August 16, 1999 (1999-08-16) – July 30, 2004 (2004-07-30)
Rocket Power is an American animated television series created by Arlene Klasky and Gábor Csupó and produced by Klasky Csupo and Nickelodeon Animation Studio for Nickelodeon. The show centers on the daily lives of Otto, Reggie, Twister and Sam, four pre-adolescent children with an interest in extreme sports such as skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding while also getting into numerous situations. The characters live in the fictional beach town of Ocean Shores, California.
The series aired on Nickelodeon from August 16, 1999 to July 30, 2004.[1]
Premise
Rocket Power revolves around the day-to-day zany hijinks of a gang of four young and loyal friends; the adventurous and vain sports enthusiast and perfectionist Oswald "Otto" Rocket; his tomboyish and kind-hearted older sister Regina "Reggie" Rocket; Otto's dim-witted but loyal best friend and videographer Maurice "Twister" Rodriguez; and the brainy techno whiz kid and relative newcomer Sam "Squid" Dullard — who live in the fictional Southern California beach community of Ocean Shores where they spend their free time playing varied extreme sports (such as Skateboarding, Surfing, Snowboarding, Biking, Street Hockey, etc.), getting into various situations and overcoming the trials and challenges of growing up.[2]
Otto and Reggie live with their widowed strict but loving father and veteran surfer, Ray "Raymundo" Rocket, who along with his best friend and business partner, Tito Makani, owns and operates the Shore Shack, a combination burger joint and surfshop where the gang usually hang out. In most episodes, they get involved in competitions, but end up learning their friendship is more important than winning.
Characters
Main Characters
From left to right: Otto, Reggie, Sam, Twister.
Oswald "Otto" Rocket (voiced by Joseph Ashton): The self-appointed and brazen leader of the gang. Otto is a skilled, courageous, egotistical and highly competitive extreme-sports enthusiast who is dedicated to the pursuit of athletic perfection in the hopes of achieving his ambition of becoming a world-famous athlete and in turn becoming one of the world's greatest action-sports superstars of all time. While he can be short-tempered and selfish at times, Otto is a kind and loyal person at heart and will always help his friends and family when they need it most. Although nothing was confirmed or denied, it has been implied that Otto had developed mutually romantic feelings with Lars and Twister's ladylike cousin, Clio.
Regina "Reggie" Rocket (voiced by Shayna Fox): Otto's tomboyish and sassy older sister. Reggie is an aspiring publisher and author who writes and owns The 'Zine, a blog-type magazine that covers everything from extreme sports to "kid politics." Reggie is also an all-star athlete like her talented brother and while she is no less skillful and competitive as him, she has a calmer disposition and possesses greater maturity. Reggie tends to be the most sensible and sympathetic member of the gang and she also tends to be the voice of reason within the gang.
Maurice "Twister" Rodriguez (voiced by Ulysses Cuadra in Seasons 1–3; Gilbert Leal in Season 4): Otto's best friend and right-hand man. Twister is not exactly known for his intelligence as not only is he somewhat dim-witted and oblivious, but he also has quite a gullibility streak. But despite his lack of intelligence, Twister has proven that he can be quite clever at times, can keep up with Otto and Reggie in sports and has a real knack for videography and art. He hates being called by his real name and is constantly tormented by his older brother and local bully, Lars.
Sam "Squid" Dullard (voiced by Sam Saletta in Season 1; Gary LeRoi Gray in Seasons 2–3; Sean Marquette in Season 4): A Hutchinson, Kansas native and relative newcomer. Sam is nowhere near as athletically gifted as Otto, Reggie and Twister and is usually the most clumsy and timid member of the gang. But what Sam lacks in athletic abilities and self-confidence, he makes up for with his vastly superior intellect, his expert computer programming and electrical engineering skills, and being a very impressive goaltender whenever he plays street hockey.
Ray "Raymundo" Rocket (voiced by John Kassir): Raymundo is Otto and Reggie's widowed strict but loving forty-something father, legendary surfer and is the owner and operator of a combination burger joint and surf shop called the Shore Shack. He drives a 1962 MercuryWoodiewagon and has developed a fear of dogs after watching the movie Attack of the 50 Ft. Poodles back when he was just a kid.
Tito Makani (voiced by Ray Bumatai): Tito is a retired Hawaiian surfer and self-designed philosopher who not only works side by side with Raymundo to help him run the Shore Shack, but he also provides the gang with helpful advice and valuable life lessons with his own unique brand of wisdom. He usually starts his advice with "Like the ancient Hawaiians say..." Tito has a young nephew named Keoni who occasionally visits Ocean Shores from the Hawaiian Islands to see him.
Recurring Characters
Lars Rodriguez (voiced by Lombardo Boyar): Lars is Twister's delinquent teenage brother who hassles the gang from time to time, bullies Twister on a regular basis and generally spends his free time being up to no good. He is also an extremely competitive athlete and is Otto's biggest competitive and social rival. Even though he makes Twister's life miserable, Lars has shown that he really does care about him deep down and would never want anything bad to happen to him. Lars is often accompanied by his three goons: Pi Piston, Sputz Ringley and Animal.
Pi Piston (voiced by Jason Spisak), Sputz Ringley (voiced by Dominic Armato and Jason Spisak) and Animal (voiced by Sam Saletta and John Kassir): Pi Piston, Sputz Ringley and Animal are Lars' friends and loyal henchmen. Pi is often the voice of reason of the group while Sputz is known for having a speech impediment and speaking in an incomprehensible language. Animal does not officially join the group until the second season and is usually silent.
Eddie Valentine (voiced by Jordan Blake Warkol): The gothic and self-proclaimed "Prince of the Netherworld" is an occasional participant in the gang's activities and a frequent target of Lars' bullying.
Oliver Van Rossum (voiced by David Gallagher): Oliver is a highly intelligent kid who at first is Sam's rival in smarts, but eventually becomes a close friend of the gang along with Eddie.
Officer Shirley (voiced by CCH Pounder in Season 1; Denise Dowse in Seasons 2–4): A seldom-seen police officer who does what she can in order to try to keep the peace. Not so much the long arm of the law but rather the harsh word of the law as Officer Shirley keeps the kids of Ocean Shores in line with equal amounts of tough talk and niceness. She enjoys a slightly flirtatious friendship with Raymundo to whom she often refers to as "Big Ray."
Trish and Sherry (both voiced by Lauren Tom): Trish and Sherry are Reggie's female friends, fellow athletes and members of the California All-State Girls' Beach Volleyball Team. They occasionally appear to join in on the gang's activities and have played important roles in several episodes.
Mackenzie Benders (voiced by Rosslynn Taylor-Jordan): A tough-as-nails five-year-old girl.
Conroy Blanc (voiced by Obba Babatundé): The park manager of the Madtown Skate Park.
Merv (voiced by Henry Gibson) and Violet Stimpleton (voiced by Edie McClurg): The Rockets' next-door neighbors.
Lieutenant Tice Ryan (voiced by Dale Dye): An Ocean Shores lifeguard who also works as an emergency services coordinator. He is skilled at his jobs and can often be seen with a megaphone barking orders. Lieutenant Tice is shown to be nice and fair, but takes his job very seriously.
Keoni Makani (voiced by Matthew Stephen Liu): Tito's young nephew who occasionally visits Ocean Shores from the Hawaiian Islands to spend time with his uncle. He is a good school student and is shown to be as good an athlete as Otto and the gang.
Clio Rodriguez (voiced by Jamie Maria Cronin): Twister's older cousin who is about Reggie's age. Clio is the exact opposite of Reggie in the sense that she is more "girly." Because she openly imposed on Reggie with her beliefs on how girls should act, Reggie goes on the defense. In the first episode where they interact, Clio and Reggie challenge each other to switch their respective competitions and by the end, the girls realize they are not so different from each other and form a strong friendship after Clio proved herself to be surprisingly good at ice hockey and Reggie proved herself to be surprisingly good at figure skating. At the end of the last episode where Clio appears, there is a scene implying the start of a budding romance between her and Otto.
Raoul (voiced by Carlos Alazraqui) and Sandy Rodriguez (voiced by Dyana Ortelli): The mother and father of Twister and Lars Rodriguez and the aunt and uncle of Clio and Scotty.
Paula Dullard (voiced by Jennifer Hale): The mother of Sam Dullard and the ex-wife of Sam's father, Doug Dullard.
Danielle (voiced by Shayna Fox): Otto and Reggie's deceased mother. She apparently died from a tragic surfing accident in Hawaii. Otto and Reggie were very young at the time. This is revealed in Rocket Power: Island of the Menehune.
A VHS tape titled Maxing Out was released by Nickelodeon and Paramount Home Entertainment on August 7, 2001 containing five episodes.[4] On July 27, 2004, Nickelodeon and Paramount Home Entertainment also released four episodes of the series on the Island of the Menehune VHS and DVD.[5] Other episodes were featured on multiple Nickelodeon compilation VHS tapes and DVDs such as Nickelodeon Super Toons, Nicktoons Christmas, Nicktoons Halloween and Nickstravaganza! 2.
Nickelodeon and Amazon.com teamed up to release Rocket Power and other Nick shows on manufacture-on-demand DVD-R discs available exclusively through Amazon.com's CreateSpace arm. The Rocket Power manufacture-on-demand DVD-R discs have since been discontinued.
Rocket Power premiered on Nickelodeon on August 16, 1999 and its final episode (a television movie called "The Big Day") aired on July 30, 2004. Reruns were then aired on the channel until October 7, 2011.
Nicktoons aired the series from 2002 to 2010. Nick GAS also aired the series from 2003 to 2005. The series reran on TeenNick's former block NickRewind (formerly The '90s Are All That, The Splat and NickSplat) from 2014 to 2017.
Other projects
Other projects related to Rocket Power and developed under the aegis of Klasky-Csupo and/or Nickelodeon have included Rocket Power: Beach Bandits, and Maximum Rocket Power Live: The Battle for Madtown Park, a live-action extreme-sports dramatic arena play that briefly toured the U.S. Midwest in the spring of 2002 before being canceled over low ticket sales (it had originally been scheduled to tour about 40 cities all over the U.S., all the way into fall).
In 2002, Nickelodeon also aired the Maximum Rocket Power Games, an extreme-sports competition inspired by the series which pits three teams consisting of professional athletes competing alongside aspiring youth athletes in a series of events. The special was co-hosted by professional skateboarder Andy Macdonald.[16]
The soundtrack album to Rocket Power was released on February 6, 2002. It is officially the soundtrack to the television filmRocket Power: Race Across New Zealand.
Common Sense Media give the series a three out of five stars, writing "Parents need to know that watching this show just might inspire future X-games participation. The kids – never without a skateboard, bike, hockey stick, or surfboard – perform incredible stunts, seemingly without risk of injury. A boy with less sports ability than the others shows kids that it's OK to need a lot of practice and only take the risks you're personally comfortable with."[22]
^Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Company. pp. 674–675. ISBN978-1476665993.
