Making Fiends Web Series Review

(Warning!: There is a spoiler for episode 5 of season 1 in this review. Proceed with caution if you care about spoilers for episodes of episodic series such as this one.)

I'm sure we all have it: That one show you watched (and possibly loved) during your childhood that you never realized exactly how weird it was until you thought about it again. What, exactly, makes that show weird, though? Is it the dark humor this show full of monsters contains, or is it the method from which the aforementioned monsters take form? Is it perhaps both? Whatever the case may be, there was a show I know of that used to air on Nicktoons (known as Nicktoons Network at the time) that fits all of those criteria, and because of how short of a time it lasted before being unfortunately canceled, I might as well revisit it to see how it holds up.... However, I'd first like to see how the web series it's adapted from holds up.

Ladies and gentlemen, fiends of all shapes and sizes (yes, that includes you, giant cat), I present to you my review of the animated web series, "Making Fiends".

The premise of Making Fiends is quite simple, actually. There is an evil, little girl named Vendetta (which, come to think of it, is quite an ironic name for her), who, through methods akin to baking, can create monstrous beings known as fiends; together with these fiends, she terrorizes her small town of Clamburg and keeps the townsfolk ruined under her iron fist. One day, another little girl, Charlotte, moves to Clamburg and expresses an instant desire to become Vendetta's friend; to say the feeling isn't mutual, however, is a grave understatement. Instantly becoming annoyed by her cheerful attitude and constant singing, Vendetta constantly plots Charlotte's demise using her fiends, but ultimately, Charlotte's naivete causes her to befriend the fiend or somehow otherwise save her own life, much to Vendetta's growing frustration. To give an abridgment of the basic plot of this series....

(Just for the record, this is the theme song for the TV version, because I couldn't find a raw video of the web version's theme song. It still does the job of abridging the basic plot, though, so it's fine.)

Now, I don't want to say too many negative things about this series, since it was a web series made about a decade and a half ago; Making Fiends actually being my favorite show for some time back when I was in third grade also has something to do with it, but at the same time, I want to take the nostalgia glasses off so I can give this series a fair review. With all of that being said, the story is quite formulaic; Charlotte somehow annoys Vendetta, Vendetta creates a fiend to somehow destroy her, and Charlotte somehow stops the fiend (mostly by befriending it). Rinse and repeat, and all of that kind of stuff. However, I will give the story credit where credit is due; while the story is formulaic, the creator of the series, Amy Winfrey, knows when to mix an episode's plot up and in exactly what way it should be mixed up. This series is not short on humor, either; while the humor is quite dark (Vendetta basically told Charlotte to drink bleach at one point), it's still kind of amusing in a strange way. If I had to pick a favorite episode in this series, it'd probably be episode 5, the Halloween episode; Charlotte dressing up as Vendetta is both funny and kind of creepy, and the jokes were hilarious, especially a certain argument toward the end of the episode between Vendetta and the "fiend of the day". ("Give me sugar cookies!" "No, you want blood!" "SUGAR COOKIES!")

The characters.... Oh dear Lord, what do I say about the characters? Well, first off, despite not liking her so much in the past because of my general dislike for evil characters, I actually liked Vendetta this time around; she was perhaps the most entertaining character in the series, with her constant frustration with Charlotte and how creative her fiends are. Then, we've got Charlotte, her enemy on Vendetta's side and best friend on Charlotte's side. Although I did like her in the past because of my general like for good characters, I've grown an impatience for oblivious characters, and as a result, she's a little annoying for me as an almost-adult. Even so, she does play off of Vendetta quite well, and although Vendetta doesn't like it, I thought her singing voice was kind of pretty; thus, I can ultimately never truly hate Charlotte. As for the other characters, however, I can't really say much about them; they all have their own gimmicks going on for them, such as Marvin with his constant exclaims of "My (insert thing here)!" However, that's pretty much it; we never really get to know them as characters outside of that.

As I said earlier in my review, I don't want to say too many negative things about this series, but I honestly don't know how to feel about the animation. I mean, for a web cartoon made from 2003 to 2005 (with a couple of shorts that was released several years after that), the animation is fairly good, and really, who am I - an almost-adult who hasn't gotten the chance to try web animation for herself yet - to judge? I guess it just bothered me a bit because I'm used to the higher-budget animation of anime and TV cartoons. The voice acting is also okay for a web series made from 2003 to 2005, but there was just something about some aspects of the voice acting, such as the screams of various characters, that just felt off; it didn't really sound like they were terrified when they were screaming, you know? The theme song is more of a simplistic version of the video you can find if you scroll up a little bit, but it's still a rather catchy song that captures the main idea of the series nicely.

Overall, Making Fiends is a good animated web series; although I didn't really love it as much as I did as a child, my re-watch of it brought back some good memories. If you like the things in your show dark, from the atmosphere to the comedy, this is the one for you. Now, let me ask you this; do you think I would be able to, once again, befriend the TV version of this series?

(Click here for my review of the TV series!)