The Tragic Fate of Kids Next Door

Five! Four! Three! Two! One! KIDS NEXT DOOR…! You know the rest. If you don’t, get to watching Kids Next Door right now! The show is phenomenal. It set an unprecedented benchmark in animation storytelling. The show relates to the struggles of children, their fears and insecurities, and gets creative in exploring their relationships with each other and people in the other age groups. It was one of the best shows on Cartoon Network. The good thing is that the creator of the show: Mr Warburton, knew how much the show was loved, and wanted to give us more of it. Luckily, the show ended. It wasn’t cancelled. Mr Warburton ended it the way he wanted to. The thing is, he wanted it to have a sequel called Galactic Kids Next Door, and that’s where the problem begins. This article will explain what happened with the show.

The show started in 2002, and after six successful seasons, one television movie and a special episode finale, it came to an end in 2008. Needless to say, the finale was a tearjerker. It left us with the idea that it was time to move on and grow up, but to never forget the magic of being a kid. The story started with small scale adventures like trying to steal birthday cakes and trying to sneak into adult swim hours. There were barely any stakes at all in the earlier seasons and it looked like they were just rebellious kids who were on the lookout for fun and adventure, but as the show went on, we started to see an escalation in the threats and the scale of the adventures. It started to incorporate the global level KND more and more, and we got to a point where almost every episode involved another KND sector. We also got to learn of the start of the war between the adults and the children, and how the moon base came to be. How much of it being true is uncertain because future episodes that tell the story don’t really align with what was said about that episode. Throughout the sixth season, there was talk of a splinter cell within the ranks of the KND, and from time to time, we were shown that there was something weird going on, especially with Numbuh 1. At first, it seemed like a hoax borne out of paranoia, but we then found out that it was true. We discover, in the series finale, that it was an organization known as the Galactic Kids Next Door, who had chosen Numbuh 1 as the first ever operative representing humanity. This is the moment it all came together, and we could kind of get an impression of where things were going. But, then again, the way they went about it throughout the final season was a bit strange, and when we get over the bittersweet ending, realizing that the story has been told to its logical conclusion, you may come to realize something that you hadn’t really picked up on: why did the Galactic Kids Next Door need Numbuh 1 to sever his ties to Earth so badly that they covertly destroyed his romantic relationship and didn’t tell him about it? Why did they have to go as far as trapping him in Chester’s Happy Helmet and keep him in a dreamworld to test his loyalty without his knowledge or even a post-test justification? Are those things good guys actually do?

Fortunately, the answers to those questions had been planned out and were to be revealed in the sequel show that Mr. Warburton was working on, called Galactic Kids Next Door. He tried several times to pitch it to Cartoon Network, but it was rejected, as there was a new mission by the network, which was to try and move into live action shows. A TV channel called Cartoon Network wanted to focus on live action shows and was rejecting making more cartoons. Eventually, Mr. Warburton made a kind of trailer of the show, just to give fans a feel of what it would have been about, and the show seemed to be answering the questions posed above.

From what we see in the trailer, Numbuh 1 has joined the Galactic Kids Next Door, and has gained their trust, whereas Numbuh 274 seems to have gotten the opposite reaction. While some may think that it is a good thing, it ultimately proves to not be so good, as Numbuh 1 is told to do something that doesn’t sound right, justifying his actions by saying that the Earth is too far gone. He eventually goes through with this, and the scene fades to black before we hear Numbuh 5 asking herself what Numbuh 1 has done. This show was going to be teen-oriented, with a clearly darker tone than the previous show. It would no-doubt answer the questions we were left with, and would likely answer the questions about what the true history of their world is and where Numbuh 1 and his family fit in, in all of this. Would it have been a story about Numbuh 1 leading an invasion of Earth? Would the rest of the Kids Next Door rally against him to stop him? How would that affect their relationship? How long were the Galactic Kids Next Door undercover in the Kids Next Door for? What makes them so special? Unfortunately, we will never get the answers to these questions, and that is truly sad, because we know just how much Mr. Warburton loved his show, and he had (and still has) a passionate fanbase that wants to see his work completed.

As much as it would be nice to see it end, it doesn’t look like Mr Warburton’s story will be finished. We will still hope. There is a petition online for the show to be made, and surely, it is still up, waiting for as many operatives to sign it.

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