I spent a long stretch of a rainy Wednesday afternoon at Cartoon Network's Burbank Studio, where I chatted up three floors of animation artists and directors and got informed of the following:
Chowder is winding down on what is -- apparently -- the final nine half-hours of the series.
Thirteen half-hours of Adventure Time -- out of the prolific development shop of Mr. Fred Seibert -- launched last week. (If you follow the link, you will note that Adventure Time the short was produced a while ago ... and produced under the umbrella of Fred S./Random Cartoons/Nickelodeon. But AT has since moved over to Cartoon Network ...)
The 20 new episodes of Flapjack are well underway (but you know this from the previous post about CN, do you not?)
And there are 39 shorts in development at the studio (which I call "son of workshop of Fred S."). And a Wise Old Animation Vet told me:
I would be real surprised if the studio doesn't get two, three or more series going from this crop of shorts. I don't think they'll roll new series out all at once, but one at a time. Over a couple of years."
Would that it will happen. (And I got to see a loop of test animation from one of the shorts, and whattayaknow! It looks like a cartoon! An old time, hand-drawn type cartoon!)
(What a concept!)
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7 comments:
So Chowder is, um, toast, huh? Well, too bad. It looked cool, although it never quite gelled, for some reason. Maybe it spent too much time being goofy and not enough time making its characters likeable. Ah, well, another decent concept down the tubes...
Very bummed about this. The show is amazing!
Don't count Chowder out yet. We received an order for 9 new half hours... but they weren't officially ordered as the "final 9".
Re Chowder, understand that I'm not giving any "official word." Merely what some staffers think are going to happen.
Hopefully, Chowder will plough on beyond this order of nine.
Chowder is still one of the highest rated shows on the network. Kids of ALL ages love the show. The artists are only worried because Cartoon Network is pushing for the boys/tweens audience right now. It would be dumb if the network cancelled it if they thought it was too young. Because the humor appeals to all. Even adults.
Sorry to post so late, it sometimes takes awhile to digest this information.
Is there any chance you can worm out an indication as to what direction Cartoon Network as a whole is taking? It seems like they've totally changed, and even lost, focus. They're importing a lot of non-original material, some of which is just horrible (Total Drama).
I heard Cartoon Network is dragging their feet as far as picking up Chowder for new episodes. The show was born from the previous round of execs and the new execs are really focused on the tween boy audience. They don't feel that Chowder fits into that. Which is weird because I know a lot of older kids that love the show. It's too bad because in my opinion it's the best new show right now.
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