Sky acquires DreamWorks Animation’s Where’s Wally? and commissions a raft of new originals for Sky Kids
Sky acquires DreamWorks Animation’s Where’s Wally? and commissions a raft of new originals for Sky Kids
Today, Sky announced its acquisition of DreamWorks Animation’s hit series Where’s Wally? alongside a new raft of original commissions for Sky Kids including Not The End Of The World, Bad Nature, Pirates Love Underpants and Streetcat Bob – demonstrating its ambition to ramp up kids programming. This follows recent success with Morph, Moominvalley and BAFTA winning Play Your Pets Right.
Where’s Wally?
In Where’s Wally? (40 x 30 minutes – Season 1: 20 x 30 minutes, Season 2: 20 x 30 minutes), Wally and Wenda are members of the Worldwide Wanderer Society, the international order of curious travellers who circle the globe celebrating cultures and solving problems through observation. Their mentor, Wizard Whitebeard, a seasoned wanderer, sends these inquisitive young adventurers on international travel missions so they can earn their stripes and someday become wizard-level wanderers too. But standing in their way is their rival Odlulu, who can’t help but cause trouble wherever she goes. Sky has acquired Where’s Wally? from NBCUniversal Kids & Family Distribution.
Sky original, Not The End Of The World
Animation series Not The End Of The World (20 x 10 minutes) follows the adventures of Joe Connolly, age 11, in his first year at secondary school somewhere in the UK. Each episode sets up some sort of catastrophe that Joe firmly believes is the end of the world for him, which of course is nothing of the sort. With new situations and potential embarrassments around every corner the series is directed at older kids and adults who will be willing Joe to realise it really isn’t the end of the world! Produced by Helen Stern, created and directed by Jack Bennett, written by Ben Ward and executive produced Sarah Mattingley. Produced by Wildseed and Birkdale Film and Television with production services provided Toonz Media Group and Telegael.
Sky original, Bad Nature
Prepare for a remarkable journey as we get knee deep in the amazingly hideous world of Bad Nature (25 x 5 minutes), produced by Bristol-based Rebel Television. The live-action comedy combines beautiful natural history footage with state of the art animation, seeing our anchors Marv the Mandrill, Gloria the Puma and their roving animal reporters answer all the wonderfully weird questions you never knew existed. Questions such as, which animal’s poo can be seen from space, what creature squirts blood out of its eyes to ward off potential predators and what animal turns into a block of ice to combat the cold?
Sky original, Pirates Love Underpants
Pirates Love Underpants (1 x 24 minutes and 5 x music videos) is an animated musical special based on the book by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort, published by Simon & Schuster. The special episode is brought to you by the same BAFTA-nominated team behind Sky Kids previous commission Aliens Love Underpants; Tom Beattie (Producer), Steve Edge (Director), David Schweitzer (Composer) and Henry Paker (Writer). With lots of silly pirate jokes and pop pirate shanties the special will be a joyous adventure where the pirates go on a quest to find the fabled pants of gold. From Tiger Aspect Productions, an Endemol Shine company.
Sky original, Streetcat Bob
Streetcat Bob (20 x 2 minutes) is a short-form pre-school animated series inspired by the International best-selling book “A Street Cat Named Bob”. The series is produced by Adam Rolston at Shooting Script Films, animated by King Rollo Films, created by Garry Jenkins and Debbie Macdonald with James Bowen as executive producer. Bob is a streetcat who lives in Bowen Park with his troupe of park animal chums. Their adventures carry gentle messages about the importance of looking out for your friends and helping others.
Lucy Murphy, Director of Kids Content at Sky, said: “Sky Kids is passionate about creating the best shows for under 12s and finding new talent to work with. Our new original shows, alongside DreamWorks Animation’s Where’s Wally? bring music, natural history, comedy and innovative stories to our Kids service so there is even more for the whole family to enjoy.”
Sky Kids offers families 11 kids channels and over 5000 episodes of on demand viewing as well as the Sky Kids app, a safe space for younger kids focussed content, games and art tools with parental controls including a sleep mode so parents can moderate screen time. This is complemented by the pin protected Safe Mode on Sky Q, so there’s no danger of children straying into any areas of content that are not right for them.
For more information, please contact:
About Sky
With 24 million customers across seven countries, Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast group. Our 31,000 employees help connect our customers with the very best of Sports, News, the arts and to our own local, original content. Following the success of Sky originals like Chernobyl, Patrick Melrose, Das Boot and Gomorrah we launched Sky Studios and now plan to more than double our investment in original drama and comedy over the next five years.
Our technology allows customers to watch what they want, when they want, how they want, and as we connect millions of families to content they love, it is our responsibility to do it safely – that’s why we offer services like Sky Broadband Buddy and the Sky Kids app. And our online streaming service, NOW TV, brings viewers all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract-free service.
We also believe that a company of our scale has a responsibility that goes beyond our business, and into the community. Our Sky Ocean Rescue campaign has reached millions across Europe, we’re on track to be free of single-use plastic by 2020, we’re investing £25million over five years in ocean-saving tech and we’re a proud employer – recognised by The Times and Stonewall for our approach to inclusivity.
