The Life and Times of Juniper Lee
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| The Life and Times of Juniper Lee | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Animated television series |
| Created by | Judd Winick |
| Voices of | Lara Jill Miller Kath Soucie Carlos Alazraqui Amy Hill Alexander Polinsky Candi Milo Colleen O'Shaughnessey Tara Strong Phil LaMarr |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 40 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 22 minutes approx. |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Cartoon Network |
| Original run | May 30, 2005 – April 9, 2007 |
| External links | |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, also known as Juniper Lee for short, was an American animated television series, created by Judd Winick and produced by Cartoon Network Studios. The series premiered on Cartoon Network on May 30, 2005.
Contents |
[edit] Premise
The series centers on the life of a pre-teen girl, named Juniper Lee, who lives in Orchid Bay City. Based on Winick's adopted hometown of San Francisco, California, the city is a hub for magical activity and is filled with various demons, both good and evil. The magic and human worlds have been separated by a magical barrier, preventing ordinary humans from seeing any magic-related events or the creatures related to them. Juniper has recently been made the new Te Xuan Ze, which gives her the responsibility of maintaining the balance between the human and magic worlds. To accomplish her task, she has been magically enhanced, making her far stronger and faster than ordinary humans. She can also use various kinds of magic to assist her. Maintaining the balance often interferes with her personal life, including her schoolwork and her social life, but she always manages to keep everything flowing. The show has a fairly campy and light-hearted take on the genre, often makes fun of itself, and rarely seems to take itself seriously.
[edit] Inspiration
Winick has stated that Juniper Lee was inspired by both The Simpsons and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Juniper does follow in the footsteps of Buffy, as stated in the quote below:
Interviewer: We’ve touched on just about everything else, so hit us with the high concept. Sum up the show for us…Judd: I’m sounding like a broken record, but it's kind of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets The Simpsons. That's the simplest way to put it. At the end of the day, it's about a little girl who fights monsters. There's a rather massive backstory to the whole thing, which really provides a spine to build from. I've only tapped into it a little in the show, but for me, knowing it's there is important. The show needs a spine, and needs a place to work from...[1]
The main character, Juniper Lee resembles the main character Buffy Summers; Ray-Ray resembles Dawn Summers; Jody Irvin resembles Willow Rosenberg from the early seasons of the show (i.e. before it was revealed that she was a witch); Ophelia Ramírez resembles Cordelia Chase and Roger Radcliffe resembles Xander Harris. The concept of a "Te Xuan Ze" resembles the concept of a Slayer.
It is also worth noting that, in the episode "Brother, What Art Thou?", Ray-Ray grows to giant size, which is what happened to Dawn in the current Buffy comic books.
Unknown or not, storyline and plot setting is also similar to Disney Channel's work, American Dragon: Jake Long.
[edit] Main Characters
[edit] Juniper Lee
Juniper Kim Lee (called "June" for short, voiced by Lara Jill Miller) is the main character of the series. This eleven-year-old Asian girl lives in Orchid Bay City, and is the current Te Xuan Ze. Juniper is relatively uneducated in the world of magic, mostly relying on brute force, a real talent for insults, and the advice of her grandmother, Ah-Mah, and her enchanted dog, Monroe, to defeat her foes. The juniper flower symbolizes protection, referring to Juniper's role as the Te Xuan Ze, protecting others. She also has a hoping romance with Marcus.
[edit] Jasmine Lee
Jasmine Lee, or "Ah-Mah" (Chinese: 阿媽; pinyin: Ā-mā; literally "grandma", voiced by Amy Hill) as Juniper calls her, is Juniper's grandmother, and the previous Te Xuan Ze. Many in the magical world consider her to be the greatest Te Xuan Ze ever. Calm and deliberate in most respects but crude and tough when she needs to be, the 69-year-old gives June advice on dealing with the magical community and their expectations of her, and helps her out when she is in serious trouble. As of the Monster Con episode, Ah-Mah was shown to still possess a significant amount of magically enhanced speed and strength, though her stamina and durability are severely diminished (in comparison to her granddaughter who has superhuman strength) to the point of being unable to stand unassisted after two to three minutes of combat (this is because of her old age). This would seem to suggest that her assertion in the first episode that it was no longer her place to act as Te Xuan Ze was as much pragmatic as it was to prevent June from shirking her responsibilities. In "Little Big Mah", she claims that she knows about 50 different combat styles, was seen breaking a desk in half with her hand, and that she hasn't been to China for the past 40 years (as Roxanne: "I haven't been to China in 40 years, I mean weeks").
[edit] Monroe
Monroe Connery Boyd Carlyle McGregor Scott V (Monroe for short, voiced by Carlos Alazraqui) is an enchanted pug that speaks with a Scottish accent and sounds similar to the eponymous ogre of the movie Shrek. He is quite educated in the world of magic, having been alive for several centuries and assisting each Te Xuan Ze for nearly that entire time. Despite his knowledge, his ability to actually use magic or magical devices is fairly limited, due to his lack of grasping hands or opposable thumbs (according to Ray Ray, he uses this as an excuse for everything). Monroe has been magically enhanced, allowing him to be understood by those who can see through the magic barrier. Anyone else listening to him will only hear barking. He is also lactose intolerant.
[edit] Ray Ray Lee
Ray Ray Lee (voiced by Kath Soucie) is Juniper's hyperactive eight-year-old little brother. His name is believed to be short for "Raymond" or "Raimundo". Like Juniper, Ray Ray can see through the magic barrier, though this is not a naturally-occurring ability. In the episodes after "Star Quality", he is occasionally seen watching monster TV. When Juniper first gained her powers, a group of demons attempted to drain her powers. Ray Ray unwittingly intervened, causing some of her powers to transfer to him, as seen in "Adventures in Babysitting". Whether or not he'll gain other powers similar to hers remains to be seen, as Ah-Mah has implied that he may over time.
He is hyperactive and careless, and often gets himself into trouble when dealing with the magic world. Ray Ray is often over-eager in regards to the magic world, finding every single event involving it, no matter how bad or ominous, to be "cooool." A recurring joke about him is that asks if he has ever run out of energy, where someone would say, "but there's always a first time." He also has a love-hate relationship with Juniper. In the episodes after "O Brother, What Art Thou?", Ray Ray is a homunculus, his mind having been transferred to an artificial body after accidentally mutating his original body into a massive monster by ingesting the growth potion that was supposed to make the giant grow back to his proper size in "O Brother, What Art Thou?". In "Meet the Parent", Monroe states that Ray Ray has a bladder control problem, though this has never been confirmed, save in "The World According to LARP" when Juniper said that he wet his pants on the jungle gym once, and again in "Dream Date" where he has trouble making it to the bathroom after drinking punch. Since he is very young still, it is probable he will outgrow these tendencies.
[edit] Supporting Characters
[edit] Dennis Lee
Dennis (voiced by Alexander Polinsky) is Juniper's fourteen-year-old brother. Unlike his siblings, he is unable to see through the magic barrier, unless he wears a special talisman. Despite this, Dennis is a hardcore fantasy enthusiast, doing regular larping sessions with his friends. This interest makes other people, particularly Monroe and Ray Ray, taunt him about his love life (or lack thereof). Often very moody and sullen, Dennis has very little interest in the activities of his younger siblings, whom he usually tries to ignore as much as possible, although his rivalry with June and Ray Ray has gotten weaker in Season 3.
In spite of this, the Lee siblings have a garage band together, called the Short Angry Freuds (each sibling chose one word). Because he plays bass, June says that nobody notices him, implying that he is the least important member of the group. However, he is a decent musician. The band is originally from Winick's comic strip Frumpy the Clown.
Dennis seems to have a crush on Jody, as hinted by "Dream Date". In "Sealed with a Fist," Dennis had built up an immunity to the memory-erasing goblin dust, so June revealed to him about the magical world and her secret life. At the end of the episode, Monroe was ready to erase Dennis' memory with an Amnesio stone, but June said not to, figuring it might be good to have Dennis in on the secret. Monroe has noted that Dennis is actually better with magic than June due to his constant role-playing, which was based on real magic. Dennis enjoys manga, video games, and would like to own a pet snake as seen in "Meet the Parent".
[edit] Jody Irwin
One of Juniper's best friends, Jody Irwin (voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessey) is the smartest girl in school, and the best cheerleader. She has an extremely bright and cheerful personality, and is the type of person who most likely won't misbehave and will always stick close to her friends. She always does her best to look at the bright side of life, rarely becoming upset about anything, though she is distressed by June's lack of punctuality and tendency to disappear occasionally. Two major exceptions being the disproportionate amount of attention her parents pay to her sister Rachael (leading to extreme, if not humorous, anger) and being thoroughly personally attacked during her run for Class President in "Citizen June" (leading to a sobbing fit once she was in relative privacy). She also seems to suspect about June and magic more than Ophelia and Roger, as seen in "Every Witch Way But Loose".
[edit] Ophelia Ramírez
Another of Juniper's best friends. Ophelia Ramírez (voiced by Candi Milo), is a rather glum and deadpan punk rocker/goth girl in training who would not be caught wearing, listening to, or even associating with anything mainstream. She even calls her evil clone "a poser" during the ending credits of "Picture Day". As we learned in "Magic Takes A Holiday" and "Take My Life, Please", she will go out of character if need be. Being from a Hispanic family, Ophelia can speak fluent Spanish. Ophelia seems to be emotionless, but in "Take My Life, Please", "Who's your daddy", and "Make Me Up Before You Go-Go", she laughs a little, and in "The Kids Stay in the Picture" she actually cried because she told June that she is her best friend but has no idea why because June is always running away (because of being the Te Xuan Ze). Ophelia's natural hair color is blonde (which is odd for her heritage), but she dyes it pink and violet. One of her other friends, Roger, according to her, is a dork, and in "Enter Sandman" she wouldn't let him stay for the sleep over, and in that episode, she has a dream sequence with him that she refers to as "A nightmare" . When choosing whether or not to go out on a date with Roger, she comments that she'd rather put her head in a bucket of cockroaches instead, as seen in "Dream Date". In "Citizen June", she seems to be very close to Jody, as seen when she commented on how happy she looks and again when she stood up to Melissa O'Malley after seeing Jody cry during her speech while June was finding the Vindolf Hobgoblin, and as a result of her speech, she (unwittingly) becomes elected for class president after earning more votes than Juniper or Melissa. In general, Ophelia has a goth attitude on the outside, but on the inside she is a great friend, as she stands up for her friends. She finds Jody and Roger to be annoying, but as she said in "Citizen June", keep your friends close and your stupid friends even closer. Roger has a hinted crush on Ophelia in the 1st and 2nd season, and the same perhaps goes for Ophelia, except, she hasn't admitted it yet, although Ophelia does show that she cares about Roger.
[edit] Roger Radcliffe
Roger Radcliffe (voiced by Tara Strong) is the type of person who tries to follow every trend and stay cool, only to achieve the exact opposite result.In Episode "take my life , Please" it is learned that he comes from a wealthy family, and his parents somewhat and clulessly take his jokes funny and amusing. Despite this, he is somewhat lovable and yet annoying at the same time. In "Magic Takes A Holiday", when Juniper was kidnapped by Dimitri the Terrible, who wasn't observing Edipan, a magic holiday, Roger had to fill in as the title character Jack instead of his original character of the Village Idiot during the production of Stalk: The Rocksical and, according to Ophelia, was "good."
[edit] Marcus Conner
Along with being handsome and popular, Marcus Conner (voiced by Phil LaMarr) is one cool guy. Juniper has a big crush on him, although she won't admit it. Despite being part of the in-crowd, Marcus is friends with everyone and often looks out for Juniper. He never gets caught up in his popularity and is always laid-back. As we see in "Enter Sandman", it was Juniper's dream to marry Marcus, after getting advice from Ah-Mah saying she had to fall asleep in order to go into the dream realm without being a visitor. His last name is first mentioned in "Meet the Parent".
[edit] Michael and Barbara Lee
Michael Lee (voiced by Carlos Alazraqui) and his wife Barbara (voiced by Candi Milo) are the parents of Juniper, Ray Ray, and Dennis. Michael is Jasmine's only child, and was supposed to wind up being the Te Xuan Ze after Ah-Mah; however, the trait skipped him and ended up with Juniper instead. Michael works with Mr. Radcliffe; his occupation is unknown.
[edit] Ms. Gomez
Ms. Gomez (voiced by Candi Milo) is a teacher at Juniper's school. While it's never shown, Ray Ray mentions in the episode "The World According to L.A.R.P." that he once accidentally turned her into a rhinoceros; he still thinks she was happier that way.
[edit] William
William (voiced by Martin Jarvis) is Monroe's father, who previously served as the assistant to the Te Xuan Ze, and constantly teases Monroe about his weight. Although being a dog, he has a short beard.
[edit] Melissa O'Malley
Melissa O'Malley (voiced by Tara Strong) is Juniper's snobbish rival who is jealous of June because June has a boyfriend (Marcus) and she doesn't which is why she plans on breaking June and Marcus apart so that she can steal Marcus from June. She is accompanied by two girls who help her with her plans against June and her friends, the girls' names are unknown.
[edit] Magical characters
The Life and Times of Juniper Lee features a wide array of magical characters, most of which only appear in specific episodes. A few are recurring, but those few contribute very little overall, usually only appearing to deliver a warning or for comedic effect.
[edit] Episodes
[edit] DVDs
A First Season is confirmed for a 2009 release.
[edit] References
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