Back when I attended RTX 2017, I had a chance to get an early look at a new animated series concept from Australian creator Elyse Castro. The cute, cuddly, and hilariously creepy cartoon about a young witch attempting to cook up a summoning potion was an absolute delight, but rather than having me simply describe it, now you can check it out for yourself. Sony Pictures Animation and Frederator Networks, a WOW! Unlimited Media company, recently announced the launch of The Summoning, the first episode of GO! Cartoons, on Frederator’s Cartoon Hangover channels on YouTube and VRV from Ellation.
The Summoning is Castro's debut cartoon, and a perfect example of GO! Cartoons' incubator model. The approach seeks to find storytelling talent from all over the world in order to develop a bunch of pilot episodes from which a fully fledged animated series will emerge. The Summoning is but the first installment; the next short film in the GO! Cartoons series will be Boots from daughter and father team Alison and David Cowles on November 21st. The rest of the GO! Cartoons will roll out every other week.
Check out The Summoning below and read on to find out more on the future of GO! Cartoons:
A new cartoon is here on Cartoon Hangover! "The Summoning" is the first full episode of Frederator Studios' and Sony Pictures Animation's GO! Cartoons shorts series. If you like this, come back November 21st for the second short, "Boots".
Here's a look at the full slate of cartoons coming up over the next few months:
- Boots - Created by Alison and David Cowles - November 21st
- City Dwellers - Created by Grant Kolton - December 5th
- Rachel and Her Grandfather Control the Island - Created by Jonni Phillips - December 19th
- Nebulous - Created by Brent Sievers - January 2, 2018
- Welcome to Doozy - Created by Kate Tsang and Jennifer Cho Suhr - January 16, 2018
- Both Brothers - Created by Juris Lisovs - February 13, 2018
- Get Trashed - Created by D.R. Beitzel - February 27, 2018
- Tyler & Co. - Created by Gabe Janisz - March 13, 2018
- Kid Arthur - Created by Joel Veitch and David Shute - March 27, 2018
- Thrashin' USA - Created by Rory Panagotopulos - April 10, 2018
- Pottyhorse - Created by Damien Barchowsky and Jeff Drake - April 24, 2018
Be sure to let us know what you think of The Summoning in the comments, and more importantly, take to GO! Cartoons' social media pages to let them know your thoughts! Here are the relevant YouTube and VRV links.
Oh, and here's the Fall 2017 lineup for Cartoon Hangover!
Cartoon Hangover is proud to present a peek at our new cartoons available this fall on Cartoon Hangover and Cartoon Hangover Select. It all kicks off November 7th! From Frederator Studios , GO! Cartoons features 12 shorts produced with Sony Pictures Animation, and Bravest Warriors Season 4, produced in association with Nelvana. GO! kicks off with "The Summoning" on November 7th and continues in November on the 21st with "Boots". From Frederator Digital comes a new miniseries shorts program featuring "Shadowstone Park" from Jason Steele, "Slug Riot" from Mike Rosenthal, and "(not)Hero" from Liz Chun.
GO! Cartoons is intended to bring promising talent and animated content to the attention of Sony Pictures Animation through an alternative development method. Frederator Studios’ development team took hundreds of pitches and identified 12 short film projects along with Sony Pictures Animation, which funded their development. At least one of those shorts will become a series for Frederator Network’s Cartoon Hangover channel.
Fred Seibert, CEO of Frederator Networks said, “Sony Pictures Animation has been the perfect partner in finding these creators and realizing their unique visions. Frederator is dedicated to finding new voices for the world to fall in love with.”
Eric Homan, Frederator Studios’ head of development, added, “Short shows have been Frederator’s bread-and-butter for decades. It’s as exciting to support fresh talent today as it was back in 1998, whether the filmmakers are in Brisbane, New York, London, Latvia, or right here in Burbank.”
Seibert and his team at Frederator Studios have successfully created several incubator series since Frederator Studio’s inception in 1998, including "Oh Yeah! Cartoons" and "Random! Cartoons" for Nickelodeon. These yielded hits such as Butch Hartman’s The Fairly OddParents for Nickelodeon and Pendleton Ward’s Adventure Time on Cartoon Network. As president of Hanna-Barbera in the 1990’s, Fred Seibert pioneered incubator series that discovered talent and shows for the fledgling Cartoon Network, such as Powerpuff Girls, created by Craig McCracken, and Dexter’s Laboratory, created by Genndy Tartakovsky.
The Cartoon Hangover channel was launched in 2012 to bring cartoons from Frederator Studios and other production studios directly to fans. Cartoon Hangover’s most recent incubator lab, Too Cool! Cartoons, brought “cartoons from new and innovative creators all over the world, right to your eyeballs,” including Bee & PuppyCat from creator Natasha Allegri. Frederator Studios went directly to viewers via Kickstarter, and more than 18,000 fans ponied up in excess of $850,000 to bankroll the series, a record-breaking amount and the most backed for any animation project start-up.
Sony Pictures Animation is the Academy Award® nominated studio responsible for blockbuster comedy hits such as Surf’s Up, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Hotel Transylvania, and The Smurfs. The animation studio will be releasing the inspirational feature The Star in theaters on November 17th, Hotel Transylvania 3 next July once again directed by Tartakovsky, and a fully animated Spider-Man movie from the minds of Chris Miller and Phil Lord in December 2018.
