Supernoobs Cartoon: The Tween Superhero Show, Explained

Supernoobs - Cartoon Show
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The Supernoobs cartoon asks a simple question: what if four completely unqualified middle schoolers were handed the power to save the galaxy?

The answer is a loud, colorful, gag-a-minute superhero comedy where the aliens might be less of a problem than eighth-grade gym class.

  • It is comfort-food Cartoon Network fare, and it knows exactly what it is.

Premiering in 2015, the Supernoobs cartoon follows four 12-year-old best friends: Kevin, Tyler, Shope, and Roach. They stumble into cosmic-powered Battle Balls, get drafted into an intergalactic war, and still have to make it to homeroom on time.

Created by: Scott Fellows (also behind Johnny Test)

Network: Cartoon Network and Teletoon, later Family Channel

Premiered: November 2, 2015

Ended: February 7, 2019

Seasons: Two

Premise: Kids get alien Battle Balls and fight a planet-eating Virus

You can stream the whole Supernoobs cartoon on Prime Video and Apple TV, so it is easy to jump in.

What Is the Supernoobs Cartoon About?

Unlike a lot of superhero shows, the main tension here is not a supervillain. It is puberty. The Noobs have to juggle middle school chaos with alien threats, which turns the whole thing into a goofy metaphor for growing up. Bullies, exams, and crushes hit just as hard as any space monster.

The show comes from Scott Fellows, and it wears its influences on its sleeve. Anyone who watched Johnny Test will recognize the rhythm, the pacing, and even some of the sound design. That is a blessing and a curse, which we will get to.

Animation and Style

The Supernoobs cartoon's colorful 2D animation style

The Supernoobs cartoon sticks with bright, punchy 2D animation instead of chasing the CGI trend. That choice pays off in the comedy. The flat, elastic style lets the show stretch faces, snap into rapid-fire gags, and land visual jokes that a more realistic look could not.

The character designs are bold and easy to tell apart, with each Noob color-coded to their Battle Ball. Every frame is loud and saturated, which fits a show built around hyperactive preteens. It is not groundbreaking, but it is clean and readable, and the frame rate is noticeably smoother than Johnny Test.

Themes and Story Arcs

The four Supernoobs facing an alien Virus threat

Under the fart jokes and laser fights, the show is about friendship and responsibility. Each episode leans on a classic tween problem, then wraps it in a space-virus emergency. The Noobs mess up, learn a lesson, and usually forget it by the next episode, which is true to how kids that age work.

Season two raises the stakes. The team finishes training and squares off against Count Venamus and the shadowy Creators. When the Creators learn Earth may be hiding an ancient anti-virus weapon, Venamus rolls out a full Mech-Army, and the Noobs have to level up fast.

The Premise in Full

The Supernoobs in their battle suits fighting the Virus

The core setup is clean. Two alien warriors, Memnock and Zenblock, come to Earth to recruit soldiers against a spreading space Virus. They see four kids in football gear holding slingshots and assume they are elite fighters. That mistake hands the Battle Balls to the least qualified team in the galaxy.

The Virus infects people and turns them into rampaging monsters, including the school bully as a nine-foot, laser-eyed bull. So the Noobs spend every episode hiding their powers from their parents, dodging their principal, and cleaning up alien messes before the bell rings.

Meet the Four Noobs

The four main Supernoobs characters together

Each Noob carries a different colored Battle Ball and a different personality. Here is the correct rundown, since a lot of older summaries mix up who does what:

  • Tyler (blue): The leader and moral compass. His power is teleportation plus mind-reading.
  • Kevin (red): Tyler’s best friend and the selfish wild card. He shapeshifts into animals, and often into an opossum by accident.
  • Shope (purple): The brains and only girl. She controls the elements, from lightning to water to wind.
  • Roach (green): The feral, lovable muscle. He gets flight and super strength through giant rocket fists.

Battle Ball cheat sheet: Blue is Tyler and teleporting, red is Kevin and shapeshifting, purple is Shope and the elements, and green is Roach and super strength. If a guide tells you Kevin can fly or Shope controls machines, it is wrong. Those are the two most common mix-ups online.

The Benevolent Alliance and Their Allies

The Benevolent Alliance mentors Memnock and Zenblock

The Noobs answer to the Benevolent Alliance, the intergalactic group fighting the Virus. Their day-to-day handlers are two dragon-like aliens:

  • Zenblock: The gruff, no-nonsense one who constantly doubts the kids and wishes he had recruited real soldiers.
  • Memnock: The softer, more childish one who is obsessed with Earth culture and would rather cook or goof off than train.
  • XR4Ti: A sarcastic talking computer who feeds the team intel, and the target of Roach’s hopeless crush.

Watch out for Rovu, too. He is not a friendly mascot, despite what some summaries claim. Rovu is a smug rival recruiter who won Recruiter of the Year seven times running and never stops rubbing it in Mem and Zen’s faces.

Supporting Characters and Villains

Supporting characters from the Supernoobs cartoon

The show fills out Cornbury with a solid supporting cast:

  • Amy Anderson: A popular classmate and Tyler’s crush, who slowly warms up to his heroic side.
  • Jock Jockerson: The dim, hulking bully who makes the Noobs’ school life miserable.
  • Principal Warmerammer: The stern administrator who is suspicious of the Noobs’ constant weirdness.
  • Sue Newswoman: The Cornbury news anchor who reports on every strange incident the team causes.
  • Count Venamus: The main villain, a scheming octopus-like alien working for the mysterious Creators.

Did you know? The voice cast is stacked with animation royalty. Tyler is Matt Hill (Ed from Ed, Edd n Eddy), Shope is Tabitha St. Germain (Rarity on My Little Pony), and Kevin is Richard Ian Cox (the English voice of Inuyasha). For a mid-tier Cartoon Network show, that is a serious lineup.

Is the Supernoobs Cartoon Worth Watching?

Time for a straight answer. The Supernoobs cartoon is fine. It is not a hidden gem, and it is not a disaster. It sits comfortably in the middle as easy background comedy for younger viewers.

The honest knock against it is that it feels derivative.

  • The pacing, the sound cues, and the humor all echo Johnny Test, and the show leans hard on stereotypes and pop-culture name-drops in place of real jokes. Referencing something is not the same as making it funny, a trap this show shares with Teen Titans Go.

That said, it has one real edge over Johnny Test: the friend group. Johnny was a loner, but the Noobs really need each other, and that chemistry gives the show a warmth its writing does not always earn.

If you have a kid who loves loud superhero comedies, or you just want something undemanding to have on, it does the job.

Quick verdict: Fun for kids, forgettable for adults, and best watched a few episodes at a time. Start with the pilot to meet the Noobs, then skip around, since the season-two Venamus arc is where the show finally finds a bigger story.

Supernoobs Theme Song

Want to go deeper?

You can read the full show history on the Supernoobs Wikipedia page, learn more about creator Scott Fellows, or dig through episode lore on the Supernoobs fan wiki.

Which of the four Noobs is your favorite?

Drop a comment and let me know.