Obscure Cartoon Spotlight Episode 3: Life With Louie

H

hottie_247_365

New member
Yeah, I think you guys know what Sunday means, right? If not, it means that I cover another cartoon or anime that was once popular or didn't get much attention. This week, I'm going to cover one cartoon series I received as a request from speedy fast. He requested me to do an entry on the Fox Kids cartoon series, Life With Louie, one cartoon series that was once popular back in it's day (like most Fox Kids shows are).

Life With Louie was an animated comedy/semi-autobiographical cartoon series that first aired (with a Holiday special) back in late 1994 on Fox Kids, standard episodes of Life With Louie started in Fall 1995 and ended in March 1998. Reruns of the series (among other Fox Kids series) were seen on Fox Family (ABC Family when Disney bought it out) until 2001. Life With Louie is among one of many Fox Kids series that fell into dormancy (and obscurity, too) when Disney bought out Fox Family Productions, and hasn't aired on American TV since. Proud Creator: Louie Anderson

Show Premise and Plot courtesy of TV.com, small editing from yours truly.


Fun Facts and Such:

1. Life With Louie has won six awards during its lifespan. It won the Daytime Emmy Awards twice (1997 and 1998), the Humanitas Prize (for Children's Animation) three times (1996, 1997, and 1998), and a 1997 Genesis Award.

2. To prove Life With Louie's popularity back in the second half of the 1990s, the series received several VHS tapes of the show, along with a CD-ROM comic book, and a book series with novels (six of them) inspired upon episodes of the series.

3. Life With Louie did manage to air on Jetix (in some European countries, not the USA) for a while, and obtained several European DVD releases (with three two-episode volumes) as well.

4. Louie Anderson himself has made guest appearances on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Last Comic Standing, HBO Comedy Showcase, among others. Louie Anderson did appear in a number of movies including Ratboy (as Omer Morrison), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (as a Flower Deliveryman), Coming to America (as Maurice), among various others. He also had guest voice roles in Tom Goes to the Mayor, and Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as well.

Read Life With Louie's Wikipedia Article here
IMDb's entry on Louie Anderson here

Don't forget to vote on how you liked the series and give your feedback (along with anything I forgot to add), too. I hope that this was yet another nostalgia trip into the world of obscure animation, and the next two weeks will feature a few scary cartoons (and I refuse to spoil the surprise at the now). Until then, I'll see you guys next week in a different forum section here at rabroad (won't tell you which one because it'll give you clues on what the next obscure cartoon will be). :cool:

This was a request from rabroad member speedy fast.
 
I remember this show. My parents didn't like letting me watch it for some reason. Did it have any adultish humor in it or anything?



I wonder why it never gets aired anywhere.
 
Listen, most kids cartoons in the 1990s did have hidden adult gags (Ren & Stimpy and Rocko's Modern Life are prime examples of this), and Life with Louie was no exception.

Also, most of the Fox Kids shows (except for Power Rangers) no longer air on television (here in America anyway) since Disney bought out Fox Family enterprises.
 
I remember this show and I enjoyed it when I watched it for the first time, although now I don't find it that great. It was a good show, one the entire family could enjoy and there were some funny moments but nothing that memorable.

Reading the episode summaries again, one episode I do remember and still find it pretty funny was "The Masked Chess Boy". I guess this would count as my favorite episode as it is the only one I really remember. :p



From what I remember, it aired in my country on Fox Kids before it became Jetix, and then more recently, for a while on Jetix Play till last year when the channel disappeared when Jetix became Disney Channel.
 
I didn't hate Life With Louie, but I thought it was pretty boring, overall. I thought that Louie's would-be semi love interest Jeannie Harper was kind of cute, but that's about it. The only other thing about the series that sticks out in my memory now is the character of Louie's cantankerous father, whom I felt that the shows' writers relied on far too much as a source of humor. It got to the point where Little Louie seemed like a supporting character in his own show.
 
I know what you are talking about but I really don't anything about the show other than Louie himself. I never really watched Fox kids that much (aside from Digimon, but that came later).
 
I didn't know that was Louie Anderson in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But another TV show Anderson guest starred on was The Jim Henson Hour. He was the guest star in the first episode of that short-lived series.

I now wonder if this show was inspired by/picked-up because of Bobby's World. Both shows are about the childhoods of their stand-up coemdian creators (well, I assume BW was), and both featured live-action intros/outros with the creators (though Bobby's World had Howie Mandel interracting with Bobby as well).

I feel like I saw a prime-time sneak preview of the series, I think it had to do with summer. I could be misremembering, though.

Some of my favorite episodes include:
  • The one where Louie has to do a school report on the war, and asked his father to talk about it, since his father often talked about his days as a war hero at random times, but then did poorly on his report.
  • The one where Louie meets a bum who had actually been responsible for getting his mother to the hospital in time for his birth (causing Louie to learn that he wasn't really born at the drive-through as his father had told him, as well a slearningt hat his dad wasn't there when he was born), and then let's the bum live in his garage.
  • The one where Louie buys a report paper from Glen-Glen, and then his report ends up being a finalist in a contest which allows the entire class to go to Washington, D.C. (and Glen-Glen keeps taking advantage of the fact that he knows Louie cheated).

It was funny whenever Louie told others that his brother Tommy was a baby (or did he only do that in the episode where he went to a theme park?). I noticed that Glen-Glen sounded like Harold from Hey Arnold (were they voiced by the same actor?).
 
I just got information concerning what you said about Glen-Glen sounding like Hey Arnold's Harold Berman from IMDb, and you were right. Justin Shenkarow did voice both Glen-Glen and Harold. Check the full details here at IMDb's take on Justin Shenkarow here for more info.
 
I didn't care for this cartoon overall, but at least they put more thought into this show than they did with Little Rosey, which wasn't really good at all.
 
I never really watched this. I mean, it was on, but it was never interesting enough for me to sit through a whole episode.

I think some things are obscure for good reason. :)

Anyway, your next thread should be about the Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show.
 
I don't remember too much about the show either; I remember promos for it and the Christmas special it premiered with, I remember it being discussed in the Fox Kids magazine, I even remember the toy we got at Jack in the Box all those years ago, but I don't remember much about the actual show.
 
Life With Louie was ok. There were some standout moments in the show (as there are standout moments in every show) but most of the time I never found myself interested in it. This was definetly an obscure cartoon. Good work with this one neoking2002_neo!
 
I don't remember much about this show, even though I have clearer pictures of it than with Eek the Cat. I just remember the theme song, the voices for the little boy Louie, his father and the narration. I think that I probably watched it just to kill time when there wasn't anything else on since I barely remember much of any details about it. I don't remember thinking it was terrible, but I think I didn't like some of the voices that much.
 
Many of the actual episodes of Life with Louie blur together to me, but overall I remember thinking this was one of the dullest shows to come down the pike in a while. I could never watch more than a few minutes of it when it was on.

Not the worst I've ever seen, but there are definitely toons that I had fonder memories of.
 
I used to think Life With Louie was a really good show, especially in comparison to other cartoons based on celebrities. I didn't care too much for Louie Anderson himself but there was just something about the show with it's sort of Wonder Years/Christmas Story feel that I really enjoyed back then. For a little while, I didn't care much for comedy based cartoons and only really tuned in to action/superhero shows (with X-Men at the top of the list) but Louie was something that never really made me feel like switching it off. I have no idea how it holds up though. As a kid, I thought the dad was hilarious (in moderate doses) but I could imagine him being pretty grating now. In trying to remember the show, I keep thinking of him as a sort of grouchy Paul Lynde now.
 
You know, Shawn Hopkins, I was thinking about covering an obscure Disney cartoon after my Halloween specials. Anyhow, Shnookums and Meat is another great pick! I'm not going to spoil my Halloween surprises too soon. Thumbs up!

For the others, my memory's also a bit fuzzy with the Fox Kids shows, too.

Anyway, to make up for the loss, here's a picture of cartoon Louie with an ice cream mishap.

LWLicecream.gif
 
I never too much cared for Life with Louie. It was sort of a Bobby's World kind of show, just a tad more boring. It wasn't bad, mind you, but it didn't have my attention.
 
It was one of those shows that came and went and you never cared too much either way. I watched it simply because I watched almost everything on Fox those days. But I couldn't really single out any particular moments or episodes if you put me on the spot.

I always thought Louie looked like a Daniel Clowes character.
 
Some people have different views on a certain animated series. For Life With Louie, I've been getting some mixed responses about the series throughout the thread. :shrug: Things'll be spooky for the next two Sundays, you'll see what I mean. :evil:
 
Back
Top