Nelvana Nicktoon 'Zokie of Planet Ruby' Has Premiered On Prime Video
One more animation surprise to end 2023 it seems
So this is how the year ends huh? With more corporate weirdness? Zokie of Planet Ruby, formerly Zokie Sparkleby and ZJ Sparkleton, a Nicktoon produced by Nelvana, has unexpectedly premiered on Amazon Prime Video to little fanfare.
It comes less than a week after the discarded Star Trek: Prodigy re-premiered on Netflix, and both shows were listed together as part of Nickelodeon’s 2021 upfront. It was supposed to be part of Nickelodeon’s 2022-2023 slate, which obviously didn’t happen, especially when they were already on to scheduling and promoting Rock Paper Scissors for its February 12 premiere. The circumstances as to why it’s on Prime Video and what this means for a linear presence or true association with Nickelodeon is unknown. It was literally just discovered and nothing has been said. Although the show's official imagery in the listing feature Nickelodeon branding, the show's title card logo lacks Nickelodeon’s and the Nickelodeon Productions card is absent from the end credits. Another series in the partnership, Hamsterdale, at some point known as The Hamster Show, has similarly been and continues to be MIA.
As for what Zokie of Planet Ruby is about, the logline reads “Quirky 10-year-old vlogger Ruby discovers her only follower is a tail-zapping space alien from the planet Pudge named Zokie Sparkleby, and they quickly become best friends. Along with their friend Earl, a talking con-man squirrel, Ruby teaches Zokie about her version of Earth, while Zokie learns to control his unpredictable powers”. There are 26 episodes, all listed as having been released 124 years ago exactly, lending to skepticism as to how intentional the rollout was that these errors are present. Strangely, episode 17 which consists of “Deus Ex Broxina” and “Virtually Reality” is not available to stream. There are 6 22 minute episodes: The series premiere “The Beginning Times”, episode 6 “The Great Tangle”, episode 15 “Turkeydactyl” the Thanksgiving episode, the Christmas episode “Holiday Humbug”, episode 24 “RadicalCon” and the season finale “The End Times”. Nice bookend there. The other episodes are “More Than A Sandwich”/“Pigeon #1”, “Extreme Bakeover”/“The 2nd Follower”, “Responsible Sleepover”/“The Bolt Strikes Back”, “Entrepen-Earl”/“Lucky Charms”, “Toxic Positivity”/“Lima Bean Farmulator”, “Bedbugs & Breakfast”/“Tweenkle is Cancelled”, “Horselord”/“Earl Scouts”, “Ramp It Up!”/“Sponsor Surprise”, “A Brox Tale”/“The Motherloaf”, “Full Shade”/“Who’s Your Daddy?”, “Dough-Not”/“Jurassic Prank”, “The Closet of Doom”/“Ghost Encounters”, “Power Suit”/“What’s Kraken on Pudge?”, “Oddly Satisfying”/“Mayor CATastrophe”, “Hot Pudge Sludge Day”/“Love Nuts”, “Los Muchos Amores de Earl”/“Tweenkle Rebrands”, “Dazzling Dee”/“All-American Anti-Scooper”, “Unboxing”/“Zokie Sparkleby: The Most Perfect Earfling”, and “Shut This Ship Down”/“The Tooth Taker”. I’ll leave the summaries to your own discovery when you head over to watch.
Zokie of Planet Ruby stars Bahia Watson as Ruby Studebaker, Zach Reino as Zokie, Cory Doran as Earl, and features Melissa Altro as Tweenkle, Joshua Graham as Stan, Alana Bridgewater as Grandma Pearl, Ryan Beil as King Pootywinkle and Sharron Matthews as Konko. The series is created by Brian Morante, whose Nickelodeon work history with The Penguins of Madagascar, Breadwinners, and SpongeBob SquarePants was highlighted by Nickelodeon Animation president Ramsey Naito when originally touting the series. Mike Geiger is the director and Lynne Warner is the supervising producer from Nelvana.
Source: Prime Video, NickAlive (1, 2) Nickelodeon Wiki
"Zokie" has an intriguing premise, but I don't know if it's long for this world...