Crashbox is a stop-motion animated edutainment children's television series co-created by Eamon Harrington and John Watkin for HBO Family that ran from 1999 to 2000 in the United States. It was HBO's second series (their first being Braingames 15 years earlier) focusing on educational skits.
Crashbox was one of the original programs for the relaunch of the HBO Family channel in February 1999. Although it has never been released on physical media like DVD or VHS, it was consistently rerun on HBO Family until the removal of its children's block in 2025 and is found on various streaming services.
Contents
Production
Crashbox was created and produced by Planet Grande Pictures (consisting of John Watkin and Eamon Harrington) and is animated by Cuppa Coffee Studios, headed by Adam Shaheen. Planet Grande Pictures engaged Cuppa Coffee Studios for 8 months to complete 13 hours of programming. Some of the segments produced for Season 1 were reused for the first half of Season 2, while production of the second half went underway in late 1999.
Along with the 52 aired episodes, it has been stated that a total of 65 episodes were at one point produced/planned, as mentioned during a demo reel for Planet Grande Pictures. Most sources state that only 52 episodes were produced, and only 52 episodes have been registered in the Library of Congress.
Premise
The show takes place in the insides of a game computer where green game cartridges (which are sculpted out of clay) are created and loaded by rusty tin robots, occasionally with short sketches of them "repairing" damaged games. The format of each episode is The Electric Company-esque, with sketches not connecting nor following a sequential plot. Each half-hour episode consists of seven or eight 1-to-5-minute educational games, each covering topics like history, math, and science.
Segments
The following are the games of the show listed in alphabetical order:
Captain Bones: A pirate skeleton named Captain Bones has the viewers solve math problems, picture puzzles, and math riddles by having his bones form the equation or picture, often having the viewers move a limited number of his bones to pull it off. Throughout the game, Captain Bones will openly mock and demean the viewers using several pirate-esque insults, eventually becoming so irate that he blurts out the answer in rage.
Dirty Pictures: In an art museum that is closed for cleaning, a maid dusts off a picture with a wooden "Old Fossil" guard holding up cards that give the hints of the person in the dusty painting. Once the main painting and name plate are dusted off, one last comment is shown by the Old Fossil before the museum doors close, ending the game. The maid only speaks through indistinct mutters, although the Old Fossil often mutters what's on his cards in Season 2.
Distraction News: A cardboard-cutout, blonde-haired anchorwoman named Dora Smarmy provides informative news segments while distractive images (some of which from other games) appear during the broadcast. The object is to see how well the viewers were able to remember key facts from the broadcast without being distracted.
Ear-We-Are*: Two ears describe sounds to each other for the viewers to guess the event or place to which they are flying travelling.
Eddie Bull: Zookeeper Eddie Bull gives viewers a number of hints to what animal at the Walla Walla Washington Zoo ate him. Once the animal is identified, Eddie is regurgitated, and the game then ends.
Haunted House Party: A haunted house party hosted by the unseen Horrid One has ghosts attend as the viewer must identify the mystery guest of honor by listening to clues said about them, often accompanied by the butler or other party guests. When all the clues have been said, the Horrid One recaps them to the viewers before the historical figure is revealed in cardboard cutout form after a bright flash of lightning.
Seasons
Season 1
The first season of Crashbox premiered on HBO Family on February 1, 1999. The first seven episodes aired throughout the first week of February. The remaining 19 episodes aired on weekends, typically in batches of twos, with Episode 26 closing the season on April 17.
Season 2
The first half of Crashbox's second season first premiered on HBO Family with Episode 27, which aired on August 1, 1999. The twelve other episodes of Season 2A premiered on weekends in batches of twos up until September 12.
Segments from the first half of Season 2 reuse select segments from Season 1, with the games "Ear-We-Are", "Wordshake", and "Paige and Sage" being dropped from the game lineup. Lens McCracken is featured in Season 2A, but would later be dropped for Season 2B.
The second half of Season 2 premiered on February 19, 2000, with Episode 40; Crashbox 41 premiered the following day. Episodes 42-51 aired on the following weekdays in batches of twos, with Episode 52 airing on April 1, 2000, serving as the series' final episode.
Distinctly, Episodes 43, 45, 48, and 50 were produced in 1999 (as seen in their credits), in contrast to the rest of Season 2B, which was produced in 2000.
Interstitial spinoffs
Alongside its series premiere in 1999, two interstitial series were aired on HBO Family. "Smart Mouth", featuring Dora Smarmy from "Distraction News", has her stating unusual vocabulary words (not too dissimilar to Revolting Slob) with personal experiences. "Who Knew?", featuring Professor Rocket from "Psycho Math", features him talking about strange facts and trivia.
Both series have 80 episodes each, and aired on HBO Family, Magnet from 2001 to 2005, Jam from 2005 to 2016, and during movie breaks. Both series were removed from syndication following the HBO Kids rebrand in 2016, and only a few episodes survive to this day.
Syndication
Starting in 2001, HBO Family launched two TV blocks marketed towards kids; Jam, which was marketed towards a younger, preschool demographic, and Magnet, which was marketed to an older, middle school-aged audience. Crashbox, alongside its associated interstitial spin-off series, Who Knew? and Smart Mouth, aired on the Magnet block up until it was discontinued in 2005.
Crashbox retroactively joined the Jam block in 2005, even though the show was marketed towards a TV-Y7 audience compared to the mainly preschool-oriented programming recently airing on the block. The show aired routinely on the block up until 2016, where the block was rebranded to HBO Kids. The show premiered on the new block a day after the rebrand, on January 18, 2016, and was moved to the afternoon along with The Electric Company for weekdays.
Crashbox 14 served as the series' premiere on HBO Kids, with the rest of Season 1 airing on weekdays up until February 22, 2016. Episodes 27-37 were skipped after Episode 26 premiered, while Episodes 38-52 premiered on the block as usual. Episode 1 first aired on March 15, 2016, with the rest of Season 1 following it. Season 1 then aired again up to two times until Season 2B returned to the schedule in July.
Following the removal of various Sesame Workshop shows, Crashbox was moved to an early morning timeslot a few years later and aired routinely on the channel until 2024.
Removed episodes
Following the 2016 rebrand of HBO Family's preschool block, Jam, to HBO Kids, Crashbox aired most of its first season in the afternoon (skipping Crashbox 1 in favor of Crashbox 14). Episodes 27–37 were skipped after Episode 26 premiered. Only Episodes 38 and 39 were ever aired on the HBO Kids block. The last times Episodes 27–37 aired was on Jam from January 4 to January 8, 2016.
Episodes 27–39 have not aired on the channel since February 2016. The episodes are not available on most of HBO's digital or streaming services, including HBO Now, HBO Go, and HBO Max; HBO has opted not to add the episodes onto the latter service due to the repeated segments used from the first season. As of 2023, Canadian streamer Crave is currently the only site that features all of Season 2 (erroneously listed as part of Season 1), including Episodes 27–39.
Most sources pre–HBO Kids, such as HBO's various streaming services, promos for said episodes, and most TV guides, list Episodes 27–39 of Crashbox as part of Season 2. In following years, the removed episodes were sometimes grouped with Season 1, despite being produced for Season 2; notable examples include Crave and JioCinema. Besides the aforementioned services, most official HBO sources (before the removal of these episodes) considered these removed episodes as part of Season 2.
Reception
The series received generally positive reviews from audiences and parents on Common Sense Media, with a 4 out of 5 star rating.