selkra-souza - Tumblr blog

selkra-souza · 14 days

Text

@thelockyfoxy They’ve actually teased some more Moodsters on one of the old PDF guilds books they still have in their website. You can tell it’s old because Quiggly is still green.

This is the only depiction of them I can find anywhere, and they’re not mentioned anywhere else in any way. I have no idea if this is a concept that’s since been scraped, or if it was never meant to be more of a thing outside this one page (namely that these extra Moodesters aren’t depicted in the physical Moodster Meter/Feelings Thermometer toys). Anyway it’s another missed opportunity. They’d be cool to reveal in the second season of a potential show! They could chuck the original Moodsters in a jar and take their job.

The Moodsters Rabbit Hole

So I was bored one day and in my vain attempt to search the internet to find a knock off Inside Out movie to ironically enjoy, I find out that one does not exist. Vídeo Brinquedo, the studio behind the critically memed Ratatoing, has truly forsaken me, and alas, I can only dream. Instead of finding a rip off Inside Out movie, I ended up finding something that accused Inside Out of ripping off it, I'm talking suing. Turned out to be just as interesting.

The Moodsters is a multimedia edutainment brand and children's foundation centered around a cast of six monstrous critter "feelings detectives" called Moodsters. There's Coz, the yellow Moodster representing happiness, Snorf the blue Moodster representing sadness, Razzy representing anger, Quiggly representing fear, Lolly who represents love and Tully representing ... being calm I think? The Moodsters is an IP created by Denise Daniels and owned by JellyJam Entertainment (formally known as the Moodsters Company) who claim on their website (themoodsterschildrensfoundation.org, formally themoodsters.com) that they're "providing accessible science-based content on emotions for children, their parents, and teachers for more than 35 years". That science is based in collaboration with Marc Brackett PhD and Robin Stern PhD, to develop the RULER™ model for dealing with emotions. Besides their mission statement and credentials, their site currently has downloadable workbooks for kids to print and journal their thoughts and feelings on, along with guide booklets for their caretakers. Their children's foundation initiatives includes an "International Partnership for Children Displaced by War" and "Grief Relief with the Moodsters".

They've got a twitter account featuring one (1) post from 2016.

Let's dig deeper though. Hopping onto the Wayback Machine and searching for "Moodsters" will show you that they've had an online presence since 2008. Since then, the brand has gone through a few changes, and they've released a few toys and published a few books.

I first want to go over the plushies specifically because look at them.

youtube

They're adorable. I want to firmly grasp them in my hand. These goobers were sold in retail in the mid 2010s and nowadays are pretty rare in the second hand market. They look soft and I appreciate everything from their embroidered features to Snorf's lopsided face. From looking at them, I like the quality. My only complaint is that their little detective capes lack edge stitches, which would make them more prone to tears, and I'm not convinced they have an accessible way to replace their batteries (though I could be wrong). Overall as a plushie lover though, I want them in my home so I can invite them to tea parties and have them sit on my bed.

Their website in 2015 teased a mobile app called, The Moodsters: Learn About Feelings, which - as far as I could search - does not exist. This page lists features such as an interactive story book, a Mood Meter that "gives children a basic vocabulary of feelings and helps them express themselves" by using a thermometer-shaped mood meter to take one's "feelings 'temperature'", a Moodster Mirror that "helps them make the connection between feelings on the inside and facial expressions on the outside" with demonstrations of 25 different emotions, and a Feelings Notebook that's an art program. The development of this app is no longer mentioned on the site currently, so it's probably a scrapped project.

At some point there was a Moodster themed memory match browser game and coloring pages (hard to tell if they were browser coloring games or printables).

Some of the features from the what would've been the app actually made it to market as toys. These toys were colorful little detective supplies. One for (almost) each Moodster. The top image of this very long post actually features each Moodster with their chosen detective tool on-hand. Coz wields a Moodster Mirror, Razzy carries a Moodster Meter, Quiggly has an emotional support Feelings Flashlight and Lolly writes in a Feelings Notebook, all (at some point) available at your (once) local Toys R Us. Whatever Snorf is carrying hasn't made it to market it seems, but it's apparently a First Aids Kit for Feelings (mentioned here). I can't find what Tully's item is supposed to be. Perhaps it's emotional identification cards, or positive affirmations? Who knows. My favorite out of these has got to be the notebook, mainly because I'm a sucker for cute stationary. I'd fold and decorate a little cardboard box just to house those crayons just for keepers sake.

And have I even mentioned the yoga mats?

Almost every plushie and detective tool toy appears to come with a picture book. I can't comment on most of the books since I can't buy any that still happen to be available as of now, but luckily there is a read along video I found shown below of one of them. It prominently features a more recent addition to the Moodsters lore, the human children.

These side characters where featured on the site as recent as October 2023 (I neglected to take a snapshot, so here's another from June), but are nowhere to be seen on the website now besides the older downloadable worksheets. There's a chance they've since been retired.

youtube

It's exactly as boring as I feared that it would be. Obviously, I'm far from being in the target demographic for this anymore as an adult, nor am I any expert of child psychology beyond one elective course I took in university, but the one credibility that I do have is that I remember my personal tastes from when I was a kid, so I can comment on this from that perspective. I will say if I was handed this as a little kid, I would've liked the little monster dudes, but my attention would've shifted away from this pretty quickly and easily, because the little monster dudes aren’t really doing much. I was one of those kids that was really drawn to creature characters way more than I ever was to human characters (and to be perfectly honest, I still am as an adult, but that's besides the point I'm about to make). The plot of the book is perfectly serviceable with a good message about altruism, so that's not the problem. My grievance is with the fact that the human boy Zach takes center stage as the main character, when one would think that the main characters would be the Moodsters. They kind of take a back seat working on the sidelines for the most part here, and don't directly interact with Zach that much. Would've been hard for kid-me to latch onto this when the cool critter characters don't have as much of an active role as they could have. Not every kid is going to be as drawn to critter characters as I was (and am), but if the critter characters are going to be the face of your preschool IP, they should be presented front and center as much as they can be. Children's picture books are a media format that isn't particularly long nor complex, so their biggest strengths are in the characters and the art. If it were open to changes, I'd make a few: I'd have the Moodsters be just a bit more proactive, such as the suggestion to buy Sam a new bike coming from Coz or maybe Lolly instead of his sister Zoey, have them discover the "feelings emergency" while they're hanging outside with Zach and Sam instead of by spying on them with their cool and fancy desk setup, maybe have a one or two page mini side plot where Razzy's anger at the truck driver is addressed and resolved with breathing exercises or something, and change the art style to 2D illustrations to allow more dynamic poses and expressions since the 3D models and environments used here are pretty okay but nothing that stands out too much (or just instead use more expressive 3D models). No major changes that would fundamentally change the book, just enough to give the Moodsters more spotlight and expressions. Overall, as is, it's an okay children's book, just nothing that really stands out much as unique.

youtube

Back in the 2000s, there was an animated pilot for the Moodsters (with art and animation direction by Drew Bloom) featuring different designs of them and an additional cat girl not present in the current iteration named Moodini voiced by Grace Garland. The earliest legible Wayback Machine snapshot for the Moodsters (May 16, 2008) lists their names as Zazz, Rizzi, Scootz, Snorf and Oola". Now, I unfortunately can't find the full pilot, only the intro, which is a massive bummer because it's the most interesting piece of Moodsters media I've encountered. Apparently, according to a few articles and court documents (we'll get to the lawsuit later I promise) it was titled "The Amoodsment Mixup", and said to be officially available in its entirety on Youtube ... only it's not there. It must've gotten unlisted or removed by the company owner, which is really disappointing since it looks like a fun watch. It's gone probably because it's an outdated interpretation of the Moodsters, which makes sense for the company to remove, but it's disheartening that I can't find it archived anywhere on the internet.

To comment on the intro that we can watch: I'm really digging these older designs! They've got that Muppet look to them with the high eye placement but with smaller mouths, and they've got more varied facial structures and come in different heights, along with overall looking more monstrous. The literal emotional roller coaster is a cute touch too! Honestly I wished they kept these looks, they're peak. I can't find an officially stated reason for the design overhaul and reboot of the IP; my only guess as to why was in order to incorporate human children for the Moodsters to interact with, so that the brand would be more relatable for kids and more easily applicable to them as an emotional analysis tool. There's merit to that decision I'm sure, but I personally prefer this older version because the Moodsters here look more critter-ly and kind of seem to just hang out in the woods doing their own thing, instead of having more "marketable" designs and hanging out directly educating human children. I was a kid in the 2000s, if this animation pitch made it to air on PBS, I absolutely would've tuned in to see these goobers. I likely would have enjoyed it as much as Dragon Tails, Cyberchase and Arthur, as long as the education came second to characters and story (as opposed to more overtly educational shows like Super Why). Honestly, I'm really bummed this pilot wasn't picked up for a full show, or heck, I can't even find the full pilot anywhere :(

youtube

Speaking of old iterations, I really want to show off these old renders of the Moodster headquarters I found digging through Wayback Machine snapshots from (June 29, 2014). It's the Emote Control Headquarters, which was seen in one page of the book in the read along video linked above, but with more detail in the background surrounding the central desks and not in Zach’s room. It seems these renders were to be how their headquarters looked before the human characters were added to the lore. And lemme tell you I adore the amount of detail put into these! I've mentioned the fancy desk setups from the book, and they're shown here again. It's got to be my favorite design aspect for the Moodsters, because each one has their own personalized setup that's color coded and decked out in decor. Coz has some sports equipment at his desk, Lolly's got art supplies, Quigly's got a telescope, and so on. It's a really good way to visually show off their personalities, since they admittedly don't have that much personality otherwise. My hot take is that it way more creative than the console in Inside Out because of its attention to detail. These colorful set pieces are peak kids show aesthetic appeal to me, especially the third image with the ambient lighting. This holdover is something I'm glad made it to more recent Moodster products like the book mentioned above, even if it doesn't make that much sense for them to have such elaborate setups to monitor on the kid they live in the same house with, but it sure as heck at least looks cool.

Remember when I said that this was something that accused Inside Out of ripping it off? Well we’re finally getting to that. I have no formal education on law keep in mind, so here's my understanding on the situation: in Daniels v. Walt Disney, The Moodster Company filed suit against Disney for breaching an "implied-in-fact contract". The gist of the matter is that the Moodster Company had pitched their IP to several companies, the relevant one here being Disney, during the 2000s (likely the animated pilot mentioned earlier was what was pitched), and accused Disney of using the ideas they pitched to produce the film Inside Out, and failing to compensate The Moodster Company for it. It was an accusation of copyright infringement. Disney filed to have this case dismissed, claiming The Moodster Company "failed to meet the legal standard for copyright in a character", basically that the Inside Out emotion characters are not rip offs of the Moodster characters. Ultimately the court granted Disneys' dismissal, because The Moodsters are "lightly sketched" and "are not protectable by copyright". This was determined by the "Towle test" (based on Mark Towle v. DC Comics), which has three criteria for making a character design eligible for copyright protection:

" (1) has “‘physical as well as conceptual qualities,’” (2) is “‘sufficiently delineated to be recognizable as the same character whenever it appears’ and ‘display[s] consistent, identifiable character traits and attributes,’” and (3) is “especially distinctive’ and ‘contain[s] some unique elements of expression.’” " ~ McDermott Will & Emery

It was determined that The Moodsters met criteria (1) but not the later two, mainly because of the several redesigns and name changes the Moodster characters have gotten over the years, ultimately making them inconsistent and indistinctive. The Moodster characters also didn't pass the “Story Being Told test”, because in what little media they have been in, they don't have a proactive enough role nor go through any character arcs nor at least have any unique personality quirks that would make them distinguished characters, instead their personalities are summed up with a short description in their pitchbook and otherwise only just kind of exist. I'd hate to side with the massive corporation for pretty much any reason, but it's a stretch for The Moodster Company to have claimed that Disney ripped them off with inside Out. If the Moodsters had more consistent designs and personalities that Disney-Pixar copied in the Inside Out emotions, there would've have been a case, but that case isn't here. However, I don't think it was completely unreasonable for The Moodster Company to take the legal action that they did, even if they didn't really have much of a legal leg to stand on, because the creator of the company, Denise Daniels had directly pitched the Moodsters to Disney and a contract was involved. I can imagine pitching your idea about personified emotions to a huge company like Disney only for them to come out with their own personified emotions movie a few years later to feel like a contractual stab to the back. One last tidbit mentioned in the court documents though, the most interesting claim Daniels makes is that she discussed the Moodsters with Inside out director Pete Doctor, though the context for when and why this discussion took place isn't known. If that's true, it's very possible that Inside Out took inspiration from the Moodsters, as in, the general idea of personified emotions. The movie is also known to be inspired by Doctor's own daughter, so if anything, this is a case of taking inspiration at most, not copyright infringement. It just goes to show that even though the Moodsters is, first-and-foremost, an emotional educational tool, it's still worth the effort to make your educational tool have an iconic narrative with distinct characters at the very least. It's also interesting to learn that the history of the Moodsters is more intertwined with Inside Out than I initially guessed. If this law suit has taught me anything, it's that the more you redesign your commercially public OCs, the less they are eligible for copyright protection. Weird to think about, in my opinion. (sources and relevant court documents (1), (2) and (3)).

The last thing I want to talk about extensively are the designs of the Moodsters themselves. Honesty, I like them. I think they're cute! I probably wouldn't have have written all of this text if I didn't. I dig the idea of having little fluffball monsters represent emotions, even if they have that generic preschool edutainment mascot look to them. I prefer their pilot designs, but the current designs have been growing on me. You might have noticed the green one got redesigned into the orange one to make room for another green one. Or maybe you didn't notice because they both look the same. In fact, they all kind of look the same save for the colors and outfits. They admittedly are not the same exact 3D model copy pasted with different colors and clothes (each have different shaped ears, cheek fur, facial features and heights), but they're all so similar to each other overall that they're still hard to distinguish. The only bad thing about their designs are the fact that their silhouettes look near identical, really.

If I gave you only half a second to tell them apart based on this image, you'd probably have a difficult time. I'd imagine the preschoolers they're marketed to would as well. Now, a bad silhouette is a pretty fundamental character design issue, but it's easily fixed by just reshaping them with different body types. For fun, I tried my hand at it shown below. Essentially they're the same but with more exaggerated shapes, along with digitgrade legs and short tails to help sell the monstrous look. I drew Tully (the current green one) a little later after the original five (digitally, while the former five were drawn traditionally). It's a first draft that could be improved upon more, because if these critters need anything apparently, it's yet another redesign. I did have fun with it though!

Since I like the pilot animation, it got me thinking about how I might reboot the Moodsters for a hypothetical animated show. I’d change the lore a bit. The main change I’d make is scrap the fact that they live in Zach’s house. They’re not like his fairly oddparents or anything to my knowledge, so there’s no need for them to hang out exclusively (or even primarily) with him. Instead of only helping Zach out with his emotions, I’d have them help out everyone in the whole town with them. This would allow the Moodsters (and the audience) to experience a diverse cast of human characters with a wider variety of life and emotional problems. The Moodsters could help out other children, parents, teachers, the baker, the librarian, the mayor, basically there’s a lot more possibilities than Zach alone would ever provide. A diverse cast of townspeople characters would make it more likely that the audience will relate to at least one of them. Having them help out adults would teach kid audiences that even adults need help with their emotions (because boy do we ever), along with giving this show an all ages appeal (so parents would actually want to watch it together with their kids, or heck, even teens, and adults who don’t have children). It’d be an episodic show that focuses on introducing characters with emotional problems that the Moodster main characters help solve, with the townspeople being better neighbors to each other for it. I personally would avoid any fourth wall breaking (“talking down to”) teaching moments because I personally hated that in shows when I was a little kid (I’m looking at you Dora) and it would bore older viewers. Again, I'm going for a aimed-at-young-children-but-has-an all-ages-appeal. All you really need to teach young kids via a show (again I'm far from an expert, I'm making assumptions based on my anecdotal experiences as a child) in an engaging way is interesting character interactions going through a well written plot honestly, and their caregiver being there with them to talk about it with them.

Also, why isn't there a disgust Moodster? Disgust is a lot more than just wincing your nose at duck poop on the sidewalk, it's a feeling that can shape your entire worldview - particularly about other people - if you don't take the time to analyze it like you would other emotions. It's probably the emotion that's talked about and understood the least and absolutely should have a place in an educational tool that teaches about how to identify and handle emotions. Waltzing around with unchecked disgust can mold a person into an needlessly judgmental snob, at worst a bigot (something I sadly have witnessed growing up with my own parents). Again, for fun, I designed one shown below. Admittedly, she's inspired a bit (a lot) by Rarity from My Little Pony. The gem emblem on her detective cape represents her meticulous sense of aesthetics, since she's the most artistic of the Moodster group. She’s purple because that’s the only color left.

Listen, the Moodsters new detective hideout could be in a burrow under a tree stump in the park, there could be a hotline the townspeople can call to summon them for their help with emotional problems, the park could have a year round carnival with a whole ride dedicated to the Moodsters because they’re beloved by the townspeople called the Emotional Rollercoaster that’s a callback to the coaster in the animated pilot. The whole town could be called “Moodsville” or something. One of the school mascots can be a cow (because MOOdsters) with rainbow colored spots that represent each Moodster. Townspeople can participate in all sorts of community activities like community gardening and hanging out at rec centers. The Moodsters can emotionally help children acting for the school play or college students picking careers or parents handling a messy divorce, the possibilities are truly endless.

That's everything I can find online about the Moodsters. I pretty much focused more on the Moodster media as apposed to them as a children's foundation mainly because I find the media more interesting, and it was easier to find information on. If you're reading this and happen to know any other other info about it (especially if it's about the pilot animation), definitely tell me about it because my intrigue pertaining to these fuzzy goobers is immense.

I think it's an IP with a lot of potential, and one that's struggled to have much of any footing on the general public these past few decades. Pretty much any rare recent mention of the Moodsters online is in reference to their lawsuit against Disney, and it's disfavorable on the part of the Moodster Company since a quick-glance-view of the situation shows a company that sued for a copyright infringement case that ultimately looked silly.

I do like their mission statement about aiming to help children and their caretakers to better understand and cope with their emotions, because emotions really are ignored, misunderstood and dismissed a lot here in countries like the US, leading to many dysfunctional interactions between family, coworkers, and communities at large. Discovering the Moodsters has certainly inspired me to be more mindfull about my feelings, and I hope this 9 page wall of text has inspired you to do the same.

Fingers crossed that the Moodster Company re-releases those plushies in the future

#selkra squawks #reblog

23 notes · View notes

selkra-souza · 27 days

Text

The Moodsters Rabbit Hole

They've got a twitter account featuring one (1) post from 2016.

I first want to go over the plushies specifically because look at them.

youtube

At some point there was a Moodster themed memory match browser game and coloring pages (hard to tell if they were browser coloring games or printables).

And have I even mentioned the yoga mats?

youtube