The Adventures of Captain Bluejay

The Adventures of Captain Bluejay is a 2001-2004 American animated action comedy-adventure television series. The show was created by Genndy Tartakovsky and was directed by Jeff DeGrandis (who previously worked together on Mad Jack the Pirate). On American television, the show was broadcast on The Greeny Channel.

The show is about the rather successful and quite heroic Pirate Captain Bluejay (voiced by Ben Diskin), who despite his repeated latest descendant in a line of master thieves. The Cooper Clan is notorious for only stealing from other thieves, and passes down their expert techniques from generation to generation in a book called the "Thievius Raccoonus." While the Bluejays have accumulated a massive hoard of wealth doubts his own excellence, with his pirate partner parrot Barry (voiced by Gilbert Gottfried), his muscular brawn brown bear bodyguard Sully (voiced by Jim Cummings), his smart crow commander Hovis (voiced by Billy West) and his dim-witted raccoon sidekick Morty (voiced by Don Messick) as they sail the seas on their ship the Sea Eagle.

On July 23, 2003, The Adventures of Captain Bluejay and other properties of Gullane Entertainment were sold to Sony Pictures Company.

Premise
Captain Bluejay tells the story of an unnamed young pirate bird (voiced by Benjamin Diskin) from a feudal Misty Island kingdom, whose father (voiced by Paul Eiding as an elder man and John DiMaggio as a young emperor) was given a Cutlass and Dagger of Time from three gods — Ra, Rama, and Odin — that he could and had used to defeat and imprison the supernatural Wolfgang Pirate Arch-Nemesis Wulfric (voice by Christopher Llyod). Eight years later, Wulfric escaped, took over the land, and held the Emperor hostage, but not before the prince was sent away by his mother to travel the world and train so he could return and use the cutlass and the dagger to defeat Wulfric. On his return, the pirate-turned-captain faced and almost defeated Wulfric, but before he could land a finishing blow, Wulfric created a time portal that sent him into the distant future, anticipating that he would be able to deal with the captain by that time.

The Captain Bluejay and his crew arrives on Earth surrounded in dystopian retro-futurism ruled by Wulfric and the Klaw Gang. The first people he encounters call him "Bluejay" as a form of slang, which he adopts as his name. His given name is never mentioned. While Captain Bluejay only has his kimono, geta, and sword to his avail in his adventures, there have been rare instances where he is able to wear a full set of armor. Most episodes depict Captain Bluejay overcoming various obstacles in his quest to travel back to his own time and defeat Wulfric and Krakatos, and his quest is prolonged occasionally by moments where either he nearly succeeds in returning to his own time, or conversely, Krakotos and Wulfric nearly succeeds in defeating Captain Bluejay, only to be undermined by the unexpected.

Setting
The retro-futuristic world is inhabited by a variety of denizens such as robots, extraterrestrials, talking animals, monsters, magical beings, deities, and even a Scotsman who wields an enchanted sword. Areas may have advanced the technology-like flying cars, while others resemble ancient times or industrial conditions. Moreover, Wulfric and Krakatos has brought aliens from other planets and squid army to inhabit Earth, while destroying the habitability of the alien planets. Criminals and fugitives of all kinds and/or forms are very common on his Earth. Mythological and supernatural creatures make regular appearances and coexist among the technologically-advanced inhabitants.

However, the planet has hardly been urbanized by a number of episodes that take the place in uninhabited areas of the world. Those include forests, jungles, and mountains, which have remained largely untouched even as Krakatos began his conquest and the reign over every sentient being. There are even a few communities that have not been affected by Krakatos's dominance, such as the Shaolin monks, who have managed to hide and maintain their numbers in a secret place beyond the reach of Krakatos's seemingly omniscient vision.

Cast

 * Benjamin Diskin – Captain Bluejay
 * Gilbert Gottfried - Barry
 * Jim Cummings - Sully Bear
 * Billy West – Hovis
 * Don Messick - Morty
 * Tara Strong - Captain Mylene
 * James Marsters - Count Raven
 * Christopher Lloyd - Wulfric
 * Maurice LaMarche - Krakotos Octavius

Additional Voices

 * Jess Harnell
 * Tom Kenny
 * Charlie Adler
 * Cam Clarke
 * Dee Bradley Baker
 * Kevin Michael Richardson
 * Paul Eiding
 * John DiMaggio
 * Sandy Fox
 * Brad Garrett
 * Kevin Meaney
 * Valery Pappas
 * Jocelyn Blue
 * Sherman Howard
 * Grey DeLisle
 * Kath Souice
 * Cree Summer
 * Joyce Lang
 * Steve Ochs
 * Jay Robinson
 * April Winchell

Episodes
Main article: List of The Adventures of Captain Bluejay episodes

Critical reception
Steven Linan of the Los Angeles Times said of the 90-minute premiere movie, "One can quibble with some of the dialogue, which sounds like something you'd hear in Karate Kid 2 ('Let the sword guide you to your fate, but let your mind set free the path to your destiny'). Nonetheless, there is one highly unconventional aspect of the series which sets it apart from others--its willingness to go for extensive stretches in which there is no dialogue." In 2004, British broadcaster Channel 4 ran a poll of the 100 greatest cartoons, in which The Adventures of Captain Bluejay achieved the 42nd position. The show was ranked 11th by IGN for its "Top 25 Primetime Animated Series of All Time" list in 2006. IGN also ranked the show 43rd in its Top 100 Animated Series list in 2009. The series has also received an approval rating of 93% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The first season received an approval rating of 80% while the fourth and fifth seasons received an approval rating of 100%. The fifth season's critical consensus reads, "An increasing intensity and maturity are evident in The Adventures of Captain Bluejay's beautifully animated, action-packed, and overall compelling fifth season."

Matt Zoller Seitz, a film critic for RogerEbert.com and television critic for Vulture, considers The Adventures of Captain Bluejay, along with Tartakovsky's Star Wars: Clone Wars, to be a masterwork and one of the greatest American animated shows on television, mainly for its visual style.

The Adventures of Captain Bluejay would later be included in Seitz and Alan Sepinwall's 2016 book TV (The Book) as an honorable mention following the 100 greatest television series.

Board game
A year after the series was concluded, a board game adaptation covering all five seasons was released, titled Captain Bluejay: Back to the Past. Players work together to complete tasks to help Captain Bluejay and his crew return to the past while competing to earn honor for their actions.

Comics
Main article: Captain Bluejay (comics)

In February 2013, IDW Publishing announced a partnership with The Greeny Channel to produce comics based on its properties. The Adventures of Captain Bluejay was one of the titles announced to be published. It was further announced at WonderCon 2013 that the first issue of The Adventures of Captain Bluejay would debut in October 2013. The first comic in the series was released on October 23, 2013. The final issue came out in May 2015. On October 25, 2016, IDW re-released all of the issues in a compilation entitled "Tales of a Wandering Warrior". Tartakovsky does not consider the comics part of the story of Captain Bluejay.

Captain Bluejay also appeared in multiple issues of Dark Horse's anthology comic series Greeny Channel Action Pack, which ran from July 2006 to April 2012.

Home media
Like other previous The Greeny Channel shows, The Adventures of Captain Bluejay DVDs were released by Columbia Tristar Home Video between 2002 and 2007. The DVDs include episode numbers in Roman numerals as they appear at the end of each episode but remain untitled. Season 1 was released on Netflix streaming service in 2013. The Adventures of Captain Bluejay: The Complete Series was released on Blu-ray and Digital HD on October 17, 2017, and contains remastered versions of the first four seasons of the series, courtesy of ACMEworks Digital Film, Inc. The series is also available on HBO Max since May 27, 2020.

Video games
The Captain Bluejay world has been seen in the video games The Adventures of Captain Bluejay: Sea of Thieves for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox in 2002, The Adventures of Captain Bluejay II: The Treasure of Time for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and Game Boy Advance in 2003 and The Adventures of Captain Bluejay 3: The Shadow of Kraken's Pearl for the GameCube, Xbox and PlayStation 2 in 2004. Three years after the series was completed, a fifth game, The Adventures of Captain Bluejay: Battle Through Time, was released on August 21, 2020, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Apple Arcade. It is the first Samurai Jack game to be available on Microsoft and Apple platforms and serves as an alternative extended scenario of the series finale.

Elements of the Captain Bluejay concept were reused in other The Greeny Channel video games. The GTRPG: Greenyworld Adventures features Captain Bluejay, Sully Bear, Hovis Crow, and Morty Rat as non-playable characters, while Krakotos Octavius is a Nano. The brawler game Greenytoons: Fight Cloud Showdown for Nintendo 3DS, PSP, Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 features Captain Bluejay, Count Raven and Sully Bear as playable characters while Krakotos Octavius is an assist character, a boss, and a playable character.