Nelvana - Television Tropes & Idioms

Animated by Nelvana.*

A Canadian entertainment company founded in 1971, mainly known for its world-renowned animation studio. If you've watched Canadian animation, especially for young children, there's a major chance Nelvana had something to do with it.

In recent years storybook-to-screen transitions have become a specialty, the studio having faithfully reproduced the distinctive style of the Care Bears, Babar, Little Bear, Miss Spider and Rupert, among many others.

Nelvana's corporate overlord is Corus Entertainment, which acquired the company in 2000. Corus also owns a number of other media companies in Canada, including Treehouse TV (essentially a Canadian version of Nick Jr. airing a large number of Nelvana programs), YTV (aimed more towards the preteen market) and Kids Can Press (publisher of the Franklin books.)

Gets a Shout Out in Star Trek: The Next Generation when a secret Romulan base is supposedly located on the planet "Nelvana III"; and for their work on the kiddie series Droids and Ewoks, they also got a Star Wars species named after them: the Nelvaanians

Animated programs/movies that Nelvana has made/dubbed:

6teen
Ace Ventura - The Animated Adaptation
Babar - The Animated Adaptation
The Backyardigans
Bakugan - The English Dub
Beetlejuice - The Animated Adaptation
The Berenstain Bears - The 2003 Animated Adaptation
BeyBlade - The English Dub
Birdz
Blaster's Universe - The Animated Adaptation
Blazing Dragons
Braceface
Cardcaptors - The English Dub
Care Bears
Class Of The Titans
Clone High
A Cosmic Christmas - TV special
Cyberchase
Danny Phantom (non-USA)
Delta State
The Devil and Daniel Mouse
Di Gata Defenders
Dog City - The Animated Adaptation
Donkey Kong Country - The Animated Adaptation
Eek! The Cat
Fairly OddParents (With Nickelodeon, non-USA)
Flying Rhino Junior High
Franklin - The Animated Adaptation
Free Willy - The Animated Adaptation
The Future Is Wild - The Animated Adaptation
Gargoyles - The Goliath Chronicles (With Disney)
Grossology
The Hardy Boys - The Live Action Adaptation
Hot Wheels Battle Force 5
Inspector Gadget (With DIC, TMS and Wang) (first season only)
Intergalactic Thanksgiving (a.k.a. Please Don't Eat the Planet) - TV special
Jane and the Dragon - The Animated Adaptation
Jacob Two-Two - The Animated Adaptation
Little Bear - The Animated Adaptation
Madballs: Escape from Orb! (straight to video special produced to promote the toy line)
The Magic School Bus - The Animated Adaptation
Marvin The Tap Dancing Horse - The Animated Adaptation
Medabots - The English Dub
Metal Fight Beyblade - The English Dub
Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends - The Animated Adaptation
My Dad The Rock Star
My Pet Monster
Nancy Drew - The Live Action Adaptation
Ned\'s Newt
The Neverending Story - The Animated Adaptation
Pearlie
Pelswick
Pippi Longstocking - The Animated Adaptation
Redwall - The Animated Adaptation
Rock And Rule
Rolie Polie Olie
Romie-0 and Julie-8 (Runaway Robots) - TV special
Rotting Hills
Ruby Gloom - The Animated Adaptation
Rupert - The Animated Adaptation
Sam & Max - The Animated Adaptation
Scaredy Squirrel
Seven Little Monsters - The Animated Adaptation, Co-Production with Hong Ying.
Sidekick
Spliced
The Star Wars Holiday Special - Specifically, the animated short in the middle. Considered the best part of the special, for what it's worth.
- They also made "Droids" and "Ewoks"
Stickin Around
Tales from the Crypt Keeper - They also did the last episode of Tales from the Crypt "The Third Pig"
Timothy Goes To School - The Animated Adaptation
The Adventures of Tintin - The Animated Adaptation
Tuff Puppy (non-USA)
Wayside - The Animated Adaptation
Xenozoic Tales - The Animated Adaptation

The work of Nelvana provides examples of:

Animated Adaptation: they have probably done more series based on children's books than original ideas
Canada, Eh?: Often used in the form of such things as characters sporting clothing with maple leaves or playing sports such as hockey.
No Export for You: Unless you manage to find a helpful Canadian friend or access on the Internet, just forget about seeing certain series, or in some cases, certain episodes of some series. For example, Nick Jr. still does not carry every episode of Franklin and only rarely airs certain episodes of Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends and/or took a long time to import them.
Qubo airs a lot of Nelvana shows, as the company is a shareholder in the service.