In 2001, Cartoon Network held a contest to see what pilot would be its next big cartoon series. A Kitty Bobo Show was one of the entries.
A Kitty Bobo Show did not win the contest; the show that would become Codename: Kids Next Door won. Despite this, the test pilot is rather fondly remembered by those who got to see it thanks to its rather unique paper-like aesthetic.
What would have been the series itself is about a cat named Kitty Bobo living in a city full of anthropomorphic animals. The only episode ever produced was "Cellphones", in which the titular character gets his first cellphone, and proceeds to annoy all his friends by showing it off.
Despite it only being 8-minutes, the short still interests people to this day due to its original look, still relevant jokes, and curiosity of What Could Have Been.
A pitch presentation from 2006 has been preserved here
. The short in its entirety can be viewed here.
A Kitty Bobo Show provides examples of:
- All There in the Manual: The pitch presentation reveals information that gives context to the pilot episode, such as Monkey Carl always being called as such because there also would be another donkey character named Carl, so everyone calls them Monkey Carl and Donkey Carl to keep them apart.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The characters are colours such as yellow, pink, and blue.
- Ambiguously Related: The short stars a cat whose parents are two dogs. It's unclear if dogs can have cats in this universe, if he's adopted, or if one of them is a step-parent. When bringing this cartoon up at a convention panel, Dante Basco
stated that Kitty Bobo was adopted, and this would have been eventually revealed if the show had ever gotten off the ground. - Bait-and-Switch: As Kitty Bobo tries to use his cellphone while biking, he enters a construction site and heads straight towards a ramp created by a plank lying atop some concrete pipes... only to swerve out of the way and crash into a wall instead.
- Big "NO!": Said twice by Kitty Bobo at the end of the pilot when he accidentally gets his cellphone destroyed and when he sees his friends have cellphones of their own.
- A Dog Named "Dog":
- Kitty Bobo is a cat.
- As his name implies, Monkey Carl is a monkey.
- Fingerless Hands: The characters have paws yet can use them like hands.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Kitty Bobo's friends clearly don't like him very much since his very presence just seems to make them grumpy. Maggie in particular hates the idea of having to go to the movies alone with him.
- Full-Name Basis:
- Kitty Bobo is always called by his full name.
- If "Monkey Carl" is his actual full name, then Monkey Carl also counts.
- Furry Female Mane: The female characters have hair but most of the males don't.
- Happily Adopted: Implied. The titular protagonist is a cat whose parents happen to be dogs. Kitty casually calls them on his cellphone in a way that suggests he doesn't care whether or not they're his biological parents.
- The Smurfette Principle: Maggie is the sole woman in Kitty Bobo's group of friends.
- Species Surname: There's a canine character named "Paul Dog".
- Status Cellphone: The pilot's plot revolves around Kitty Bobo buying a new cellphone just when cellphones were becoming mainstream. He spends the entire episode flaunting his phone around and being obnoxious about it.
- Totally Radical: Kitty Bobo has such wonderfully 2000s lines like "I figured it'd be cool to have so I could, like, call my homies when I'm on the go". Considering Kitty Bobo's tryhard personality, it might be intentionally ironic.
- World of Funny Animals: The short takes place in a world populated by anthropomorphic animals.
