Making Fiends
Making Fiends is an American flash-animated web series created by Amy Winfrey in 2003 about Vendetta, a girl who terrorizes the town of Clamburg with monsters called fiends, and Charlotte, a relentlessly cheerful new student who wants only to be Vendetta's friend. It was later adapted into a Nickelodeon television series that premiered on Nicktoons on October 4, 2008.1 • 2
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Creator | Amy Winfrey (born 1975, Los Angeles), who wrote, animated, scored, and voiced Charlotte3 • 4 |
| Web series | Flash animation, first released July 2003; 24 independent web episodes5 • 2 |
| TV series | Six episodes on Nicktoons Network, October 4 to November 1, 2008; TV-Y7 rating6 |
| Main cast | Aglaia Mortcheva as Vendetta, Amy Winfrey as Charlotte, Peter Merryman as Grudge7 |
| Recognition | "Vegetables" won Best Web Animation at the Chicago International Animated Film Festival; the show was featured in the Best Television Series category at Annecy and Anifest in 20088 • 3 |
| Home video | Two-disc DVD set of the TV season released June 9, 2009, initially exclusive to Amazon6 |
Spoilers
Premise and characters
Clamburg was once a popular tourist destination, but after Vendetta learned to make fiends, described as "hideous things" that torment everyone in town, visitors stopped coming.9 Vendetta spends her time trying to crush the optimism of Charlotte, the new girl in town, whose chipper, oblivious attitude drives Vendetta crazy; worse, Charlotte considers them best friends.9 In each episode Vendetta creates a fiend intended to destroy or eat Charlotte, and Charlotte's friendliness turns the monster into a playmate instead.1
Fiends. Vendetta is the only character in Clamburg who knows how to make fiends, and most of her creations have a single purpose, such as the henchman Grudge, the Giant Kitty sent to terrorize the citizens, and the vegetable fiends unleashed on the school cafeteria.10 Fiends have a consistent weakness: giving them sugar or showing them affection can turn them benevolent, which is how Charlotte routinely disarms them.10 In one episode Charlotte, given the ingredients by Vendetta, made a friendly fiend of her own, suggesting that Vendetta's wickedness is what makes fiends evil.9
Production of the web series
Winfrey studied animation at UCLA, where she animated on the first seasons of South Park and its 1999 feature film, won a Student Academy Award for her 3D short The Bad Plant, and produced the MFA thesis web series Muffin Films.3 • 11 After Muffin Films and the web series Big Bunny, she created Making Fiends in 2003.3
The series was self-financed. Winfrey sold merchandise, including thousands of t-shirts featuring her characters, and used the income to make web cartoons full time, handling scripts, animation, music, and songs alone.3 • 4 The first three web shorts, "Charlotte's First Day," "Show and Tell," and "Vegetables," were released as web cartoons in 2003 and were available at makingfiends.com, and further episodes followed through 2005, including the three-part Rubella storyline.5 • 4 "Vegetables" won the Best Web Animation category at the Chicago International Animated Film Festival.8
The Nickelodeon television series
After several web episodes were finished, Nickelodeon's development team contacted Winfrey in 2004 about adapting the series.3 • 11 The resulting show premiered on Nicktoons Network in the United States on October 4, 2008, airing weekends at 11:30 AM (ET) with a TV-Y7 rating, and ended its original run on November 1, 2008.6 Each half-hour broadcast combined three seven-minute segments; the six episodes carry titles such as "Charlotte's First Day/A Fiendish Friend/Super Evil" and "Tornado/Shorts 2/Pony," and a special, Making Fiends The Movie, aired October 12, 2008.7 Winfrey served as creator and co-executive producer, overseeing all aspects of the television production.4
The TV series reused fiends from the web episodes, such as Grudge, Giant Kitty, and the Red bird fiend, and for the first time showed other characters creating fiends with Vendetta's help.12 The music retained a home-made feel, with crew members occasionally playing instruments.6
Broadcast and distribution. The series also aired in Australia from around October 19, 2008, in New Zealand from October 31, 2008, and in the Netherlands from around May 2009, where on-screen material mistakenly titled it "Making Friends." It did not air in the United Kingdom.6 Reruns continued on Nicktoons until October 31, 2016.6 A two-disc DVD set was released on June 9, 2009, initially exclusive to Amazon and later sold through the NickShop, and remained in production until around December 2021.6 As of recent listings, the series can be purchased digitally on the Apple TV Store and Amazon Video, with no free streaming options.13
Reception and significance
The show was featured in the "Best Television Series" category at the Annecy International Animated Festival and Anifest in 2008.3 A Common Sense Media review described the humor as the goofiness of watching fiends fail, too slow to catch their prey or accidentally eating one another, and noted the intentionally scribbly, dark artwork and limited palette carried over from the web series.14
A model for independent web animation. In 2008, Cartoon Brew's editor in chief Amid Amidi, an animation historian, held up Making Fiends and Stefan Bucher's Daily Monster as examples of self-financed internet projects that built a fan following and won TV deals without traditional pitching, arguing that such paths showed how new TV animation ideas would be discovered.15 The TV run was brief, six episodes on a smaller network, and fans have long discussed the show's obscurity and its cancellation after a single season.7 Winfrey continued releasing web episodes independently on her own channel as late as April 2015, bringing the total to twenty-four web episodes alongside the six television episodes.2 • 5 She went on to direct all six seasons of Netflix's BoJack Horseman, including the Emmy-nominated "Free Churro" and "The View from Halfway Down" and the Annie-winning "The Dog Days are Over" and "The Client."3
References
- Making Fiends, Recess! Media, University of Florida (2004)
- Making Fiends by Amy Winfrey, amywinfrey.com
- About Amy Winfrey, amywinfrey.com
- Fiends Invade Nicktoons, Animation World Network
- Making Fiends – Aired Order, TheTVDB.com
- Making Fiends (TV series), Making Fiends Wiki
- Making Fiends: A Titles & Air Dates Guide, epguides.com
- Independent Films by Amy Winfrey, amywinfrey.com
- Making Fiends, Nickelodeon Animation
- Fiends, Making Fiends Wiki
- Amy Winfrey, Making Fiends Wiki
- List of fiends, Making Fiends Wiki
- Making Fiends – streaming, JustWatch
- Making Fiends Parents' Guide, Common Sense Media
- Who Needs to Pitch?, Cartoon Brew (2008)
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Early English-language web series (1997–mid 2010s)
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 12, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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