The Problem Solverz

For the episode of the television series 30 Rock, see The Problem Solvers.

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The Problem Solverz

Genre:

Comedy
Mystery

Created by:

Ben Jones

Written by:

Eric Kaplan
Michael Yank
Dave Tennant
Ryan Levin

Directed by:

Ben Jones

Voices of:

Ben Jones
Kyle Kaplan
John DiMaggio

Composer(s):

Ben Jones

Country of origin:

United States

Language(s):

English

No. of seasons:

2

No. of episodes:

26

Production

Executive producer(s):

Ben Jones

Producer(s):

Nate Funaro

Running time:

11 minutes

Production company(s):

Neon Knome pilot:
PFFR Productions
Williams Street
TV series:
Mirari Films
Cartoon Network Studios

Distributor:

Warner Bros. Television Distribution

Broadcast

First aired:

April 4, 2011

Last aired:

March 30, 2013

The Problem Solverz is an American animated television series that aired on Cartoon Network. Created by Ben Jones, it follows Alfe, Roba, and Horace, a group of detectives in their troubled town, Farboro.

The aforementioned characters were designed while Jones attended college in the 1990s; he later founded the art collective Paper Rad with Jessica and Jacob Ciocci. The characters were featured in Jones' and the collective's animations and comics before the creator pitched a pilot to Adult Swim featuring the trio. The network's executives referred Jones to Cartoon Network, who commissioned a series featuring the same characters. The series was produced in Adobe Flash, with around fifteen animators employed at Cartoon Network Studios and the co-production of Mirari Films.

The Problem Solverz was first aired on April 4, 2011. The first season consisted of eighteen episodes, concluding on September 29, 2011. A second and final season was released exclusively on Netflix in 2013.

Plot[]

File:Main characters of The Problem Solverz.png

From left to right: Horace, Alfe, and Roba, the main characters of the series

The series follows the eponymous detectives Alfe (Ben Jones), Roba (also Jones), and Horace (Kyle Kaplan). The trio take up solving, and sometimes creating, the numerous problems that plague their town, Farboro. To their aid is Tux Dog (John DiMaggio), an extremely wealthy dog who helps the Solverz in some of their cases but is just as often the source of their problems.

Alfe (pronounced Alfé) is a large, fluffy, man–dog–anteater found and raised by Horace when both were young. He loves devouring large quantities of food, especially pizza and hamburgers, and acts impulsively during missions. Roba, Horace's twin brother and cyborg, is the smartest member of the group, but he suffers from insecurity and anxiety. Horace is the calm and collected leader of the team, usually applying common sense with his detective work and caring after Alfe.

Development[]

Conception[]

Growing up in Pittsburgh, creator Ben Jones had an appreciation for comics and animation.^[1]^:21 His father's Macintosh computer served as a vehicle for Jones to create art and influenced his later visual style.^[2] Jones attended the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in the mid-1990s, where he became motivated to launch a project he could adapt to different media.^[1]^:21 This impetus manifested itself in the characters Alfe, Horace, and Roba.^[3] Tux Dog, another principal character, was designed while Jones was in primary school. After his graduation, Jones formed the art collective Paper Rad with Jessica and Jacob Ciocci in 2000. The collective moved that year to Providence, Rhode Island, to participate in the Fort Thunder music venue.^[1]^:21 After the venue's closure in 2001, Jones released animations on the Web using Adobe Flash, with some featuring Alfe.^[1]^:22

Paper Rad later produced animations with the premise of The Problem Solverz but with the three principal characters absent.^[3] The collective's 2006 direct-to-DVD release Trash Talking features a segment called "Gone Cabin Template:Not a typo" in which Alfe, Horace, and Roba appear.^[4] In tandem with these experiments, Jones worked as a television animator on Yo Gabba Gabba! and Wonder Showzen.^[2] The year of the DVD's release, Jones talked to Nick Weidenfeld, then an executive producer at Adult Swim, about an idea for a series of his own.^[3] The result was Neon Knome, a pilot produced by PFFR Productions and Williams Street in 2008, and released on Adult Swim's website two years later as part of a development contest sponsored by Burger King.^[3] After deciding the show's aesthetics were not a good fit for Adult Swim, the network's executives later referred Jones to Cartoon Network, believing his creativity would fit better there. Jones agreed to do business with Cartoon Network on the condition that Alfe be a character on The Problem Solverz.^[1]^:21

Production[]

File:Farboro from The Problem Solverz.jpg

Farboro, the setting of the series, features vibrant art.

Eric Pringle, a veteran of 2D digital animation, was employed as animation director, providing Jones with much technical assistance. Pringle's colleagues from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, another Cartoon Network production, comprised a team of around fifteen full-time animators at the network's studio,^[1]^:22 all working on Apple computers.^[2] Greg Miller was hired as supervising director, Martin Cendreda as technical director, and John Pham with Jon Vermilyea as character designers. Miller is the creator of Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?, another series on the network.^[3] Vermilyea worked also as a character designer on the network's series Adventure Time, while Cendreda, Pham, and Jones all contributed to the anthology comic book Kramers Ergot.^[5] Michael Yank was employed as a writer for most episodes, with Mirari Films' CEO Eric Kaplan supervising the creation of scripts.^[3]

The series was noted for its visual style employing highly saturated colors and varying shapes.^[1]^:21 Jones was inspired by the limited-animated series Roger Ramjet and The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, which he felt employed good character design, cohesiveness, jokes, and timing.^[3] He credited The Problem Solverz as the first seamless use of Flash for television animation, with conceptualization and the end result occurring in the same program. Writing was the longest aspect of production, taking up to several months for the crew to conceive the story and draft a script. Animation was comparatively quicker, with the team delivering work in only a few weeks given the digital approach; Jones felt that the animators could to play to the strengths of the fully digital animation process.^[1]^:22

Voice cast[]

Pamela Adlon – Mr. Creame, Sweetie Creame, Danny, Danny's Mom
James Avery – Go-Seeki Ninja Master, Ninja Master's Dad Head
Eric Bauza – Dork Face, Ale, Alfred
Matt Berry – Drill Sergeant
Wayne Brady – Uncle Chocofus
Tia Carrere – Tara
Andrew Daly [S1-2] and Rob Paulsen [S3-] – Miss May
Grey DeLisle – Candace, Luka
John DiMaggio – Narrator (S01 only), Teacher, The Mewmeoh, Tux Dog, Badcat (in "Puffy Puppiez"), Jerry, Gary
Michael Dorn – Yamir
Rich Fulcher – Lidget
Nika Futterman – Stratch
Mark Hamill – Buddy Huxton, Badcat (in "Badcat")
Amy Hill – Mrs. Konishi
Ben Jones – Alfe, Roba, Balloon Professor, Professor Sugarfish, Rusty Pedals
Kyle Kaplan - Horace
Tom Kenny – Bionic Zombies, The Android-geist
Liz Lee – Additionals (S02E27 only)
Vanessa Marshall – Emily, Yogi, Trudy H.
Daran Norris – J.B. McTooth
Chris Parnell – The Mayor, Eternitron
Bronson Pinchot – AI (Master Artificial Intelligence)
Kevin Michael Richardson – Wendigo
Horatio Sanz – Ralphe
Paul Scheer – Tony Marv, Fungsten
Alia Shawkat – Laura
Kath Soucie – Spiralina
George Takei – Howard Konishi
Jill Talley – Nina, Alpha Alien, Dolls' Kid Owner
Brian Tee – Captain, Granite, Mini Master
Kari Wahlgren – Katrina Rad
Jason Walden – Tommy, JZ, Glam Metal Vampirez
Jaleel White – K-999

Episodes[]

Series overview[]

Season		Episodes	Originally aired
Season		Episodes	First aired	Last aired	Network
	Pilot		2008		Adult Swim
	Shorts	2	2006 (2006)	2007 (2007)	Direct-to-video
	1	18	April 4, 2011 (2011-04-04)	September 29, 2011 (2011-09-29)	Cartoon Network
	2	8	March 30, 2013 (2013-03-30)		Netflix

Shorts[]

The main Problem Solverz characters first appeared in an animated short entitled, "Alfe: Gone Cabin Carzy"Template:Sic. The short was created and produced by the art collective Paper Rad, and was written by Ben Jones. This short was included on their DVD Trash Talking, published by Load Records in 2006.

The second Paper Rad animated short, "Problem Solvers", was released on a stand-alone DVD in 2008 as a bonus for the seventh volume of The Ganzfeld, a periodical book series written by Dan Nadel. Although it does not include the main Problem Solverz characters, it introduces the problem solving concept which Jones would use as the basis of his homonymous Cartoon Network series.

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Title	Written and storyboarded by	Original air date

Pilot[]

The pilot episode "Neon Knome" was produced in 2008^[6] by PFFFR and Williams Street for Adult Swim, and then released in 2010 on their official website^{[citation needed]} as part of the "Big, Über, Network, Sampling" programming block.