Apr 5, 2016

Cartoon Network Lied: Uncle Grandpa" Ends Production

Last week, Cartoon Network issued a press release announcing that it had picked up seasons 4 and 5 of two popular shows: Steven Universe and Uncle Grandpa. We dutifully reported the news, but it turns out that Cartoon Network, along with dozens of other media outlets, had fooled us.

Cartoon Network is not picking up new episodes of "Uncle Grandpa," but is ending production on the series, a source familiar with the production told Cartoon Brew.

Here's what's happening: the Uncle Grandpa crew at Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank was informed in mid-March that the show will end production at the end of its current season. After the end of the season, the crew will produce 78 half-hour shows, or 156 11-minute cartoons.

Since the first season of the series consisted of 52 11-minute shorts, the staff assumed that there would be two additional seasons of 52 11-minute shorts. However, since Cartoon Network is splitting the remaining 104 shorts into 26 animated features per season, four seasons of new content can be declared.

It is not a crime for Cartoon Network to change the number of episodes per season, and indeed, some shows have 26 episodes per season. Also, the bulk of Uncle Grumpa, 100 cartoons, has not even debuted yet. In other words, fans of Uncle Grandpa, Mr. Gus, Belly Bag, Pizza Steve, and Giant Realistic Flying Tiger can look forward to years of original new content.

However, from a crew standpoint (and we do this because we are industry sources), CN's announcement of two new seasons was dishonest. We never received a press release claiming that the shows would be renewed, when in fact the entire crew would be laid off. This is a clever way for Cartoon Network to avoid bad news and to avoid the negative press that is common with show cancellation announcements, as Disney has experienced in recent years when it ended production on "Phineas and Ferb" and "Wonder Over Yonder."

For "Steven Universe," Cartoon Network pulled a similar stunt with the series by reducing the number of episodes per season to insist on additional seasons. This was confirmed on Twitter by the show's writer Matt Barnett, who posted the following tweet (now deleted):

It is not yet clear if Steven Universe will go beyond a "fourth" and "fifth" season.