Zina Supermoon

Zina Supermoon (or just simply Zina) is an American animated television series created by Geo G. for Gingo, co-produced by Glass Ball Productions, O Entertainment and Gingo Animation. It is Glass Ball's fourth television series for Gingo as well as the company's fifth overall. The series revolves around the adventures of the eponymous human girl who was raised by a race of aliens in the planet known as Voorus and becomes a heroine by attempting to save Voorus from the evil Rebel who plans to steal Voorus's power energy and use it to wipe out the population.

The series was initially envisioned by Geo in the mid-1990s while working on Gabriel Garza and BJ and Wally; it was first pitched to Japanese animation studio Nippon Animation as a re-imagining of the studio's 1986 television film Sango-sho Densetsu: Aoi Umi no Erufii, but was ultimately rejected by Nippon Animation, prompting Geo to retool the series as an original property. Inspired by science fiction pop culture, Geo brought comedians Steve Oedekerk and Sarah Silverman aboard to develop storylines and characters to pitch the show to Nickelodeon and Gingo, but the former demanded creative control, leading to them making a deal with the latter and the series premiering on March 11, 2000, with a new episode of Gabriel Garza entitled "The Big Game". The series concluded with a one-hour special titled Home on July 18, 2009, with a total of eight seasons and 163 episodes. In addition, a feature film, titled Zina and the Vivid Crew, was released in theaters in December 2004.

Zina Supermoon was well-received from critics throughout its run and became one of Gingo's most successful original series. It has been nominated for five Emmy Awards, eleven Annie Awards, and a Kids' Choice Award during its run. Spin-off media include comic books, DVD and VHS releases, music albums, collectible toys, and video games.

Premise


The series follows the adventures of Zina Supermoon (voiced by Sarah Silverman), a young human girl who was raised by aliens known as Vooruians in a planet called Voorus after her home planet Earth was invaded and destroyed by a race of evil aliens called Aurks, led by the mean-spirited, human-hating Rebel (voiced by Christopher Lloyd) who wants to steal the power energy for the Vooruians so he can use it to erase Zina from existence. Now Zina is the only one who can stop Rebel and his minions by going from an outcast due to being a human as she was trying to fit in with the aliens to a true space heroine in the galaxy. Try as they may, Rebel and his minions never succeed in stealing the Vooruian power energy.

Other characters beside Zina and Rebel include Bug (voiced by Tom Kenny), a fly-like creature who often follows Zina; Elly (voiced by Megan Cavanaugh), a kind Vooruian lady who is a good friend of Zina; Larry (voiced by Patrick Warburton), Rebel's dimwitted bodyguard; Sal (voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz), Rebel's wise-cracking servant.

The series frequently contains cultural references to many science fiction films and other television series, most notably Star Wars, Back to the Future, Star Trek, Space Patrol, Alien, Predator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, Independence Day, Men in Black, The Terminator, The Fifth Element, and many others.

Segments
Some episodes are divided into different stories or segments, each being 7–12 minutes long. Occasionally, a segment centers on characters other than Zina. Two segments are shown primarily during season one: The Vivid Crew and All About Voop.

The Vivid Crew
The Vivid Crew shorts feature Tab (voiced by Hank Azaria), a weasel-like creature and his green alien sidekick Zipper (voiced by Richard Kind), a duo of close friends working in a secret space organization known as the Vivid Crew, led by Commander Morvis (voiced by Gregg Berger). Tab and Zipper's mission in each segment is to travel planets to protect them from harm, but things do not go very well due to Tab and Zipper's awkward goals.

All About Voop
All About Voop consists of a one-eyed alien creature named Voop (voiced by Steve Oedekerk) who likes to annoy the other aliens every time he encounters them. The aliens attempt to stop Voop's craziness but their plans always fail.

Production
The initial idea for what would become Zina Supermoon began in the mid-1990s as a re-imagining of the Japanese anime television film Sango-sho Densetsu: Aoi Umi no Erufii which was produced by Nippon Animation for Fuji Television in 1986. Nippon Animation commissioned Geo G. and his production company Glass Ball Productions (who was working on his other two animated series Gabriel Garza and BJ and Wally at the time) to re-imagine Sango-sho Densetsu as a TV reboot under the working title Elfie of the Blue Sea for Western audiences who are not as familiar with the original anime. However, the studio was unimpressed with the results and ultimately rejected the project, prompting Glass Ball to retool it as an original property.

After being turned down by Nippon Animation, Geo sought the creation of a new idea about a space human girl to take the place of Sango-sho Densetsu ' s main character Elfie, suggesting the concept out of his own interest in science fiction. He also drew inspiration from several sci-fi media including Space Patrol, Star Trek and Star Wars, as well as the 1953 Warner Bros. cartoon short Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century and the 1984 Don Bluth video game Space Ace. While developing the idea, Geo enlisted O Entertainment founder Steve Oedekerk, who was a longtime fan of Geo's other work including Gabriel Garza, to assist in developing the show.

After having sketched out several different potential character designs for the project's main girl character, Geo and Oedekerk ultimately came up with the final design of the character as a result of the Glass Ball executives' request for him to design a character whose design looked marginally similar to that of Elfie's. Initially, the character was going to be named "Supernova", but due to copyright concerns over similarities to the Marvel Comics character of the same name, the name was scrapped. After several names being considered, they finally settled on "Zina Supermoon", named after actress Zina Bethune, who appeared as a guest star in the 1960s science fiction television series The Invaders, and a type of a full moon called supermoon which nearly coincides with perigee, the moon's closest point to Earth in its monthly orbit.

Geo and Oedekerk originally considering pitching the Zina Supermoon concept to Nickelodeon in 1996, but chose to pitch it to Gingo instead due to the network's success with Geo's Gabriel Garza. Gingo CEO Michael Wildshill was particularly expressed immediate interest in the idea, praising it as "the next Gabriel Garza". Following positive reception, Gingo greenlit the development of a 13-minute pilot episode of Zina which began production in 1997 and was finished the following year. Stand-up comedian Sarah Silverman was hired to voice the titular protagonist due to her popularity from the 1997 independent film Who's the Caboose?. Besides voicing Zina, Silverman was also enlisted as the series co-developer, producer and writer.

Zina Supermoon first appeared on the development slate at Gingo in September 1998, under no official name for the pilot. On March 9, 1999, Glass Ball Productions and Universal Television Animation via Gingo Animation inked a deal. The pilot was originally named The Adventures of Zina Supermoon in March 1999, when it appeared on the Saturday morning slate for the 1999–2000 television season, although it wasn't officially on the network schedule. On September 27, 1999, it was announced that the series, now simply retitled as Zina Supermoon, would premiere on March 11, 2000. Even before the pilot episode premiered, the show had already been renewed for a second season. After the first season of the show aired, it was given the green light to start production.

Main cast

 * Sarah Silverman as Zina Supermoon
 * Christopher Lloyd as Rebel
 * Tom Kenny as Bug, various
 * Megan Cavanaugh as Elly
 * Patrick Warburton as Larry
 * Richard Steven Horvitz as Sal
 * Jim Cummings as Narrator, Thug Gangster, various
 * Hank Azaria as Tab
 * Richard Kind as Zipper
 * Gregg Berger as Morvis, various
 * Steve Oedekerk as Voop, various
 * Frank Welker as Zlurggy

Additional voices

 * Carlos Alazraqui as Mexican Food Dude
 * Charlie Adler as Nib
 * Dee Bradley Baker
 * Eric Bauza
 * Jeff Bennett
 * Jodi Benson
 * Jeff Bergman
 * Susanne Blakeslee as Alien Lady
 * S. Scott Bullock
 * Corey Burton
 * Rodger Bumpass
 * Dan Castellaneta
 * Cam Clarke
 * Eddie Deezen
 * Grey DeLisle
 * Debi Derryberry
 * Melissa Disney
 * Michael Dorn
 * Bill Farmer
 * Geo G. as Bean, various
 * Brad Garrett
 * Jennifer Hale
 * Mark Hamill
 * Jess Harnell
 * Roger L. Jackson
 * Bob Joles
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Steve Mackall
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Danny Mann
 * Jason Marsden
 * Mala Miles
 * Candi Milo
 * Kevin Michael Richardson
 * Laraine Newman
 * Rob Paulsen as Robot
 * Peter Renaday
 * Bumper Robinson
 * Alex Rocco
 * Stephen Root
 * Neil Ross
 * Charlie Schlatter
 * Kath Soucie
 * Tara Strong
 * Cree Summer
 * Lauren Tom
 * Billy West
 * April Winchell

Home media
All the VHS and DVD releases of Zina Supermoon were released by Universal Studios Home Entertainment (via Gingo).

Books
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Music
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Video games
Numerous video games based on the series have been produced. Some of the early games include: Zina Supermoon (2001) and Zina Supermoon: The Cosmic Adventure (2002).

Film
On December 17, 2004, Universal Pictures and Gingo Movies produced a full-length animated feature film based on the show in theaters, titled Zina and the Vivid Crew. The film was directed by Geo, and written by long-time series writers Erica Rivinoja, Tab Murphy, Noni White, Geo, Oedekerk, and Silverman. The latter two and Paul Marshal produced the film, while John Debney composed the film's score. The film is about Zina being forced to team up with Tab and Zipper from the Vivid Crew to stop the mysterious Rebel from stealing the Vooruian city's power energy and using it to wipe out the population. It features guest appearances by Drew Barrymore as Susie, Molly Shannon as Mom, and Clint Howard as Tunner, and received a positive critical reception, It grossed over $293 million worldwide.

Toys and promotions
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Critical reception
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Ratings
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Awards
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Gallery
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Trivia
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