Anatomy of a Hit

Fresh TV’s Tom McGillis and Jennifer Pertsch and CAKE’s Ed Galton discussed how the Total Drama franchise has evolved and maintained its hit status in the kids’ market at the TV Kids Summer Festival.

Produced by Fresh TV and sold by CAKE, the franchise has spawned several series, with two new seasons in the works for HBO Max and Cartoon Network.

Read excerpts of the session below and watch the entire video here.

Total Drama Island originated as Fresh TV was conducting research for its show 6teen. Pertsch, VP of creative affairs and executive producer at the outfit, noted, “One of the questions we asked a lot of teens and tweens was, What are your favorite shows? And all of them mentioned reality TV shows. They were super savvy about them and loved watching them. This was at the dawn of reality television. We thought, Why don’t we make a really awesome animated parody and make it for tweens? The idea of an animated reality show is ridiculous from the start! Because we wrote such rich characters and gave them real arcs, the kids not only embraced it as a parody of the reality shows they knew, but they got super invested in it.”

McGillis, president and executive producer at Fresh TV, added, “We found that not only were we able to parody the archest characters you’d find in reality, we were also able to put them into the most ridiculous, exaggerated challenges that audiences responded to.”

CAKE came on board early to serve as the worldwide distributor. “When we first rolled out the series, it was met with some resistance,” said Galton, CEO. “There were reservations. No one had ever seen a show like this before, which is what’s made it so unique and why it’s sold so well. The first sale we did was to Canal+ in France. They saw something in the show that others didn’t. Cartoon Network EMEA then came on board, and then Cartoon Network U.S. Those were the three big deals we did back to back. It wasn’t really until Cartoon Network U.S. picked it up that the series blew up. The ratings on season one on Cartoon Network were astronomical. The finale of season one was the highest-rated episode on air for any show in the past ten years. That’s what gave the series global legitimacy, I think.”

Indeed, McGillis credited the role that Cartoon Network’s Adina Pitt (now VP/lead of content acquisitions, partnerships and co-pros for the Americas at WarnerMedia Kids & Family) played in making the show a hit. “Adina just swooped in, courageously taking a show that broke a lot of rules, particularly the serialized aspect of it. The dominos started to fall as soon as she took that risk. We’re eternally thankful to Adina and the team for doing that so early in the game.”

To deliver the comedic alchemy that drives the show, the Fresh TV team taps into many different sources. “Tom and I gobble up all the teen media out there,” Pertsch said. “I have a preteen, a tween and a teen in my house, so I have a great focus group. They walk by rough designs on the wall in my office and say, Oh no, she can’t have those shoes! The writing rooms are hilarious. We have 10 or 12 of the funniest people we can find. And we push ourselves to come up with the biggest jokes, the most dramatic storylines and the silliest, funniest, biggest challenges. We go down a lot of rabbit holes! I’ve learned a lot of gross things in these rooms!”

The franchise has had several different iterations, some more successful than others. “What we learned was, the further we got from a straight parody of the kind of shows that our audience is currently watching around the world, the less it resonated,” McGillis said. “As we go back this season, we’re going to the season one model. It’s generating the most compelling stories and the funniest laughs.”

Sales worldwide “have been fantastic,” Galton said. “We’ve produced 143 episodes and two specials on the original Total Drama franchise, and Total Dramarama has produced another 78 half hours of content after season three is completed. There’s a ferocious appetite around the world for this content that keeps on selling. There have been instances where we’ve done multiple deals over the 14 years we’ve been selling it to the same broadcaster, renewal after renewal. We’ve worked with both linear partners and with streamers. The Total Drama franchise has been on Cartoon Network in the U.S., but it’s also been on Netflix in the U.S. It’s worked really well on both platforms. It sits on Virgin Media, but it also plays on Pop Kids in the U.K. It’s on Canal+ in France and ABC Australia. What’s unique about this show is it works for public-service broadcasters, premium pay-TV service channels and digital platforms; it’s phenomenal. It is far and away the most successful series we’ve had the pleasure of selling over all these years.”

On how the new season will be different from the original, McGillis noted: “There are two things we are changing up ever so slightly. The first big change is leaning into diversity. We feel that not only is this a moment we can celebrate diversity, but this is the show that celebrates diversity. We have a LatinX character, we have several Black characters, East Asian, South Asian, an amputee, two LGBTQ characters—who will have a relationship because our audience loves to ship! And to back that up, we have a writer who represents each of those cultural perspectives and is a young, fresh, funny voice. That’s five new writers in our room who are infusing all kinds of new humor and new energy into the show. That’s a big change for us and one that we found is only making the show better.”

The relationship between CAKE and Fresh TV has contributed to the success of the show globally, Galton noted. “It’s a very collaborative process. It’s not just, here’s a finished show, go out and sell it. We talk things through and figure out the best path forward for the series and the franchise. It’s a 14-year relationship. We know each other well, we speak often. At this point, it’s like shorthand in the way we work together now.”

McGillis added, “It speaks to what a distributor-producer relationship can be because there’s such a level of mutual trust and respect. We know that when Ed and his team come to us with market intel, for instance, that’s not to be taken lightly. They have incredible reach, so that’s important for us to hear.”

As kids and families emerge from the pandemic, comedy is more important than ever, McGillis added. “We need to laugh our way through this. We do feel there’s a little bit of a humor deficit out there!”

“Age appropriate, silly, funny, getting out of your own head is magical, it’s the medicine they need,” Pertsch added.

The companies are working together on Lucas the Spider. “It is fiercely, passionately good-natured, and funny and kind,” McGillis said. “It feels like exactly what everyone needs.”