Toony Franza

Toony Franza was a Flarlandian children’s show that was transmitted on Channel Ten from 1998 to 2002 and intermittently from 2002 to 2006. The show was produced by Mirage (now Creative Producers, Inc. or CPI) in White Castle during its entire run.

Toony Franza was conceived by former CFBC presenters Taniah Scott and Stewart Bray, who were discarded from the corporation two years earlier. Their idea was to make an afternoon show (4 to 6pm) aimed at children, replacing the unbranded, unhosted kids slot Channel Ten had at the moment.

Despite being a popular show, it was suddenly cancelled when Stewart and Taniah were at the center of an alleged scandal that erupted live on one program, where the two were insulting and beating each other. The subject is still a hot topic, given Ten's "silence" (see below).

History

Stewart Bray was 16 years old and was given hosting opportunities on an FBC game show in 1991. Two years later, he decided to join Channel Ten to host a similar game show, Accept the Challenge, that lasted for about a year. He then returned to the FBC for another two years, but on a more intermittent scale, due to his university studies.

In September 1998, he hosted an unnamed kids slot on Channel Ten. At the time, unlike its competitors, Channel Ten was lacking any presenters for such slots. Viewing figures went up and network executives came up with the idea for Toony Franza in October, and said that he needed a partner for the program. It eventually premiered with him and Taniah on November 28, 1998. What was initially intended to run until early January 1999 eventually went beyong the expectations and gave Channel Ten a significant rise - even at the time, with weak soaps and a heavy reliance on imports, Toony Franza was normally one of the most-viewed shows on the channel.

The show's format emulated K-Zone Direct Connection, a show that premiered in June of the same year, and that eventually became its main competitor - the FBC and IBC had mere programming blocks with the FBC having basic links in between. The format was a mixture of imported cartoons with studio segments featuring games, live music and competitions.

Parallel to Toony Franza, there were two other programs made by Mirage that were related to Toony Franza: Maxtoon was hosted by a puppet character called Maxwell and Nelly Nut was a licensed adaptation of a Jyggish interactive game show. They were cancelled around 2001.

Following an incident (explored in "Cancellation" below), the weekday show was cancelled and was updated as a weekend morning show with Stewart hosting alone. In order to save money, Toony Franza became a pre-recorded show. During one of the recordings, twenty schoolchildren vomited and went to hospital, and were given high. There were plans for a future edition to include a tribute to them. The new format was more childish in nature and was cancelled after about a year. It lacked much of the charisma the show had with Taniah and ratings had decreased - by then K-Zone Direct Connection had four times the ratings Toony Franza had at the time of cancellation. Nevertheless Toony Franza was still generating merchandise even though it had been cancelled for a while. A new series was shown in the second half of 2006, shown exclusively on Sunday mornings, but was made on a smaller set and on a reduced budget. The series was eventually cancelled and in 2007 the Toony Franza magazine ceased publishing. This oficially marked the end of the property.

Stewart Bray still makes occasional appearances on Channel Ten.

Shows

• [ORI/ITA] Cinderella Monogatari
• [ORI] Digimon Adventure (Hopelandian dub)
• [USS] Jackie Chan Adventures
• [USS] Men in Black: The Animated Series
• [ORI] Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X (Michillian dub)
• [USS] The Powerpuff Girls

Features

The show had, in its apex, a number of games. Among the few recordings of the show that exist, one such show was Picasso, where the viewer had to guess what one of the hosts was drawing. Eyewitness accounts on sites like Reddit remember something along the lines of a quiz game. The screen was divided into 9 or 16 equal numbered parts and had a question behind them. If the caller won (most of the time), he would claim his prize with Stewart saying lines like "Do you have it? Do you have it? Huh?" ending with "Just wait for your package to arrive!".

The show also had sketches filmed before the live shows. These consisted in the two trying to make things but with disastrous results.

The musical segments were performed live and featured Flarlandian acts, but occasionally featured international acts like Smile.dk and Aqua (who also visited K-Zone Direct Connection). Even at one point, Pyracy performed live.

A birthday segment was also part of the show. There were also specials alluding to the hosts' birthdays.

Merchandising

Toony Franza was, before and after Big Brother, a huge marketing drive for the channel. There were toys, clothes, candies, board games and the centerpiece, the Toony Franza magazine. Merchandise featuring Taniah was still made around 2002/2003, following the supposed cancellation, and from then on started to diminish. The magazine continued until 2007, and started to become a standard kids' magazine, rather than having any relation to the show.

Home media was also made, in VHS and DVD formats. This included tapes and DVDs featuring "the best moments from Toony Franza", including the popular "I'm Your Number 1 Fan" music video. Additionally, Toony Franza CDs were made, featuring mainly Eurectidance-influenced music and the opening and ending themes of the show.

Cancellation

Arguably the most talked-about aspect of Toony Franza is the mystery regarding its cancellation. In January 2011, The Daily Star made an interview where Stewart and Taniah settled on truce talks regarding their relationship. The Daily Star suggested that the program was cancelled on March 15, 2002, yet the date is still a hot source of dispute.

Old schedules reveal that Toony Franza was still broadcasting in the 4-6pm slot in the spring of 2002, assuming that the incident happened later on. Many Flarlandians who remembered watching it recognize that Taniah was still there. The incident consisted of a verbal exchange between the two presenters, to the extent that Stewart said "I'll kick you in the horns! I'll kick you in the horns!" and Taniah said "You smell like poo." Eyewitness accounts recognize that, following these initial "soft" insults, a number of "hard" insults, to the point where the presenters used actual swearing live on air, followed, to the shock of the kids watching it. The insults were followed by violence, turning an "innocent" kids show into a "poor man's controversial daytime show" within seconds, leading to the presenters having a fiery temper. The last images referred in these accounts were the show's producers in panic, so were the kids, running away from the studio in order to avoid attacks from the presenters. Eventually order was given to stop the live broadcast, cutting straight to a static Channel Ten slide (without any "technical difficulties" notice) for a while before cutting to "alternative programming" (a rerun of soap opera Ten Courts). As a consequence Channel Ten's kids output was reorganized. Cartoons were only shown in the mornings and without any branding for a while.

The subject became a hot topic on Flarlandian schools, but not on the internet - few of the intended users of internet forums were talking about the scandal, and few have heard from friends. This also spread to other television programs, one edition of Tony Hamilton's Big Sunday Show on IBC talked briefly about the subject, and this appeared on an All in One special about the program in 2017, proving its existence. Nevertheless, it is unknown if other newscasts talked about the controversial subject. Until 2017 (with its mention on the aforementioned show), it was considered to be an urban legend.

On March 15, 2019, seventeen years after the supposed date of the incident, two terrorist attacks were held in the New Michillies and Great Scorria. Both featured livestreams featuring assassinations of Muslims and were considered as "objectionable material" by their respective governments and Northulia, and that who owns a copy of the video will be imprisoned. TalkS of the incident emerged again as an effect of these terrorist attacks, comparing them to the alleged incident that cancelled Toony Franza. Flarlandian forum users and netizens said that "Channel Ten is censoring Flarlandian television history" and that they also believe that "if anyone who has a physical copy of the incident, then you're in bad luck". Some went too far and created scenarios where the opening theme of Toony Franza was played on the car leading to a massacre of ethnic Dunyoris on the Flarlandian-Ashtalaian border, on a fictional Facebook livestream. On the highly controversial 4chan, Toony Franza became a symbol of the so-called "televised far-right", who claims to "kill Channel Ten's reality shows" and turn it into a kids channel. Meanwhile, on r/flarland, Toony Franza became a symbol of the so-called "Mandela effect" (aka confabulation) and still generates discussions on the subreddit every now and then.

As of 2019, it is believed that if Channel Ten ever broadcasts the incident, it will be shown censored, as Flarlandian commercial TV (IBC, Ten and TTV) are known for having "Sierran television codes that censor "indecent" language during primetime, even after the watershed". Another reason is that "the press is lying". The Daily Star claims that Channel Ten ended the program before the supposed incident, citing "incompatibilities" between the hosts.

The influence of terrorist attacks on the missing footage of Toony Franza's alleged cancellation - known to be the "real forbidden fruit of Flarlandian television", has influenced an online story, "Where Are We Going?", a book that achieved digital publishing in November 2019 and physical in December.

A meme circulated on social media saying:

"IN 50 YEARS

Grandfather, do you know about some Toony Franza?

Well, grandson, although Toony Franza was used for the worse, there was a time when it was good."

The meme paved influence for an independent book, 2036, depicting a scenario where the birthday song was used as a method of torture.

Emulations

During and after Toony Franza's existence, a number of emulations were made, mostly on local television channels. Many of these shows often have the same low-budget cartoons (some are even Flarlandian shows) and feature colored sets.