Cosgrove Hall toon-ing up

UK animation studio Cosgrove Hall is talking to Sony BMG and SyCo, the production company that BMG set up along with Simon Cowell, about a new animated series for teens that would feature the record label’s artists.

Cosgrove Hall managing director Anthony Utley describes it as “the new Simpsons.” The show was provisionally called Slum Street but that name has since been dropped.

Another in-house project, Eddy Retractorhead, has been picked up by Nickelodeon in the UK. About a lump of space snot who has the body of a pie, the initial run will be a series of one-minute episodes but has “huge potential as a full series,” says Utley.

Cosgrove Hall is making a concerted push into own-produced programming and will arrive at MIPCOM with a number of its own projects in hand. The most advanced of these is Roger to the Rescue. Produced with Nelvana, Cosgrove Hall has a three and a half minute pilot for MIPCOM and Utley says that Cbeebies is “very interested” in the show, which will run to 52x10mins.

Another 52x10mins series being worked on is My Neighbour is an Evil Genius (pictured) and the UK company will be scouting for potential partners in Cannes. Owned by ITV Productions, Cosgrove Hall has moved away from just doing work-for-hire under the stewardship of Utley. “My brief is to develop more shows that we own,” he says.