Whenever I hear the words cult classic, my mind immediately turns to Invader Zim. The cute little (if somewhat dark) cartoon that first aired on Nickelodeon in the early 00s. The show followed the story of an alien invader named Zim from the plant Irk, sent to destroy Earth in order for the rulers of his home planet to get him out of the way for the real Universe take over. However, his plans of world domination are often foiled by adolescent budding paranormal investigator Dib, who despite his abnormally big head manages to battle the alien with devices stolen from his scientist father. Awesome, right?

Invader Zim won three awards and a handful of nominations for its outstanding original animation style, and maintains a high popularity even to this day. However, due to its low ratings, budget issues, and violence (with the rumour that a child ran screaming from the first-ever screening of Dark Harvest), the show was cancelled prematurely. Despite this, the fans of Invader Zim never lost hope, with rumours of a sequel surfacing at least several times a year. Now our prayers to the almighty tallest have finally been answered, as Nickelodeon finally promised a sequel in April this year, revealing plans for a sixty minute television movie along with a trailer.

Before Nick finally gives us the sequel we’ve been waiting ten years for, let’s look back on some of the surprising, creepy moments that made the series and how Jhonen Vasquez got us to this point. You may be surprised about what you find! Also, spoilers!

25 Good Ol’ Ms Bitters

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The character Ms Bitters is a very interesting one, and means far more to the show then just a background character. The creators have confirmed that she is not human, shown in her snake-like movements, ability to levitate, her demonic outbursts and her ability to fade away. In the Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom, she claims that she used to be a “fairy princess” but is stopped in a flash back by a bug zapper.

If fans recognize the voice actor for Bitters, it may be because she was voiced by the late Lucille Bliss. While Bliss is a notable and memorable voice actress, Bitters was a great change from her usual cheery roles, including Anastasia in Cinderella, the flowers in Alice in Wonderland, and, most notably, Smurfette in The Smurfs! I can only hope that her next actor can honour Bliss’s memory.

24 Clocking Off Early

Invader Zim is returning to Nickelodeon in a new 2D animated TV movie.

If you don’t hate Vasquez for his quick success just yet, then how about this: Vasquez claims that he came up with the idea for Invader Zim in under an hour, in bed unable to sleep! The idea for Zim came from several things he was interested in as a child, including paranormal investigators, aliens, monsters and science-fiction. Vasquez liked the idea of an alien with the power and the technology to over throw earth, but instead ended up failing and spending time in a school. This seemed like a funny and interesting premise that Vasquez ran with.

It goes to show that it doesn’t always take a long time to come up with the best idea, and going with what you already know can lead to the best results!

23 A Tamagotchi Named Zim

Fans of the show initially thought that the main character Zim was named after Sargent Charles Zim from Starship Troopers, due to them both being science fiction shows. This rumour comes from Vasquez meeting Sargent Zim’s actor Clancy Brown during a recording session at Nickelodeon, Brown being the iconic voice of Mr. Krabs from Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants. After this, Brown himself began to wonder if there was a connection between the two characters.

However, Vasquez states that Zim comes from the name he gave to his girlfriend’s Tamagotchi (which is frankly a much more fun story) and that the character was nameless for a long time during the show’s initial production. Yep, sometimes a Zim is just a Zim.

22 Starting Young

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Creator Jhonen Vasquez was incredibly young when his career started, being only twenty-two years old when he began work on Invader Zim!

Before Zim, Vasquez was a comic book artist, having dropped out of film school to work on his art professionally. He was approached by Nickelodeon to make his cartoon, despite having no prior experience in animation.

There is something mildly depressing about someone younger than you getting amazing opportunities like this, but I think we can all agree that it was well deserved. Despite his inexperience Vasquez brought together a great team of writers and animators, bringing his unique comic book style to the tv series. But I think it’s a great message to aspiring artists, that there are opportunities in every corner.

21 Maniac To Kids Cartoon

Vasquez’s most popular work before he created Invader Zim was a comic book entitled Johnny the Homicidal Manic, which followed the adventures of Johnny C., a deranged killer who attacks anyone who irritates him. The comic was originally published in strips in the goth magazine Carpe Noctem, before seven issues were published by Slave Labour Graphics. Johnny was an incredibly graphic comic, which contained swearing and a lot of blood. While the work was incredible, it’s interesting to see how something like this could lead to landing the artist a deal on a children’s network.

That being said, it was Vasquez’s later comic Squee!, a spin off from Johnny, that got the attention of Nickelodeon.

20 Squee!

Speaking of Squee!, eagle eyed fans of both the comic and Invader Zim will have noticed that there are several similarities between the two creations. The most notable of these is Ms Bitters, who also appeared as Squee’s teacher, although at this time she was unnamed.

Other notable similarities include Dib’s regular t-shirt, which is identical to the one Squee wears, the aliens that abduct Zim in the series are the same aliens that visit Squee, along with The Tallest baring similarities to the aliens that visit Squee later. In the original pilot episode, there is also a child seen in the cafeteria that seems to bare a great similarity to Squee, although it is never confirmed to be him.

19 Sweet Lil’ Robot

via: youtube.com

During casting, Vasquez had almost the opposite problem when it came to casting Zim’s sidekick GIR. Vasquez wanted an inexperienced voice actor, to reflect GIR’s own inexperience and broken demeanour. At the time, GIR’s voice actor Rosearik "Rikki" Simons was a colourist on the show and had never voiced a character before.

Simons experienced several problems when voicing GIR, including coughing after making GIR’s drinking sounds due to his asthma. GIR’s voice was also edited to make it sound higher pitched and metallic. While Simons eventually learned to perform the voice without pitch editing, the metallic quality still had to be added and unedited versions of Simons' voice-overs can be heard in recordings of unfinished episodes.

18 Out Of This World Animation

For its time, Invader Zim’s animation style was very unique, being one of the first animated shows to merge 2D animation with 3D. Vasquez’s art style was difficult for the animators to learn, with director Steve Ressel stating that it was hardest style he had ever worked with.

But as well as the difficulties, Invader Zim impressed Nickelodeon by having twice as many storyboards as is usual for an eleven minute cartoon, having between 253 to 350 storyboards per episode to capture the characters' particular movements and details.

The animation was well-rewarded with animator Kyle Menke winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for storyboarding The Nightmare Begins, and Steve Ressel winning an Annie for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Storyboarding in an Animated Television Production.

17 It's All About The Music

via: youtube.com

The original composer hired for the Invader Zim theme tune was Michael Tavera, known for his work on The Land Before Time, An American Tail, and Stitch! The Movie. However, Vasquez didn’t think his theme was suitable for the show, thinking that it had more of a children’s television sound and the crew found it too cheesy and not a great fit for the show. In sympathy to Tavera, the creators claimed that he had received little information about the series before his pitch.

Tavera was replaced by Kevin Manthei, known for his work on Johnny Test, Sims 2, and Robot Chicken. Mathei’s theme was nominated for an Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Music Score in an Animated Television Production in 2001.

16 Invasion Cancelled

Despite its cult success now, at the time of its initial airing Invader Zim was receiving increasingly low ratings and budget issues, leading to the series being prematurely cancelled. This left several episodes of season two unaired and some unfinished, including plans for a final TV movie (named Invader Dib) to conclude the series.

While finished episodes of the series were later released on DVD in 2004 and then aired in the US on NickToons in 2006, several episodes went on unfinished, such as Return of Keef, GIR’s Big Day, Nubs of Doom, Squishy: Hugger of Worlds, When Pants Ruled, and the fan favourite Mopiness of Doom. Several of these episodes were meant as conclusions to earlier stories and included returning characters. Some of these have been animated by fans of the show and released on social media.

15 The Invasion Reruns!

In 2010, NickToons started rerunning episodes of Invader Zim, which according to Vasquez was a test to see if a sequel would be worth doing. As it was, the decade-old show came in second in the ratings, beaten only by Avatar.

So with the show pulling in better ratings than it did first time around, probably due to the now adult fans of the show and a new generation of spawn that were desensitized to violence, a sequel finally seemed possible. For a long time after the reruns Nickelodeon refused to green light it due to Zim’s age-old nemesis, budgeting issues! Luckily, the fans of the show never gave up, continuing to watch the show and almost demanding a sequel which was finally promised earlier this year. Goes to show that if you don’t shut up then you can get what you want.

14 Tak’s Return

Several characters created throughout the series were initially intended to return by the show’s creators. Among these was Irkin invader Tak, who appeared in the episode Tak the Hideous New Girl. Here Tak disguises herself as a human girl in order to steal Zim’s invader assignment, as he was responsible for her missing out on invader training. Instead, she had to suffer through janitorial duty on the planet Dirt for seventy years.

The character was planned to reappear in unfinished episode Top of the Line and the TV movie finale, but sadly was never seen again in the original series. Despite this, it is speculated that she will return in the sequel, as her voice actress Olivia D' Abo confirmed that she is working on the movie.

13 Invader Skoodge!

Like Tak, fan favourite Invader Skoodge was planned to reappear in several cancelled episodes. Skoodge is first seen in the first episode, where he is given the assignment to conquer Blorch, the home of the slaughtering rat people. Despite being “short and ugly,” he is the first to complete his assignment and is seen again in Hobo 13, having survived being shot into Blorch. He nearly dies several times in the episode but he apparently survived and was also planned to appear in the unaired season two episodes.

In Day of Da Spookies!, it was planned to reveal that Skoodge was living in Zim’s basement and was enlisted to help Zim discredit Dib. He was also planned to appear in Squishy: Hugger of World’s to stop Zim’s mission. It is currently unknown whether he will appear in the TV movie.

12 What Movie?

Despite a lot of fan speculation about recurring characters and stories, very little is actually known about the TV movie at this point. The trailer released around the same time as the announcement, while enjoyable, didn’t give much away and didn’t commit to anything more than “soon-ish” for a release date. All we really know about the movie is that it will “follow the delusional alien as he hatches a new plan to destroy Earth in order to win favour from his home planet’s leaders, the Almighty Tallest.” So, pretty much the plot of Invader Zim.

What we do know is that Vasquez will be returning as an executive producer, along with original cast members Richard Horvitz (Zim), Rikki Simons (GIR), Andy Berman (Dib), and Melissa Fahn (Gaz.)

11 Almighty Comics

Although fans of the show have been left hanging on the promise of a sequel for over a decade, they haven’t been left completely cold turkey. In February 2015, independent comic book publisher OniPress partnered with Nickelodeon and Vasquez in order to release an Invader Zim comic book series. Along with Vasquez, the show’s original concept artist Aaron Alexovich returned to the project to keep the original style alive. Other original crew members include Eric Trueheart, a writer on the show, and GIR voice actor Rikki Simons, solely as a colourist.

The first comic was released in July 2015 with a total of twenty-three comics released to date, with more planned later this year. The success of the comic book series may have encouraged the revival.

10 The Fans Get What They Want

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When it looked like fans of the show weren’t going to be given any more Zim, they decided to bring Zim back themselves by starting their own convention. InvaderCon was launched by fans in 2011 and was organized by Green Mustard Entertainment with the intention of being a tenth anniversary celebration of Invader Zim. Fans showed up in the thousands, with one dollar from every ticket being donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, as per the request of Richard Horvitz. Horvitz himself showed up to the event, along with actors Rosearik Rikki Simons, Andy Berman, and Melissa Fahn. In addition to the actors, writer Eric Trueheart also made an appearance.

The success of InvaderCon lead to the organisation of InvaderCON II the following year, which included an appearance by Vasquez.

9 Some Actors Shipped ZADR

Okay, so I’m exaggerating the heck out of that statement.

ZADR was the ship name given to Zim and Dib, standing for “Zim And Dib Romance.” Vasquez himself despises ZADR, though it's nothing personal to Zim and Dib. He didn't like the idea of romance itself in Invader Zim, claiming that fans of the show looking for romance were “watching it wrong.” The voice actors for the show, on the other hand, seem much more willing to indulge the fans, with Bergman and Horvitz making their Zim and Dib puppets kiss during a script reading of Mopiness of Doom. Horvitz also indulged a fan by signing her comic as Zim almost saying he loved Dib (turning it into a hate at the end) and Bergman saying, “I love you Zim,” in Dib's voice for the fans (a recording of which was later used in a fan animation).

8 Slaves To Games

via: zim.wikia.com

One of the main characteristic Dib’s cynical younger sister Gaz was her obsession with gaming, with her always having her faithful Game Slave nearby. Vasquez and other crew members have said that this is a play on the crew’s own obsession with gaming. Gaz’s addiction is most notable in the episode Game Slave 2, where Gaz goes to extreme lengths to fight for the last new games console with another extreme gamer named Iggins. The fight for the console was a parody on the rush to get the PlayStation 2.

However, the original name for the console was the “Game Slave Advanced,” similar to the console Game Boy Advance. Nintendo weren’t thrilled with the parody and threatened to sue the creators if the name was used. I guess Sony embraced the idea of kids fighting to get their consoles.

7 Deleted Scenes Of Doom

While some scenes in Invader Zim were horrific, that doesn’t mean everything slipped past the Nickelodeon censors! While Nickelodeon was perfectly happy with organ harvesting and changing someone’s genetic structure so they turn into baloney, they weren’t happy with the idea of blood and gore in the show. Thus, several scenes involving particularly violent or graphic moments were cut from the show.

Graphic cancelled scenes include Iggins being killed at the end of GameSlave 2, blood splattered on the walls during Bestest Friend, GIR covered blood in the episode GIR Goes Crazy and Stuff and Skoodge eating his own skin to survive in Hobo 13, although even the Zim crew decided the last one was too much!

6 You Can Tell Him No, But You Can't Keep Him Down

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While the creators agreed to get rid of these scenes, it doesn’t mean they were happy with all of them going, particularly the image of GIR covered in blood. But just because the scene was cut doesn’t mean that Bloody GIR didn’t sneak his way into the show.

The image of Bloody GIR became an Easter Egg for the fans, with the creators slipping the image into single frames. Notable sightings of Bloody GIR include him appearing in one of the cables coming from Zim’s house during the title sequence of Mortos der Soulstealer and Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy when Zim throws the final piggy into the worm hole. There are rumoured to be Bloody GIR images in fourteen episodes.