Please help me in straightening this out. Was there ever an animated series of the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip? I was, and still am, an avid fan of the strips and book collections. A cartoon series was rumored for years, but I don't know if there actually was one and I missed it.

Oh well. Any info is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

A search at the IMDb showed nothing. I thought there was a series when I was very little. But maybe there was one and the IMDB missed it. The site is not perfect.

Never happened.

There could never be a Calvin and Hobbes series. The reason is that Bill Watterson feels that they would make it nice a la classic Peanuts, which is fine for the late Charlie M.Schultz-but it ain't fine for the Calvinmeister,the hobbinator and their creator!

(That is also why no legal merchandise of said property exists. Even the peeeing on...is bootleged.)

Originally posted by AKA
Never happened.

There never was. Yet I'm not sure about specials of it. All I know is that the guy stopped drawing it years ago..

I love Calvin and Hobbes.. some of their quotes are awesome. I named my yellow labrador Hobbes actually after them :)

Originally posted by Brett Ferino


There never was. Yet I'm not sure about specials of it. All I know is that the guy stopped drawing it years ago..

Would never happen. Bill Watterson, the guy that to whom you are reffering, may have to tone down the character,especially outside Fox or Cartoon Network or Nick, where characters are allowed to be a bit more edgy.

If the toning down of C&H (those initals being the ONLY thing they have in common with SUGAR!C&H,get it) happened, then it wouldn't be the same,esp.important to diehard (or ANY) Calvin and Hobbes fans.(Even Charles M.Schulz said until the day he died in 2000 that he'd never regarded the Bill Melendez/Lee Mendleson PEANUTS specials despite his own creative input, to be officially depicting Charlie Brown,Snoopy and the gang in contrast to the strips, which many regard the only official PEANUTS universe. Likewise the Roadrunner who talks in comics but noit in cartoons. Getting back to Calvin and his tiger, they would either have to :
(a) clean up a lot of their act, in a way that Rugrats and Bart Simpsons would never do...
or
(b) just not appear on TV at ALL!

Ergo, left with one choice due to his thinking---not compromise Calvin and Hobbes who in Bill Watterson's midn would wind up too dated and bland even for Doug fans (think the older PEANUTS specials olr the 1950s Annette Funicello Mickey mouse Club,pre-Birtney), --as a result Mr.Watterson chose not to license the chaarcters to animation or even to merchandise (those products you see like the obscene ones and stuff, they're strictly bootlegged). Therefore Watterson quit.

So in short, Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, may have felt that he was torn if TV and theatrical cartoon offers came due to his allegience to the character's original personas.

Hope that explains a few things! :D

Steve C.

No, if you read the 10th anniversary collection, at the end during his thing he wrote it said "it would cheapin the strip is they made a carton series" which I have to agree with.

Personally, I would have loved to see a Calvin And Hobbes cartoon, even a one episode special.

As for Bill Watterson, I think he took himself way too seriously. I appreciate his artistic integrity, but the wy he described his work in the Clavin Hobbes 10th anniversary book, you thought he was working on a Mideast Peace Accord instead of a comic strip.

Sure, cartoons and t-shirts might "cheapen the image" of his characters, but they also allow the masses to embrace that characters on a wider level.

That is why the "Peanuts" characters are cultural icons and Charles Shultz's passing was a national day of mourning, while "Calvin And Hobbes" will be merely a mention in the long history of comic strips.

Originally posted by TJL
Personally, I would have loved to see a Calvin And Hobbes cartoon, even a one episode special.

As for Bill Watterson, I think he took himself way too seriously. I appreciate his artistic integrity, but the wy he described his work in the Clavin Hobbes 10th anniversary book, you thought he was working on a Mideast Peace Accord instead of a comic strip.

Sure, cartoons and t-shirts might "cheapen the image" of his characters, but they also allow the masses to embrace that characters on a wider level.

That is why the "Peanuts" characters are cultural icons and Charles Shultz's passing was a national day of mourning, while "Calvin And Hobbes" will be merely a mention in the long history of comic strips.

I agree...I alwasy confound folks by saying I like "uncool" types, like Peanuts, Flinstones, or Lawrence Welk, yet many great artista worked to bhelpmake FLinstones greaty,many fine animators did the Peanuts specials (leraving aside the separate world they were compared to the strip), and that many jazz players spiced Welk up.