Big plans being drawn up in adult animation
TV’ S NEXT GOLDEN AGE MAYBE WRITTEN IN INK.
Amazon Prime and Hulu both have ambitious new animated series set to debut next year in the genre “The Simpsons” made.
LOSANGELES—“M.O.D.O.K.” executive producer Jordan Blum describes the upcoming stop-motion series as “a midlife crisis story about a supervillain.”
Co-created with Patton Oswalt, the show follows the uniquely shaped Marvel villain as he struggles with his responsibilities as a husband and father as well as his declining career as the head of an evil organization.
“He’s in his 40s, he’s got a family (and) he believes he’s destined to rule theworld,” said Blum. “But what happens when all that’s taken away and your family leaves you and suddenly, you have nothing and you have to figure out who you want to be and what you want to fight for?”
The 2021Hulu showis just one title in the growing list of adult animated shows headed to a television near you, as more streaming platforms and networks expand their offerings in the genre.
Amazon Prime Video has its own superhero show slated for a 2021 premiere. Created by Robert Kirkman, “Invincible” is an adaptation of his comic book series cocreated with Cory Walker. Unlike “M.O.D.O.K.,” “Invincible” is a traditionally animated, hourlong drama.
“The superhero space in film and television is extremely crowded, so I thought that one way to make (‘Invincible’) stand out and be more unique would be to have it in animated form,” said Kirkman. “It (also) allows you to do more with the storyline. If wewere to do ‘Invincible’ in live action, there would be extreme limitations on the scope and the scale ofwhat we’re doing.”
Of course, adult animation is not limited to superhero fare. There are shows with sci-fi and fantasy elements. There are even musicals. But it’s the ever-popular animated sitcom that really helped launch the genre. ‘The Simpsons’ effect Although it was not the first animated showto air on prime-time television, “The Simpsons” has long been credited as the show that changed adult animation.
Originally conceived by creator Matt Groening for a series of shorts that ran during “The Tracey Ullman Show,” “The Simpsons” debuted as a stand-alone half-hour series in 1989 and has since become the longest running American scripted prime-time television show. The animated sitcom’s 32nd season — which will see the series air its milestone 700th episode — kicked off in September.
“I remember when ‘The Simpsons’ first came out, adults and parents wouldn’t even take a second glance,” said Wellesley Wild, showrunner and executive producer of Hulu’s new “Animaniacs,” a reboot of the ’90s original. “Itwas so ahead of its time. But I think it accelerated the evolution of adult animation— people saw what was possible.”
His “Animaniacs” co-executive producer Gabe Swarr recognized the influence of other animated series in the rise of adult animation on TV, but agreed that “we owe a lot to ‘The Simpsons.’”
That series’ popularity and critical acclaim spurred the creation of other long-running animated sitcoms such as “King of the Hill” (1997) and “Family Guy” (1999).
20th Century Fox Television’s executive vice president of animation, Marci Proietto, said it is understandable that everyone else is looking for a “Simpsons” of their own.
“We’ve been doing (adult animation) for over 20 years and it’s been really successful and profitable and the shows are amazing,” said Proietto. “I can completely understand why everyone wants to play in our sandbox.”
Netflix was the first to make its mark, with acclaimed shows such as “BoJack Horseman” (2014), “Big Mouth” (2017) and the Adult Swim-bound “Tuca & Bertie” (2019) helping to kick off the latest wave of adult animation.
In addition to the second season of “Undone,” the acclaimed original that uses rotoscope animation, Amazon has the comic book adaptation “Invincible,” the L.A.set “Fairfax” and the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired “Legend of Vox Machina” in its pipeline.
“It feels like a renaissance,” said Vernon Sanders, Amazon’s co-head of
TV. “The degree of ambition and variety and types of animation personally gets me excited. I just think the sky’s the limit.”
COVID-19 and beyond
The entertainment industry on the whole has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, but animation was quick to pivot to remote work to keep shows in production while its live-action counterparts had to shut down in March.
In fact, in a statement announcing its new adult animation unit in August, Viacom CBS’s entertainment and youth group President Chris McCarthy described animation as “pandemic proof.”
But because animation has a longer lead time than other scripted and especially unscripted series, many new shows, both recently released and forthcoming, had already been in production long before the public health crisis.
While noting that the growing interest in adult animation predated the pandemic, 20th Television’s Proiet to said that the current situation seems to have amplified the interest: “I think writers and studios realize that it’s something that can keep going through the pandemic. It is also very profitable and can last the test of time. It could go on for years if done well. So I think everyone is interested in how to do it now.”
Still, Craig Erwich, Hulu’s senior vicepresident of originals, said that the current situation “does not factor into (Hulu’s) long-term strategy.”
“It might impact the delivery of shows, but it doesn’t impact the strategic direction of our commitment to being in the business with the best adult animated artists of the world,” he said.