Friday, June 10, 2022

Bad TV: Phantom Investigators (2002)

 If this was Kids' WB!'s idea of summer entertainment in 2002, someone sold them a bill of goods.

Phantom Investigators was, in fact, a summer replacement series that lasted just 13 weeks (May-August), and was a mix of stop motion animation, puppets, and a hint of live-action. The faces were paper cutouts, not too dissimilar to Angela Anaconda, but nowhere near the genius of South Park. Basically, this show, since it was from Columbia-Tri-Star (Sony), aspired to be a junior version of The Real Ghostbusters, but minus the gadgets and boss animation. Epic fail!

Methinks WB intended this for the fall of 2001, but held it to the summer of '02 for reasons only they know. 

Here is the intro:


Small wonder this hasn't seen the light of day since cancellation.

Rating: D-.

3 comments:

Goldstar said...

Fun Fact: Phantom Investigators was made by the same studio that made the "Life with Loopy" segments on Nickelodeon's Kablam!

Silverstar said...

Phantom Investigators at least had an interesting origin: the creators were fans of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, but were disappointed that the ghosts always turned out to be someone like Old Man Jenkins in a rubber costume; they wanted to make a show where the ghosts and ghouls were real, so I guess the idea was to make something akin to Scooby-Doo meets The Real Ghostbusters. But yeah, the execution left something to be desired.

hobbyfan said...

The creators also contributed to Liquid Television's Joe Normal segments. Someone must've thought they were actual geniuses.