The Jumping Ground

The Jumping Ground is an American adult animated sitcom created by Lee Eisenhower and Conrad Vernon for the Cartoon Network television network. Originally Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language and dark, surreal humor that satirizes a wide range of topics. Over time, it has developed a quirky, humorous and sometimes controversial style.

The show received generally positive reviews from critics and became one of Cartoon Network's most successful original series. It won a Reuben Award, two Leo Awards and a SOCAN Award, and was also nominated for another four Leo Awards, an Annie Award and two Kids' Choice Awards. The show attracted an audience of 45.8 million households, was broadcast in 130 countries, and proved to be popular among not only children, but teenagers and even adults as well.

With a 19-year run, 18 seasons, and 277 episodes (including so far, 9 specials), The Jumping Ground remains the longest-running Cartoon Network original series to date, and is also one of the longest-running United States animated series.

The ongoing narrative revolves around four kids—PuffPuff Humbert, Lance Patrick, Zowie Hosker, and Rob Broflovski, along with a mythical alien being known prematurely as The Stig—and their bizarre adventures in and around the fictional town of Pencaster, Ohio, exploring the galaxy and defend against alien threats such as the Goa'uld, Replicators, and the Ori.

The series draws upon Egyptian mythology, Norse mythology, and Arthurian legend. Much like The Simpsons, The Jumping Ground utilizes a very large ensemble cast of recurring characters. Merchandise for The Jumping Ground includes games and toys, print media, and an original audio series.

Series Overview
follows the present-day adventures of SB-1, a secondary school class and military team from Earth. SB-1 and a dozen other SG teams venture to distant planets using a fictional alien portal known as a SpaceBridge, which in the series is housed in a top-secret United States Special Forces military base known as SpaceBridge Command (SBC) in Downtown Pencaster, Ohio. In the first eight seasons and Season 14 onwards, the mission of the SB teams is to explore the galaxy and search for alien technology and allies to defend Earth against the Goa'uld, a snake-like parasitic alien race that takes humans as unwilling hosts. As explained in the series' backstory, the Goa'uld had transported human slaves from Earth to other habitable planets across the galaxy billions of thousands of years ago and now pose as gods of Ancient Earth mythologies, particularly Egyptian mythology, led by Dr. Edgar George Chaos. SB-1 eventually learns that highly evolved human-like beings, known as the Ancients, had originally built the Stargate network millions of years earlier, before they used their extraordinary powers to ascend to a higher plane of existence, after which they pledged to not interfere in the lives of other species. The Ori, who belong to the same race of ascended beings as the Ancients but who use their powers to subjugate other species, forcing them to worship the Ori and to believe a doctrine of religious fundamentalism, assume the role of the main antagonists in seasons 9 and 14.

Anubis arc (Season 5-8)
In the season 5 finale ("Revelations"), the half-Ascended Goa'uld System Lord Anubis (David Palffy) assumes the role of the primary antagonist of the show, with Shinnok now serving as the secondary antagonist. This new villain possesses much of the knowledge of the Ancients and their technology. While Earth builds its first interstellar spaceship (the Prometheus) in seasons 6 and 7, Anubis creates an army of almost invincible Kull Warriors and wipes out or subordinates most of his adversaries amongst the System Lords. In the season 6 finale ("Full Circle"), SB-1 discovers a powerful weapon in an Ancient outpost in Abydos that annihilates Anubis's entire fleet. Kamek subsumes much of Anubis's power in season 8, while Anubis, who survived the destruction of his fleet in a disembodied form, quietly begins to re-assert his influence. Human-form Replicators begin to conquer the System Lords, but SG-1 finds and adjusts an Ancient weapon to destroy all Replicators throughout the galaxy. Near the end of season 8 ("Serpent's Song"), it is revealed that the benevolent Ascended being Oma Desala (Mel Harris) is responsible for Anubis's original ascension. When she engages Anubis in an eternal stalemated battle on the Ascended plane to prevent his acting on the mortal plane, the Replicators and most System Lords have already been annihilated, and the Jaffa win their freedom from Goa'uld rule.

Characters


The show follows the exploits of four boys, PuffPuff Humbert, Lance Patrick, Zowie Hosker and Rob Broflovski. The kids, who ironicaly resemble the members of the Happy Monster Band, live in the fictional small town of Pencaster, located within Ohio The town is also home to an assortment of frequent characters such as students, families, elementary school staff, and other various residents, who tend to regard Pencaster as a bland and quiet place to live. Prominent settings on the show include SpaceBridge Command, the bus stop, various neighborhoods, and the shops and businesses along the town's main street.

Puff is portrayed as the everyman of the group, as the show's official website describes him as an "average, American 4th grader". Lance, who comes from a poor family is the lone Jew among the group, and his portrayal in this role is often dealt with satirically. Puff is modeled after Eisenhower, while Lance is modeled after Vernon. Puff and Lance are best friends, and their relationship, which is intended to reflect the real life friendship between Eisenhower and Vernon, is a common topic throughout the series. Zowie is the lone female member of the group and an expert conspiracy theorist, whom Lance has a crush on. Rob is a loud, obnoxious, manipulative, racist and obese literal psychopath — is often portrayed as an antagonist whose anti-Semitic attitude has resulted in an ever-progressing feud with Lance, although the deeper reason for the antagonistic relationship is the strong clash between Lance's strong morality, and Rob's complete lack of such. He was written out of the show's sixth season sixth season in 2002, as he ascends to a higher plane of existence at the end of the fifth season, until he re-appears in the towards the end of the season, until finally re-joining the team at the very beginning of the seventh season.

Music
The show's original theme song was a musical score performed by the band Primus, while the lyrics are alternately sung by the band's lead singer, Les Claypool, and the show's four central characters. Rob's lines are altered after every few seasons. The original composition was originally slower but was sped up for the show, while an instrumental version of the original composition is often played during the show's closing credits. The song's melody is similar to the song "Coddingtown", on Primus's Brown Album. The opening theme song has been remixed three times during the course of the series, including a remix performed by Paul Robb. In 2006, the theme music was remixed with the song "Whamola" by Colonel Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, from the album Purple Onion.

Specials
Beginning in 2006, a series of specials have featured the characters being dispatched at certain long-distance across a foreign country or region to complete a certain task. 2006 featured an Olympic sporting event, using cars instead of athletes.

International
Internationally, The Jumping Ground is broadcast in India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and several countries throughout Europe and Latin America on channels that are divisions of Turner Broadcasting, both subsidiaries of Time Warner. In distribution deals with Cartoon Network, other independent networks also broadcast the series in other international markets. In Australia, the show is broadcast on Cartoon Network, BBC UKTV, SBS One and SBS Two. The series is broadcast in Canada in English on YTV. The Jumping Ground also airs on Discovery Kids and BBC Entertainment in Latin America, RTÉ One in Ireland, STV in Scotland, S4C in Wales (in Welsh language only), BBC Two (also shown on BBC HD until 2013, and BBC Three albeit in reruns) in the UK, where it has broadcast the show since its inception in 1998, and B92 in Serbia.

Syndication
Broadcast syndication rights to The Jumping Ground were acquired by Debmar-Mercury and Tribune Entertainment in 2003 and 2004 respectively. Episodes further edited for content began running in syndication on September 19, 2005, and are aired in the United States with the TV-14 rating. 20th Television replaced Tribune as co-distributor in early 2008. The series is currently aired in syndication in 90 percent of the television markets across the U.S. and Canada, where it generates an estimated US$25 million a year in advertising revenue.

Streaming
In March 2008, Cartoon Network made every episode of The Jumping Ground available for free full-length on-demand legal streaming on the official Jumping Ground Studios website. From March 2008 until December 2013 new episodes were added to the site the day following their debut, and an uncensored version was posted the following day. The episode stayed up for the remainder of the week, then taken down, and added to the site three weeks later.

In July 2014, it was announced that Hulu had signed a three-year deal purchasing exclusive online streaming rights to The Jumping Ground for a reported 80 million dollars. Following the announcement every episode remained available for free on the Jumping Ground Studios website, using the Hulu player. As of September 2014, following the premiere of the eighteenth season, only 30 select episodes are featured for free viewing at a time on a rationing basis on the website, with new episodes being available for an entire month starting the day following their original airings. The entire series will be available for viewing on Hulu Plus.

In August 2011, BBC iPlayer made every episode on the show permanently available to stream in the UK. When a new episode of the show airs on BBC Two, it will be immediately available to watch.

Criticism and Controversy
The Jumping Ground has often been criticised for content inside programmes by some members of the public and by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Most of the criticisms stem from comments from the production team; however, other aspects of the programme have been underlined as unsuitable. Incidents and content ranging from (but not limited to) remarks considered by some viewers to be offensive, promoting irresponsible driving, ridiculing environmental issues, Germans, Mexicans, and Poles, and alleged homophobia have generated complaints. It has been regarded by most critics as the most controversial show on Cartoon Network, being described as lazy, adolescent humour and "mainstream racism".

The show started lampooning the controversy surrounding its use of profanity, as well as the media attention surrounding the network show Chicago Hope's singular use of the word "shit", with the Season 5 premiere It Hits the Fan, in which the word "shit" is said 162 times without being bleeped for censorship purposes, while also appearing uncensored in written form In the days following the show's original airing, 5,000 disapproving e-mails were sent to Cartoon Network.

The Season 14 episodes 200 and 200 were mired in controversy for satirizing issues surrounding the depiction of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. The website for the organization Revolution Muslim, a New York-based radical Muslim organization, posted an entry that included a warning to creators Eisenhower and Vernon that they risk violent retribution for their depictions of Muhammad. It said that they "will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show." The posting provided the addresses to Cartoon Network and the production company in Los Angeles. The author of the post, Zachary Adam Chesser (who prefers to be called Abu Talhah al Amrikee), said it was meant to serve as a warning to the creators, not a threat, and that providing the addresses was meant to give people the opportunity to protest. The 200 episode, which also depicted the Buddha snorting cocaine, prompted the government of Sri Lanka to ban the series outright.

In June 2013, Indian-born actress Somi Guha made a formal complaint to Cartoon Network for $1.8 million, for a racist term used after building a bridge over the Kok River in the Burma Special. Upon its completion, PuffPuff said, "That's a proud moment, but there's a slope on it", and Lance added, "Yeah, right. It's definitely higher on that side". This led to complaints that "slope" is a derogatory term for an Asian person. In April, The show’s executive producer Mic Graves apologised for the racist remark. In July 2014 FCC ruled that Cartoon Network had breached broadcasting rules by including this offensive racial term.

In October 2013, the fourth episode of Season 17 was banned in the United Kingdom over its blatant portrayal of violence over the increasing of university tuition fees in England, dating back to October 2010. To fill in the space in its 9:00 timeslot on its usual posttion on Wednesday night, a repeat of Top Gear was shown in its place. Numerous political figures in the country have also criticized the episode. Prime Minister David Cameron called the BBC to prevent the episode from being aired and regarded it as "seriously offensive". Nick Clegg, Then-Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrats said he was "extremely humiliated" by the episode and what it had portrayed. Despite this, the episode itself is still available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

In May 2014 there were complaints and calls for the show to be pulled off the air after it was revealed that Rob Broflovski, one of the show's central characters, had seemingly used the word "nigger" in a children's rhyme on an unaired take from the show. Co-creator Lee Eisenhower denied having let the character use the word, then apologised when a previously unbroadcast clip revealed Rob doing so.

The Jumping Ground also received extensive criticism in late November 2014 after the Season 18 episode, Cock Magic, Aired. The creators, producers and the majority of the voice cast were chased out of the production studio by angry protesters throwing rocks at the team. This was in protest against the number plate on a Chevrolet Impala in the background which supposedly made reference to the Falklands War (his platenumber was H982 FKL). Cartoon Network maintained that the number plate was pure coincidence.

Video Games
Following the early success of the series, many video games based on the series were released by Electronic Arts. A platform game simply titled The Jumping Ground was released in 1999 for the PC, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, and Dreamcast.

Film
In November 2014, it was reported that a theatrical Jumping Ground movie is in development by Warner Bros. Pictures and Cartoon Network Movies. The film is being produced and written by creators Lee Eisenhower and Conrad Vernon and produced by Ryan Todd, Mary Parent, Dan Lin and Chris McKay.