User:Jeremie@theLab/Code: Founding Fathers

It has been the question on about .025 out of 10 people's minds since French anime studio MoonScoop failed to announce what would happen to their popular series Code Lyoko after the finale of Season 4. Today those questions were answered by the creators themselves at MoonScoop's Paris facility.

Ever since releasing the first season of Code Lyoko, co-creators Christophe and Benoit d'Sabatino had locked themselves in a dark back room at MoonScoop's studio, not emerging for any reason. The staff found out on October 13, 2006 when the two finally came out of the closet. The d'Sabatinos, having surprisingly lacked confidence in the United States release of Code Lyoko, had subjected themselves to the drawing board in order to make a show guaranteed to appeal to the American audience. When asked why they would do this, Benoit d'Sabatino said, "Zhose American dubbers who like to confuse ze fact zhat Code Lyoko takes place in France with constant references to the United States just aren't cutting eet."

The grand plan: an anime with the same elements and art styles of Code Lyoko, but covering the history of the United States. Jerome Mouscadet, producer of Code Lyoko was contracted to co-produce this new anime, called "Code: Founding Fathers" along with Sophie Decroisette, sat down with us to talk about the plot line.

"Basically, Christophe and Benoit have presented Sophie and I with is an eductainment anime about the history of the Untied States of America from the Revolution to the present day." We had to interupt Jerome to point out that he said "Untied" instead of "United", to which he told us that was a deliberate French potshot.

"What we have," he continued, "ees zhe story following Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as zhey juggle zhe responsibilies of managing the new Untied States of America and battling in a meshed timeline where every event in America's history occurs at the same time. Een order to understand our new show, you only need a rudimentary knowledge of Code Lyoko.

We interviewed co-producer and lead writer Sophie Decroisette about the parallels between both series.

"Hamilton is zhe counterpart of Jeremie Belpois, since he was a mathematical genious who hatched a brilliant financial plan to save the indebted America. Washington is synonymous with Yumi because he and she are practically the physical combat leaders of their respective groups.  Franklin is akin to Odd because we are counting on zhe fact zhat American children will laugh at seeing Franklin with spiked hair and slang terms.  We casted Madison as Aelita because he did something, and Jefferson as Ulrich because we were running out of cast positions for warriors.  Aaron Burr will make a recurring appearance as the rough equivalent of Sissi because he was a traitor who tried to break away from zhe country and found Burrland (Trademark).  John Marshall will basically be Jim because he was an overlording federalist judge on the Supreme Court. Geroge Mason and Patrick Henry get the dubious honors of being Hervé and Poliakoff because zhey were Anti-Federalists. Other founding fathers such as John Adams, Samuel Huntington and Edmund Randolph will make background appearances."

When asked about the real-world activities of the founding fathers/warriors, Sophie told us the usual: "Write the Constitution, bicker over the Constituiton, ignore the Constitution, you get the idea. They will also write the Federalist Papers, govern the country based on Jeffersonian democracy or Federalism, based on the time period, pass the Declaration of Independence, fight the War of 1812, finance Lewis and Clark, etc."

When we pointed out that Ben Franklin and George Washington were very well dead by the time Jeffersonian Democracy came about, she replied that MoonScoop wasn't concerned over timeline and dates, thereby destroying the most useless cornerstone of historical study.

We then got to the part everyone had been waiting for: the Lyoko spin-off. "It doesn't really have a name," said Frederic Lenoir, one of the writiers. "The characters just call it, "Mysterious Other Place We Don't Understand At All." Lenoir's collegue Bruno Regeste said that the MOPWDUAA is basically the United States' landmass with every city and town intact.  But it is correlated.  Throughout the series, the founding fathers meet such greats as John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Grover Cleveland and Geraldo Rivera.  Bruno told us that one episode will involve Washington having to escape from a Greyhound full of possessed post-World War II presidents such as Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Harry Truman and others.  They also observe the Civil War, September 11, the Great Depression, the Dixie Chicks and other American disasters. At one point, Washington and Jefferson are treated to the exquisite delight of watching Richard Nixon douse his cranium with steak sauce before going to bed, sending the two founders into hysterical spurts of laughter and causing them to wet on the White House's one-of-a-kind Persian rugs. The MOPWDUAA has an exuberant presence in it called George W. Bush (the XANA equivalent) who threatens the early history of America itself and hence the whole nation, because he believes there are Weapons of Mass Destruction and Oil deposits near Indian Territory. "Since he only has an IQ 5 points above that of someone with Downe Syndrome, it is not surprising Bush would do zis," said Mouscadet. France's liberalism clearly makes a stand in Code: Founding Fathers. The founding fathers can only prevent Bush's schemes by grafitting "Code: Founding Fathers" all over a national edifice and blaming it on Bush, which turns the opinions of everyone in the MOPWDUAA against him. "We figured the grafitti was a great reference to USA pop culture," said Lenoir. Bush, who materializes himself in the form of an oil spill, has an army of monsters at his disposal. "Clones of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Alberto Gonzalez and Ann Coulter are just a few of the antagonists we will use," said Regeste. "Each one can send the founding fathers back to their time period with a specialized attack, such as UPSing them to Syria to be "interrogated" at a CIA secret prison or publically flouting the Constitution, causing the founding fathers to gouge their eyes out while screaming in abject agony."

The founding fathers each have specialized functions. Hamilton, as Jeremie, transports the others and commands them in the MOPWDUAA. "Since they didn't have computers, we figured we could have Hamilton just write down, "Transfer: George, Transfer, James," etc., on the back of the Declaration of Independence, thereby erasing the treasure map," said Laurent Turner, yet another writer. When asked if there would be an equivalent to a scanner, Turner said, "Oui, some chairs." Madison, as the Aelita equivalent, gets to do all the grafitti by himself. This becomes humorous when he must cover the Capitol Dome with the Code, since he does not have a ladder handy. When inquired about vehicles for the crew, Decroisette said that her staff has big plans. "Washington gets an Overstallion, Jefferson an Overmule and Franklin an Overturkey! Madison has to ride tandem with whoever makes him ride in their b**ch seat.

We then asked Nicolas Atlan, former superstar producer of Code Lyoko, now delegated to coffee and croissant fetch boy for Code: Founding Fathers, about the weapons. He told us snippets from what he heard in the board rooms. "Sophie et Jerome aren't interested in keeping guns out of zhe series anymore. I think zhe roster goes something like zhis: Washington gets a officer's pistol zhat fires below-average manufacture-grade clay pigeons, Jefferson gets a large pen zhat doubles as a hypodermic needle that delivers fatal injections of indigo-based ink into zhe body systems of Dubya's monsters, and has a secondary jukebox function.  Madison doesn't get a weapon until zhe Season 3, which ees basically a larger than average rock he found on zhe ground one day.  Franklin's all-too-effective attack ees repeating random lines from Poor Richard's Almanack which, despite being true, are so cliche zhey drive zhe monsters insane and force them to commit pooblic suicide to save themselves from zhe insanity.

Also, we queried about the group's special abilities and powers, but Nicolas told us he was late to delivering an economy-size package of cigarettes and complimentary baguettes to the board room.

The episodes invariably end with the Code: Founding Fathers being splashed all over the Pentagon, or Supreme Court or the Amish Popcorn Shop, the state of Alaska, Ted Kennedy, or national landmark of the like and Hamilton activating the epitome of American peculiarity: the do-it-yorself fixer-upper. "Basically, he just writes, 'Fix all zhe damage Dubya did' on the parchment. Anticlimactic, but necessary."

In order to boost the show's popularity, Code Lyoko voice actors are beign contracted to perform new roles for Code: Founding Fathers. Tania Palumbo told us that Matthew Géczy, the voice of Odd, is willing to play Ben Franklin and Abigail Adams. David Gasman, voice of all the "jerks" in Code Lyoko becomes the voice of all the "jerks" in the new show, from Burr to Tom Cruise. Yumi's actor Mirabelle Kirkland gets to try her hand at male voice acting, being cast for the four-pronged role of Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison. When she was first informed about her massive role by a voice coordinator, she reportedly decapitated him with a Tessen Fan in a sudden fit of randomness. When asked if Allen Wenger would play any characters, Benoit d'Sabatino said, "Who zhe devil is Allen Wenger?"

So, will Code: Founding Fathers be a success? Christophe d'Sabatino expressed high hopes for the show, saying, "It will succedd where Code Lyoko failed and gain an American following to French cartoons. It will supercede the failed Code Lyoko and win the hearts of American children everywhere, from Irish immigrants to Pastafarian eunuchs." We had forgotten that Christophe had been in the closet for a little over three years, and figured we might tell him the truth. "You do know that Code Lyoko is actually a rip-roaring success on the American market and is likely to blast any competition or spin-off, right?" Christophe paused for a while, before letting out a long string of swears in rapid French at the fact that he had just sunk his own boat after three years of work.