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New hero in town

He has a huge muscular body but a pair of small hands with only four fingers. He is a fierce fighter, but at home he is a loving brother whose favourite hobby is cooking. Let's meet the new teenage hero, Dave the Barbarian.

The cartoon Dave the Barbarian, which is being aired on Disney Channel, is set in medieval times. The series follows the comical adventures of its title character Dave and his two sisters, Fang and Candy. With his parents, Throktar and Glimia, having left home to battle evil around the world, Dave is given the responsibility of looking after his two siblings, while fending off attacks by Lord Chuckles the Silly Piggy.

The show's creator and executive producer Doug Langdale says that Dave the Barbarian is very different from other Disney cartoons.

'It makes a lot less sense than Disney's stories usually do,' Langdale adds. Dave is voiced by the multi-talented Danny Cooksey. The 28-year-old Cooksey, a voice-dubbing artist, actor (he was in Terminator with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and singer (he was a member of popular bands BAD4GOOD and Roadkill), says that Dave is completely different from the characters he has played before.

'Dave is more sensitive. Most of the other stuff was like the boy next door or a bully. Dave was neither. I had a blast doing it,' he says.

Langdale, who obtained a degree in theatre at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been part of other Disney cartoons such as Aladdin and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. When creating Dave the Barbarian, Langdale says he did not deliberately try to make the jokes more universal, but he did add some teenage elements.

'Originally it was only Fang [the younger sister] and Dave. After making a crude pilot episode for internal viewing, we decided to add Candy [the older sister] as we felt the family needed one more person for balance,' he says.

'I like the idea of a modern teenager stuck in medieval times. Her [Candy's] interests and concerns are more contemporary teenage things. I like the dynamics of it.

'I like super-hero shows and science-fiction shows, but there are a lot of them. The sword and sorcery barbarian genre then came to mind. I like this time period as it is very non-specific. You can have Vikings, cavemen, pirates and knights in shining armour all in one period.'

Langdale says that Japanese animation has had a tremendous influence in the United States. 'Maybe even 10 years ago, only people working in animation were familiar with [Hayao] Miyazaki's work [such as Spirited Away] but now everybody is. So that's definitely having a big influence,' he says.

Many Disney cartoons have a film version. Asked if there would be one for Dave the Barbarian, Cooksey says: 'Write lots of letters. Tell them you want one.'

Dave the Barbarian is on Disney Channel, Now Broadband TV, 10am and 6pm, Saturday and Sunday.

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