FACTS & TRIVIA |
Warning: Some details below contain Spoilers. Read at your own risk!
There are many dedications given out at the start of every Animorph book, all with different meanings.
"For Michael" refers to Michael Grant Reynolds, who is K.A. Applegate's husband and co-author. Although the series is published under K.A. Applegate's name, it is also written by him. Both Michael and K.A. were involved in creating Animorphs and for all the writing through the series, but Michael receives his credit at the beginning of every Animorphs book with the note "For Michael".
"For Jake" refers to K.A. and Michael's son Jake, who was born after the series had already begun. Starting with #14, Jake was added in the start of every book with Michael. The name Jake in no way connects with the Jake in Animorphs, and neither the character Jake nor K.A's and Michael's Jake share any similarities in anyway. An untold story by K.A. was revealed about this in the Anibase:
"My son was born premature in April of 1997 and spent 3 weeks in Neonatal Intensive Care. ...I remember sitting in a dark, abandoned lobby at the Minneapolis Children's Hospital every night, typing away at four in the morning on Animorphs, as exhausted and worried as I could be. After that, all the books were dedicated to Michael and Jake."
"For Erek King" was given in #10 and it refers to the real Erek King, who was an Animorph fan that won an official Scholastic contest to become a character in Animorphs. K.A. originally intended for Erek to be just a minor character, but later ended up becoming a major recurring character in the series.
"For Jeff and all of his friends" was given in #22 and it refers to Jeff Sampson, the creater of Morphz.com, which was an incredibly popular Animorphs website while the series ran. In the beginning Jeff was able to get K.A. to answer questions from fans on a regular basis on his website before it had to be moved to the Official Website. Jeff was constantly in contact with her through the series run, and was able to often provide many exclusive previews, news, and plot outlines for upcoming books on Morphz. The declaration of "For Jeff and all of his friends" originally specfied Morphz by name, but due to legal reasons from Scholastic, it had to be changed to "all his friends", which refers to all of the Animorph fans who created fan websites for the series. So if you've ever created an Animorphs website yourself, this dedication was meant for you!
"Thanks to (insert name) for the help in this manuscript" refers to the ghostwriter who was hired by K.A. Applegate in writing the mentioned book. Many of the later books in the series were ghostwritten due to the heavy scheduling conflicts between K.A.'s two series Animorphs and Everworld. Although many of the later books were ghost written, K.A. still maintained a good control over the events and characters in every book, reviewing them and rewriting them as needed.
A price change occured for the regular Animorph books starting with book #20 by going up $1. Books from #1-19 were originally $3.99 US ($4.99 CAN), and Books #20-54 were changed to $4.99 US ($5.99 CAN).
While all of the regular numerical Animorph book covers were made by David B. Mattingly, the first two books were created by Peter Bollinger (#1) and Tim O'Brien (#2)
The final arc of the series began with #45, which promised new and exciting changes for the following year until the end of the series. An online marketing campaign on the Official website called Animorphs Xtreme began to make changes to the website itself, allowing the readers a 'behind the scenes' look at the War. Several things like newspaper cover ups and radio commercials were all part of the campaign.
By #51, the back summary of "We can't tell you who we are, or where we live.." etc was changed to:
"Here's the deal these days: they know exactly who we are. They know exactly where we live. We've got a few secrets left, and we're gonna use them. But just know that the end is coming. And we don't know how much longer we can do this. How much longer we can fight.
What about you? Where will you be where it ends? Think about it. Think hard. Because the countdown has already begun...."Click here to read the Full Story on the Marketing of the End of Animorphs.
There were many things in the TV show that were not faithful to the book series (such as morphing with loose clothing, etc). One of the things that was often shown on the tv show was that you could tell who was and wasn't a controller by the way they scratched their ears.
K.A has never stated her official opinion on the tv show aside from the one time when she was asked on an Animorphs fan website called Morphz, but she clearly makes fun of the tv show in Animorph #31: The Conspiracy with Jake as he tries to figure out if his father has been taken by the Yeerks:
I scanned my father's face. Had he become a Controller yet? Stupid. I didn't know. Couldn't know. It's not as if Controllers go around twitching or exchanging Yeerk high fives or playing with their ears. A Controller looks, acts, seems exactly normal.
My father could be my father.
Or he could be screaming, helpless, just beginning to realize that his eyes and ears and mouth no longer belonged to him.
UPDATE: Through a recent Q&A at the RAF forums, K.A and Michael finally commented about the show:
We didn't like the TV show much. We were upset that they went live action rather than animated because we knew they wouldn't have the budget to do it well. Doing it right would have been very, very expensive. What they ended up with was rubber Andalite heads on sticks. I think we watched two episodes.
There are many mistakes in the series that were often pointed out by the fans. Many times K.A could not provide a reasonable explaination and admitted to it being a mistake. Eventually the list of mistakes increased so much that K.A created the acronym KASU, which stood for K.A Applegate's Screw Up.
Click here for a list of KASUs in the book series
In the final book #53, Jake reveals that his last name is Berenson and that the Animorphs have been fighting the Yeerks for 3 years.
David B. Mattingly was often asked why the kids on the covers never wore skin tight clothing like how they were supposed to. This was his response:
I know that having the characters morph with shoes and loose clothing is inaccurate to the books, but Scholastic and I preferred depicting the characters in realistic everyday clothing, rather than "morphing outfits." It makes the images more interesting, since the best part of the morphs artistically is when there is a complex blend of colors and fabric folds.
Throughout the series many of the cover models were changed to different ones. This was mostly because the original models had grown up and had moved on to college. Cassie's model (Biko) was the only one that stayed the same throughout the entire series because she stayed close to home.
In the books, Tobias was always described with blond hair, but when Tobias had his first book cover, many people mistook him for Jake because his cover model had dark hair. This was because the model (who was originally hired with blond hair) dyed his hair before the shoot, and by that time it was too late to change models. From then on K.A always referred to Tobias as a dirty-blond, even though the model stayed the same. Tobias finally got the correct hair color on the covers starting in book #43 when they had to change models for most of the characters.
Marco was never supposed to get a hair cut in #10, but it was added in later when K.A's editor found a good model for Marco, but with shorter hair.
Animorphs is available in many countries and in different languages including:
U.S, Austrailia, Benelux, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and U.K.
Some books were released in different versions when the series was running.
Andalite Chronicles was originally released in 3 books, but was later combined as 1 paperback.
Megamorphs #2 included a different version of each Animorph on the inside cover in their halfway morphs with the first cover in a color matching that Animorph's background. There was also another version which included all six Animorphs on the inside cover.
Hork-Bajir Chronicles was originally released as a Hard cover, and was then released as a paperback.
There were many merchandise items that with given out for free when the series first started. Here is a list of promotional book tie-ins:
#05 - Included Shirt Decal
#08 - Included two bookmarks with a tearable corner as Ax's teeth marks
#09 - Included a Postcard or a Tattoo
#10 - Stickers for books #10 and 11
#28 - Included two bookmarks of Ax
#37 - Included a free zipper tag
#45 - Included a free CD demo disc of the Animorphs PC game "Know the Secret"
Megamorphs #1 - Included a Shirt Decal
Visser Chronicles - Included a Shirt Decal
There is an Online School called BookWorlds that specifically studies the Animorph series as an Ethics Class. Here is the course description of the program:
Animorphs: The Ethics of War
The epic book series has finally come to Cal! We’ll discuss the series; how it portrays warfare, ethics, and heroes; and think about the books’ place in literature. There will be character studies, moral debates, and a guest lecture or two. Relive childhood memories or read the series for the first time, all are welcomed. Join us as we discuss and honor one of the greatest book series of all time.
Other series such as Harry Potter, the Hitchhiker's Guide, and several others also have different classes set aside for different themes.
FROM WIKIPEDIA
Aside from her three "big hit" series, Applegate has written other books, some under pen names. They include:
- Harlequin romance novels, as Katherine Kendall.
- Girl Talk novels, as L.E. Blair.
- Ocean City series (republished as Making Waves).
- Summer series (confusingly this series was originally published as Making Waves in the UK).
- Boyfriends/Girlfriends series (republished as Making Out).
- Barf-O-Rama series, as Pat Pollari.
- Disney's The Little Mermaid series.
- Disney's Aladdin series, as both A.R. Plumb and her own name.
- Silver Creek Riders series, as Beth Kincaid.
- Love Stories series.
- The Story of Two American Generals: Benjamin O. Davis Jr. and Colin L. Powell.
- The Very Best Jinx McGee.
- Disney's Christmas with all the Trimmings: Original Stories and Crafts from Mickey Mouse and Friends.
- Disney's Enter if you Dare: Scary Tales from the Haunted Mansion, as Nicholas Stephens.
K. A. Applegate has stated in an interview online that many of the names for her alien creatures, races, and locations are actually scrambled names of local street signs or companies that she happens to see during the day or night. For instance, the word nothlit was derived from the hotel name Hilton.
Main illustrator David B. Mattingly hid pictures and words about his pets in the sub-cover picture, mostly about his cat, Orson, starting in book 5.
The cover of the 54th and final book displays the Animorphs in profile in a very similar manner to the Rolling Stones' album Hot Rocks 1964-1971. Included on this compilation album is the hit song (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, which is featured in a scene in The Andalite Chronicles.
Animorphs was parodied in a 1999 issue of Cracked magazine.
An episode of Arthur featured the characters reading a popular book series called "Vegemorphs", an obvious spoof of Animorphs.
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