Your Guide to the World of Furry Fandom
This one we stumbled across on Twitter, of all places! Little Kitty, Big City is a new on-line game created by Wholesome Games. “You’re a curious little kitty with a big personality, on an adventure to find your way back home. Explore the city, make new friends, wear delightful hats, and leave more than a little chaos in your wake. After all, isn’t that what cats do best?” Ours certainly do. The official web site has a preview video and lots more information too.
image c. 2021 Wholesome Games
Staying with cats for a while, once again we have something cool coming to Europe… and likely not coming to North America. This one we’ve mentioned before, and now we’ve got an update (with lots of pictures) thanks to Animation Magazine. “Sky (U.K.) released first-look character images and new teaser poster for The Amazing Maurice, a Sky Original arriving next year to mark the 20th Anniversary of the book by Sir Terry Pratchett… In The Amazing Maurice, Maurice is a streetwise ginger cat who comes up with a money-making scam by befriending a group of self-taught talking rats. When Maurice and the rodents reach the stricken town of Bad Blintz, they meet a bookworm called Malicia and their little con soon goes down the drain.” There’s quite an amazing cast of voice actors for this one, so look for it if you can when it arrives on Sky in 2022.
image c. 2021 Sky
[Back from Biggest Little Fur Con, and ready to roll!] We literally stumbled across a new furry film coming out in Europe next year. As usual with many such projects, we have no idea if it will ever see the light of day in North America, but we can hope. It’s called Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness (whew!) and it’s based on the Chickenhare series of graphic novels by Chris Grine. “The series follows the story of Chickenhare, a rare and exotic cross between a chicken and a rabbit, and his bearded box turtle friend, Abe,” says Wikipedia. The movie, meanwhile, goes like this: “Set in a lush fantasy world, the film follows the adventures of Chickenhare, a young hero born half chicken and half hare, who was adopted by King Peter, a famous hare adventurer. Eager to fit in and feel loved in spite of his differences, Chickenhare is obsessed with adventuring – no matter how clumsy he is. When the Kingdom’s greatest villain – his own uncle – escapes from jail and threatens to overthrow his father, Chickenhare embarks on an epic race against time along with Abe, a sarcastic turtle, and Meg, a reckless female martial arts expert, to stop him.” Turns out the film has been in development for quite a while now, before finally being brought to the screen next year by directors Ben Stassen and Benjamin Mousquet. The Internet Movie Database has the official trailer and more information.
image c. 2021 nWave Pictures
Exciting news from the world of streaming. “DreamWorks Animation has shared a teaser trailer for the all-new CG animated series Dragons: The Nine Realms. Inspired by the hugely popular How to Train Your Dragon movie franchise, the show premieres on Hulu and Peacock December 23. Set 1,300 years after the events of How to Train Your Dragon, dragons are now just a legend to the modern world. When a geological anomaly opens an immense, miles-deep fissure in the Earth’s surface, scientists from all over the world gather at a new research facility to study the mysterious phenomenon. Soon a group of misfit kids, brought to the site by their parents, uncover the truth about dragons and where they’ve been hiding — a secret they must keep to themselves to protect what they’ve discovered.” Find out more and see the teaser trailer over at AWN.
image c. 2021 Dreamworks
Cartoon Brew just announced that Neflix has given the green-light to four new animated TV series for young viewers… and the cool thing is, three of them are quite furry! Check out The Creature Cases, created by Gabe Pulliam. “An animated action-comedy series which follows the adventures of Sam Snow and Kit Casey, agents of CLADE: the Covert League of Animal Detective Experts. In a world populated exclusively by animals, these brilliant sleuths travel the globe solving mind-boggling mysteries that mix real zoological facts with wild detective action!” Then there’s Big Tree City: “Hot-sauce volcanoes, biscuit dinosaur mysteries, and exploding soda pop factories; join the wild rescues of Major Prickles and his overzealous team, as they try to save the animal citizens of Big Tree City.” And finally there’s Deepa and Anoop, “An all-new animated preschool series from Mattel Television that follows the adventures of fun-loving seven-year-old Deepa and her best friend Anoop, a color-changing elephant, at Deepa’s family’s bed and breakfast Mango Manor.” All heading our way in 2022.
image c. 2021 Team To
So, My Little Pony fandom (and the Internet in general!) have been exploding now that Netflix has released the first full trailer for the upcoming My Little Pony: A New Generation. This is Generation 5, if you’re keeping count, and unlike previous generation shifts, this one actually connects to the previous one — as the storyline of Generation 4 (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic) takes place in this story’s past history. This is also the first generation of official pony that will be completely animated in CGI. Here’s what we learned from Wikipedia: “My Little Pony: A New Generation is an upcoming computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Robert Cullen and Jose Ucha… The film will center on Sunny Starscout, an outcast and young earth pony who sees hope in Equestria where friendship and harmony have been replaced with paranoia and mistrust, and where all three species of ponies live segregated from one another. However, when she meets a lost unicorn named Izzy, the two embark on an adventure involving musical numbers, a jewel heist, conspiracy theories, and ‘the world’s cutest flying Pomeranian’ as they travel to new lands while facing their fears and turning enemies into friends.” There’s a series planned to follow the feature film, but we don’t know much about it yet. What we DO know is that A New Generation is scheduled to drop on Netflix on September 24th.
image c. 2021 Netflix
More interesting news from Animation World Network: “Netflix has announced their newest preschool series, Ridley Jones, created and executive produced by Peabody, Emmy, and Humanitas Prize-winning children’s television screenwriter and producer Chris Nee, known for creating the popular kids’ series Doc McStuffins and Vamperina. Nee is heralding in a new era of preschool TV that is steeped in representation, diversity, and inclusivity, continuing her mission to change the way we look at media for kids. Her newest series features a strong female lead character and re-occurring LGBTQIA+ characters like Fred the non-binary bison (the first reoccurring non-binary character in a preschool series). The CG animated series follows six-year-old Ridley who, alongside her mother and grandmother, is a protector of the museum she calls home. Keeping the exhibits safe takes a real hero, especially when the lights go out and the exhibits — from Egyptian mummies to stampeding elephants — come to life! Throughout her many adventures, Ridley finds that being a good protector, and leader, is about finding common ground and respecting others, no matter what our differences might be.” Like all of Chris Nee’s series, this new one abounds with anthropomorphic buddy characters, including a dinosaur, a chimp astronaut, a dodo, and the aforementioned bison. The series premieres on Netflix on July 13, but there are preview episodes are up on YouTube already.
image c. 2021 Netflix
We’re also learning more about Luck, the new CGI animated feature that’s coming from Paramount Pictures and Skydance Animation. It was previously announced that Jane Fonda would be in the cast, and now it turns out Whoopi Goldberg is lending her voice too. According to Animation World Network: “Goldberg will provide the voice for ‘The Captain’, the tough-as-nails Head of Security for the Land of Good Luck,” while Fonda “…will voice ‘The Dragon’, the exuberant CEO of Good Luck and undisputed luckiest ancient being in all the land.” They go on to say this: “Directed by Peggy Holmes (Secret of the Wings, The Pirate Fairy) and written by Kiel Murray (Cars, Cars 3), Luck centers around the unluckiest girl in the world, who after stumbling upon the never-before-seen world of good and bad luck, must join together with magical creatures to uncover a force more powerful than even luck itself.” The article goes on to detail several other animated projects that Skydance have in the works. Luck is scheduled for release by Apple TV+ in February of 2022.
image c. 2021 Skydance Animation
My but it seems like Dwayne Johnson is busy with a lot of animation projects lately! Now the latest we’ve heard about is the DC League of Super-Pets feature film. DC just released a new teaser trailer, and there’s an article up on Collider: “The cast of animated family film DC League of Super-Pets just got a serious injection of star power with the announcement that Kevin Hart, Keanu Reeves, John Krasinski, Vanessa Bayer, Kate McKinnon, Natasha Lyonne, and Diego Luna have all boarded the ensemble via a fun teaser video starring Krypto the Super Dog in all his animated glory.” The latter voiced by Mr. Johnson, of course. The film will be un-leashed in 2022 — by Warner Brothers, naturally!
image c. 2021 DC Comics
