Disney Channel programmers from North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific have joined forces to acquire global rights to the stop-motion animated series Timmy from acclaimed U.K. production company Aardman Animations. The preschool comedy show is scheduled to premiere in 2009 on Playhouse Disney channels and programming blocks around the world.
Featuring character designs based on sketches by Academy Award-winning Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park, Timmy is a spin-off of Aardman’s hit children’s series Shaun the Sheep, which is a spin-off of the Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit short A Close Shave. Timmy centers on a charming, three-year-old sheep who lives over the hill and down the lane from Shaun’s farm and has a lot to learn about his world.
Timmy marks Aardman’s first major foray into preschool programming. The show’s creative producer and supervising director is BAFTA winner Jackie Cockle, whose credits include Bob the Builder and Noddy. Serving as exec producer is Miles Bullough (Shaun the Sheep).
Based in Bristol, U.K., Aardman Animations produces feature films, television series and commercials. The studio has won over 400 international awards and four Academy Awards, including Best Animated Feature for Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Having collaborated with DreamWorks Animation on that that film, as well as Chicken Run and Flushed Away, Aardman has formed a new, three-year alliance with Sony Pictures Ent. The deal will yield a stop-motion heist pic titled The Cat Burglars, an adaptation of Gideon Defoe’s The Pirates! book series and a Christmas toon dubbed Operation Rudolph.
