MTV2, MTV Networks’ music channel serving the U.K. and Ireland, has picked up a series of animated shorts from Bristol-based Aardman Animations, the studio behind the Oscar-winning feature Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The 10 new toons featuring the character Big Jeff range from 90 to 180 seconds in length and will be scattered throughout the MTV2 schedule starting mid June.
The Big Jeff films were created, written and directed by Aardman’s Tom Parkinson and exec produced by Miles Bullough, Peter Lord and Dave Sproxton. Big Jeff is described as a back-to-basics, macho Australian who loves nature, drinking beer, taking hallucinogens and being naked, save for his cork-hat and disco roller boots. Episodes have Jeff presenting his own unorthodox guide to survival in the Bush, losing himself to a bizarre trance while learning the digeridoo and hanging out with an experimental hippy named Mother Hendrix.
Aardman’s broadcast division develops and produces TV specials, series and shorts. Recent credits include award-winning stop-motion productions Creature Comforts for ITV1 and Angry Kid for BBC3, and the CG-animated Planet Sketch for CiTV. Projects now in production include Chop Socky Chooks for Cartoon Network and TELETOON, Shaun The Sheep for CBBC and WDR and an American version of Creature Comforts for CBS.
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