Warner Bros. Animation
MAIN CAST:
Tara Strong –
Shareena Wickett
Billy West –
Emmitt Roswell
Roger Eschbacher
– Jim Kim
Carlos
Alazraqui – Ramon “Gug” Gugleamo
Tia Mowry
– Lemonjella LaBelle
Tamera Mowry
– Orangejella LaBelle
Bob Doucette
– Duncan Bubble, Miss Treacle
Pamelyn Ferdin
-Shelley Kelley
Kathleen
Freeman – Eugenia P. Kisskillya
Created by
Bob Doucette and developed by Tim
Cahill, Michael Maler
and Julie McNally, Detention
focused on 7 troublemakers from Benedict
Arnold Middle School. Try as they might, they just couldn’t avoid being
sent to detention by gym teacher Eugenia P. Kisskillya (Kathleen Freeman), a
former sergeant in the Marine Corps who
often timed displayed a humorless form of tyranny over them (however, she has
been shown to be a nice person). She was
based on a nun teacher from Doucette’s grade school, and was infused with
elements of Freeman’s Sister Mary Stigmata from The Blues Brothers films.
 |
| The Detention Crew: the Labelle twins, Shelley, Shareena, Emmitt, Jim, Gug and Duncan. |
Her
frequent targets included Shareena Wickett (Tara Strong), a horror-loving goth
girl who liked being a free spirit and had a pet pig named, well, Pig; Emmitt
Roswell (Billy West), a conspiracy theorist with a firm belief in aliens (hence
the name); Jim Kim (Roger Eschbacher), whose love of superhero comics tended to
leave him a bit detached with reality as he often believed he possessed their
various abilities; Ramone “Gug” Gugleamo (Carlos Alarzaqui), a short kid with a
bad temper often left out of competitive sports and looking to take on people
bigger than him; Duncan Bubble, a quiet boy who was able to spell out various
words with the yo-yo he always carried (accompanied by an electronic voice
reading them aloud, provided by Doucette); and twins Lemonjella and Orangejella
LaBelle (played by real-life twins Tia and Tamera Mowry), whose possessed a
high intelligence that often left others confused when they spoke and had a
tendency to become competitive with each other. Shelley Kelley (Pamelyn Ferdin)
was also present; however, she was considered Miss Kisskillya’s assistant more
than a troublemaker (despite her best efforts to be one once). She was a peppy girl
always in a Ladybug Scout uniform whose desire to be friends with the kids
(particularly Shareena and Emmit, who she had a crush on) often goes at odds
with their despising her for sucking up to Miss Kisskillya. The characters were
designed by Stephen Silver and Matt Taylor.
 |
| Miss Kisskillya. |
Detention
debuted on The WB as
part of the Kids’ WB programming
block on September 11, 1999, after airing a preview in the afternoon the day
before. The series was a lot more grounded than other shows to come out from Warner Bros.
Animation, with more of the more outlandish elements coming from fantasy
sequences imagined by the kids as they got their revenge on Kisskillya. It was
written by Eschbacher, Maler, Cahill and McNally with Stephen Shaw, Wendell Morris, Tom Sheppard and Charles M. Howell IV. Cahill
and McNally also served as story editors, with educational input by Miki Baumgarten, Ph.D. to
ensure it met the FCC’s educational and
informative requirements. The series’ music was composed by Thomas Jones Chase and Steve Rucker, with the theme
song’s lyrics written by Doucette and Maler. Animation duties were handled by Wang Film
Productions Co. Ltd.
 |
| The DVD collection. |
At 13 episodes, it was one of the shortest shows to come out of Warner Bros. Animation by the time it was cancelled after its only season. It did, however, find an extended life in reruns when The WB moved it to Friday afternoon reruns from September 8, 2000 until August 31, 2001. It wouldn’t be until 2020 when Warner Archive released the complete series to DVD.
EPISODES:
“Shareena Takes the Cake” (9/11/99) – Shareena and Shelley
bake an explosive cake for Misss Kisskillya over missing a concert for
detention, while the boys try to retrieve Duncan’s yo-yo from her.
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