Badges of honor

A thoroughly fun, new cartoon debuted on Nickelodeon this weekend – The Mighty B. Each episode follows the hyperactive adventures of Bessie Higginbottom, who is nine and three-quarters and an enthusiastic member of her Honeybee scout troop. Bessie’s m.o. is to earn every badge possible, thinking that’ll give her the power to become a superhero, the Mighty B. See video clips here.

If the show looks a little like SpongeBob Squarepants and Fairly Odd Parents, that’s because two of its three creators – Erik Wiese and Cynthia True, respectively – worked on those shows. The third co-creator is Amy Poehler, who also is the voice behind Bessie. Certainly, Bessie is reminiscent of Kaitlin, the reoccurring pre-teen character Poehler plays on Saturday Night Live. (“Rick! Rick! Rick! Watch this, Rick!”). But Poehler tells Entertainment Weekly, it goes back even further.

I’ve been doing that kind of kid character for a long time. I did that character at Upright Citizens Brigade before I came to SNL, the Brownie kid named Cassie McMadison. [Bessie] was an amalgamation of a lot of different voices and things that I had done. I really liked the idea of playing that kind of optimistic, super-intense, go-get-’em spirit combined with being a little bit of an outsider. I am really drawn to girls of that age in general, who believe they can be a waitress, scientist, actress, a dentist, a zookeeper...and who really aren’t boy-crazy.

Visually, the show is incredibly engaging. Set in San Francisco, the cartoon makes ample use of the city’s acute angles and steep streets and, to a certain extent, evokes the beautiful and sharply drawn children’s books by Miroslav Sasek. Straight out of the Haight, there’s even a resident hippie who calls to mind Captain Caveman. And Bessie’s dog and cohort, Happy, looks like he could be a grandpuppy of Hanna-Barbera’s Huckleberry Hound.

The show doesn’t reinvent the format; each episode is still two 15-minute stories. But the episodes are relevant to kids without being preachy. In “Sweet Sixteenth,” Bessie gets all worked up to ride the grown-up roller coaster – even readying a bucket in case there’s a “vomiting incident” – only to learn that she’s too short for the ride. Welcome to disappointment, kids. Of course, being a cartoon, she finds a loophole. In “Bee Afraid,” Bessie realizes during an overnight camping trip that she’s more afraid of being afraid than anything that’s actually worth being afraid about. (Does FDR get a co-writing credit?) Not to mention she makes smoothies for woodland creatures. There must be a badge for that, right?