Hello, everyone. How have y'all been? I
know things have been real hectic
recently with the death of George Floyd,
police brutality, and the protests around
the globe protesting the police. I had a
video in waiting a few weeks ago about
the death of Ahmad Arbery but it was
really painful to make that video. I
couldn't get through writing the script
so I decided to place that video on hold
for another time. I would like to say
that it's more imperative now for us to
think about police abolition, military
abolition, prison abolition and in
general the carceral state. The abolition
movement doesn't have everything figured
out for sure but reform is not working.
Reform has been pushed for years and
years and we've taken initiatives to
reform but our people are still dying. We
need something else. I have included some
links in the description box below for
us to get involved through donations and
petitions. Please do your best to help
everyone out.
So today I'm going to talk about a show
that I came across by chance just to
uplift everyone. I had never heard of
this show because the show was,
essentially, before my time. I was
basically way too young to have seen the
show and the show was never re-ran on BET.
So, I would like to thank the internet
for bringing this show to my attention.
Hey Monie is an American animated black
sitcom produced by Soup-to-Nuts which is
an animation studio that is known for
its animated comedy series and its use
of squiggle vision. If you've seen shows
like home movies or dr. Katz
professional therapist then you know
what I'm talking about.
Squigglevision is a technique of
animation that reuses frames to make the
animation look more kinetic and usually
these shows utilize improvisation and
voice acting. It outlines shapes which
wiggle and undulate to emulate the
effect of sketchily hand-drawn animation.
Hey Monie was produced in conjunction
with Oxygen media and Soup-to-Nuts
productions and it was the first time
that an African-American woman was
featured as the protagonist of an
adult-themed
animation series. Following a wave of
early 2000s animated TV shows like South Park, The Critic
Daria, Ren and Stimpy, and Family Guy, the
network wanted to show an entertaining,
witty, and, satirical animated show that
also offered a fresh perspective on
modern black life. Presenting a realistic,
fresh, and uniquely funny portrayal of
life as seen from the perspective of a
single african-american professional
woman.
According to Brendan Small, a voice actor
on Hey Monie and one of the creators of
home movies the network wanted to grab a
young adult demographic and learned that through squiggle vision they could also
make the animation cheaper and cheap it
was. I actually really love the style of
squiggle vision. Some people might not
like this style of animation because of
the shaky, vibrating lines, but I actually
do not mind it at all. The show was
launched in 2001 on Oxygen, and the two
main characters were played by Angela
Shelton and Frances Collier (also known
as comedy duo "Frangela") who are best
friends in real life and are also
renowned for their improv comedy style.
It's obvious that both of these women
were integral to the show as, essentially,
the show works really well because of
the dialogue and the direction of the to
voice actors.
At the time only 50% of Americans had
Oxygen in their homes and it's hard to
know how popular the first few episodes
were, but the show was picked up by BET in
2003. It was the first animated series
from BET, according to the network
succeeding the virtual reality TV show.
Cita's world which is technically
animated (I guess). The episodes were
extended to 11 minutes and became more
scripted but it still kept the same
energy from the earlier episodes. The
show follows Simone (aka Monie) and her
vivacious professional life with her
best friend and neighbor Yvette, who is
hilarious and ridiculous at the same
time. There are also a host of other
characters like Monie's boss her
co-worker and her weird neighbor. Like
Dr. Katz Professional Therapist, the show
relies on an improvisational script
which pushed the authentic dynamic to
the forefront on the show.
It had three seasons, with the first
season having seven episodes, the
second season having ten episodes, and
the third season having eight episodes.
These episodes usually focus on the
mundane issues of life, like moving
apartments, throwing house parties,
competition at work, becoming sick and
missing work. There was some more
episodes that were a bit more outlandish
like when Simone and Yvette audition to
be on The Oprah Show.
 
You know Oprah is gonna watch this?? (LOUD SINGING)
 
Hi Oprah!
Hey Oprah!
I'm Simone and I'm Yvette.
Cut!
What was that?
That's right. This is not sexy: I want a date
tape.
Right! You're not trying to date Oprah.
You ready?
Yeah, Hello Oprah!
Hey Oprah! I'm Simone and this is my
best friend.
Yvette.
I always know that
if I need to go out someplace and relax
this is the girl to go with.
I'm gonna bring the pain all right, I'm gon bring the groove. You know I'm gonna set it up right, cause we gon have a good time.
We always have a good time
and that's the thing with Yvette, it  doesn't matter what we're doing we have
a good time.
That's right! Oh you know my girl
Simone I don't care what kind of
situation it is, she can talk the police
out of it.
Aw, that's cause I love you.
I love you.
I can't let nobody take you away.
You, my boo.
You, my boo.
We are like sticky and smooth.
That's right.I'm smooth.
I'm sticky.
That's how we're known in the karaoke circuit.
and you know a best friend will be
honest with you
That's right!
See they will say to you girl don't wear that!
Your butt look big in them pants!
That's right! A best friend will when you call
and say girl I had to kill him she'll
say I got a shovel
that's right.
She
won't ask you why?? You know.
Mmm, mmm. She'll be there!
She'll just
be there.
We are real
We are for real,
we're coming for real
we bringing the real.
Queens to each other! I worship you, Yvette.
I worship you my Nubian Nile
Sister!
You are my best  friend.
Woah, woah, woah.
Yvette.
Simone.
We belong on Oprah!
woooooo!
wait a minute, the red light came on.
Girl the camera wasn't on!
but those episodes
always felt grounded because of the
improvised counter. When it comes to the
coloring of the animation we see that as
the show progressed the characters
became brighter looking and the
background became more detailed.
I would also just like to add that
unlike many animated shows Simone and
Yvette do change outfits from episode to
episode. The ten minutes short form of
the episodes really worked in the show's
favor as well the storylines and episode
plots might not have been super complex,
but the banter between Moni and Yvette
around mundane situations in their lives
make the show really enjoyable and sweet. My favorite episodes have to be "Bad Hair
Day" and the pilot episode "Moving" because
I think those episodes really showcase
the comedy of the show while
illustrating how important the
friendship between Monie and Yvette was
in the show. While the show was
temporarily successful on BET, becoming
its most-watched new Tuesday series at
the time, when the show was extended to a
22 minute run, BET decided not to bring
it back for the 2004 or 2005 season. In
my opinion a 22 minute run would have
dragged the show and would have only
been useful or good if the plot lines
became a bit more complex in the next
season. There is some dispute as to
exactly why the show was cancelled as
Angela Shelton and Frances Callier say
that the show was cancelled because they
brought in a white writer without
consulting them to write the last few
episodes. They go further and claim that
the last few episodes were blander than
usual but y'all can be the judge of that
I'm not really sure about that
The show never had a DVD release
unlike home movies which through its DVD
release it was able to gain traction and a
cult following so I think this is
probably why not many people know about
this show or even remember the show but
I think this show was really cool and
ahead of its time as it is not often
that we see an animated show revolving
around the lives of professional black
women. If you need something to take your
mind off what's going on right now for a
little bit then check this show out you
can find many episodes on YouTube but
they're actually not in chronological
order so be careful with that. I also
think they don't have all of the
episodes on YouTube yet you can also
check the episodes out on Hulu or
Dailymotion (who watches dailymotion anymore LOL) if you would like to watch.
Thank you for watching this video, please
don't forget to comment and subscribe to
my channel. What have you all been
watching to keep your sanity during
these times let me know in the comments
below. Because for me, chile, on top of Hey Monie
I've watched Netflix's Blood and Water
which I really did enjoy and I've also
finally watched Little Fires Everywhere
but that show raise my blood pressure
for sure. Please do your very best to
help our brothers and sisters out by
donating, signing petitions if you are
unable to donate, or by contacting a
local organization to supply your
services to help in this fight, because
none of us are free until we're all free
Ok. Bye!
