‘Backyard Baseball’ Video Game Gets Animated Special from Playground Prod.

Grab your gloves and get ready to dive into the kid-centric action of the 1990s Backyard Sports video game franchise. The retro CD-ROM series is aiming to hit a home run with a new generation of fans through new animated content from indie studio Playground Productions, starting with Sticky Situation, a 2D special based on Backyard Baseball (1997).

Playground acquired the rights when CEO Lindsay Barnett, a former elementary school teacher, got nostalgic for the inclusive sports game when struggling to find appealing, appropriate titles for her students during the COVID lockdown. She hired a private investigator to track down the rights, and began bringing the brand back, starting with a revival of the original games — reverse engineered and hacked from CD-ROM for want of source code.

The logline for Sticky Situation reads: It’s Opening Day at Steele Stadium. But team superstar Stephanie ‘Bubbles’ Morgan is in crisis. She’s lost her gotta-have-it, never-play-without-it lucky bubble gum! With just 30 minutes until game time, the Backyard kids embark on a wild mission to track it down and save their season.

The new special is written by Joe Purdy (Hey Arnold!) and directed by Mike Roberts (BoJack Horseman, Final Space) with music by Jonny Shorr. The voice cast will feature Tiffany Haddish as Kiesha Phillips, Arturo Castro as Pablo Sanchez, Ego Nwodim as Stephanie Morgan and Jocinda Smith, Chris Mintz-Plasse as Dmitri Petrovich, Donald Faison as Dante Robinson, Ashleigh Crystal Hairson as Sunny Day, Adam Pally as Pete Wheeler, Utkarsh Ambudkar as Achmed Khan and Michael Vlamis as Tony Delvecchio. Barnett will also be voicing Vinnie and the Webber Twins.

Lighthouse Studios, which has worked on projects including Rick and Morty and Bob’s Burgers: The Movie, is producing the animation. Playground is independently financing the special with support from Dave & Buster’s, with plans to release the special on both the Backyard Sports YouTube channel and in Dave & Buster’s locations across the U.S.

Playground also owns the rights to the football, basketball, soccer and hockey titles under the Backyard Sports banner.

[Source: Deadline]