Monster Beach tells the story of Jan and Dean, siblings that have been sent to live with their laid-back surfer-dude Uncle Woody on the island of Iki-Iki. Only catch being that the island is filled with monsters. Surfing, beach loving, monsters.
Cartoon Network were nice enough to give us access to the first three episodes of the series and watching them left me feeling a little lost.
The first episode opens up with the two human kids, Jan and Dean, in a monster diner ordering some monster food. You know, lizard scrambled eggs and guts on toast. The usual. But hold the lizard eggs and guts. Because humans. Strangely, there isn’t any kind of introduction to any of these characters. All the details mentioned above came from the press release.
Monster Beach, the series, which is based on an Australian animated film of the same name and is made by the same team from several years ago, has been rejigged and redone to match current sensibilities, i.e. the kids are now mixed race.
The series is an Australian led production, with story, directing, and design based out of Melbourne, with voice acting talents from Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Sydney, and with a lot of the animation heavy lifting being done in Kuala Lumpur.
The stories in each episode are pretty fun. But they are obviously for a much younger crowd. An audience that may not necessarily question why there are two humans on an island filled with monsters. Or how their laid-back (read: stoner) uncle is just super chill with these two preteen kids hanging out with them. But at about 11 minutes per episode, Monster Beach is pretty easy to take in and are fun enough.
Monster Beach premieres on Cartoon Network (Astro Ch 615HD/635) on Saturday the 25th of April at 6:30pm.
Monster Beach
Cartoon Network
Created by: Bruce Kane, Maurice Argiro, and Patrick Crawley
Supervising Director: Patrick Crawley
Cast: Jacquie Brennan, Garry Chalk, Lauren Coutts, Brian Dobson, Kazumi Evans, Steven Gates, Stephen Hall, Bill Newton, Elishia Perosa, Kelly Sheridan, and Brian Drummond
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