them clean up a mess they made at the beginning of the episode. He is described as "strong and fast and nice." :Gender: Male

Episode guide

Season 1 (2002-2003)

#A Mumble Monster Mystery/CeCe’s Special Scrapbook - (December 14, 2002) #A Bike I Like/A Tick-illy Hiccup - (December 15, 2002) #A Broom, a Whistle, and a Drum/Sky High - (December 21, 2002) #A Runaway Robot/A Little Lost Lamb - (December 22, 2002) #A Starry Sky/Circus Things in Three Rings - (December 28, 2002) #A Mumble Monster Picture Day/Clouds Rolled By - (December 29, 2002) #A Thing That Flings/Seashells by the Seashore - (January 4, 2003) #Home Run Fun/A Race in a High-Flying Place - (January 5, 2003) #A Mumble Monster Mid-Day Snack/A Polka-Dot Puppet Princess - (January 11, 2003) #A Rockin' Bronco/A Wish for a Fish - (January 12, 2003) #A Bird I've Heard/A Super Silly Pizza - (January 18, 2003) #An Out of Luck Truck/A Kite in Flight - (January 19, 2003) #A Campfire Light Night/Freewheelin' Fun - (January 25, 2003)

Season 2 (2003)

#A Mumble Movie/A Book Wherever I Look - (June 29, 2003) #A Surprise Before Your Eyes/Something Nice for the Mice - (July 6, 2003) #A Marble Maze Craze/Toys That Roam - (July 13, 2003) #A Rhyme Just in Time/A Toe-Tapping Talent Show - (July 20, 2003) #Red She Said/One Quick Magic Trick - (July 27, 2003) #A Superhero/A Silly Sleepover - (August 3, 2003) #The Case of the Missing Truck/Something Really Cool - (August 10, 2003) #The Best Car by Far/Something Fit for a Queen - (August 17, 2003) #A Very Merry Musical/A Sled up Ahead! - (August 24, 2003) #A Rundown Robot/A Game That's Not the Same - (August 31, 2003) #A Dinosaur with a Scritch-Scratch Itch/Fun and a Hole-in-One! - (September 7, 2003) #A 'Moo' in Act Two/A Train Back on Track - (September 14, 2003) #Fun in the Jungle/A Squeeze For a Sneeze - (September 21, 2003)

Broadcast

The show originally aired on

on December 14, 2002 as part of its ''

Jam Jam is a type of fruit preserve. Jam or Jammed may also refer to: Other common meanings * A firearm malfunction * Block signals ** Radio jamming ** Radar jamming and deception ** Mobile phone jammer ** Echolocation jamming Arts and entertai ...

'' (now ''HBO Kids'') preschool block in the United States until it was removed in July 2011, along with the TV show ''

Harold and The Purple Crayon ''Harold and the Purple Crayon'' is a 1955 children's book by Crockett Johnson. Published by Harper Collins Publishers, it is Johnson's most popular book, and has led to a series of other books, as well as many adaptations. Plot The protagonist, ...

''.

Qubo Qubo ( ; stylized as qubo) was an American television network for children between the ages of 5 and 14. Owned by Ion Media, it consisted of a 24-hour free-to-air television network often mentioned as the "Qubo channel" (available as a digital ...

later aired this show from May 18, 2013 until September 25, 2015 along with other Scholastic shows the network aired. The show was also on

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...

until 2017. The show aired on

Nick Jr. Nick Jr. (known on-air as the Nick Jr. Channel) is an American pay television channel spun off from Nickelodeon's long-running programming block of the same name. It is run by Paramount Global through its networks division's Kids and Family Gr ...

in the UK in 2003 until 2005. The show aired on

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

, as part of its '' ABC Kids'' block in Australia from 2003 to 2004.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:I Spy 2000s American animated television series 2002 American television series debuts 2003 American television series endings American children's animated adventure television series American children's animated education television series American stop-motion animated television series American television shows based on children's books Animated television series about dogs Clay animation television series English-language television shows HBO original programming