The Bad Life of Daniel

The Bad Life of Daniel is a American adult animated sitcom created by Sidney Sheldon and Ted Key for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on an 14 year old teenage boy named Daniel Wyatt. All of the show's episodes currently premiere first on Fox although the first 12 seasons of the series aired on CBS before being moved to Fox after the station was founded in 1987. The show first originated with a TV movie titled "The Wyatt Family", which served as the unofficial pilot of the TV series and first premiered on CBS on May 19, 1974.

The series was conceived by Sidney Sheldon after doing I Dream of Jeannie. Sheldon centered the show on a 14 year old teen boy named Daniel Wyatt. It had Jeff Wyatt, his wife Susan Wyatt, the main character Daniel Wyatt, his twin sisters Jenny and Menny Wyatt, his younger baby brother, Stuart Wyatt, and his other brother, Joey Wyatt. The show is mostly rated TV-PG or TV-14 although some episodes on Adult Swim and TBS (both when it aired uncut only), are rated TV-MA.

A spin-off series, The Derrick Jackson Show, featuring Derrick Jackson, aired from November 28, 1999 to September 15, 2002.

The series while the series is critically praised by critics for it's unique animation and unique humor, it has also attracted criticism and controversy when it first premiered for its offensive content, violence, and writing at the time.

In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Bad Life of Daniel the Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time. Since 2013, the show is animated in flash animation instead of traditional animation.

Setting
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Characters
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Development
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Writing
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Voice actors
Further information: List of The Bad Life of Daniel cast members and List of The Bad Life of Daniel guest stars

Mel Blanc (1975-1991) and Jeff Bergman (1990-present) voices four of the main characters: Jeff Wyatt, Marty Wyatt, Daniel Wyatt and Alex Wyatt. Daniel's voice is based on one of Blanc childhood friends in elementary named Oscar. Alex's voice is based on one of Blanc’s teachers when he was in middle school. He also provides voices of various other recurring and one-time characters such as Wu Lee who is Daniel's Chinese Friend, Green Lantern, Woody Woodpecker, Stan Streeter, Dank Hill, Frank Hill, Benny Hill, Bobby the Dog, Johnny Brown, the Strawberry man as well as most prominently those of the Wyatts' neighbo news anchor Phil Shakar, Susan's father, Lester Banks, and more. Sidney Sheldon had a strong vision for these characters, he chose to get Blanc to voice them, believing it would be easier than for someone else to attempt it since he does a lot of voices. Blanc drew inspiration for the voice of Jeff based on the voice of British actor Laurence Olivier for his performance in the 1972 mystery thriller film Sleuth, then based Marty's voice on his normal speaking voice however as show went on, the voice changed into a deep raspy Tigger-like voice minus the lisp due to Blanc aging. Stuart's voice was similar and based on the Tweety bird voice being higher pitched in earlier seasons. When Blanc died in 1989, he was replaced by Bergman by 1990 although some episodes after his death used recordings of his voice until the middle of 1991.

Charlie Adler

Gary Owens (1974-1991) and Jeff Bergman (1992-present) primarly voices Devin Silverman and Jasper. Gary Owens was the original voices and he stated that he did an impression of the character Buffalo Bill from the thriller film The Silence of the Lambs during his audition. Owens was doing the voices for 27 years then he announced that he'll quit the show to focus on being a DJ where Bergman who already was on payroll for voicing Looney Tunes and who is already the current voice of Mel Blanc's characters after his death, was hired to voice Owens’ characters as well.

Jean Vander Pyl (1974-1999) and Tress MacNeille (2000-present) voices Jeff's wife Susan Wyatt, Daniel‘s ELA teacher Mary Moore, Susan's mother Josie Banks, Jennnifer Bregit the Principal of Mel Blanc High School, Muriel Jones, and Officer Jenni Brown. Jean Vander Pyl was cast after doing an impression of Marliyn Monroe. Vander Pyl did the roles until her death in 1999 where she was replaced by Tress MacNeille who is the current voice of her characters since 2000.

Richard Pryor (1974-1998) and Phil LaMarr (1998-present) voices one of the Wyatt family’s African-American neighbors, Derrick Jackson. After Pryor left the show in 1998, LaMarr started voicing his character since.

Nicole Jaffe (1974-1996),  Aaliyah (1997-2002), Tara Strong ("I Got a Girl, Bum", "Roger's Fun Land", and "Adventures with Terrorists" only) (2001, 2002), and E.G. Daily (2002-present) all voiced Jenny and Menny Wyatt. June Foray first voiced these characters from 1974 until 1996 where all her voice roles were recast due to her age. Later, Aaliyah voiced these characters starting in 1997 until her death in 2001 from an plane crash. Her last episode voicing any of these characters before her death was "Ronald Goes Nuts" which aired on August 19, 2001 six days before Aaliyah's death. As a result of Aaliyah's death, all of her characters were temporarily retired until two episodes that had Aaliyah's voice were released posthumously which was "Danielman" that aired on December 1, 2001 and "The Great and Magnificent Daniel" which aired on January 13, 2002 both dedicated in her memory which was recorded a year before her death. In the episode "Jenny Strikes Back", Jenny and Menny had no speaking roles because of Aaliyah's death. On the episodes "I Got a Girl, Bum", "Roger's Fun Land", and "Adventures with Terrorists", voiced all of Aaliyah's characters in that episode since she already voiced some background characters in the same episode. Later, Sheldon found E.G. Daily who auditioned for Aaliyah's roles because she was exactly sounding like Aaliyah's voices. After this, Sheldon hired her. Daily currently voices Jenny and Menny Wyatt since the episode "When Jeff was Black."

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Animation
The series' was produced by Hanna-Barbera, and was produced in association with Wang Film Productions in Taiwan, Mr. Big Cartoons in Australia, and Fil-Cartoons in the Philippines. After the twenty-seventh season ended, the animation production went to Film Roman due to Hanna Barbera shutting down that year.

Music
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Broadcast
The self-titled pilot episode premiered on CBS at 8:00 PM. In 1987, CBS had cancelled the series which prompted the then new network, Fox to pick up the series for more episodes and has since aired on that channel.

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United States

 * CBS (1974-1987)
 * Fox (1987-)
 * Syndication (1978-)
 * Gingo (1986-1999)
 * USA Network (1998-2004)
 * TBS (1979-)
 * TV Land (1999-2003)
 * Comedy Central (1992-1994, 2007-2009)
 * The Family Channel/Fox Family (1990-2000)
 * Cartoon Network (1992-2001, 2012-2014)
 * Adult Swim (2001-present)
 * Nickelodeon (1980-1987, 1992-2003)
 * Nicktoons (2002-2006)
 * BBToons (2017-present)
 * FX (1999-2007)
 * FXX (2017-)
 * Univision (Latin American Spanish, 1999-)
 * Telemundo (Latin American Spanish, 1990-2004, 2008-15)

Canada
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Latin America & Brazil
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Spain
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Portugal
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Germany
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France
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United Kingdom & Ireland
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Italy
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Japan
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 * NHK (1974-2007)
 * Fuji TV (1999-2002)
 * TV Tokyo (2019-)

Cancellation and Revival by Fox
On February 7, 1987, it was announced that CBS would cancel the series after 12 seasons, due to CBS no-longer having interest in the series burning off the remaining episodes of the 12th season. The next day the then-new network, Fox, which was owned by the 20th Century Fox (the owner of 20th Century Fox Television), picked up the series for a 13th season which ended up premiering on November 29, 1987 and has since become the new and current home of first-run episodes of the series.

Spin-offs
Spike Lee who was a big fan of the show decided to create a spin-off series titled The Derrick Jackson Show with Sidney Sheldon co-creating. The show was based on the Wyatt family's neighbor, Derrick Jackson. It first premiered on November 28, 1999 and lasted until September 15, 2002.

Books
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Television film
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Theatrical films
A movie titled Daniel's Bad Movie produced by Xtranormal Animation Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures was released theatrically on May 5, 1994 to universal critical acclaim, grossing $223.2 million over a $54 million budget. 4 sequels were made as well titled Daniel 2: Where is Mom?! released in 1997, The Bad Life of Daniel 3: America's Most Wanted released in 2001, Daniel's Bad Life..Again!!! released in 2006, and Daniel's Fifth Coming released in 2011. A fifth sequel titled Bad Life of Daniel: Welcome to the Anime was released in 2019.

Music
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Theme park attractions
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Other appearances in games
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Live performances
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Merchandise
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Home media
CBS/Fox Video released twenty videos of The Bad Life of Daniel between 1982 and 1995 with some of the earliest ones being out of print. From 1996 to 2004, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released several VHS tapes of the series, each containing four episodes of the series.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment later released the first ten seasons on DVD in 2002 and 2003. More coming soon!

As of April 2020, the show is available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu in the United States and Canada.