#the spacebots

beneath these drawings are two pictures made in dollmakers. 

there were no other pictures on the page. visiting the spacebots page itself reveals the following: 

The Spacebots is a Canadian animated series produced by Nelvana. It ran from September 13, 1986 to November 28, 1992 and ran for 91 episodes. It features fictional characters including heroes and villains. The background music from The Care Bears Family is used in all episodes of the TV Series.

it also lists a cast of several characters, with credited voice actors:

the other characters have pages of varying complexity, with pictures in the same style. at this point the spacebots cartoon still seems like something that could exist, but googling it turns up only results from this wiki and similar wikis.

spacebots is mentioned on numerous cartoon, parody, spoof, movie idea, and similar fan wikis. 

if the spacebots cartoon never existed, it begins to raise questions. someone putting their original character in the sexy characters category on a spoof wiki isnt so startling. neither is someone framing this character as someone from an existing show-- this wiki and similar have pages about non-existing media

however, the level of detail and specificity is alarming. these characters have voice actors (some who turn up google results, some who dont) linked to them, with lists of other voice-acting work theyve done (including cartoons that dont seem to exist either). looking for more information on the spacebots turns up a page on a very badly organized nelvana wiki with more elaborate airing dates information. 

The Spacebots is a Canadian animated television series produced by Nelvana, which aired between 1986 and 1992 in syndication; on the ABC network, The CBN Family Channel from 1988 to 1992 and The Family Channel from 1992 to 1998.

by the way, this list of nelvanas programs has no mention of spacebots. 

at this time, on revisiting her page on the parody wiki some months after finding the information detailed in the first part of this post, several new pictures had been added— like this screenshot of soleil in the sims 4: 

there are various other tracings, redraws, or dressup game pictures of her: 

one of the new images is labeled “soleil spacebot in the reboot” and there are reboot designs for soleil’s siblings elsewhere on the parody wiki, as well as this image (from the youtubescratch wiki page for the spacebots) of a reboot poster: 

this is completely new— the person or people responsible for spacebots is actively working on the spacebots worldbuilding, creating new promotional materials for a nonexistent 2015 reboot (”The Spacebots (Reboot) 2015″) of a nonexistent 80s-90s cartoon. 

there are multiple spacebots reboot posters, but no information about the reboot itself yet, other than a page mentioning it being from 2015. this raises the question of whether soleil’s creator will continue adding to the worldbuilding surrounding their fictional show by citing more information about the reboot, or whether more information about the show’s plot and characters will be revealed (still no wiki pages or pictures for the character named “sour venus” which is disappointing!) or whether the additions will end here. 

spacebots’ storytelling medium and its metafiction layers are fascinating. the fiction here is as much the show’s premise, and the original characters existing within the cartoon’s story at all, as it is the circumstances of this show’s existence— voice actors, animation companies, airing dates, a reboot, and proper “credits” for nonexistent in-show music. 

so much more information is offered about the show’s production than about the actual plot and characters of the show. the fictional production may be the creator’s area of interest, rather than their original characters (though soleil IS listed as a sexy character and many painstakingly created images of her exist). 

the mode of publication is interesting too. spacebots doesn’t seem to be advertised anywhere else, only on these wikis, which have their own fanbases. the youtubescratch page says it was created by a “Miss-Trina-Mouse” (edited by others occasionally) which is also the username on an empty deviantart account created 9 months ago, by someone who says she is female and canadian. “trina mouse” seems to be a fan character for tom and jerry (apologies if trina mouse is an existing character; i do not remember every character of tom and jerry). 

(picture from the ideas wiki) this may be the closest thing to an avatar of the creator of the spacebots that currently exists, if Miss-Trina-Mouse is indeed the creator and not a new collaborator. Miss-Trina-Mouse is the creator of trina mouse’s page, and evidently the person currently updating spacebots pages with new or “corrected” information. on this page, the airing dates have been changed to other particular airing dates:  

(from this page’s edit history, for easier reading) the first page version is from august 25, 2016. the second edit was finished on march 30th, 2017. Miss-Trina-Mouse has evidently been working on spacebots for some time, and has continued to do so. the page itself was created on june 13th, 2015, by an IP address that may or may not belong to Miss-Trina-Mouse. 

Miss-Trina-Mouse does not seem to be the only person working on pages related to the spacebots, however. the edit history for a page about a nonexistent spacebots animated film, “operation system shutdown” reveals it was created by a Sarah61, edited by a Tobina the Tomboy (who has a detailed profile page on the animalcrossing wiki) and eventually edited by Miss-Trina-Mouse as well: 

whether these are aliases belonging to the same person, a group of friends, a group of acquaintances, fans of another person’s work, totally spontaneous or planned privately in detail all remains unclear. 

Tobina the Tomboy’s profile has pictures in a similar art style to the original soleil drawings, and says she is female, and canadian (like Miss-Trina-Mouse, which makes me wonder whether they are friends or perhaps alternate accounts of the same person). Tobina also lists her favorite animal crossing characters and overall seems to be an ordinary real profile. she has a similar profile on the mysims wiki, listing favorite and least favorite characters from that. i am not screencapping it, because it seems to simply be someone’s self-created public profile without any particularly unusual elements. Tobina and/or Miss-Trina-Mouse could be the spacebots’ creator(s), though, while Sarah61 is too common of a username to search easily, despite being the page’s creator. 

(i have little interest in seeking out more information about these contributors beyond what they make immediately available on their profiles, since it appears that they are ordinary nonfictional people with an interesting fictional hobby) 

perhaps it is silly to look so deeply into this project, and to want to know more about it so badly when it seems like it is something its creator(s) made for fun, and doesnt seem sinister in any way. however, the format is not like anything i have come across before, and the level of detail startles me almost as much as the difficulty in finding those details. the spacebots can only be sort-of understood by reading fragmented pages across many different wikis and every wiki reveals more information, some which can be searched to discover more about, and some which turns up no other results. there is even a 1987 NES video game mentioned on at least one wiki: 

everything about the spacebots, its presentation, and its continued existence is fascinating. looking into it has been a wild ride to say the least, and the amount of meticulous creative energy put into it is nothing short of admirable. 

if spacebots has been created in this way, how many similar unreal shows are out there, in the same format? i know little about wikis of this type, so is this a common creative method on them? is spacebots the creation of one person, or is it collaborative? does the original creator still have control of the concept or is a fan— fans?— permitted to update freely? is the initial creator still working on spacebots wiki pages at all? will more information about the spacebots reboot become available? how long has this been going on? is spacebots more like an art project, an ARG, informal original storytelling (like someone explaining their deviantart OCs), or something else entirely? 

i will close this post with a synopsis of the spacebots, found on the youtubescratch wiki page: 

The six Spacebots and their allies live in a sci-fi futuristic city called Spaceland. They have their magic powers, magical stars and magical hearts and they have to stop Commander Zurg and The Freakalien brothers from wrecking havoc and planning to destroy Spaceland.