One of DStv’s School of Laughter channel partners, Cartoon Network, has answered the need for animated stories that African viewers can really relate to.
Johannesburg, South Africa (24 January 2020) – Storytelling is at the core of the African psyche and Cartoon Network seeks to tap into that, particularly in the humour department.
Cartoon Network Africa launched Cartoon Network Africa Creative Lab as an African venture designed to bring innovative, local short content to the channel, and its digital platforms while reinforcing the local relevance of the brand. Creators, writers, graphic artists and animators all rose to the occasion to take a chance at bringing innovative content aligned with Cartoon Network’s brief to bring humour, craziness, randomness and absurdity, to make African kids laugh out loud.
Graphic designers, writers and animators all came to the party when Cartoon Network Africa invited creatives to produce humorous content for the African audience. Stories that relate with randomness, craziness and sheer absurdity while being innovative is what Cartoon Network Africa hoped to achieve with the competition – and the winning entries prove they got even more than they bargained for.
The uniqueness of the winning projects shows that Africa is bursting with talent, and it’s time for African animated stories to make their presence felt.
Andrew Phillips was recently named one of three winners of Cartoon Network’s Creative Lab. He is a South African animation/writer based in Cape Town. Andrew has a passion for developing kids’ series projects and currently works full-time on the 2D soccer adventure comedy, Supa Strikas.
He says he got into animation kind of by accident. Though he loved to draw, as a kid, he never dreamed of being an animator. Instead studied Film and English literature, and ended up teaching for about 10 years. Until one day, prompted by a friend, he entered a writing contest and discovered that he loves writing for animation.
“I didn’t win, but I got selected as a finalist, met a bunch of awesome people, learnt a lot, and used that as a springboard into writing scripts for animated things. Winning this competition however meant I got to see my ridiculous idea come to life and get passed through the brains and hands of amazingly talented people – from the supportive Cartoon Network execs to the animation geniuses at Mind’s Eye Creative. The experience taught me a lot, and it’s helped me home in on what I really want to do with my time. As for my ‘future career’, it’s hard for me to think in those terms, but what I do know is that I’m hell-bent on working with awesome people to make stuff that excites me, stuff that’s meaningful but still crazy and funny. I want to wake up and do that every day. So, I will.”
Andrew created Intergalactic Ice Cream, a dairy-fuelled adventure between Mak, a no-longer cool kid and his friends, Sally, Milton and Chicken Leg, whose after-school job delivering for an ice cream parlour launches them into the craziest, danger-filled, and dairy-fuelled adventures this side of the Milky Way! Their customer? A hungry pie hole.
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