I'm curious what you'd call the hyper detailed art that surrounds it. There's not many kids shows that do this for anything but humor, but the All Seeing Eye and some of the backgrounds give me a Thief and Cobbler vibe
Right?! Because you know a Nickelodeon show is (or could have been) a masterpiece when it can’t even get greenlit by a perfectly talented but predatory, murderous, deadbeat and overrated company like Nick’
@@cherishxoxo2738 I've read somewhere that after it failed at Nickelodeon, they then tried to pitch it to CN, but CN rejected it in favor of level up I think.
@@kittykittybangbang9367 😩😩😩I barely remember level up as it is and it did not last long! All these networks missed out on a really good show that could of potentially made them a lot of money.
My parents were friends of Lynne Naylor and Chris Riccardi, in fact they each made a painting for us! I remember when my dad said they were working on this project but I never actually got to watch it. So THANK YOU for including the link. We were so heartbroken when we heard Chris Riccardi died 💔 especially since he was so young. Not only are they amazing artists but kind, gentle, and interesting people as well.
I do think she was gonna ask about her parents but the animation shows her lips making the same motion you would make if trying to pronounce an F so I think she was gonna say family.
I have no business replying to a 2 year old comment, but I personally think she was going to say "friends"? I assume like, people who she used to work with. But we'll never really know {sadly}
I watched this too. And I feel like it should be a goofy series that would also feel sympathetic. Also, you're not the only one who thinks that Xero might have tried to ask "Where are my parents" cuz I have a couple of theories about Xero and this story
I think everyone was thinking the same thing. I was talking about The Modifyers with a friend years ago and he brought up the "Where are my parents?" part since he's a fan of the pilot too
@@fritzyboi6390 It kinda reminds me of some parts of Tangled mashed up with Arlo The Alligator Boy. Mostly, I’m talking about the plots that remind me of this said theory if you understand what I mean.
@@PrincessGalaxia9 Cuz what if she was an orphan dropped off on the doorstep (as a baby) of a supposed orphanage that was in disguise, the secret Modifyers corporation. And that's how she became a member. It's kind of like in Annie how she believed that her parents would be able to come get her.
They should have gone to Cartoon Network instead of Nickelodeon. Nick is infamous for being complete assholes to cartoon creators, and taking ownership over cartoons they have absolutely NO intentions of ever making into an actual fleshed out series. It’s infuriating. 😡
Looking at most Nickelodeon shows, I have a strong theory why The Modifyers wasn't picked up. Three little words, right at the end of the pilot... To Be Continued Nick thrives on episodic shows. They adore changing up the running order to make a 'theme' marathon, and they never want their viewers to feel like they've missed something because they haven't seen every episode of a show. Nick wants every episode to be an entry point for the series. Nick HATES serialized stories. It's rare for there to even be a show with two 11 minute stories in its half hour time slot to make a 'two-parter' where one story runs through all 22 minutes.
@@fireboythestar3455 first off, I said MOST shows. Secondly, while Avatar and TMNT had overall story arcs, they were only briefly touched on in most episodes, so the order could be jumbled without much confusion in the audience.
I ain't gonna lie. I had a...different...encounter with this show that after a bit of searching I wasn't sure it was real. And we'll, let's just say everytime I hear the name my brain autocorrects to something else.
Sadly even though I've seen the pilot, and I think it's memorable, whenever I see one of the characters I'm immediately reminded of the Zone-Tan parody animation of it instead.
It's also probably called 'The Modifyers' because it's clearly set in a version of England, and Xero seems to have a decidedly mod look to her various outfits. I mean, yes, there clearly is a steampunk influence as well, but the spy craze did start in the '60's, and it seems to me that, had it continued, the show would likely have indulged in a fair amount of that period's swingin' style.
Hope it ends up having the Adventure time treatment where CN end up greenlighting it instead of Nick. AT was on a similar show where nick just showed a bunch of pilot shows and never does anything about it.
8:57 "...and the fact that he plays a pipe organ the size of an entire room." That's actually a small pipe organ. There are several that are the size of an entire Cathedral, using the acoustics and resonance of the building as part of the instrument. It's hard to see the entire thing because it is literally built into the framework of the building.
When your horny Discord buddies keep asking about "where is the original" before getting the ban hammer,it becomes apparently that more people know about the Zone version then they ever did the original.
I never heard of this Project but it looks interesting and impressive to watch and on the bright side it escape the Possibility of becoming so popular that they Cancelled it without any Final Conclusion,if you see some of my Favorite Cartoons like (Kinda)Danny Phantom,(Kinda)Yin,Yang,Yo!,and Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go! You would know what I mean.
I'll be honest, I just heard about this show today, and I think I would've loved if The Modifyers got turned into a full-fledged show. It just sucks that the supposed reason it never got the greenlight was because of Nickelodeon's fear of shows with female leads being doomed from the get-go. And I agree, if that is the case, then that's kind of a stupid reason for not letting something like this see the light of day. In fact, I think if they took this down the indie route nowadays, I'm almost positive this show would've been greenlit and be given the chance to be fully fleshed-out. However, with Chris Reccardi having passed away, I can respect whatever decision Lynne Naylor chooses to make for this. Either way, we've got a cute little pilot episode than I know people will love... and that I need to check out for myself.
TBH I don't think anything about the show needed to be changed or adapted. Nickolodeon can't see greatness if it hit them over the head. If I had a TV network for cartoons i'd have picked this up on the spot, especially with so many garbage shows that get shoveled out the door nowadays.
I don't live in America. But let's be real, show was cancelled because executives, who view shows only superficially thought it was literally too dirty (rats and etc) for Nickelodeon at the moment when they started to change channel course to bright real-life shows (pilot was in 2007). There were shows with female leads at the time. But The Modifyers was double downing in aspects, that executives thought was already past century and not fresh at all. As an example, "The Modifyers" is more close to Ren & Stimpy (1996) then to Drake & Josh (2004). I even made a 5 minute check of the shows at the time and many big shows with similar tone was over exactly in 2007.
I think it really didn't took off because Xero doesn't really look like she belongs in that world. Most of the other characters/background characters look like a old cartoon movie with the shading, and Xero looks like she's from an anime.
I honestly thought the show lost its chance due to Purple hair tentacle lady but the fact they were trying to make it at least until 2019 is saying something and honestly, i would love to see more of this too.
quite surprising seeing someone talk about this show! the steampunk aesthetic truly gave it an unique feel, and spy stuff is just so fun in general, lots of possible trinkets and gadgets to show in each ep (kinda like totally spies) at least maybe there can be fanart of it, or a spiritual successor
Well, you're right! Whoever denied this show must've thought, "But the show's got a girl lead in it! We can't have a girl lead -- that'd also detract the boys from watching it. Boys sell more, y'know." Ugh, I wish it deserved more so I would've easily watched it. :(
@@milcahreyes5287 An important thing to note is that the priority for most studios deciding whether or not to greenlight a show, at least at the time, wasn't potential viewership, it was potential merchandise sales. I think the fear hear was less that they didn't think boys would watch, the show, and more that they couldn't think of a way to get a(most likely) boy centric audience to buy merchandise based on characters as overtly feminine as Xero and Lacy Shadows. It's kind of the opposite problem that Young Justice had; It was a huge hit, but it's audience skewed HEAVILY female, and the show was designed to produce male-centric merchandise. Because of that: the toy sales (which make up the vast majority of an IP's revenue) couldn't cover the high cost of animation. It might have a better chance if it was made now, since the market has shifted away from having shows pay for themselves by selling toys to a model where they make money by selling streaming subscriptions and add spaces online.
Imagine how many people are watching this because the only thing they've seen regarding the modifyers up until now is the NSFW animation... I mean what that exists? ehehe...
"The Modifyers was never picked by Nicktoons is Bcuz cartoons with Female Protagonist are doomed to fail" meanwhile cartoons such as dinsey princesses:: *ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?!?!*
The difference there is that those are female led shows with a primarily female audience. The challenge a show like this is more likely to run into is a lack of overlap between the kind of people they show itself could draw in based on its premise, and the kind of people who'd buy merch based on it. It's the same issue that put Young Justice on life support for so long after it came out.
You could say it's steampunk, but it really close to British architecture (well, steampunk genre uses English architecture but only of the 19th century). And the outfit and the hair style of the female protagonist looks quite close to the 60's era of Britain
ngl thanks to Zone I found out what this show was. ngl i wish Nick picked it up. it had a lot of potential. I feel like it would have fit in with the classics like El tiger My life as a teenage robot and so much more. it has that feeling imo
What? seriously? The execs thought a female led show wouldn't work? Where the fuck did they get that idea? They *LITERALLY HAD ONE WITH MY LIFE AS A TEENAGE ROBOT*
10:48 Just hearing that made me cringe. Especially because Nickelodeon later went on to create a show with a female protagonist, being The Legend Of Korra. Amazing review BTW. More people need to know about this
it was likely a lie by the creator to get more sympathy from people, around the same time this show would have been coming out multiple other shows that had female leads
@@DCPTF2 I thought about that to, but one thing that those shows did have that this show didn't seem to from the pilot was a male sidekick and/or romance of some sort while in this show the sidekick was a robot.
The girls in this show look so cute! ^u^ As a girl, I love it when female characters are cute and pretty but not sexualized, and these girls are not sexualized or perverted at all! Plus, I love how the colors and personality reflects, like the girly girl is obviously the pink haired girl in the white, and then the blue haired girl with the black dress is more the punk girl. Also, the art style kind of reminds me of Powerpuff Girls but it's not as sexist and outdated as Powerpuff girls was. I'm also not really into the sciencey type of shows that have like made up monsters in them as much, but I totally love the art style and designs and would give this show a try. My type of cartoons are usually like Scaredy Squirrel and Max & Ruby, even SpongeBob too (I love the ones with talking animals) but even tho this isn't my type of cartoon, I'd still totally watch it. I want to draw the characters too! also, the villain is kinda stereotypic but that's fine. The show stills seems cute. I actually like how it's not really plot heavy, it seems kinda fun to watch.
I was so disappointed when I found out the Modifyers was never picked up, the style ands theming was so awesome, characters very enjoyable to watch, it's a real shame, at least the "second episode" is pretty good too
Though I've subscribed to quite a few, and most of them have hundreds of thousands of subscribers (like schaffrillas), I'm glad I found and subscribed to your channel.
It doesn't surprise me at all that Nickelodeon rejected it because the protagonist is a girl. The creators of Avatar practically had to fight tooth and nail to get Legend of Korra approved, since Nick didn't like the idea of a female lead, especially a non-white female. Real classy.
Man Nickelodeon didn’t want a show about leading strong female back then because the company was sexist and bunch of jerks, this happened to “Constant Payne”.
This is one of those video I clicked on just because the thumbnail caught my eye and I'm pleasantly suprised to be reminded about something from my childhood
it's art style fit right there with 2000s-2010s cartoons before cal arts turned into PPG and Ben 10 2016 reboots which most modern cartoons have artstyles like that instead of thing like this. I adore it's background artstyle and the characters look good unique and not bland
I can tell they cared and were committed to making this as good as it could possibly be. I know I would've liked it. It's disappointing it didn't get picked up for at least a season. Maybe they thought there was more money elsewhere. It looks like it was plenty marketable, but all it takes is one person not having confidence in it. That tune is lovely, by the way.
I would like to take my hand in dead franchises that either never were or never will be, just because I would like to develop ideas that the creators never thought and I also think that I would probably be way more competent than the original creators.
10:52. This actually makes sense. MLAATR barely made it because of this stupid and sexist belief. (also i thought this show was made by the same people that made mlaatr bc the style looked similar, lol)
Honestly, whoever made that kind of sexist comment doesn't realize that Powerpuff Girls was a show. MLAATR had almost the exact same treatment as well, but it slipped through and became one of the biggest cartoons of the decade. Seriously, whoever thought that the small coincidence of female protagonists fair worse than male protagonists don't really get their audience at all. Its sad that that one measly and insignificant roadblock was the hard border that stopped this clever and amazing concept into an actual show, as it not only has marketing value, but it also has a competent team working behind it, giving its success a guarantee. Also, it's more saddening that the only form of successful legacy this show has is this pilot, and Zone-tan's parody. To have a great concept get its popularity stuck in the +18 animation community is a slap to the face to the show creators who wanted to make this show for kids. Stupid Sexist Pencil Pushers.
it kinda comes off as Nickelodeon having this my way or the highway approach and not looking at what other networks are doing which would only serve to stunt them. also explains why that other steampunk action show never got greenlit. Considering they havent been on basic cable for awhile now, their weird experiments like fairly odder. and as much as i love their older shows nick always felt like the discount network i cant exactly pin down why but something about them always felt oddly cheap to me. I don't think Nick is going to die mainly because its a subsidiary of viacom but its been on a rapid decline
@@marek1shtar538 Honestly, Nick had that cheap feeling for a while now if you look back to their shows in the past. But they were able to overcome that cheapness by being creative with their animations and characters, as well as having a competent storyboard division that made quality scripts for their animation work. The design of the characters and the quality of each episode turned Nick into one of the three top dogs of the 2000's. I feel like whatever the hell happened to Nickelodeon was likely due to the writer's protest. Ever since that had happened, Nick had crank the funding to their live action division and pushed their animation sector closer and closer to their Nick Jr. division. I mean, they did great at first (especially since its success was a guarantee thanks to earlier projects like Drake and Josh), but ever since the Digital Era rose and engulfed most of children's entertainment, they've started to struggle fighting against the internet. Their situation got worse when they had visibly shot themselves on the foot by pandering to thems internets kids. I'll also agree that Nickelodeon -- if they continue to not change a damn thing -- wouldn't die per se, as it is supported by a multi-corporation, however I could see them inevitably ceasing operations on cartoon and TV and become more of a smaller studio that makes content for Viacom's other flagship studios like Paramount, similar to Hanna-Barbera's fate.
@@BUMMY105 Spongebob is also a factor in this too because they keep pushing that as the primary cash cow killing everything else except for The Loud House. it's just all a mess
@@n13475 No shit, the assholes who make Clone High chose to use Flash animation instead of starting a renaissance of this style. Now our only hope is that Craig McCracken doesn't pull the same bullshit for the Powerpuff Girls reboot.
After you told how you struggled to find or remember the show, I honestly was waiting for you to say: "But I stumbled upon a porn parody". Although it wouldn't be very family friendly, yeah. Also this show's style reminds me a lot of Chowder, Flapjack and other CN's most obscure cartoons.
