Making Fiends (TV series)

Lore & Background

The series was created by former South Park animator Amy Winfrey, who also voiced Charlotte and her grandmother Charlene. Character designer Aglaia Mortcheva voiced Vendetta. All voice actors from the web series reprised their roles, with the addition of Dave Wasson, creator of Time Squad, as a writer and storyboard artist. The show was produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio, with animation outsourced to Cyber Chicken Animation Studio in South Korea and DQ Entertainment Limited in India. The writing team consisted of only four people: Winfrey, Peter Merryman, Madellaine Paxson, and Matt Negrete.

Reader's Guide

Making Fiends is significant as Nickelodeon's first animated series based on a web series, marking an early crossover between internet and television animation. The show received generally favorable reviews, with critics praising its dark humor and simple, scribbly animation style. It was the highest-rated original program on Nicktoons Network at one point, despite premiering with little promotion. The series was cancelled after one season, but reruns continued until late 2016. Its legacy includes demonstrating how independent web cartoons could transition to television, and it remains a cult favorite for its unique blend of cheerful optimism and villainous failure.

Did You Know?

• The series was Nickelodeon's first animated series to be based on a web series.
• Amy Winfrey wrote all the songs featured on the show, with production by composer Ego Plum.
• The show's colors intentionally go outside the outlines as a stylistic choice.
• A daughter of a Nickelodeon employee, who was a fan of the web series, showed it to other employees, leading to the TV adaptation.

From Web Page to Television

The path from Amy Winfrey's independent web cartoon to a Nickelodeon-produced television miniseries was neither quick nor straightforward. In early 2004, Nickelodeon began negotiations with Winfrey to develop the property into a half-hour program. During the lengthy development window, Winfrey kept producing new web episodes on her own and even sold related merchandise through a personal online souvenir shop. In 2006, Nickelodeon started distributing the web cartoons as streaming video on their TurboNick platform and later made them available as iTunes podcasts. The series was officially picked up for a first television season in late 2006, with production commencing in January 2007. However, the broadcast plans shifted: Nickelodeon cancelled its intention to air the show on its main channel and instead handed it to its sister network, Nicktoons Network, alongside Random! Cartoons. The miniseries ultimately premiered on October 4, 2008, and concluded on November 1 of that same year, receiving generally favorable critical reviews.

A Tiny Writing Room and Global Animation

The creative backbone of Making Fiends was deliberately small. The entire writing team consisted of just four individuals: creator Amy Winfrey, Peter Merryman, Madellaine Paxson, and Matt Negrete. Their studio even featured a dedicated thinking couch where new ideas could be brainstormed and developed. While the writing and creative direction stayed in-house, the actual animation work was outsourced internationally to Cyber Chicken Animation Studio in South Korea and DQ Entertainment Limited in India. Both the web and television versions relied on Adobe Flash, but the TV production benefited from a genuine cable-network budget, resulting in smoother animation and a more vivid color palette. The character designs carried over from the web series with minor refinements—cleaner lines and brighter eyes—though the signature quirk of colors bleeding outside outlines was preserved. Winfrey herself voiced Charlotte and her grandmother Charlene, while character designer Aglaia Mortcheva lent her voice to Vendetta.

The Eternal Struggle of Clamburg

At the heart of the series is a conflict that never truly resolves. Vendetta, a malevolent green girl, has plunged the once-thriving coastal town of Clamburg into a state of perpetual dread, with shuttered storefronts and a populace living under the surveillance of her fiends—hideous creatures she unleashes to enforce her reign. Charlotte, an impossibly cheerful new student at Mu Elementary School in classroom 4, arrives determined to make friends and immediately latches onto Vendetta. Her saccharine obliviousness renders her completely immune to the terrors Vendetta conjures, and she even transforms some fiends into helpful companions. Charlotte's astronaut parents are away on space missions, though dialogue strongly implies they are actually dead; she lives with her grandmother Charlene. Vendetta's own parents, Violetta and Viktor, are so tiny they reside in a hamster cage. Across the six-episode run, residents of Clamburg—including Vendetta's parents—begin to fear Charlotte more than they fear Vendetta herself, yet the core tension between the two girls remains unresolved by each episode's end.

A Home-Made Soundtrack

The musical identity of Making Fiends is as distinctive as its animation. Creator Amy Winfrey personally wrote every song featured in the series. After recording a demo track for each piece, the recordings were passed to series composer Ego Plum for full production. Plum is noted for incorporating unconventional sounds and instruments into his arrangements—dripping water, toy pianos, baby rattles, plastic xylophones, and at one point, a live goat. On occasion, other members of the Making Fiends crew would pitch in to play various instruments, lending the score a deliberately home-made quality that echoed the feel of the original web series. This approach reinforced the show's handmade, intimate aesthetic and distinguished its sound from the more polished scores typical of cable-network animation. The result was a musical landscape that felt both whimsical and slightly unsettling, perfectly matching the show's blend of cheerfulness and creeping dread.

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