Monday, May 13, 2013

The Fox Cartoon Schedule

Rupert and his minions roll out most of their old animation stalwarts on Sunday evenings: The Simpsons, Bob's Burger, Family Guy, and American Dad..

You will note that the Cleveland Show has been quietly dropped over the side. I's not on the schedule, no board artists or writers or animators are working on it ... but Cleveland hasn't been canceled, either. However, we seriously doubt it will be coming back. The parade's moved on.

Ah, but there is one new cartoon recruit:

MURDER POLICE is a new animated comedy series that expands the boundaries of the cop show genre as only animation can. From David A. Goodman (FAMILY GUY) and rising writer/animator/performer Jason Ruiz, the series follows a dedicated, but inept detective and his colleagues – some perverted, some corrupt, some just plain lazy – in a twisted city precinct. ...

For those of you tracking News Corp.'s various cartoons in prime time, The Simpsons* has its visual pre-production done at Film Roman/Starz (Burbank), Bob's Burgers is done at Bento Box (also Burbank), while American Dad and Family Guy are created at Fox Animation on Wilshire Boulevard (over the Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles.)

Bento Box is also doing the mid-season entry Murder Police at its newest studio location in North Hollywood. Wes Archer is one of the directors, with a lot of the crew from The Cleveland Show coming on board. (Guess they got tired of waiting for that pick-up.)

Board artists working on tell me that MP is a funny show, but we'll have to wait and see, since it's a mid-season replacement.

* "The Simpsons" is the last prime-time animated series that has a crew dedicated to drawing background layouts. Every other show is (as the saying goes) "board driven" - meaning that the layouts are part of the storyboards. Even though "The Simpsons" layout staff has been diminished, it still hangs on.

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