Buffy - The Cartoon Slayer
 

Hey all. Looks like a new Buffy show is coming out...and its going to be a CARTOON!

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We don’t know when. We don’t know how many episodes - but it looks like a Buffy Animated Series is happening.

A series was nearly made for Fox a few years ago and then parked. The man behind it, Jeph Loeb, went off to work for Smallville. Having heard rumours that the series may be on again, we caught up with Jeph to find out what’s going on.

What has happened to resurrect Buffy: Animated? Is a network backing it now?

Magic. No... honestly? We think that Fox became aware of this wonderful treasure and wanted to move forward again. As to where and when it will arrive... that part we’re holding as a secret for now.

Will the project continue where it left off?

Like any great Buffy story it’s all about resurrection. We have the same great crew, the same commitment from the actors and the same scripts we had in the drawer. It just needed the stake taken out of it so it could rise again.

Will you be in control of the project as before and, if so, how will this affect your Smallville role?

I return to season four of Smallville as the Supervising Producer. My role on Buffy Animated will be much as before because, as you all know, I spent a year and a half getting the show ready, it just wasn’t sent into production. Animation is unique really in that production is actually the final step.

How many of the original cast are likely to be on board?

We’re thrilled to have Alyson (Willow), Nick (Xander) and Tony (Giles) on board so far. There are still some surprises that we’ll talk about at a later date.

After the project stalled, artist Eric Wright revealed a lot of the proposed character designs on his website. Do you still plan on using him and his team to animate the project?

Well, it was actually Eric Radomski’s team (Batman Animated, Spawn) and Eric Wright did some of the key designs. Yes, much of that vision that was Radomski’s continues... only it’s better.

Radomski is in charge of the animation and as he proved with Batman and Spawn, Buffy will reinvent what can be done in animation again. Sometimes when you have two years away from something you can really see how to change it for the good.

I know you have some scripts, but will the Buffy writing team be involved in scripting the rest, now that they have moved to other projects?

We’ll drive off that bridge when we get there. We’ve got quite a few in the drawer. And, of course, we’ll hunt them all down again!

How involved is Joss likely to be, given that the Firefly movie begins shooting next week?

Don’t you know? Joss has cloned himself so he can take care of all parts of his empire. Trust us, there ain’t gonna be no Buffy Animated without Joss getting ink and paint all over his hands.

Jeph has promised to keep us informed as Buffy Animated progresses. In the meantime, you can follow the links to check out our Buffy ecomics section, or watch a recent video interview with Jeph regarding his work on Smallville.

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PICTURES AVAILABLE:
http://www.ericwight.com/portfolio/buffy001.html

More on Casting...

We have new -yet unconfirmed- information about the voice of Buffy Summers in the Animated Series!

Her name is Giselle Loren and she’s reportedly going to join the team of Tony Head, Aly Hannigan and Nick Brendon for the animated series.

She is known as the voice double of SMG on the video games, so Buffy’s voice will sound very similar to what we’re used to hearing.

Nicholas Brendon - Alexander ’Xander’ Harris
Alyson Hannigan - Willow Rosenberg
Anthony Stuart Head - Rupert Giles
Giselle Loren - Buffy Summers (uconfirmed)

Sounds cool.

I think you need to timedate this interview. I remember reading it about 6 months to a year ago, and since then Joss has stated that the project is basically dead.

It's real! Expect it on Fox Family in early 2002.

Seriously, the AJC ran a blurb a few weeks ago where Hannigan's mother indicated she had been recording voice-work for the series.

das

Ill be watching it!

So where in the Buffy-verse timeline is this gonna be? There's concept art for Joyce, Dawn and Angel, as well as Principal Snyder and the Sunndale High Library. Is it going to be more high school adventures of the Scoobies?

Around season three.

What a surprise. No SMG. When is she gonna wake up & realize this is her bread & butter? Why is she always so against doing anything BtVS related? She does nothing for the extras for the dvds. She has said she's not interested in doing BtVS movies. I don't see anyone else knocking on her door offering her quality movie roles. Her career hasn't even come close to taking off the way she seemed to expect it would once her prison term to BtVS was over.

I'll definitely check out the cartoon. If they can get some the better writers from the show then this could be awesome.

Wasnt Giselle Loren the voice of Buffy on the XBOX game... seemed like an odd name so it kind of stuck with me, somebody named after one of those animals on Wild Kingdom or something

What I recently read is that it'll be set before season 5, but will include Dawn, since memories of her existence were implanted in everyone. So, basically the cartoon will be how the characters percieve how these things happened (not how they really happened).
If this is true, I hope they use the potential this concept has to show us alternate takes on established classic episodes.

that's lame that they limit theirselves to a certain time period. since it's a cartoon they should use this opportunity to the fullest and jump around seasons including maybe even after 7.

they could do eps in between certain live episodes and link them better or show what people did over the summer (or does evil take a vacation?). they could even remake an ep from someone else's perspective and we could see a whole other subplot not shown in the show (like the zeppo ep!).

lot's of cool stuff could be done. it would allow for a greater range of characters or to bring back certain cool badguys too.

she's probably still in shock that she was lucky enough to marry hollywoods most valueable asset. and with his amazing career and his coaching on how to only do great movie projects she should go really far in the future. :rolleyes:

I remember seeing stills for this. They looked pretty sweet. I'm looking forward to it.

If Giselle Loren (yes, she was the voice of Buffy on the XBOX games) is involved, this is excellent news. She sounds a lot like Sarah Michelle Gellar and I don't think the quality of the show will suffer at all if she's on it.

I'm interested to see if Kristine Sutherland will reprise her role as Joyce. I don't expect Michelle Trachtenburg will come back as Dawn.

Although if Spike comes back, I fully expect that James Marsters will return as his voice.

TK

I think the reason for it being Season 3 is that there still in high-school. If it was after Season 7, they would all be 21+, and its kinda hard to market a TV Show (thats meant for kids really) that will most likley be on at 9:00a.m. on Saturdays

Maybe she's afraid of being typecasted as that "Buffy girl." Better to try and find different roles now than when she loses all her value. Terrible execution, but a good idea.

This is back from the dead?

Anyways, they should have made this a serious cartoon, but the whole loose continuity deal thing indicates to me they really don't want to play that way.

From what I've heard, the animated series will take place during Buffy's high school years, and feature Dawn.

Whether this will just be all-new stories, or actual retellings of the regular episodes with Dawn included, I don't know. Simply retelling the regular episodes seems kind of redundent, unless they would tell them from Dawn's point of view or something.

I could see a new voice actress being cast for Dawn, since the character will probably be nine years old when the series begins.

Dawn is around because the monks made here in Season 5 (meaning she has been around since day 1 in the characters minds). So if the show is taking place in Season 3, Dawn would be younger (what, 11 or 12?). Regardless, I will watch this. Ive said it before, it could be Buffy takes a poop and Spike farts and id STILL watch it.

I want to say an article i read on Buffy.nu said it would take place during their sophmore(first season) year. I can see this working since the character relationships are at their "purest" and they don't have to deal with the relationship baggage from the later seasons. It would be funny to see willow still pine-ing( i have no idea on the spelling of that) over Xander. I also remember a quote from whedon saying that the stories would be the stuff they did not have time to do like buffy getting her license. I know i read them, but i don't know which articles. I'll update if i find them.

I'm in the same boat. I've been so addicted to this show for so long, I'll watch anything related to it in anyway. Hell, I even stuck around for the entire season of Tru Calling because of the Faith connection. (In its defense, Tru Calling did get better after the midseason re-tooling.)

This sounds great!! Sure would like to see them mix the casts a few times. That would be even better.

I also watch stuff that's connected to BTVS... anything that has a cast member in it I try to watch.

I saw James Marsters in some lifetime movie, now that is funny... he wasn't even playing the role of an Englishman, how else could somebody sit through Valentine if it didn't have David Borreanaz in it. Also Psycho Beach Party had not only Nicholas Brendan, but also Amy Adams who played Beth Maclay in the episode called "Family" (S-5 ep-6), strange coincidence also played Kathryn Merteuil in Cruel Intentions 2, which the Kathryn role was played by SMG in the original...

I sit around and think of too many BTVS connections I think.

Any Buffyverse would eb welcome at this point. Have they mentioned what core audience this is aimed at? Will it be a more adult cartoon, in line with the show, or will it be somewhat softened to grab more of the tween crowd? I just hope they don't "kiddyize" it too much.