Trivia / Phantom Investigators

• Acclaimed Flop: The show did very well with critics and audiences. But because it wasn't bringing in high enough ratings with Kids WB's desired demographic of young boys, it was quickly removed from the schedule before the season ended.
• Acting for Two:
  • Jessica Gee played both Daemona's mom and grandmother.
  • Stephen Holman played Jinxie and Wad.
• All There in the Manual: Some additional information about the characters that never got officially stated in the episodes were given out in official press releases (such as this article) and the show's (now defunct) official website:
  • Kira lives in the upscale Pacific Heights, her dad is a cop and her mom is a lawyer, and they don't exactly approve of her hanging out with the "wrong crowd".
  • Casey lives in a rough neighborhood in the Mission district, his dad is a teacher at their school who spends so much time helping out the other kids that he barely has time for his son, and his mom is out of the picture.
  • Jericho has Hippie Parents (which had already been hinted at in "From Egypt With Love") and lives on a commune in Pacifica, and claims he developed his telekinetic powers because he was too lazy to do his chores.
• All There in the Script: According to the storyboards for "Ghosts On Film", Daemona's dad's first name is Sam. This isn't said onscreen in the series (Daemona's mom's scenes weren't included on the linked site, so while she may have a name in the script, it's unknown).
• Blooper: In "The Fifth PI", there's a brief shot in the scene where Jericho and Casey introduce Joey to the gang where Daemona, in-uniform, has her messy hair from her casual outfit.
• Children Voicing Children: Similarly to the studio's previous series Life With Loopy, all four main characters were played by kids.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Since it was a Kids WB show, a few websites and articles list the show as being produced by Warner Bros. Animation. While it did air on The WB and the show was made for the network, Sony produced it and owns the show.
• Creator Couple: The show's creators, Stephen Holman and Josephine T. Huang, are married in real life.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Stephen Holman's favorite episodes were "Haunted Dreams", "Omega Pizza Pi", and "Ghosts On Film".
• Descended Creator: Stephen Holman played Jinxie and Wad, as well as the dog groomer in "Were-Dog".
• Domestic-Only Cartoon
• Early Draft Tie-In: Daemona's costume and mask were initially going to be lime green instead of the darker green used in the final product; the original version was used on Carl's Jr.'s toys of her.
• Fandom Life Cycle: Initially a Stage 0a (obscurity) due to only being on the air for a few weeks, not having any official home media release or reruns, and then almost impossible to find online for years. Eventually it ended up in-between Stages 1 and 2; still being relatively obscure with a small fandom, but dedicated and sizeable enough for it to have a small cult following. Notably it didn't go up a level until about fifteen years after it originally aired, as the entire series didn't surface online until the mid-to-late 2010s.
• In Memoriam: "Haunted Dreams" is dedicated to animator Billy Greene.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The show was never reran after its original airing, and never received an official home media release of any kind. It had once been legally available via Yahoo Australia's online streaming service PLUS7 in 2015 along with a few other Sony-produced kids' shows, but has since been removed. Episodes used to be on YouTube, however they were taken down by Sony in 2015. The show's studio, (W)Holesome Products, Inc., has posted two episodes on their Vimeo account, and eventually the rest of the series was uploaded to KissCartoon and other cartoon streaming sites in October 2016.
• The Merch: While the show didn't get a large amount (read: almost none) due to its very short run, it did gain a set of toys sold at Carl's Jr. in 2002...which accidentally got shipped early, causing them to be released months before the show even premiered.
• Missing Episode: Kids WB stopped airing the show after six episodes, leaving "Skating The Plank", "From Egypt With Love", "Haunted Dreams", "The Fifth P.I.", "Ghosts On Film", "Thank Wad", and "Secrets Exposed!" unaired in the US. They all aired overseas and "Haunted Dreams" (under the name "Haunted Train Ride"; possibly an early title) and "Ghosts On Film" were uploaded to the studio's Vimeo in 2014.
• No Export for You: Inverted. The remaining seven episodes that Kids WB didn't air all premiered overseas, but never got shown anywhere in the United States. Making it an example of episodes being left unaired in its own country of origin. The show was also never aired in the United Kingdom, Japan, or Germany.
• One-Book Author: None of the show's four main voice actors pursued voice acting after the show, and Phantom Investigators was their only animated television credit. Amber Ross's (Kira) only other credit was a voice in a Coca-Cola ad from 1998, Aleksander Kocev (Jericho) narrated a few Hot Wheels ads in 2000 and eventually became a filmmaker who does film effects, Andrew Decker (Casey) did a few live-action short films in the early 2000s, and Courtney Vineys (Daemona) had a bit role in the short-lived sitcom The O'Keefes and then mainly stuck to stagework. She re-emerged in 2017 as the voice of Ti'zo in the video game Pyre, followed by Dusa and Aphrodite in Hades.
• Out of Holiday Episode: "The Year Of The Snake" takes place around Chinese New Year's Day, which is in January or February depending on the lunar calendar of the year. The episode aired in June.
• Out of Order: Not only did Kids WB not air every episode, but they also shuffled up the episode order. The ninth episode ("The Year Of The Snake") aired second, and then the seventh ("Stall Of Doom"), eighth ("Were-Dog"), fourth ("Birthday Presence"), and third ("Omega Pizza Pi") episodes aired in that order before the show was dropped. "Birthday Presence" was listed as being the first episode to air before the premiere (and was the episode given to critics for screening), however The WB instead switched it out with the actual first episode, "Demon Driver", at the last minute.
• Production Posse: The show already having most of the Life With Loopy staff working on it as well, Danielle Judovits, the voice of Loopy herself, came back to play Darnelle in "Stall Of Doom" and Terri in "Were-Dog".
• Prop Recycling: If one looks closely inside Kira's locker in "Stall Of Doom", one of Larry's Bugsteak posters from Life With Loopy can be seen.
  • The dog from "Loopy And The Flu-Bug" appears in a cage in "Were-Dog".
  • A few more of Larry's posters can be seen in Brad's room in "Birthday Presence".
  • The alien (and his spaceship) from "Secret Agent Mom" and the Flu-Bug from "Loopy And The Flu-Bug" are shown among the other movie props in "Ghosts On Film".
  • The Coopers' couch showed up in the janitor's closet in "Stall Of Doom".
• Real-Life Relative: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Daemona and Casey are voiced by siblings Gaby Ugarte and Víctor Ugarte, respectively.
• Screwed by the Network: According to a podcast with co-creator Stephen Holman, the show was doing very well in its timeslot, outperforming everything else in the 6-11 demographic at the time. What happened was that the show was starting to do better with girls than boys. Kids WB, not wanting to lose its status as the number-one network with young boys, quickly replaced the show with The Powerpuff Girls and then X-Men: Evolution six episodes in (the remaining episodes only aired overseas). What's especially frustrating is that he also confirmed that Kids WB actually wanted to gain more female viewers- they got exactly what they wanted and cancelled it anyway.
  • Already adding to that, another podcast revealed that after Kids' WB canceled the show, Sony cut the funding, ultimately ending any chance of the show getting rescued by another network and channel hopping.
• She Also Did: Suzanne Collins, the author of The Hunger Games, worked on the story for "Omega Pizza Pi".
• Short Run in Peru: The remaining episodes of the series made their debut in Canada first on Teletoon. Until they were eventually uploaded to the internet almost fifteen years later, they had never seen the light of day in America.
• Technology Marches On: While downplayed, the characters having pagers, VCRs and VHS tapes being prominent in "Ghosts On Film", and a reference that "Y2K came and went" in the same episode place the show in the early 2000s.
• Unspecified Role Credit: The voices of the Phantom Investigators themselves were credited as "Starring", with the supporting cast of the episode listed as "Also starring", with none of their characters being credited with them. Frustratingly, Kids' WB seemed to only use two sets of credits, so the "also starring" credits would be incorrect with who actually did voices in the episode.
• Voices in One Room: Only for the first episode; the rest of the series had the voice actors record their lines seperately.
• What Could Have Been: The show was originally going to be named Daemona Prune before Kids' WB suggested the staff change it.
  • Early articles for the show have Daemona's real name being "Prunella Daemon", while "Daemona Prune" would be her aliases while she was on the job. This was changed after Kids' WB wanted the show's name changed (see above) and in the show itself, Daemona Prune is her real name.
  • Initially, Daemona had a skull and crossbones on her costume, which remained on her blocking puppet◊. She lacks it in the show. She also has typcial cartoony black-on-white eyes rather than blue; though this may have been a placeholder.
  • Another early press release shows that Kira's original name was Nakisha. According to Josephine T. Huang, her name was changed as per request by Kids' WB, who wanted a shorter, "snappier" name.
  • Daemona's Carl's Jr. toy comes with a crystal ball that she would've used in the series. Whether this was planned for a second season or dropped during production on the first season is unknown.
  • The title sequence was almost completely different, initially going to use all-original animation instead of a montage of episode clips with some new animation. An early storyboard◊ for the show's opening has a different ending shot where the gang are all standing up; in the final version they're sitting on Daemona's couch. Casey also appears taller and slimmer than he is in the series.
  • Some early images show Casey with black hair (rendered as dark blue) instead of brown.
  • As seen in the early title sequence storyboard and some press releases when the show was still in early stages of development, the gang were to have been in high school instead of junior high.
  • In early promotional images, Daemona has a slightly different costume that's a lighter shade of green◊.
  • As stated in the first linked article, Sony had made a toy deal for the show before it premiered. With the show's early cancellation, none of the toys ever hit shelves (and any prototypes that may have been made at that point were most likely destroyed).
  • Early in production, Daemona was to have inherited her Phantom Investigator gadgets and books from her great-grandmother; eventually it was changed to her grandmother. However a reference to her inheriting her psychic amplifier from her "great-grandma" accidentally remained unchanged in the script for "Haunted Dreams".
  • "Birthday Presence" was scheduled to air first on Kids' WB, despite being the fourth episode. Due to it being the episode critics were given to screen, reviews for the show around it's premiere referred to it instead of "Demon Driver", the actual first episode. Eventually Kids' WB decided to air "Demon Driver" first at the last minute.
  • Daemona's Kitschy Local Commercial in "Ghosts On Film" was going to be longer, and would've ended with Daemona saying one more line, Casey waving at the camera, and Kira (who was directing) scolding him off-screen for ruining her shot. This was shortened for time.
• Working Title: The show was initially titled Daemona Prune before it's final name.
  • "Haunted Train Ride" for "Haunted Dreams". The studio ended up using its former name on their Vimeo.