Totally Spies
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Totally Spies is a French-Italian animated series. It stars three teenaged superspies from Beverly Hills: Sam Simpson, Clover Ewing, and Alex Vazquez, who fight international crime with their special gadgets supplied by their boss, Jerry Lewis, a member of the secret World Organization Of Human Protection (WOOHP) agency. Among their enemies are Tim Scam and Simon Tucker. They must carry out their missions while still being concerned about tests, boys (like David), and their school rival, Mandy, an extreme prima donna.
On the air since November 2001, Totally Spies is shown in the United States by the Cartoon Network (originally on ABC Family). In Canada it's shown on Teletoon. In Malaysia,Singapore, and Taiwan, it's shown on the Disney Channel. In many areas of Europe the show is broadcasted by children's channel JETIX. On July 6, 2002, Totally Spies premiered on TV Tokyo. According to Marathon, the show's producer, having a show in Japan is extremely rare for a Western series. It is based on or similar to the television show She Spies.
Totally Spies is sometimes described as "American anime" (despite being produced in Europe) due to its strong shojo art style influence and use of well-known anime visual gags and cues. Thematically, it is a little reminiscent of the 1970s TV show Charlie's Angels, only in anime style and directed towards a female, teen-aged audience, with Jerry serving as a kind of amalgamation of "Bosley" and "Charlie." The show displays a retro aesthetic that pays homage to 60s design/fashion, especially "flower power" and the like.
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Characters
Clover Ewing
Clover is a high school teenager who is involved, alongside her two best friends, in a secret spy organization, the WOOHP.
She is deeply worried about her fashion; even when she is on a mission, she will more often than not worry about the way she looks. She has medium length blonde hair, blue eyes, and is rather ditzy, but loveable. She once had her personality swapped with Jerry, making her suddenly erudite and reserved, while turning Jerry into a babbling goofball. This was fixed at the end of the episode. Her spy suit is a bright red color. In some ways she is the personfication of the "dumb blonde" stereotype, but she also defies this stereotype and rises to the occasion when needed.
Clover is also the most romantically interested of the three girls. Her interest for wearing fashionable clothes can sometimes be matched only by her interest in boys.
Clover is accident prone, though Alex gives her a run for her money in this department. Some of her "accidents" are caused on purpose, as she enjoys skating into guys so that she can introduce herself to them. Other times, she gets involved in real accidents: she has had to hang on to the wing of a flying airplane, broken various historic items worth billions of dollars, etcetera.
Because whenever there is a new mission to be conducted, the girls have to fall into a hole which directs them to their boss' office, Clover is usually the first one to fall through the hole and land on the floor of her boss.
Sam Simpson
Along with her best friends Clover Ewing and Alex Vazquez, she is a member of a secret spy agency, WOOHP, that employs teenagers as agents.
Sam, Clover and Alex all live in Beverly Hills, and they share a romantic attraction towards a schoolmate named David, who ignores the girls' attraction towards him.
Sam is considered to be the smartest member of the trio of girls. Her "spy" outfit is green, and she has long red hair and green eyes. She comes up with plans to solve mysteries, is an experienced spy, and has made many of the "world's enemies" pay for their doings with her smarts and ability to fight combat sports, although she has a tendency to get brainwashed fairly regularly.
Alex Vazquez
Always dressed in yellow, Alex is the brown-skinned, dark-haired member of her group of friends, which consists of Clover Ewing and Sam Simpson. She wears her hair short, while Clover has shoulder-length blonde hair, and Sam has long, red hair.
Together, the three girls are members of a secretive, teen spy agency named WOOHP. Usually, they get thrown into a hole that leads to their boss Jerry's office. That way, while they disappear before their missions, anyone ever hardly notices their disappearances. Alex is also the weakest of the three. She is also the most clumsy and accident prone.
Alex is a teenager who is a high school student and lives in Beverly Hills. Another trait she shares with her two best friends is their romantic interest in David, who does not seem to know or care that the three friends have a crush on him.
Alex reacts on instinct, which many times leads the group into more trouble than necessary when dealing with "bad guys". Nevertheless, as part of the trio, she helps the trio give "bad guys" what they have coming, which is usually jail or other punishment.
For one episode in season 2 of the series (episode #45), Alex left the group for a short period, but she later reconsidered her decision and rejoined her friends.
Jerry Lewis
Jerry is the founder and administrator of WOOHP, the World Organization Of Human Protection. An elderly, very serious British gentleman, he is responsible for briefing the girls on their missions, as well as for providing them with their gadgets at the start of each episode.
Although he has a mostly hands-off role, Jerry has participated in a couple of the girl's missions. Although he appears thin and unatheletic, he has in fact demonstrated highly impressive combat and piloting skills on a par with (and perhaps slightly better than) those displayed by the girls themselves.
In Season 3, Jerry has been paired up with GLADIS, a robotic system that runs WOOHP headquarters and produces the spy's gadgets for them. Jerry still gives them their mission briefings, however.
Mandy Luxe
Mandy is Sam, Alex, and Clover's rival at school. She is pretty, popular, stylish, arrogant, and downright mean. She also has an incredibly high and squeaky voice. The rivalry between her and Clover is most pronounced, as they often compete for boys, popularity, and bragging rights just for starters. Mandy will go out of her way to annoy the girls, and is often accompanied by a pair of nameless cronies. Mandy is also known to have an entire fanclub dedicated to her at school.
Mandy generates mixed feelings among the fans of the show. Some dislike her as a shallow plot device and accuse her of being one-dimensional. Others defend her as a running gag who is necessary to keep the girls' lives at school as interesting as their lives at WOOHP.
In season three, Mandy accidentally discovers that Sam, Alex, and Clover are spies and is offered a chance to work with them by Jerry. After just one mission, it becomes painfully obvious that Mandy is completely incompatible with spy work and demands to be let go, but not before Jerry erases her memories of WOOHP.
David
David is a desirable guy in whom all three of the girls (as well as their nemesis Mandy) are romantically interested. was introduced in the episode "It's How You Play The Game". He loves the arts: guitar playing, poetry, painting, etc. He also has a love of nature and history and hates rejection. He works at the Groovy Smoothie Shack and he seems to be the jumping off point for many of the girls' (Clover, Alex, and Sam) personal predicaments while they try to get him to notice them. This seems to befall Clover the most as she and Mandy (the school's resident spoiled brat and all around mean girl) compete for David's affections. David is blissfully oblivious to the girls' attempts to garner his attention and leaves the girls' stunned with his smile as he leaves to go help at a soup kitchen or something.
Arnold
Arnold is a classmate of the girls, and is apparently the leader of the school's geeks. He's smart but socially inept, and just a wee bit unpleasant. In some episodes he acts as a sycophant and minion of Mandy's, yet in others he gets teased by her. He mostly acts as an obstacle to the girls and their goals.
In one episode Arnold accidentally acquired a magic ring that allowed him to steal the "coolness" from other people, becoming a cool guy himself. The power quickly got to his head, and he turned into a supervillain intent on draining the coolness from everyone else in Beverly Hills. He put up a good fight, but was eventually defeated by the girls (with some assistance from a villainous magician who also wanted the ring). Like Mandy, his memory was erased by WOOHP and he was back at school the next day as though nothing had happened.
Tim Scam
Tim Scam is one of the show's few recurring villains. Having appeared in a total of 3 episodes (and having a non-speaking role in one other), he is the one foe the girls have faced the most frequently. A former WOOHP agent, Scam and his projects were expelled from WOOHP due to budget cuts, and he has since sought revenge against the organization.
He first appeared in the show's second episode, The New Jerry, in which he had kidnapped Jerry and replaced him as director of WOOHP in order to use WOOHP's resources for his own ambitions. However, the spies figured out his real intentions and put a stop to his plans and rescued Jerry. Since then, he has been a perpetual thorn in WOOHP's side, always coming back with some new plan to destroy WOOHP or the girls.
Tim Scam is highly intelligent, most recently creating a substance that can mimick other people's appearances called Scamlar. He will likely remain a persistent nuisance to Jerry and the spies.
Unlike the show's other villains, whose personalities typically center around a single bizarre personality disorder or childhood trauma, Scam comes across as completely sane (albeit sociopathic). Also unlike the other villains, whose plans generally involve indulging in their twisted obsession (usually brainwashing the world to worship them), Scam just wants to kill everyone (and his first scheme involved destroying the world by dehydrating the oceans).
Voice actors
- Andrea Taylor: Clover
- Jennifer Hale: Sam/Mandy
- Jess Harnell: Jerry (season 1-2)
- Katie Leigh: Alex (season 1-2)
- Katie Griffin: Alex (season 3+)
- Adrian Truss: Jerry (season 3+)
Episodes
Season one
- A Thing for Musicians
- Queen for A Day
- The New Jerry
- The Get Away
- Eraser
- Model Citizens
- The Fugitives
- Abductions
- Child's Play
- Silicon Valley Girls
- Spy Gladiators
- Shrinking
- Aliens
- Man or Machine
- Wild Style
- The Black Widows
- Passion Patties
- Stuck In the Middle-Ages With You
- Evil Boyfriend
- Game Girls
- Iceman Cometh
- Spies Vs. Spies
- Do You Believe In Magic?
- Soul Collector
- A Spy is Born (Part One)
- Malled
Season two
- A Spy is Born (Part Two)
- Mummy
- Evil Hair Salon
- The Yuck Factor
- It's How You Play the Game
- Here Comes the Sun
- Green with N.V.
- Boy Bands Will Be Boy Bands
- I, Dude
- Mommies Dearest
- Zooney World
- First Brat
- W.O.W.
- Stark Raving Mad
- Starstruck
- S.P.I.
- Animal World
- Nature Nightmare
- Alex Quits
- Totally Switched
- Ski Trip
- The Elevator
- Matchmaker
- Brain Drain
- Fashion Faux Pas
- Toying Around
Season three
- Physics 101 Much?
- Freaky Circus Much?
- Computer Creep Much?
- Space Much?
- Morphing Is Soooo 1987
- Evil Coffee Shop Much?
- Forward to the Past
- Planet of the Hunks
- Super Nerd Much?
- The Incredible Bulk
- Dental? More Like Mental
- Escape From WOOHP Island
- Scam Camp Much?
- Evil G.L.A.D.I.S. Much?
- Superagent Much?
- Evil Airlines Much?
- Creepy Crawly Much?
- Truth Or Scare
- Feng Shui Is Like Sooo Passe
- Evil Valentines Much?
- Halloween Is, Like, So Pagan
- Power Yoga Much?
- Head Shrinker Much?
- Evil Promotion Much? (1)
- Evil Promotion Much? (2)
- Evil Promotion Much? (3)
Season four
Still in development
External links
- Totally Spies official website (http://www.totallyspies.com/)
- Totally Spies Picture Archive (http://www.tspa.net/)nl:Totally Spies