“Tutenstein” Series Talkback Thread

[The Huntsman]

While the launch of The Hub is still a few days away, I wanted to create some talkback threads for the few animated programs from Discovery Kids that we know are making the transition. It’s difficult to decide which one was actually my favorite, as I loved Kenny The Shark, but I feel that I enjoyed Tutenstein more. I began watching it shortly after The Secret Saturdays premiered, as Jay Stephens was kind enough to register on toonzone and answer questions, and when he mentioned his other show, I decided to give it a chance. I’m glad that I did.

It may not compare well to The Secret Saturdays, even if it’s almost unfair to make that comparison, but Tutenstein is a solid animated program and it’s evident that Jay Stephens was the driving force behind it. He’s always been a fan of the macabre, and while the series never got too dark, he did some fun things with the mythos and there are a lot of interesting episodes. Unfortunately, I became a fan of the series after the television movie premiered and Discovery Kids never seemed to rerun it, so the “episode” with the most potential was the one that I never got the chance to see. Hopefully we’ll see it on The Hub sooner or later.

The character that I liked most was Luxor. He may have had a rather mundane role, being the voice of reason, but I really enjoyed his personality. His undying loyalty to his undead lord was adorable, and while he was altogether too subservient, there were a few episodes in which he gained a spine and stood up for himself. David Lodge did a wonderful job providing his voice. The other character that I really liked was Professor Horace Bedety; I don’t believe the greedy and incompetent head of the museum was supposed to be a likable character, but I really liked him and looked forward to his appearances.

Despite that, he’s also the source of my biggest complaint about the series. Professor Horace Bedety is constantly shown as a buffoon while his female colleague, Dr. Roxanne Vanderwheele, is constantly shown as the model scientist and the one who actually does the bulk of the work at the museum. I. Hate. That. Cliché. I don’t like it when female characters are depicted as being perfect while male characters are depicted as being completely worthless, and vice-versa. There was one episode that showed Professor Horace Bedety was pivotal in keeping the museum operational, but if my memory serves me correctly, there were other factors involved in the museum’s failure once he was no longer in charge and his incompetence sort of got him into that mess in the first place.

I suppose the only other gripe that I have is how the gods were toned down so much. Obviously, it’s a children’s animated program and an educational one at that, but why would gods care that Pharaoh isn’t behaving like a model citizen? His behavior was childish at worst, which is fitting because he’s a child, but the gods committed far worse atrocities according to the actual mythos. Is not being a good friend worse than killing countless innocents with plague? I think not. And compared to the actions of real pharaoh, Tut’s demands weren’t that bad. I guess they just got bored after several thousand years and decided to worry over Tut’s every action.

Regardless, Tutenstein wasn’t very well received on toonzone. It didn’t get very many replies in discussion of it, and looking back, I’m still amused by how wholly negative one of my colleague’s opinion was. What do you think about the series? If you haven’t seen it, you really should check out a few episodes on The Hub, especially if you’re a fan of Jay Stephens’ work.

There's a little girl that comes to our house occasionally, and I've seen Tutenstein. It's a waste of money. No one will ever care about its existence, ever. The designs are ugly and nothing interesting happens at all.

[Sprocket]

It's pretty skip-able, but then, all of DK's programming was, I found.

I won't feel one way or the other when they're eventually pushed off the channel in a few years, so long as what we get isn't worse.

[Spaceman]

Funny note: I first found out about The Hub through Jay's blog when he made an entry about Discovery and Hasbro's joint venture.

On that post, he actually teased the possibility of a Tutenstein revival. A few months later, someone actually asked him about this on the Secret Saturdays Q&A thread, and he said he was "working on it". Unfortunately, there's no way to know what happened because Jay vanished completely from ToonZone and his blog after the TSS series finale got buried on CN. There hasn't been any mention of a Tut revival in any of The Hub's press releases, so I guess that fell through?

As for the series itself... I watched a few episodes before and after I got into TSS. It's just OK. It's more interesting than many other things on the soon-to-be-former DKids, but not enough to make me an avid watcher. As far as Jay's work goes, it pales next to TSS and his comic strip stuff.

[cohenmarioman]

I'd say this was the best animated show on DKids for me. it was enjoyable and for some reason made me watch the channel more (well, until I got into the new Nicktoons a few years ago).