Toon In: Animated TV Highlights for August, from Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Terminator Zero
Photos Courtesy of Hulu, Paramount+, and Prime Video
Welcome to the ink, paint, and pixel corner of Paste TV, where we’re highlighting some of the best premium animation projects on streaming or direct-to-video aimed for teens and adults. This monthly column not only provides an overview of the new animated series to check out, but we’ve also collected some of the finest creators and voice talents in the medium to give updates, or introductions, to their series.
Futurama Season 12 (July 29)
You can’t keep a great show down, as evidenced by the return of Futurama on Hulu. Season 12 just started at the end of July and will continue to drop new episodes weekly until the end of September. The man who’s been there from the beginning with creator Matt Groening is long-time executive producer/showrunner David X. Cohen.
With 25 years of the series under his belt, Cohen tells Paste that the sheer history of the show itself can be overwhelming to its writers. “One of the problems is, if you look too hard, you’ll often find we’ve partially covered some subject in the past. So, you’re like, ‘Hmm, maybe it’s better if we kind of pretend we didn’t do that and we’ll really do the better version now,’” he jokes.
He continues, “We make judgment calls all the time about whether we have covered some piece of material too much in the past or not. But you are going to start to repeat things. I think The Simpsons has done certain stories, like Homer’s gotten the new job, 75 times. We’re at that point where we’re going to be up to 180 episodes by the end of this current order, so Bender can fall in love three times. That’s alright.”
With animation having to work so far in advance, Cohen says he feels very lucky that Futurama has been able to stay ahead of current societal trends to satire them in a (mostly) timely manner. “Some of the things that have been happening in the real world at such a breakneck pace did manage to make it into Season [12],” Cohen says; the season opener about NFTs. He also tips up a fast fashion episode, “Attack of the Clothes,” featuring the voice of Tim Gunn, and a very geeky episode featuring the heads of Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson. “And we do have an [episode] with a serious test of Fry and Leela’s relationship; that one’s a bit touching.”
Speaking of nerdy, Cohen says Futurama is being produced in 4K resolution now which means there’s been some tinkering with the beloved opening titles. “I don’t know how many people have noticed this, but the opening titles had to be completely redone,” he shares. “Rough Draft, very ambitiously, used the opportunity to put some new things in the individual buildings and things which had been established in old episodes, but weren’t conceived of at the time when those credits were first built in 1998.”
While Futurama has been picked up for two more seasons after this one, Cohen shares that this season finale, “Otherwise,” was written to be another series finale because they hadn’t been picked up by the time the script was due. While it’s since been tweaked to be more open ended, he warns that it’s an emotional one.
“We try to always get some pretty solid emotion in every season. But when you get to the end, I always laugh somewhat gleefully if I hear that the fans cried,” he smiles. “I don’t know why that’s my reaction, but I just feel kind of victorious. To make people cry at a cartoon, they really have to get invested, so I do feel a lot of pride when we pull up one of those emotional ones.”
“But we are going strong though, just to reassure the fans,” he closed. “Thanks to them for keeping us going once again, or bringing us back. We’re doing our best to live up to that honor.”
Batman: Caped Crusader (August 1)
When it comes to animated series involving DC’s Batman, Bruce Timm is behind some of the very best of them. Batman: The Animated Series (1992–1995) and Batman Beyond (1999–2001) are modern classics. So when it was announced that Timm was returning to develop a new animated series around the Dark Knight, with the help of Bad Robot, Warner Bros. Animation, and long-time collaborators like James Tucker, fans took notice.
Batman: Caped Crusader is a very noir exploration of Gotham City, with Bruce Wayne/Batman (Hamish Linklater) in detective mode against remixed interpretations of classic criminals like Oswalda Cobblepot/The Penguin (Minnie Driver), Catwoman (Christina Ricci), Harvey Dent (Diedrich Bader), and others.
Co-executive producer Tucker tells Paste that this series came out of Timm’s and his interest in telling a fresh, meaty, overarching story that digs into the mythology in new ways. “I was personally attracted to doing a show where Batman was more of a noirish, somewhat damaged, detective that was more reminiscent of his earliest stories in comics, rather than a seasoned, well-adjusted superhero,” he explains.
Having worked on four separate Batman animated series, Tucker says Caped Crusader is the “bleakest” of the bunch. “It deals with a Gotham that is rotting from corruption and Batman is a direct product of that,” he says. “He’s a remote figure, closed off from emotions and that allows us to give more focus to the people—Alfred, The Gordons, Montoya—around him who are trying to understand and perhaps save him. They all have their own inner life and aren’t there just to provide exposition to Batman and that’s refreshing. I think this show has the most intriguing supporting cast of any Batman show I’ve worked on.”
As for the show’s intentional tinkering with characters and Batman tropes, Tucker says Oswalda Cobblepot is a great example of how outside-the-box thinking distinguishes this series. “Bruce and I were talking about the first episode, and he mentioned that he was considering making The Penguin a woman and she’d run a gambling ship as a front for her nefarious operations off the coast of Gotham. I got very excited by that prospect and thought about how Penguin’s usual look of the top hat and tails would look on a woman, which then made me think of German Expressionist movies set in the 1930’s that featured actresses like Louise Brooks and Marlene Dietrich, who dabbled in wearing men’s clothes in their films as well as cabaret singers from 1930’s Berlin. In the context of the show, her wearing the tux was part of her stage persona more than it was her usual way of dressing, and I gave her a different change of clothes that was more traditionally feminine and flamboyant too. Lastly, I wanted her to be bigger and more imposing than Penguin is usually depicted, since she was going to challenge Rupert Thorne and physically go up against Batman.”
Having missed out on working on Batman: The Animated Series because of his job on Animaniacs at the time, Tucker is thrilled to be able to reconnect with Timm and get to start fresh together. “To have ended up as a lead character designer and co-producer on this show is very gratifying,” he shares.
Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie (August 2)
Live action director Liza Johnson (Dead to Me, The Last of Us) dives under the sea to bring Bikini Bottom fans the very first SpongeBob SquarePants movie to feature an ensemble character as the lead. Obviously, per the title, it’s Texas expat Sandy Cheeks (Carolyn Lawrence) taking point in an adventure that finally fleshes out the science squirrel’s back story. Animated in 3D with a mix of traditional animation environments and live action plates shot in New Mexico, Pipeline Studios in Ontario, Canada worked with Johnson and her team to give Sandy and SpongeBob (Tom Kenny) a chance to interact with the wilds of Texas. The pair endeavor to save their Bikini Bottom pals from a mysterious entrepreneur, Sue Nahmee (Wanda Sykes), who’s kidnapped the whole town. Along the way, SpongeBob will be introduced to Sandy’s circus family and other surprises. The movie even includes some original songs by Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes. Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie is the first of two SpongeBob spinoff films made exclusively for Netflix.
Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (August 9)
A year ago this month, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters were made new all over again with the animated cinematic reboot, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. A hybrid melding of 2D and 3D techniques, Mutant Mayhem became a solid box office hit for Paramount and kicked into gear a sequel film and a bridging Paramount+ streaming series, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which features the same voice cast from the film. The 12-episode season is broken into two arcs of six episodes, as brought to life by showrunners Chris Yost (Thor: The Dark World) and Alan Wan (Blue Eye Samurai)
Set two months after the events of the movie, the brothers are integrating into high school life, doing simple things like attending their first Halloween party with April (Ayo Edebiri). But they’re still having adventures too, like the one Leo (Nicolas Cantu) is documenting into a comic book story for posterity’s sake.
Yost tells Paste that, in the middle of making Mutant Mayhem, the creative team of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg knew they had “something special on their hands,” and got the approval to develop a canon streaming series. “I was working with Paramount on another project and they asked if I’d be interested in meeting Seth Rogen, and I’m like, ‘Sure!’” Yost remembers. “We talked about what the show could be, and what they wanted to do and what I was thinking, and it went from there.”
Wan was brought in to work with Yost and animation house Titmouse to produce the season. Both Wan and Yost were Turtles reboot veterans, having worked on various series reboots. Wan says the allure to Tales was being able to interpret the movie onto the small screen. “We’re not shying away from it looking unpolished, from the backgrounds to the character animation,” Wan details. “We fully embrace a little bit of that wonkiness, a little bit of that rougher line. There’s a real hand-drawn element with the imperfection. We want this to feel authentic, almost like it was drawn by one of our turtles. It’s definitely a bit more punk rock.”
Storywise, Yost says, like the film, this series is purposefully from the turtle’s point of view. “This is their experience and their story. The idea of Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is we think of it sometimes as tales by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” he explains. “And this is a story that we are telling; take it however you want. At the end of the day, if you choose to believe X or Y or Z, that’s fine. There’s a little bit of the unreliable narrator to it,” he says of the first block, which gets told episodically from the perspective of each brother and two other characters. “Some of the fun of it is like, have you ever tried to get a teenager to tell you something? It’s always a journey,” he laughs.
In the second block, Wan says they introduce new mutants—The East River Three—into the canon, who are voiced by Timothy Olyphant, Julian Bell, and Danny Trejo. “The arc itself is pretty unique,” he teases. “I have done a lot of Turtles episodes, but I haven’t done ones like our second arc.”
When asked if there’s already a second season in the works, Yost was cagey yet hopeful. “I’m sure there’s a master plan somewhere in the vault at Paramount+, but we don’t know,” he says. But if you watch, they promise they have plenty more ideas to explore.
Solar Opposites Season 5 (August 12)
Korvo (Dan Stevens) and Terry (Thomas Middleditch) are now married and more suburban than ever as they embrace their human life with zeal. Their kids, Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) and Jesse (Mary Mack), continue to try and assimilate into school life and adapt to human ways. Meanwhile, the shrunken human drama in The Wall continues to churn while the Silvercops vs. the Shlorpians’ war back on the alien’s home planet gets messier. As always, it’s adult animation chaos anchored by a very funny Dan Stevens, who has gleefully embraced his takeover of the role as Korvo. There are 12 episodes this season, which drop on the same day, including a new Halloween special. And the good news is that Solar Opposites was picked up by Hulu for a sixth season, so the craziness will reign into the future.
Watchmen Chapter 1 (Digital on August 13)
Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’ seminal corrupted superheroes graphic novel, Watchmen, is just shy of turning 40-years-old this year. It remains a modern classic that upended traditional comic book subject matter and has since inspired an unauthorized sequel, a HBO television remix of the characters and themes, a Zack Snyder movie adaptation, a motion comic, a video game prequel, and now a Warner Bros. Animation two-part movie. Watchmen Chapter I is a faithful, R-rated adaptation directed by Brandon Vietti (The Batman) and features an excellent voice cast including Titus Welliver (Rorschach), Katee Sackhoff (Silk Spectre), Matthew Rhys (Nite Owl), and Michael Cerveris (Dr. Manhattan). The teaser promises a gritty, violent interpretation with a rich noir aesthetic. Watchmen Chapter 2 is expected in 2025.
Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures Season 2 (August 14)
With audiences giving a hearty thumbs up to the Disney+ Star Wars: The Acolyte series, there’s now an even bigger understanding of the High Republic era by the masses, which is a very good thing for the second season of Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures. Also set in the same era, the D+ and Disney Jr. series is meant to be a Star Wars entry point for preschool viewers as it follows the development of Jedis-in-training at the Jedi Temple on Tenoo. There’s a diverse ensemble of bright-eyed characters including Kai Brightstar, Lys Solay, and the fuzzy, blue cutie, Nibs. For old school fans, Yoda also makes appearances as the Master Jedi instructor. The 3D animated series has a lot of charm and is an age appropriate way to (hopefully) get little kids into the lore until they’re ready to graduate up to the live action movies and series.
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos The Movie: Part 1 / Part 2 (August 22)
33-years-old and counting, Sailor Moon remains a manga legend with an ever-evolving fandom of new generations. Over the decades, there have been eight Sailor Moon anime series and two, multi-part anime movies. The second of the two is the Cosmos movies, which debut in two parts on Netflix and are billed as the final chapter of the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series.
Directed by Tomoya Takahashi (From the New World) from a script by Kazuyuki Fudeyasu (Sailor Moon Eternal), Cosmos The Movie ramps up the ultimate stakes for Sailor Moon as the universe-dominating Shadow Galactica starts picking off her friends in their goal to eliminate their foes from existence.
Terminator Zero (August 29)
The Terminator franchise has dipped into many mediums since James Cameron’s first film was released in 1980, but anime is brand new ground. Netflix’s Terminator Zero is a co-production from famed Japanese animation studio Production I.G and Skydance Television, conceived and written by Mattson Tomlin.
When offered the chance to play in Skynet sandbox, Tomlin tells Paste he started by going back and watching every single Terminator film in the franchise to assess what hasn’t been explored.
“Watching those Terminator movies for me, I was kind of going, ‘Okay, how much can I change? And then, what if I change it, will I break it?’” he explains. “I very quickly realized in all of the movies, there’s a time travel component to them. There’s a kind of horror energy to all of them, even the movies that are super action-y. And then, also, they’re all about family. Every single one of them is about some kind of family and how humans and machines interact in a way that changes the nuclear family. That was the thing for me where I was like, ‘I think there’s more to say about that.’”
In Tomlin’s series, there are split narratives. One is set in 1997 in Tokyo, Japan and the other is set in 2022, in the same area after Judgement Day. In pre-apocalyptic Tokyo, Dr. Malcolm Lee (André Holland) is the single father of three rambunctious and attention-starved children. Lee is employed by a cybernetic technology company and he’s working on an AI machine that he hopes will block Skynet’s impending world-destroying system.
“I wanted it to be about a father and these kids, and that the arc of the overall series would be seeing these kids grow up in the way of the first movie’s promise of: you’re gonna see John Connor go from being in the womb, to being a young man to then, to be this other thing,” Tomlin details. “And I wanted to get away from the [John] Connor thing.”
“Malcom Lee is kind of a Steve Jobs, tortured genius, haunted by these prophetic visions,” he continues. “With Sarah Connor, we see her get haunted in a very similar way. She has one point of view and one reason for that because she’s lived through certain things. I think this is a way to riff on that again, to make something old feel new again. [Asking] why is he having these visions? What’s going on with this guy?”
In the 2022 storyline, Tomlin says there will be a familiar theme of a savior sent back in time to 1997 to stop a Terminator from wiping out Lee, but with a twist he’s excited for audiences to see play out.
Working virtually with Production I.G and series director Masashi Kudō (Bleach), Tomlin says it made sense to him to also set the anime series in a new place, outside of the U.S. and Mexico. “I looked at that, and I went, ‘If all of the animation is going to be done in Japan, if the director is in Japan, if we have the incredible cultural resource of a creative team that’s there, then I think we should just set it in Japan,’” he says of his reasoning. “I’m going to be one of the only Americans working on this thing so why don’t we lean into that as a strength?”
Tomlin says his process was to write out the series from his four-page pitch document. “It was kind of incredible in the development of the show that—and I say this in the kindest, most polite way—everybody just got out of my way,” he laughs. “They’re half-hour episodes, so the scripts are 20 to 25 pages long. I just sat down and wrote the whole thing.”
“When I delivered it to the studios, it was delivering two episodes,” he continues. “Basically, every week, they were getting two more episodes. They were able to experience it in waves so there was never any pause. It was more like, ‘We hope you can stick the landing because we love what we’re reading so far. So like, please don’t f—k this up,’” he laughs.
Of his Japanese collaborators, Tomlin says they were “extraordinary” on a level he feels was unprecedented due to their distance. “They were open to me weighing in and open to me being their partner and letting them know, ‘Look, this is important, or this isn’t important.’ Or, ‘I would love this shot to last longer because it needs to have this emotional significance and this weight.’ The door was always open for me to come in and say what I had to say and they were extremely gracious to give me that space.”
Tara Bennett is a Los Angeles-based writer covering film, television and pop culture for publications such as SFX Magazine, NBC Insider, SYFY Wire and more. She’s also written official books on Sons of Anarchy, Outlander, Fringe, The Story of Marvel Studios, Avatar: The Way of Water and the upcoming The Art of Ryan Meinerding. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraDBennett or Instagram @TaraDBen
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