Maxie's World was a 1989 Animated Anthology series released by Claster Television, inc. and producted by DIC Entertainment. Airing in syndication in the United States, the show served as the umbrella for three series. In addition to Maxie's World (the lead series), the show also included rebroadcasts of two series produced earlier in the 1980s: Beverly Hills Teens and the animated version of Punky Brewster.
- The title cartoon, based on the Maxie line of dolls produced by Hasbro (as a competitor to Mattel's Barbie). The title character was a beautiful 17-year-old high school senior who was Miss Everything at Surfside High School (in an unnamed community, presumably in southern California or Florida) who also produced her own daily afternoon TV talk show. Maxie's World was the only new series of the bunch.
- Beverly Hills Teens, a 1987 series featuring exaggeratedly wealthy teenagers from Beverly Hills, California.
- Punky Brewster, the 1985-1986 animated adaptation of the popular NBC Dom Com series starring Soleil Moon Frye in the title role. The only non-DIC Entertainment series of the bunch, Punky Brewster was produced by Ruby-Spears Productions.
The cartoons were shown on a rotating basis, with Maxie getting multiple airings each week.
While distributed nationally during the 1989-1990 season, reruns continued to be aired by local stations throughout the 1990s. All three shows had selected episodes released on VHS to the home video network, but as for DVD, Maxie's World wasn't released until October 2015... Punky Brewster and Beverly Hills Teens were both available on DVD as early as 2013.
Maxie's World contains examples of:
- Adaptation Dye-Job: In the Beverly Hills Teens crossover, Larke is a brunette and Bianca is a blonde.
- A Day in the Limelight: Jeri gets one in "Do Or Diary". Maxie and friends don't appear until a short gag at the very end.
- Doo-Wop Progression: The prom dress song from "Two Guys for Every Girl".
- No Ending: Some episodes just...stop.
- Off to See the Wizard: The episode "Surfside Over The Rainbow" had Maxie dreaming a Wizard Of Oz spoof, revised for the southern California setting (Maxie wearing sapphire sneakers instead of ruby slippers, a Lifeguard, Beach Bully and Cowardly Shark in place of the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion, etc.)
- On the Next: One of the first western animation examples since The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. It even had a preview for the first episode at the end of the last.
- Once an Episode: Each story had at least one original song, which was usually played in the background.
- Rearrange the Song: The intro to Beverly Hills Teens was shortened to approximately 20 seconds.
- Show Within a Show: Maxie hosts a talk show called "Maxie's World".
- Three Shorts: Followed the classic A-B-A, with the Punky Brewster and Beverly Hills Teens shorts being rotated.
- Two Shorts: A total of 32 Maxie's World stories were made, which can be shown as 16 half-hour shows with this format.
- Vacation Crossover: There was a crossover with Beverly Hills Teens when the characters from the latter dropped in for some friendly charity competition on a beach.
- Very Special Episode: The earliest of these is ”Hero Word-ship", which dealt with a macho action movie star who Never Learned to Read, and dropped out of school. Eventually, more and more of these started showing up near the end of the series, including "The Phantom Artists", which dealt with graffiti (as an act of vandalism), "The Five Finger Discount", which dealt with stealing note (or to be exact, shoplifting), "Fat Chance", which dealt with eating disorders, "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do", which dealt with divorce, and "Ashes to Ashley", which talks about smoking.
- Weight Woe: In "Fat Chance", Ashley becomes obsessed with her weight.
- You Are Grounded!: After finishing talking about her first date with Rob, Maxie states the next one was six months later... that's how long Rob was grounded when his father saw what happened to the car.
