Vegas Moptops

Vegas Moptops is an American animated television series created by Edwin Ohm. The series centers on the apprehensive and self-conscious Tobi Lorrell, who juggles between his enrolment to secondary school and the way of living in a crime-heavy city, along with his friends Monty and Marc, and younger brother Lars. The show tackles Las Vegas society, dilemmas within the transition through adolescence, the introversion of sacrifice, and the quality of life.

The main characters were conceived by Ohm during a conversation shortly after finishing production of the first season of Intense Phys Ed, and based it off his experience in his first year of secondary, describing the show in interviews as the 'juggle back and forth from social awkwardness and the obsession of the status quo'. After pitching an 11-minute rough draft of the pilot to Aroba Animation, they assigned him with the plan of 15 half-hour episodes.

On August 15, 1998, Vegas Moptops made its primetime debut on CBS in the height of Aroba's popularity, therefore, opening to 6.1 million viewers. The show proved to be critically lauded for its themes, calling it a 'call to arms for more progressive animation for young audiences'. Due to the show's success, Aroba requested for Vegas Moptops to be syndicated and broadcast for the daytime Aroba Invasion block. The series garnered consistently high ratings throughout its 7-season run and became one of the longest-running animated shows produced by Aroba.

Years after its series finale on December 2, 2005, the original team pitched a screenplay for a theatrical film based on the show. The script was adapted into The Vegas Moptops Motion Picture and was released to theaters on November 7th, 2012, while the original show lives on via reruns on ArobaCentral.

Characters
Vegas Moptops is known for its small ensemble of characters; this is based on Ohm's minuscule knowledge of his classmates in school.

The main characters consist of a trio of Class One classmates: Tobi is an introvert and usually roams his school alone. He is an autistic child and is quiet, apprehensive, introspective, and self-conscious of his public image; Marc Finley is sensitive and melodramatic when things don't go his direction; Monty Ramone spouts non-sequiturs and has conversations with Tobi if they were to be paired; Lars Lorrell is Tobi's loud and talkative 8-year-old younger brother, annoying him by demanding to play with him while not in the mood, or teasing him with noises or slapstick.

The show includes an array of supporting characters including teachers Mr. Oobleck and Dal Viola, and friends and peers Clemens Spock, Reeds Frontman and Aaron Cuwertz.

Setting
The show takes place in the city of Las Vegas, however most of the show is spent either downtown, Tobi's house or in school.

Development
Having just completed the production of season 1 of Intense Phys Ed, the show's crew had a lengthy conversation. Among the topics discussed were departures, thoughts on Aroba's projects, and baking of bread, during of which show writer Edwin Ohm conceived an idea for a down-to-earth animated sitcom about adolescence. Before his work with Aroba, he had envisioned a screenplay depicting the underbelly of a contrasting homogenized city, and a home movie about a man whose obsession with fitting in leads him to a mental breakdown. Vegas Moptops is essentially a loose fuse of the two concepts. The process of naming the show's cast was described by Ohm as "either looking through phonebooks looking for fine names or nonsensically mashing names to vaguely form something resembling one". Months later, Ohm, in collaboration with fellow Phys Ed writers Lance Weltch and Marty Polenn, drafted an 11-minute short depicting Tobi having a daydream compiled from the stress invoked by his long multiplication homework; this was adapted to the episode "Rubber Brain". When forwarded to Aroba, they approved of it and assigned them a plan of 15 half-hour episodes; this plan was extended to 24 episodes starting from season 2.

In 1998, production of season one concluded. As the show contrasted from the rest of Aroba's series in tone at the time, Polenn negotiated with CBS preventing them to interfere with any of the show's content. The half-hour series premiered on August 15, 1998, with "Wingman".

Writing
The original team consisted of Marty Polenn, Jack Straffmier, Wes Ennards, Matt Blunt, Lexx Ramon, Mike Zyden, Anthony Tesler, and Osmont Bass.

Moptops episodes usually take 7 months to create and episode ideas are usually discussed through sessions held by the team bimonthly. The first draft is written by the main writer, and about 4-9 redrafts are made to adding scenes for character development and inserting jokes. Finally, the team calls for the vocal performers to recite the script in a table reading. Until 2006, Marty Polenn and Wes Ennards were most active in the sessions.

Overall in the entire series, Lexx Ramon was the most prolific writer of the series, writing over 40 episodes. Occasionally, an episode would be written by a one-off writer, usually an associate at Aroba. Thomas Pilmore, director of the 2009 film Keito, wrote the season 7 episode "When Life Gives You Pressure", whereas founder and The Thrillin' Feeling creator Daniel Logan contributed with "Cuwertz's Lament" for season 4 before stepping down from Aroba.

Series finale
In the middle of the production of season 6, Edwin Ohm had stated to news outlets that Vegas Moptops was about to end in its seventh season. According to producer Loni Venson, Ohm discussed multiple reasons for the show's ending out of the public eye just hours after; he mentioned that the number seven marks an "obvious ultimatum of a number to cap off years of progress on", and a limit to how far Tobi could remember regarding secondary school.

The series finale was actually two episodes broadcasted back-to-back and promoted as a single episode, chronicling the conclusion to the trio's secondary school life, led by a talent show, while Lars, Caleb, and Aaron attempt to put aside their differences in a pursuit to order a gift for Tobi in the underbelly of Vegas. The latter of the two featured the guest appearance of Ringo Starr, one of the few occasions of guest stars in the entire show. The episodes "Sigh." and "Peace & Love" debuted at 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. respectively to 4.7 million viewers.

Episodes
Coming soon.