Trivia / Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi

• Acting for Two:
  • Ami, Yumi and Kaz are voiced by Janice Kawaye, Grey DeLisle and Keone Young as well as their pet cats and dog.
  • Nathan Carlson, Corey Burton and Rob Paulsen voice most of the male background characters.
  • Grey Griffin voices most of the female background characters.
• Actor-Shared Background: Janice Kawaye and Keone Young who voice Ami and Kaz are of Japanese descent and voice two Japanese characters.
• Adored by the Network: At first. Cartoon Network gave it a decent premiere slot, overexposed promotion, daily reruns, merchandising, and even getting the real life Puffy AmiYumi to appear on a parade float modeled after the show for Macy's 2005 Thanksgiving Day Parade, all in an effort to make it the next Powerpuff Girls. Sadly, midway through season 3, the show was unceremoniously canned and near-forgotten. See Screwed by the Network for more information on that matter.
• Better Export for You: While it only got compilation DVDs in the USA, Japan got all of seasons 1 and 2 on DVD, and Thailand got all three.
• Cast the Expert: Janice Kawaye and Keone Young made sure the Japanese spoken is accurate, which is why they helped Grey DeLisle speak some Japanese as Yumi.
• The Danza:
  • In "Janice Jealous", King Chad is dating an Emotionless Girl named Janice, who is voiced by Janice Kawaye (who also voices Ami). Of course, the real Janice is a pretty nice lady, according to the producers.
  • Nathan Carlson voices Uncle Nathan on "Yumi Saves Kaz".
• Distanced from Current Events: The episode "Tsunami Yumi" was never aired because of the then recent Indian Ocean Tsunami (since the real Puffy AmiYumi appeared in an awareness ad for the tsunami). However, the Tsunami appeared as a boss in "The Genie And The Amp".
• Fake Nationality: Mexican-American Grey DeLisle voices Japanese Yumi.
• Hey, It's That Sound!:
  • In "Sound Off", the sound effects in the color department are taken from various video games, like Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog.
  • In "Scowlitis", a sequence depicting Yumi frowning at various things is accompanied by the 'strikeout' effect from RBI Baseball.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Zig-zagged. Only eight episodes (six from season one, two from season two) were ever released on home video in the West. The entire series was released on DVD in 2009...but only in Japan and Thailand. However, inn March 2022, the entire series was made available on HBO Max... in the Latin America area. On the bright side, it still includes the original English track.
• The Other Darrin: Flash Backman, famous movie director, was voiced by Corey Burton in "Lights, Camera, Danger", while later in "Movie Madness", Rob Paulsen replaces Burton as voicing Backman. At the end, however, a director's voice that sounded like Corey Burton's Backman was heard.
• The Other Marty:
  • In the original seven-minute pilot, Ami and Yumi were voiced by actual Japanese women whose identities remain unknown. Janice Kawaye (who is still of Japanese descent) and Grey DeLisle ended up voicing them for the series proper, due to their thick accents and to avoid (constant) difficulties of getting them to speak English correctly.
  • In "Surf's Up", the tsunami/wave was originally voiced by Nathan Carlson but his lines were re-recorded by Grey DeLisle.
• Playing Against Type: Lara Jill Miller as Julie, in sharp contrast to her other characters, who are jerks with a heart of gold at worst.
• Screwed by the Network: A fourth season was planned, but Cartoon Network suddenly axed the show in October 2006, most likely due to a management shakeup that found the show's main advocate, creator Sam Register, leaving Cartoon Network for Warner Bros. Animation. As a result, not only did CN not bother to air the rest of the show's third season, but they also removed it from reruns, and scrubbed all evidence of it from the network's website; they never even acknowledged the show's existence from then until October 2012, when the main characters appeared in the network's 20th anniversary poster◊. To add fuel to the fire, the show never aired on Boomerang.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The series was originally about Ami and Yumi moving out of Japan and dealing with the culture clash that comes from trying to adapt to the United States.
  • There was also cleaned up and colored concept art posted to the show's (now-down) development blog which involved Ami and Yumi looking much different than before. Specifically, they had different skin tones (Ami was pale, while Yumi was tan), they both have five fingers instead of four, Ami had a simplistic, maiden-like outfit while Yumi's outfit looked very similar to her final design, albeit with a palette that only consisted of dark gray and purple and a single fingerless glove on her left hand, Ami's hair was in a lighter color while the flower in her hair was in a palette that had the yellows similar to each other, Yumi had green eyes and also had freckles on her face.
  • As previously mentioned, the show was planned for a fourth season before management changes in 2006.

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