Little Audrey & Friends is an American animated television series based on the original characters by Seymour Kneitel and Bill Tytla. It was created and developed by animator Robert Taylor, and co-developed by writer of Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs, Sherri Stoner. The show was produced by The Harvey Entertainment Company in association with Paramount Television Animation. TBD episodes were produced by combining old theatrical Famous Studios cartoons and new made for TV shorts. These were the first Little Audrey cartoons since the 1958 theatrical cartoon "Dawg Gawn".
Each episode usually consists of two new 8-minute shorts followed by a classic Little Audrey cartoon. It was originally started on UPN as part of the UPN Kids lineup from May 7, 1998 until the series ended on April 19, 2003.
Plot[]
Coming soon!
Characters[]
- Audrey (voiced by Tabitha St. Germain)
- Melvin Wisenheimer (voiced by Pat Musick)
- Tiny (voiced by Kath Soucie)
More coming soon!
Episodes[]
- Main article: List of The Little Audrey Show episodes
Voice cast[]
More coming soon!
Additional Voices[]
- Rob Paulsen
- Tress MacNeille
- Jess Harnell
- Frank Welker
- Kath Soucie
- Jeff Bennett
- Dan Castellaneta
- Kath Soucie
- June Foray
- Doug Lawrence
- Billy West
- Cheryl Chase
- Maurice LaMarche
- Dee Bradley Baker
- Howie Mandel
- Kat Cressida
- Christine Cavanaugh
- John DiMaggio
- Sarah Silverman
- Linda Cardellini
- Jim Cummings
- Charlie Adler
- Edward Hibbert
- Nancy Cartwright
- Andrea Martin
- Tara Strong
- Elizabeth Daily
- Candi Milo
Production[]
Development[]
After the box office failure of a live-action film based on Little Audrey, Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment expressed an interest to planning a animated film adaptation of Little Audrey. Producer Steven Spielberg said that he plans the film to be "very faithful to the classic 1950's cartoons" and has high hopes that this film will be better than the 1989 live-action film. However, in 1991, after the box office failure of An American Tail: Fievel Goes West and the success of Tiny Toon Adventures, Little Audrey was changed from a film to a television series, but Universal opted to drop out from the project. In May 1993, during the production of Animaniacs, Warner Bros. was assigned to do a show based off Little Audrey.
Originally, the show was intended to have a variety show format like Animaniacs, but it was eventually ditched in favor of full half-hour stories while the humor remains consistent. Production on Little Audrey began in early 1994. However, after the huge success of Meredith's Journey, Paramount announced that they had acquired the rights after Warner Bros. put the series into a turnaround. Almost all of the production team remained unchanged, while the show was changed back to a variety show format. Paramount Television Animation handled the storyboards, character animation layouts, background layouts and post-production, while Amblin was in charge of voices and music.
Writing[]
Writers from Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs, such as Sherri Stoner, Deanna Oliver and Paul Rugg, wrote the episodes for the show, along with some Paramount writers, Dianne Dixon, Jack Enyart, Matt Utiz and Ellinor Pullen.
Voices[]
Coming soon!
Animation[]
Little Audrey & Friends was outsourced to various studios, such as Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS Entertainment), Wang Film Productions, Koko Enterprises, most notably Rough Draft Korea.
Like Animaniacs, Little Audrey & Friends was made with a higher production value than standard television animation; the show had a higher cel count than most TV cartoons. The Little Audrey characters often move fluidly, and do not regularly stand still and speak, as in other television cartoons. The drawing count was 25,000 drawings instead of the usual 10,000, making it unique that the characters would move more fluidly.
Starting with the third season, production of the animation has switched from traditional hand-colored cels to digital-ink-and-paint.
Music[]
The series was composed by Steven Bernstein and Julie Bernstein, who both best known for Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs. It was strongly influenced by Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn's work on the Looney Tunes series.
Broadcast[]
After the show aired, the show re-ran on VToons from 1999 to 2002, Nicktoons from 2002 to 2005, and also aired on UltraToons from 2007 to 2015. The series began airing re-runs on the Hub Network on July 1, 2013. Little Audrey & Friends was one of the few shows carried over when the Hub Network was re-branded as the Discovery Family on October 13, 2014. Discovery Family stopped airing reruns of Little Audrey & Friends in early 2015. As of 2021, the show is now available on Paramount+.
Reception[]
Coming soon!
Merchandise[]
Coming soon!
Trivia[]
- This was the first animated series produced jointly by Amblin Entertainment and Paramount Television Animation. It was followed later by Master Detectives and Natalia's Story Tales.
- The show is usually compared to Fox's RandomToons Zany Factory, Disney's Mickey Mouse Works and Universal's The New Woody Woodpecker Show, as both shows also feature well-known cartoon characters being introduced into the 21st century in made-to-TV shorts.