''Ruby Gloom'' is a Canadian animated television series based on the Mighty Fine apparel line of the same name created by illustrator Martin Hsu. The series was produced by Nelvana and started airing in Canada on YTV on October 15, 2006, and finished its run on June 1, 2008. 40 episodes were produced with three seasons.

Synopsis

Dinko, Gumpers, Swanky, Scruffy. Flip and Tommy Cadle have adventures in the land of Toonville and suffer dangers too.

History

Franchise

In 2001, Ruby Gloom began as a drawing on a piece of paper by illustrator Martin Hsu and was then spawned into a franchise by the U.S. company Mighty Fine three years later. ''Ruby Gloom'' began as a

stationery Stationery refers to commercially manufactured writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, writing implements, continuous form paper, and other office supplies. Stationery includes materials to be written on by hand (e.g., letter pape ...

line, and was featured on pencil cases, backpacks, clothing, key chains, and plush toys which were sold through Doeworld, a subsidiary of Mighty Fine.

Television series

In early 2005, Martin Hsu sold the TV rights to Ruby Gloom to Canadian animation studio Nelvana. In May 2005, the series was announced on the 2005 issue of ''

Animation Magazine ''Animation Magazine'' is an American print magazine and website covering the animation industry and education, as well as visual effects. The print magazine is published 10 times a year in the United States. History and profile ''Animation Maga ...

''.

Main characters and casting

It has the voices of

Sarah Gadon Sarah Lynn Gadon (born April 4, 1987) is a Canadian actress. She began her acting career guest-starring in a number of television series, such as '' Are You Afraid of the Dark?'' (1999), '' Mutant X'' (2002), and ''Dark Oracle'' (2004). She also ...

, Stacey DePass,

Emily Hampshire Emily Hampshire (born 1979) is a Canadian actress. Her best known roles include Angelina in the 1998 romantic comedy '' Boy Meets Girl'', Vivienne in the 2006 film '' Snow Cake'', Jennifer Goines in the Syfy drama series '' 12 Monkeys'' (2015� ...

, Peter Keleghan,

Scott McCord William Scott McCord is a Canadian actor. He is known for his versatility and character work in film, television, animation and on stage. He is a Lifetime Member of ''The Actors Studio''. On television he has appeared in series regular, recurri ...

David Berni David Berni is a Canadian actor, stand-up comedian and writer. Life and career David Berni is an actor who currently voices the character Frank on Go, Dog. Go!, Bernie on Ollie's Pack and Bird Bud on ''The Snoopy Show''. He is also known for vo ...

, Jeremy Harris, and Adrian Truss taking their roles. *Ruby Gloom (voiced by

) *Doom Kitty *Iris (voiced by Stacey DePass) *Misery (voiced by

; singing voice provided by Jeen O'Brien) *Skull Boy (voiced by

) *Frank and Len (voiced by

and Jeremy Harris respectively) *Edgar, Allan, and Poe (voiced by Adrian Truss) *Scaredy Bat (voiced by Peter Keleghan) *Boo Boo (voiced by Barbara Mamabolo) *Mr. Buns

Episodes

Season 1 (2006–07)

Season 2 (2007)

Season 3 (2007–08)

Awards and honours

''Ruby Gloom'' was nominated for a Gemini Award in the category of "Best Animated Program or Series." The script for episode "Yam Ween", written by Carolyn Bennett, was a finalist in the 2007 Canadian Screenwriting Awards.

Reception

''Ruby Gloom'' received generally positive reviews from both critics and audiences, praising it for its characters, writing, soundtrack, and plot. It would go on to garner a cult following.

Common Sense Media Common Sense Media (CSM) is an organization that reviews and provides ratings for media and technology with the goal of providing information on their suitability for children.

gave the series a rating of four stars out of five, saying: "A nice mix of sweet-and-sour, Ruby Gloom's dark gothic setting underscores all the cooperation and kindness. Adults will enjoy jokes that kids may miss, such as when it's revealed that Ruby eats Glum Flakes cereal for breakfast. And all but the most sensitive kids will be too enraptured by fantastic elements like talking pictures and a school for ghosts to be unnerved by dark elements like Misery's constant talk of disasters and death".

Telecast and home media

''Ruby Gloom'' premiered on YTV in Canada on October 13, 2006 alongside the final episode's airing on June 1, 2008 with repeats until the early 2010s. Repeats are now airing on

Nickelodeon Canada Nickelodeon is a Canadian English language specialty channel based on the American cable network of the same name owned by Corus Entertainment under a brand licensing agreement with Paramount. As with all of its sister networks throughout the ...

. In the United Kingdom, the series aired on Pop and

Pop Girl Pop Girl was a free-to-air children's television channel in the United Kingdom, owned by CSC Media Group (formerly Chart Show Channels), a company associated with the makers of ''The Chart Show'', a television programme that had previously bee ...

in 2008. Irish network

RTÉ Two (RTÉ) (; Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the national broadcaster of Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, while ...

aired the series in 2010. It also aired on 2x2 in Russia,

Super RTL Super RTL is a German free-to-air television network owned by the RTL Group. The channel originally launched in 1995 as a joint venture between RTL Group predecessor company CLT-UFA and Disney's Buena Vista International Television Investments ...

in Germany,

Rai Gulp Rai Gulp is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It is the company's television channel for early teenagers, and is known for its programming for childr ...

in Italy,

RTP2 RTP2 (''RTP dois'') is a Portuguese free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP). It is the company's second television channel, and is known for broadcasting cultural, ...

in Portugal, Pakapaka in Argentina and

ABC1 ABC TV, formerly known as ABC1, is an Australian national public television network. It is owned and operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is the flagship ABC Television network. The headquarters of the ABC TV channel an ...

and

ABC3 ABC Me (stylised as ABC ME) is an Australian English language children's free-to-air television channel owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It was officially launched by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on 4 December 2009 as ABC3. Hist ...

in Australia in 2008. In Arab World, it aired on

MBC 3 MBC 3 is a free-to-air children's channel launched on 8 December 2004, and appeals to children under the age of 15. All foreign television animated programs have been dubbed into Arabic. The channel also produces its own original programmes. It ...

and Al-Majid Tv Network.

DVD releases

Region 1

Canada – There are two DVDs available from Nelvana (in association with the Corus-owned television network YTV). The DVDs present the episodes in

NTSC The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...

1.85:1 ( 16x9) anamorphic widescreen, with English Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and French Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. There are no subtitles nor closed captions. The opening title sequence on the DVDs is the full version, and not the edited version that airs on YTV. The DVDs in release order are: : '' Ruby Gloom: Grounded in Gloomsville'' – Contains the first four episodes of the series (as listed above), plus a behind-the-scenes special feature showing the voice recording of the episode "Hair(Less): The Musical" (parts 1 and 2). : '' Ruby Gloom: Misery Loves Company'' – Contains the episodes "Iris Springs Eternal", "Poe-ranoia", "Skull Boys Don't Cry", and "Misery Loves Company", with no special features. Following this, a third DVD entitled ''Ruby Gloom: Pet Poepulation'' was scheduled for release on September 9, 2009, but became unavailable. U.S. – In 2013, kaBoom! Entertainment and

Phase 4 Films Phase 4 Films was a Canadian film distribution company based in Toronto. It had two branches in the United States: Los Angeles, California and Fort Mill, South Carolina. Its subsidiary kaboom! Entertainment markets children's entertainment. Hist ...

released six Ruby Gloom DVDs in the U.S. Each disc contains four episodes, arranged as a continuous show, with the repeated opening songs and individual mini-episodes edited out. All of the mini-episodes are included separately as a bonus feature, instead of being incorporated in their main episode as originally broadcast. The discs are as follows: : ''Ruby Gloom: Happiest Girl in the World'' – Contains the episodes "Gloomer Rumor", "Doom With a View", "Missing Buns", and "Iris Springs Eternal". : ''Ruby Gloom: I Heart Rock & Roll'' – Contains the episodes "Unsung Hero", "Quadra-gloomia", "Skull Boy's Don't Cry", and "Bad Hare Day". : ''Ruby Gloom: Gloomates'' – Contains the episodes "Gloomates", "Seeing Eye to Eyes", "Name That Toon", and "Broken Records". : ''Ruby Gloom: Grounded in Gloomsville'' – Contains the episodes "Grounded in Gloomsville", "Ruby Cubed", "Once in a Blue Luna", and "Time Flies". : ''Ruby Gloom: Tooth or Dare'' – Contains the episodes "Tooth or Dare", "Skull in the Family", "Shaken. Not Scared", and "Misery Loves Company". : ''Ruby Gloom: Welcome to Gloomsville'' – Contains the episodes "Venus de Gloomsville", "Science Fair or Foul", "Poe-Ranoia", and "Happy Yam Ween". As with the Canadian release, the DVDs present the episodes in

1.85:1 ( 16x9) anamorphic widescreen, with English Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, but they have Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 sound instead of French. Brazil – Seasons one and two were released on three-disc DVD box sets; however, the box sets do not include all of the episodes from each season (despite the DVD covers indicating this). Both box sets are presented in

1.33:1 ( 4x3) full screen (the sides of the

widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...

image are cut to create the full screen ratio, also known as

pan and scan Pan and scan is a method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown in fullscreen proportions of a standard-definition 4:3 aspect ratio television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focus ...

) with Portuguese and English Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. The opening title sequence is the edited version that airs on most television networks (such as the Canadian YTV). Neither the box set includes any special features. The box sets are: ''Ruby Gloom: Full season 1'' – Contains the first thirteen episodes from season one. ''Ruby Gloom: Full season 2'' – Contains thirteen episodes (the remaining eight episodes from season one plus the first five episodes from season two).

Region 2

France – ''Ruby Gloom: 1'' is available from

France Télévisions France Télévisions (; stylized since 2018 as ) is the French national public television broadcaster. It is a state-owned company formed from the integration of the public television channels France 2 (formerly Antenne 2) and France 3 (form ...

Distribution (in association with the television network

France 3 France 3 () is a French free-to-air public television channel and part of the France Télévisions group, which also includes France 2, France 4, France 5 and France Info. It is made up of a network of regional television services provi ...

) and contains the first six episodes of the series (as listed above). The episodes are presented in

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

1.33:1 ( 4x3) full screen (the sides of the

image are cut to create the full screen ratio, also known as

) with French Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Germany – Two DVDs were made available from SPV GmbH (in association with the television network

) containing the first eight episodes of the series (as listed above), with each DVD consisting of four episodes. The episodes are presented in

1.33:1 ( 4x3) full screen (the sides of the

image are cut to create the full screen ratio, also known as

) with German Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. On October 15, 2010, Edel Germany GmbH released ''Ruby Gloom – Willkommen in Gloomsville'' (Ruby Gloom – Welcome to Gloomsville), which contains the first seven episodes of the series (as listed above). Japan – A DVD box set entitled ''Ruby Gloom's Bible'' is available from

Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainmen ...

and contains 20 of the series' first 24 episodes (as listed above) in random order on five DVDs. The episodes are presented in

1.85:1

with Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. United Kingdom – In the United Kingdom, Platform Entertainment Ltd. released a DVD.

Region 4

Australia – There are four DVD volumes available from Magna Pacific containing the first 16 episodes of the series (as listed above), with each volume consisting of four episodes. The episodes are presented in

1.33:1 ( 4x3) full screen (the sides of the

image are cut to create the full screen ratio, also known as

) with English Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Online streaming

Currently, the series is now streaming on both FilmRise Kids and

Tubi Tubi is an American over-the-top content platform and ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox Corporation. The service was launched on April 1, 2014, and is based in Los Angeles, California. In January 2021, Tubi reached 33 million monthly ...

, but more recently, as of 2020, the series has become available on demand via

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

References

External links

Official Ruby Gloom site

Ruby Gloom on IMDb
{{Goth subculture 2006 Canadian television series debuts 2008 Canadian television series endings 2000s Canadian animated television series Animated television series about children Canadian children's animated comic science fiction television series Canadian children's animated science fantasy television series Canadian children's animated horror television series Canadian television shows based on children's books English-language television shows YTV (Canadian TV channel) original programming Television series by Nelvana Canadian children's animated drama television series Canadian Screen Award-winning television shows