Meelk n' Creem

Meelk n' Creem is a British animated adventure-comedy series created by BaconMatthew for Nickelodeon and later Dessin. The series follows the lives of Meelk and Creem, two lifelong friends living in the kingdom of Eten whose jobs working as security guards at King Iyce Creem's palace sends them on a variety of adventures.

The series is based on Fresh Fruit, a short created by BaconMatthew in 1996. He used this short to successfully pitch the series to Nickelodeon, with production on the series beginning in 1998 before its premiere on July 3, 2000. The series became a hit in the UK and ran for six seasons along with a theatrical film, Da Meelk n' Creem Moovi, in 2006 with a total of 103 episodes before ending on December 15, 2008. However, in 2015 it was announced that two additional seasons were to be produced for Dessin due to the series' continuing popularity in the UK, along with a new film. The new episodes began airing on September 12, 2016 and spanned another 52 episodes, as well as a television film Da Meelk n' Creem Moovi Seekwul before coming to an end on May 18, 2018 with a total of 155 episodes having aired.

The series is majorly successful in the UK, having gained a cult following. The series has also saw international success, airing on many international networks across the world. The series continues to rerun in many countries and is available to stream on Paramount+ in countries where the service is available. Seasons 1-5 are also available to stream on Netflix in the UK.

Characters
The series follows the lives of Meelk Simons, an upbeat go-getting bottle of milk, and Creem Murphy, a cynical hard-working tub of cream, two lifelong best friends who work as security guards at the palace of King Iyce Creem, the wise but clumsy ice cream cone king of Eten, a kingdom populated by anthropomorphic dairy products. Eten frequently comes under failed sieges by Queen Kickback, a violent ninja exiled from her kingdom who took rule of the Monster Kingdom, turning its population of semi-intelligent monsters into an army to destroy Eten and steal all of its dairy, due to Queen Kickback's unhealthy fascination with dairy products. Her end goal is to kill and eat King Iyce Creem, but her plans are always thwarted by Eten's soldiers and palace security. Eten's competent army is led by Commander in Chief Graytid, a strong and wise shred of grated cheese.

Setting
The series is set in the kingdom of Eten, a fairly small kingdom located in the country of Heremia. The many kingdoms of Heremia all contain different types of creatures/entities (such as Frigio which is populated by talking yetis), but the rest of the world is populated by humans as normal. This is due to nuclear testing which took part on the region, which was once the unpopulated Antarctica, during a war in the 1950s, in which an Antarctic research base was abandoned. Many items were left behind and, following a nuclear explosion which took place near the base, creatures began to form from these items due to radiation. These creatures went on to form their own primitive territories, which, by the time the series is set had become full kingdoms, with Antarctica now being known as the country of Heremia. Some kingdoms were also formed by choice, such as the Pirate Kingdom which was formed by a group of pirates looking to strip Heremia of its resources, who soon became acquainted with the country and decided to stay, forming their kingdom in a large lake connected to the nearby coast by a river, enclaved by the kingdom of Frigio.

Other than Heremia, the rest of the world is the same geographically as the real world, although space exploration is advanced and other planets and species are known to exist in space and have been visited by Earth astronauts.

Main cast

 * BaconMatthew as:
 * Meelk, an upbeat bottle of semi-skimmed milk who guards Eten's castle
 * Hoel, Meelk's whole milk father who works in a steel factory
 * Ote, Meelk's oat milk uncle, a local celebrity who presents Eten News and is also an actor
 * Sundai, a strawberry ice cream sundae who runs a shop next to the castle
 * Jason O'Mara as Creem, a cynical tub of crème fraîche and Meelk's best friend and colleague
 * Stephen Fry as King Iyce Creem, a wise but bumbling chocolate ice cream cone who rules Eten
 * Tress MacNeille as:
 * Queen Kickback, the bloodthirsty ruler of the Monster Kingdom and an exile of the Ninja Kingdom
 * Choklit Lollee, a chocolate-covered ice lolly who presents Eten News alongside Ote
 * Jennifer Hale as Graytid, the tough leader of Eten's army

Secondary/recurring cast
In the first eight episodes of the series, Wipt and Bahnahnah Meelkshaik were voiced by Mary Kay Bergman, however due to her death in 1999 Mona Marshall and Lauren Tom stepped in to play the respective characters.
 * Tamsin Heatley as Awrganik, Meelk's organic milk mother who works in a supermarket
 * Joanna Ruiz as Skeemd, Meelk's 13-year-old sister
 * Mona Marshall as Wipt, Creem's whipped cream mother
 * Lord of Hat as Sawer, Creem's sour cream father
 * Jonathan Forbes as Clawtid, Creem's clotted cream older brother
 * Fiona Shaw as Dubbel, Creem's double cream older sister and Clawtid's twin
 * Lauren Tom as Bahnahnah Meelkshaik, the weather reporter for Eten News

Development
BaconMatthew began developing the idea of a society of dairy products in the mid-90s whilst working as an animator. In 1995 he created the low-budget short Fresh Fruit, which follows Meelk and Creem on an epic journey to buy pineapples for a company party. Believing that this idea had potential, he decided to rewrite the episode, changing Meelk and Creem's office jobs to working as castle security guards, and changing the dairy society to be only one kingdom instead of the whole world. He then pitched the original short along with the revised screenplay to several networks, eventually finding success with Nickelodeon, who greenlit a 16-episode first season in 1998, making the series the first Nicktoon to be produced in the UK. The rewritten short is near-identical to the series' first episode Store-bought Pineapples, with the latter having some dialogue changes along with some new scenes to fill an 11-minute runtime.

Writing
BaconMatthew is the series' head writer, writing the scripts for every episode and the stories for most of them, although some earlier episodes had their stories written by Lord of Hat and Thatstuff.

Animation
The series is storyboarded in the UK by Deep Fried Productions and fully animated overseas by Rough Draft Studios Korea. The series has been digitally animated since its inception (although it is still animated frame-by-frame similarly to cel animation), making it one of the first digitally animated Nicktoons. The original Nickelodeon run was produced in a 4:3 SDTV format, whereas the final two seasons on Dessin were produced in 16:9 HDTV.

Music
The series' music was composed by Pat Irwin throughout its run. Some episodes also featured music composed by BaconMatthew; these episodes credit him for Additional Music alongside Pat Irwin's main music credit.

Episodes
Main article: Meelk n' Creem/Episodes

United Kingdom
In the UK, the series made its premiere on Nickelodeon on July 3, 2000, a Monday, at 4pm. The series' first 5 episodes premiered each day at 4pm from Monday-Friday, with the previous day's episode also being rerun at 4:15pm from Tuesday onwards. The series' premiere was a success, with the first and second episodes' premieres both making it into Nickelodeon's top ten most viewed programs of the week, with 0.2 and 0.19 million viewers respectively. From then on episodes premiered in a variety of ways, including airing weekly in afternoons, on weekend mornings, or again airing daily for a week as with the premiere, until the season 6 finale (which was then the series finale) which aired on December 15, 2008 at 6pm. After Nickelodeon's animation-focused sister channel Nicktoons was launched in July 2002, reruns of the series aired frequently on the channel while still being rerun in a few slots on Nickelodeon. Following the end of season 6 reruns ceased on Nickelodeon and the series was fully moved to Nicktoons.

The series also began to rerun on Dessin, a channel owned by the series' production company Deep Fried Productions, after it launched in July 2014. On January 1, 2016, Dessin became free-to-air, which meant that Meelk n' Creem was airing on a free-to-air network for the first time. Following an announcement in 2015 that two additional seasons of the series were to be produced for Dessin, the series' seventh season made its premiere on September 12, 2016 at 5pm. The series was highly rated on Dessin, usually seing 0.15-0.2 million viewers per episode. A new television film, Da Meelk n' Creem Moovi Seekwul, made its premiere on Dessin between the seventh and eighth seasons on July 8, 2017 at 2pm and was a major ratings success, bringing in 0.33 million viewers. The eighth and final season premiered on July 28, 2017 at 4:30pm, before the series came to an end on May 18, 2018 at 6pm.

The series still reruns frequently in the UK due to its high popularity. It has various current slots on Dessin including airing daily at 4pm. Nicktoons still hold the broadcast rights to the first six seasons and rerun them occasionally. The series' two films also occasionally air on Dessin as a part of its Film Friday block.

International
In the United States, the series began airing on Nickelodeon on December 11, 2000 at 5pm EST. The season 6 finale aired on November 29, 2009. The series' two revival seasons aired on Nicktoons, beginning on January 9, 2017 and ending on August 24, 2018; reruns continue to air on Nicktoons. In Canada, the series aired on Nickelodeon for its full run, beginning on January 15, 2001 and ending on September 1, 2018.

All of Dessin's international channels (which run in various European countries) aired the seventh and eighth seasons as original content, and rerun the series frequently.

Ratings
The series was most popular in the UK where it achieved consistently high ratings throughout its run. On Nickelodeon the first few seasons typically saw 0.1-0.15 million viewers per episode, and the final seasons typically saw 0.06-0.12 million, although this can be attributed to Nickelodeon's lower ratings as a whole over the years. The series originally ended by BaconMatthew's decision rather than a cancellation due to low ratings. The original series finale "Snow Problems" was viewed by 0.18 million people, Nickelodeon's highest rated broadcast of the week. The series' Dessin revival saw even higher ratings due to being on a free-to-air network, usually seeing 0.15-0.2 million viewers per episode. The series finale was viewed by 0.28 million people, the second highest-rated episode in the series' history behind the season two premiere "The Demon Guy", which saw 0.29 million viewers (although both are beaten by the premiere of Da Meelk n' Creem Moovi Seekwul on Dessin which saw 0.33 million viewers).

Although it was aired internationally, the series never saw popularity elsewhere as it did in the UK, which has been attributed to the show having a perceived very British sense of humour which does not translate well internationally. Although data is incomplete, most episodes with available ratings data saw around 0.5-1 million viewers when they aired on Nickelodeon in the US. The original finale was viewed by 1.24 million people. As a result of its low ratings, the series revival was aired on Nicktoons in the US (a common fate for low-rated Nickelodeon animated series), where it only saw around 0.1-0.2 million viewers per episode, often having less viewers than in the UK despite having a much larger population. The premiere of Da Meelk n' Creem Moovi Seekwul was viewed by 0.22 people on Nicktoons, and the series finale was viewed by 0.18 million.

Critical reception
The series has received positive reviews throughout its run for its characterisation, storylines and humour. Its frequent use of meta humour has polarised critics; many have said the show has an over-reliance on meta humour whereas others have said it is a definitive element of the series and helps it to stand out. Critics and fans have often singled out episodes such as "Infinite", "100 Years", "MEELK_N_CREEM_New_HD_mp4" and the series finale as among the series' best.

On IMDb, the series holds a 7.7/10 rating based on 43,204 user ratings. The highest rated episode is the series finale, which holds a 9.2/10 rating.

Accolades
The series has been nominated for several awards over the years. A full list of its accolades are as follows:

to be finished