Sealab 2021

Sealab 2021 was an animated comedy shown on Cartoon Network's adult-oriented programming block, Adult Swim. Each episode was 15 minutes long, including commercials. Like Cartoon Network's ', the animation closely resembled stock footage from a 1970's Hanna-Barbera cartoon, in this case the short-lived environmentally-themed Sealab 2020. Sealab 2021 was produced by 7030 Productions for Cartoon Network's Williams Street Studios. Sealab was cancelled after five seasons by Cartoon Network, with the final episode airing in April 2005. Many critics felt that the show was never the same after the death of voice actor Harry Goz and that this led Adult Swim to cancel the popular series.

Characters and premise

The show is set one year after the time frame of Sealab 2020. During this year, the crew has slowly gone crazy, and as this has happened, the crew has spent more time goofing off in various ways than doing any serious work. Continuity is frequently ignored; more often than not the entire installation is destroyed at the end of the episode.

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Main characters

Captain Hazel "Hank" Murphy is the ostensible leader of the crew. Unfortunately, he's also the most deranged member, and quite unfit for service; instead of providing any real leadership, he's either running a pirate radio show, complaining about his Happy Cake oven, or playing golf near the station's reactor core (among other things). Murphy was voiced by Harry Goz until his death on September 5, 2003 from cancer. After that, Murphy was described as having left Sealab to fight in the "Great Spice Wars," probably a reference to Frank Herbert's Dune series.

Related Topics:
Pirate radio - Golf - Harry Goz - September 5 - 2003 - Cancer - Dune

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Captain Bellerophon "Tornado" Shanks earned his position as Sealab's new captain by answering a help-wanted ad. A retired football coach and lovable redneck, he has all of Murphy's shortsighted idiocy combined with a Southern charm. Tornado's leadership qualities have led him to coach the crew in a football game against killer robots, declare Sealab a sovereign nation, warp the minds of Sealab's orphan population, and assert that a huge tumor on his head would go away through prayer alone, forcing the crew to shrink themselves and get injected into his body in order to save him. Shanks is voiced by Michael Goz, son of the late Harry Goz.

Related Topics:
Bellerophon - Football - Coach - Redneck - Southern - Robot - Nation - Michael Goz - Harry Goz

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Debbie DuPree (a.k.a. "White" Debbie) (voiced by Kate Miller) is the token female of the crew, a marine biologist, and blond and beautiful to boot. Being the token female, she tends to get upset when the guys do chauvinistic things, but being a stereotypical blonde, she's not exactly all there herself (and she tends to hit on the guys as much as they hit on her). She has a sexual relationship going on with Doctor Quinn—when she feels like it, of course—and she's slept with Murphy at least once. Recently, she has stopped being as sexual and become religious, acting as a stereotype of modern-day Christians, finding fault at everyone and saying they have to reform their ways or they will suffer God's wrath, despite her complete lack of knowledge about Christianity. (She, for example, thinks Jesus was originally a wooden boy that lived in a whale.)

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Derek "Stormy" Waters (voiced by Ellis Henican) is the station's resident pretty boy (his actual function on the crew has never been revealed). He's all looks and no brains; most of the time, he barely knows what's going on around him. His stupidity has gotten him into trouble several times, mainly with "Black" Debbie (who thinks he's a racist).

Related Topics:
Ellis Henican - Racist

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Doctor Quentin Q. Quinn (voiced by Brett Butler) is the brains of the outfit. As the only member of the crew with any formal education and any sort of common sense left, he's the one that ends up running the station (and, in some cases, trying to keep it from exploding). He's also the token black guy. He and Debbie have an on-again, off-again relationship. Quinn is actually a cyborg; an illness in his youth forced him to transplant his human brain into a replica robot body. Although Quinn dramatically revealed this in the pilot episode "I, Robot" it doesn't really affect his character that much, and it is only rarely mentioned again throughout the series.

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Jodene Sparks (voiced by Bill Lobley) is the station's sarcastic, scheming radio operator, and co-conspirator with Captain Murphy in most of his escapades (though often as a front to further his own plans). Sparks is never seen out of his rolling chair. He claims this is not because he's crippled, but just lazy.

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Marco Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar Gabriel Garcia Marquez (voiced by Erik Estrada) is the station's engineer, macho man, and wannabe Latin lover. He's tried to seduce both females on the station at various times, with limited success. He also has a thing for CHiPs.

Related Topics:
Erik Estrada - CHiPs

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Minor characters

Debbie Love (a.k.a. "Black" Debbie) (voiced by Angela Gibbs) is both the only other female and the only other black person on the station. She teaches school to Dolphin Boy and the rest of Sealab's orphans, is very proud of her blackness (she's fought with Stormy over this at least once), and has been seduced by Marco several times. The former Heisman Trophy winner has also been known to get stoned off a hookah pipe, while loudly asserting that in full compliance with standards and practices (Cartoon Network's censoring department) that she's enjoying the pipe "in a drug-free way." (In one episode, her name is given as Debbie Allison)

Related Topics:
Angela Gibbs - Heisman Trophy - Standards and practices - Cartoon Network

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Sharko is Marco's interspecies son, from when Marco "put his human penis in Sharko's shark mother's vagina," (referred to as a "shark-gina") as is painfully stated in every episode he appears in. Sharko is scatterbrained and flighty, and longs to know as much as he can learn about his father. Marco actually doesn't know Sharko exists, while Sharko thinks Marco is dead. The two finally meet in Season Four, which Marco responds to by not recognizing Sharko and shooting him with a Mini-Uzi, though not fatally.

Related Topics:
Species - Son - Human - Penis - Shark - Mother - Vagina - Father

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Dolphin Boy is a little, chubby boy (who looks to be about 10) that talks in dolphin noises. He's a member of Black Debbie's class, and is the target of endless fat jokes.

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Fatass McBlobicus is an acne-infested, bespectacled member of Black Debbie's class. While Dolphin Boy is chubby, McBlobicus is severely overweight. While substituting for Debbie one day, Quinn didn't believe that McBlobicus' name was real, but a quick check of the class roster proved him wrong.

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Doctor Ilad Virjay (voiced by Adam Reed) is the station's official doctor and in-house surgeon. He has been known to use the surgery's gas mask on himself. He also once headed his own rockabilly band.

Related Topics:
Adam Reed - Rockabilly

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Chopper Dave is a helicopter pilot with the U.S. Navy. He is also a werewolf and has his own popular television show with TV movies made for it.

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Hesh Hepplewhite is the station's intern, and quite often the whipping boy as well. It was revealed very recently that he is Jewish. Nasal-voiced, smart-mouthed, and whiny, Hesh isn't well liked by most of the crew, and thus works in the part of the station furthest away from them (the reactor core). Exposure to intense radiation will turn Hesh into "Monster Hesh," an Incredible Hulk-like alter ego with no neck. Hesh has a habit of continually referring to himself in the third person. The character is voiced by independent rapper and former Cartoon Network staffer mc chris (Chris Ward). He also "wants married sex."

Related Topics:
Jewish - Incredible Hulk - Mc chris

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Carl is an overweight man who works in the reactor room with Hesh, barely tolerating him. He often ends up killed by whatever crisis the crew is currently facing. Carl is voiced by Sealab 2021 artist Christian Danley.

Related Topics:
Sealab 2021 - Christian Danley

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The Bizarros are a group that resemble the main Sealab characters only with black uniforms and other noticeable features. Bizarro Murphy has a scar and an eyepatch. Bizarro Debbie has a cyborg arm and pink hair. Bizarro Stormy has ice hair and can breathe ice cubes. Bizarro Marco has a metal jaw with sharp teeth and Bizarro Sparks is a head in a floating jar. The strangest is Bizarro Quinn, who hatches out of an egg. It is short, has orange hair, a beak, gangly hands without arms, and an allergy to peanuts. The Bizarros have a tendency to use the word "Bizarro" almost every time they say something, and sometimes encourage others to. The Bizarros are a reference to the DC Comics villian "Bizarro", an imperfect clone of Superman who is one of that hero's more memorable villains. During Bizarro's appearances in Hanna-Barbera's productions of Super Friends, his speech was very disjointed, and the Bizarros of Sealab share a similar impediment.

Related Topics:
DC Comics - Bizarro - Superman - Hanna-Barbera - Super Friends

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