FETCH! WITH RUFF RUFFMAN

Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman is a live action and animated reality game show that aired on PBS from 2006 to 2010! It was produced by WGBH, a member station of PBS in Boston. The show primarily focuses on science and STEM educational skills!

The show is hosted by the titular Ruff Ruffman, a nervous, self-centered, and talkative cartoon dog who sends real-life kid contestants (the FETCHers) out to complete various types of challenges across Boston (and eventually, various parts of the United States)! There are different groups of six FETCHers for each season, always with three boys and three girls. They earn points based on how well they completed their challenges, and it all culminates at the end of each season with a grand finale where a season winner is crowned! The challenges are always light hearted and usually have some sort of educational value, such as types of sciences or different life skills. There are also the Halftime Quiz Shows that review content in each episode for the FETCHers who didn't get assigned a challenge that episode. Though most of the show is episodic, there are mini plots contained in a few episodes, as well as overarching plots in seasons four and five. Ruff uses the FETCH 3000, a supercomputer that helps him run the show and awards out points to each FETCHer at the end of each episode during the Triumph Tally! Each episode also has a daily winner based on who earned the most points that day, who can choose between "option A" or "option B", but they won't know what the prize is until they recieve it. The prizes can range from something exciting, to something lame but harmless. However, points are not particularly important until the season finales, where the kids compete against each other elimination-style to be the grand champion of the season!

Starting from season two, Ruff is accompanied by his intern-turned-producer Blossom, a quiet black cat- even though Ruff hates cats! She is extremely skilled, and helps balance out Ruff's incompetence. There is also Ruff's mouse assistant Chet, however he almost always causes problems for Ruff and Blossom. All three of them become close friends, especially Ruff and Blossom despite their differences. Additionally, Ruff has a very extended family tree, and his family members often appear to influence the challenges of the episode, such as his overbearing grandma, his computer-whiz nephew Glen, and his criminal twin brother Scruff. (It honestly kind of feels like a soap opera at some points during the show, with his extended family.)

Multiple spin-offs have been made with the Fetch! characters, years after the original show's run. In 2014, the mini-series Humble Media Genius released, and it teaches about how kids can use technology and internet safety. It's honestly such a time capsule to watch the series, considering the time period it premiered. There's also The Ruff Ruffman Show, another mini-series from 2017 with four groups of five episode mini-stories teaching about other STEM topics. Team Hamster! released in 2020, which doesn't focus on Ruff (rather it focuses on a trio of hamsters) with a few shorts and tie-in web games. In 2024, more Humble Media Genius episodes released with Ruff and a new character, Lupine the Cat, discussing AI and when and what to use of it. (I do not like these shorts very much...) All of the spinoffs are aimed for a younger audience than Fetch! was, and the animation quality is not the best, but they all have their charm!

MY THOUGHTS

I LOVE FETCH! SOOOOOOOO MUCH!!! Genuinely one of my favorite shows, it's one of the few TV shows I've watched in its entirety and loved every bit of it. The writing is really fun, the characters are very silly, there's a lot of interesting topics that get covered in the show. I'm very partial to science, especially when they talk about animals, but there's other things that they do in the show that are just plain interesting to me. I've watched a lot of kids shows and this is one of the few ones that really do feel aimed towards a more general audience. Plus, the show has aged pretty well content wise; there's a few things that feel like a huge time capsule to the late 2000s, but otherwise, I think it's very modern and easy to watch in the 2020s. I've always enjoyed it, but only relatively recently started to appreciate it properly! Part of the reason I've had my eyes on the show for a while is because the titular Ruff Ruffman is also the voice claim of my favorite OC, Mic! I've drawn a few animatics to clips of the show with him before, and probably will do more in the future. So in that way, this show is extra special to me because I associate it pretty heavily with my OCs and Ruff was a huge inspiration for how I write Mic.

For a bit of context, I have a huge interest in kid's shows from the 2000s, primarily from Playhouse Disney and PBS Kids. (I might make a page dedicated to kids shows in general later on!) Part of it is due to nostalgia, but a lot of these shows I actually never watched as a kid and I discovered later as a teenager. Fetch! is one of the surprising exceptions. Though I wasn't an active watcher of the show, I absolutely saw it as a kid, as I can remember watching PBS Kids starting from around 2009, so I saw a lot of reruns of the earlier seasons and I was around for season 4 and 5. I didn't watch it as much as other PBS shows but when it was on I enjoyed it! It wasn't until 2021 when Defunctland made a video about the show, which is what reminded me of Fetch!'s existance. (I'm sure that applies to other people, too. When Defunctland posts it's like a cultural phenomenon.) Since then, I've been on-and-off fixating on it, starting with watching the season 5 episodes on YouTube. Obviously by now I've watched the show completely, in order. (If you're wondering, my favorite season is season four.)

In December 2023 I started fixating on the show, kind of out of nowhere, but that tends to happen with me. It started with doodling Ruff, and I drew a human design for him for fun. Then decided to start watching the show while I was on a school break... I watched the entirety of the first season in three days. I finished the whole show in exactly a month, and I swear, it was one of the best things I've watched. I must stress that this is a true sign I'm fixating on something, because I very much struggle to start watching TV shows, let alone finish them. Woooo I love this show so much and I very highly reccomend it!

FAN ART GALLERY

Cringe is dead. Look at my fanart for an 18 year old kids show NOW

January 2024; My human designs for Ruff, Blossom, and Chet! I draw them a LOT because I'm better at drawing humans...

January 2024; Sketchpage of Ruff (plus Blossom)! Some of these were referenced from screenshots!

Feburary 2024; Drawing I did meant to directly imitate the show's art style! It was a struggle but I'm very proud of it!

February 2024; Sketchpage of Glen (Ruff's nephew!) SUPER proud of this piece.

February 2024; Art for Valentine's day, done for funsies!

January 2024; Art from my sketchbook! I drew, colored, and cut out each character individually and glued it all together.