TORONTO — The Fox network has come on board the development of “The Animated Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie,” a Canadian primetime cartoon for Canada’s Global Television that reunites Second City TV alumni Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas.
Thomas, whose Los Angeles production shingle is Maple Palms Prods., said Monday that Fox came in on the pilot episode of a cartoon based on the SCTV characters Bob & Doug McKenzie, to be voiced by himself and Moranis.
Global Television already has ordered 13 episodes of “The Animated Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie” for its 2009 schedule.
Thomas and Toronto-based Patricia Burns are producing the animated sitcom based on the beer-addled Bob & Doug characters, who launched themselves as a two-minute SCTV skit in 1980 on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
The “hoser” characters, played by Thomas and Moranis, grew a cult following as they went on to star in TV commercials and the 1983 dumb buddy feature film “Strange Brew.”
Thomas said the Canadian cartoon series will add friends and family and a fictional town setting for the Bob & Doug characters that they have never had.
Also starring in the new animated series are Canadian actors and comedians Dave Coulier (“Full House”), Colin Mochrie, Pat McKenna, Derek McGrath, Ron Pardo, Jayne Eastwood and Ho Chow.
Thomas and Moranis share executive producer credits on the series, which will be animated by Two Presidents Prods., with preproduction design and storyboarding from House of Cool Studios.
The Fox deal represents the latest Canadian series to find U.S. network favor. Global Television’s “Howie Do It,” a comedy that stars Howie Mandel, was recently picked up by NBC, which also acquired the Canadian paranormal drama “The Listener” from Shaftesbury Films as well as Lionsgate’s 13-episode horror anthology “Fear Itself.”
