Here’s a show that had the potential to be something good and interesting but fails at what it’s trying to do. The show focuses on a 10-year old boy artist named Rudy and his friend/crush Penny who discover magic chalk called White Lightning chalk which allows the two to draw a circle on the school board and open a portal to a land called ChalkZone where all the drawings that have been erased on a chalk board come to life. In this world the two befriend one of Rudy’s drawing named Snap and go on adventures in the world of ChalkZone. At first glance the premise of show is interesting, original, and a good idea. A world where children’s drawings and imaginations come to life is pretty cool and opens the door for many possibilities but unfortunately the show drops the ball big time.
Rather than focus on the possibilities of a child’s imagination and how creative it can be, it instead becomes a bland, generic, and forgettable story with characters who aren’t really that interesting, predictable setups, and jokes that aren’t funny at all. The show slips into a generic setup afraid to take risk and try to explore something new, innovated and creative. It was like Foster’s Home for Imagination Friends. The premise is good and has potential but instead of exploring it the creators of both shows got scared and just decided to be generic and bland which was a runt a lot of cartoons around this time were unfortunately slipping into. There’s only like one or two times where the show actually does something creative and imaginative that gets your attention but they go by so fast that you barely have time to appreciate them. Speaking of trying to get your attention, the show would also try to have short music numbers near the end to get you to come back and just like the show these songs were bland and forgettable. The only thing I will say that was good was the animation on the citizens in ChalkZones they really do look like chalk drawings. So in the end did I hate ChalkZone? No, not really I just didn’t care for the show. It had the potential something but didn’t take advantage of what it had.