Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. The group is 100% composed of volunteers and interested parties, and has expanded into a large amount of related projects for saving online and digital history.
Just about every era of animation has its share of cult classics -- shows that didn't necessarily spawn massive franchises, but still live on in the hearts and minds of those who grew up with them. And if you grew up during the 2000s, one such classic you may have caught was Code Lyoko.
Created by Tania Palumbo and Thomas Romain, Code Lyoko was a French animated series that premiered in 2003, with an English dub arriving in the United States on Cartoon Network the following year. The show ran for a total of 95 episodes across four seasons (97 episodes counting the two-part prequel special), concluding its run in late 2007.
Code Lyoko's first season was produced by Antefilms, with MoonScoop taking over for the latter three seasons. The series evolved from Antefilms' 2001 project Garage Kids, which itself evolved from Romain's 2000 animated short Les enfants font leur cinema. While the sub-50-second short established the visual style used in Code Lyoko, as well a lot of the show's major character designs, its premise was a far cry from the final product, revolving around a group of kids who meet at a secret hideout to watch homemade cartoons they drew. By Garage Kids, however, a lot of the central ideas that would be present in Code Lyoko were established, setting the stage for the show's premiere in 2003.
Code Lyoko follows Jeremy Belpois, a 14-year-old student attending the boarding school Kadic Academy. Jeremy discovers a quantum supercomputer at a nearby abandoned factory, which houses a virtual world called Lyoko. He also learns of two beings dwelling inside: an A.I. girl named Aelita and an evil multi-agent system called X.A.N.A., which is capable of inflicting damage upon the real world. Jeremy soon takes it upon himself to figure out how to materialize Aelita into the real world, as well as fend off X.A.N.A.'s various threats. To do so, he enlists the help of his classmates, Ulrich Stern, Yumi Ishiyama and Odd Della Robbia (with William Dunbar later joining the core cast).
Throughout the series, X.A.N.A. would launch various attacks on reality, which it did by activating one of the many towers present in Lyoko's different sectors. When this happened, the kids would spring into action. Jeremy would man the computer while some combination of Ulrich, Yumi and/or Odd would step into one of the factory's scanners for the "virtualization" process, which would transport them to Lyoko.
Once in the virtual world, the kids' virtual avatars had an array of weapons and abilities at their disposal, which they would use to battle Lyoko's various monsters, clearing a path so that Aelita could deactivate the tower. This allowed Jeremy to run a command called "return to the past," which would rewind time to just before X.A.N.A.'s attack began so everyone could go about their lives as normal. Jeremy eventually figured out how to materialize Aelita, who began attending Kadic with the others under the alias Aelita Stones. It's at this point that the focus shifted to uncovering Aelita's mysterious past and the true origins of Lyoko.
Code Lyoko stood out for utilizing two distinct animation styles. The scenes taking place in the real world utilized 2D hand-drawn animation, while those taking place on Lyoko used 3D computer animation. If there's one other thing the series is remembered for, it's the insanely catchy opening theme. The show actually had a bit of a Teen Titans vibe, featuring two versions of the same theme song: a French version called "Un monde sans danger" and an English version using the translated title "A World Without Danger."
Code Lyoko premiered in France on Sept. 3, 2003, on the channel France 3, with the 26-episode first season airing new episodes on a weekly basis and concluding on Feb. 25, 2004. The English dub then premiered in the U.S. on Cartoon Network two months later on April 19. Cartoon Network aired new episodes of Code Lyoko almost every day, with Season 1's English run concluding by the end of May. When Season 2 came around, the French and English versions of episodes began airing much closer together, with the season premiering in France on Aug. 31, 2005, and in the U.S. a few weeks later on Sept. 19. In fact, due to France 3's weekly release schedule and Cartoon Network's near-daily one, certain episodes of Coke Lyoko actually aired stateside before they did over in Europe. This trend would continue through Season 4.
That being said, it was only in France that Code Lyoko's series finale actually aired on television. The 95th and final mainline episode, "Echoes," aired on France 3 on Nov. 10, 2007. Meanwhile, the final episode to be broadcast on Cartoon Network proper was "Cousins Once Removed," the show's 88th episode, which aired on Nov. 17. Before 2007 ended, Cartoon Network released the remaining seven episodes of Code Lyoko as online-exclusives.
In 2011, MoonScoop announced Code Lyoko would be receiving a continuation. Rather than a fifth season for the original series, however, that continuation came in the form of a sequel series titled Code Lyoko: Evolution. Evolution was a significant departure from Code Lyoko in that it was actually live-action, with scenes featuring real actors as the fan-favorite characters taking the place of the 2D animation. For scenes that actually took place on Lyoko, the 3D animation was still used, complete with updated versions of the original character designs.
Code Lyoko: Evolution premiered its debut episode online on Dec. 19, 2012, before making its TV debut on France 4 (a sister channel of France 3) on Jan. 5, 2013. Unlike the original Code Lyoko animated series, Evolution was never dubbed into English, and ran for a single 26-episode season, concluding in December of 2013. The season ended on a cliffhanger that will likely never be resolved, unfortunately, with MoonScoop having filed for bankruptcy in 2014.
However, this story has a fairly happy ending. Unlike a lot of cult-favorite cartoons from the 2000s, Code Lyoko is actually still very accessible to established fans and new viewers alike. While the show was initially removed from Netflix following MoonScoop's bankruptcy, all four seasons returned to the platform early this past October. All 95 episodes, plus the two-part prequel, are also available for free on the official Code Lyoko YouTube channel. While they aren't on Netflix, all 26 episodes of Code Lyoko: Evolution are on the YouTube channel as well, complete with English subtitles.
Whether you're a returning traveler or are only visiting Lyoko for the first time, Code Lyoko still holds up as a unique, easily-accessible gem of the 2000s -- and getting to hear that theme song is always a plus.
