The Curse Of Flying Bark Productions

[SweetShop209]

It seems like whenever Flying Bark Productions is involved with a project, it always gets treated poorly for one reason or another. While the company has had many ups and downs in the almost 60 years it's been open, it's very notable with these 4 shows. I'm talking about Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Glitch Techs, Lego Monkie Kid, and Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur. Let's talk about it.

Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is definitely quite the tragic show. It was initially met with a polarizing reception due to its changes to the TMNT lore, though at least more people love it more now. Of course, that didn't help the show out given how it was moved to the lesser available Nicktoons Network before season 1 even finished. Not only that, season 2 was slashed in half, the showrunners had to write a finale very quickly, and low merchandise sales meant no season 3. At least the show got a movie to end the show properly.

Now we have Glitch Techs, a show that definitely deserved time to shine. The show was initially greenlit for 2 seasons with a total of 30 episodes. However, due to the show being too expensive to make, the creators were told by Nickelodeon to stop production on the show. As such, only 20 of the show's 30 episodes were fully completed. The show also ended up being put on Netflix rather than airing on Nickelodeon, which was basically a drop in a bucket in terms of attention given the streaming model of "dump episodes in one go".

Now we have Lego Monkie Kid. At least in the United States, the show had a very rocky distribution. The show came out internationally in 2020, but didn't come out in the US until September 2021 on Amazon Prime Video. That didn't exactly show confidence in the series given how Amazon has been downplaying how much they invested in kids shows. Not helping things is that the announcement didn't happen until just a few days before coming to Amazon. Even still, they only have the first 2 seasons and early specials. All five seasons of the show are currently streaming on Peacock, but the specials aren't. Oh, and the show switched to being animated by Wildbrain starting in season 5.

And now we finish with Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur. The show definitely had quite the lengthy development. It was first announced in 2018, with Disney Television Animation and Cinema Gypsy Productions teaming up with Titmouse. However, Flying Bark Productions was announced as the animation studio in 2021 when more details came out. As for the actual show treatment, it's complicated. It did get a good deal of promotion from Disney at the start, but that would diminish over time. I think part of it has to do with the fact that it's a story driven show, making it stick out like a sore thumb among Disney Channel's usual episodic shows. It tends to get less reruns compared to other shows, and most of its episodes come out early on Disney Plus in batches. It was also said to not get a season 3.

And that's all I have. What do you think?

 

[John Pannozzi]

I just hope the Stranger Things cartoon they have in development does well.

 

[the_joker]

The shows for the most part were on different networks, and Flying Bark Productions only produced the shows, so this just sounds like a network/distributor issue like how DC cartoons during the 2010s got screwed over on CN (Batman: The Brave on the Bold premiered in 2008 and also suffered from this later in its run). I don't know what happens on the network executive level, but I still don't know why the executives would initially accept a show only to throw it away later.

I've only seen Glitch Techs and Moon Girl, and the former definitely got screwed over in a similar manner to Beware the Batman. As for Moon Girl, it looks like the episodes were distributed slowly, so I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't get a lot of promotion from Disney+ or The Disney Channel.

I never heard of Lego Monkie Kid until now, but since it's on different platforms, I'm still saying it's a distribution issue. A little odd that Peacock would have an incomplete show, but I'm guessing they considered the specials to be separate enough to not want to pay for them. Since the show also switched production companies, I would guess the show hasn't done so great, but if that were the case, it would've just been canceled.

 

[Perla Magica]

As for Moon Girl, it looks like the episodes were distributed slowly, so I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't get a lot of promotion from Disney+ or The Disney Channel.

This is what I'm afraid for in case of the final 10 episodes that will come next year.

 

[cheril59]

Flying Bark had such decent cartoons back in the 90s, Blinky Bill, Skippy, Dumb Bunnies (with Nelvana). Even the 2007 movie Gumnutz: A Juicy Tale.

 

[Corwin Haught]

I don't see this as some sort of "curse" on a particular studio but a symptom of the general decline in the children's animation business.

 

[PrevueLovesAnimeTV]

Flying Bark had such decent cartoons back in the 90s, Blinky Bill, Skippy, Dumb Bunnies (with Nelvana). Even the 2007 movie Gumnutz: A Juicy Tale.

Those Dumb Bunnies were co-Produced with Hong Guang (Division of Wang Film) but rights are entirely Nelvana's

 

[Tommypezmaster]

Did that company own the Yorum Gross library? I remember seeing newer Blinky Bill images w/ Flying Barks name in the copyright.