{"id":18232,"date":"2020-03-13T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2020-03-16T09:17:01","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T13:17:01","slug":"cakes-total-dramarama-gets-the-comedy-calculus-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/cakes-total-dramarama-gets-the-comedy-calculus-right\/","title":{"rendered":"CAKE\u2019s Total Dramarama Gets the Comedy Calculus Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom van Waveren, CAKE\u2019s CEO and creative director, talks to <\/em>TV Kids about the difficulty of finding the right formula for comedy\u2014particularly the kind that appeals to kids of all ages living all around the world\u2014and how series like the <\/em>Total Drama spin-off <\/em>Total Dramarama get it just right.<\/em><\/p>\n

The high demand for kids\u2019 comedy is a constant in the market. Broadcasters and streamers alike are forever looking for the next series that will bring the laughs to its young viewers. Why this remains true is less a matter of a need to fill the airwaves or pack a platform catalog with the genre and more a matter of the simple fact that quality comedy is hard to find\u2014a reflection of how hard it can be to make.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always a lack of comedy because it\u2019s hard to make good comedy,\u201d says van Waveren, who recalls entering the animation business at Nelvana in 1996. \u201cI don\u2019t remember a single moment since then when people have not been looking for comedy. Six-to-11 comedy is the\"***Image***\" heart. That\u2019s the way it started. It\u2019s great, but it\u2019s also a hard genre to get right. There\u2019s not a diminished appetite for it, and I think it\u2019s as good a time as ever to do a good comedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also, of course, an even harder feat to create the kind of comedy that is funny the world over. For instance, certain kinds of slapstick comedy might appeal to some countries\u2019 senses of humor more than others. \u201cYou stay away from, in some cultures, where you have characters hitting other characters or inflicting physical pain,\u201d explains van Waveren. \u201cAnglo-Saxon culture is not a fan of that kind of humor\u2014and less so today than it was in the past. Sometimes we see series from Asian producers that are very funny. We enjoy watching the episodes because there\u2019s certainly comedy there, but the comedy would be deemed to be inappropriate in other places. So we feel that in our experience, the comedy that travels best [has] really universal themes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also important to consider is the age group that the comedy is meant to be entertaining. A 3-year-old is unlikely to have the perspective to find all of the things amusing that their 8-year-old sibling might\u2014and certainly not that a teenage sibling or parent would find funny. But it is possible to get laughs from the entire family with certain comedic beats, according to van Waveren. \u201cMy comedic approach as a person really comes from irony and irony on a preschooler is often wasted, certainly on the young preschool audience,\u201d he says. \u201cBut children of all ages understand what expected behavior is. Therefore, having characters that go against expectations is in itself a comedic thing because the source of comedy is surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs children, as preschoolers learn to discover how the world functions, it\u2019s funny to them like it is to us,\u201d he adds. \u201cIf they\u2019ve just learned to do something and they see someone doing it exactly wrong when they\u2019ve just learned what the right way is, there\u2019s a very classic comedy approach and that works really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

With co-viewing shows, another factor to consider is relatability; if every member of the family can identify with a character, that goes a long way to getting them to sit down to a show and laugh together. “Family sitcoms have a tradition of bringing people together,” says van Waveren. \u201cIf the makeup of your audience is comparable to the makeup of the cast, everyone can identify themselves with different [characters].\u201d He continues, \u201cCertainly what broadcasters and platforms are trying to do is to find more content that can bring audiences together. There\u2019s certainly demand in the market for that co-viewing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Waveren names broad comedy shows like SpongeBob SquarePants\u00a0<\/em>and Phineas and Ferb<\/em> as breakout hits that everyone knows and loves. \u201cThey appeal to human nature in general and we recognize the behavior,\u201d he says.\u00a0 SpongeBob \u201cwas the ultimate underdog, so everybody, most people, will remember stages in their lives where people don\u2019t listen to you enough and you feel people are telling you what to do instead of you being able to decide what to do. That\u2019s effectively SpongeBob, but he stays incredibly upbeat under that, in that context. You can recognize that. You can usually identify with him and it’s inspirational. So that gets you hooked. You feel empathy for him as the main character.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the shows on CAKE\u2019s own slate that gets the comedy calculus just right\u2014across age groups and market borders\u2014is Total Drama<\/em> and its spin-off series Total Dramarama<\/em>. \u201cTwo seasons ago, we felt that having done six years [of Total Drama<\/em>] already, we wanted to see if we could give it kind of a twist or a spin, and so after discussions with the creator and the core creative team, they came back and pitched the concept that\u2019s called Total Dramarama<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concept for Total Dramarama<\/em>, produced by Fresh TV, takes some of the most popular Total Drama <\/em>characters and brings them back as preschoolers in a daycare center. \u201cWe make them misbehave even more badly at the daycare center than they did as young adults in the regular series,\u201d says van Waveren. \u201cAnd what is great is that preschoolers identify with them and think they\u2019re hilarious because they\u2019re so badly behaved.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not only preschoolers who are enjoying the hijinks of their age-group cohorts. \u201cPeople that already know the franchise from the last ten years can\u2019t believe how funny it is to see them now as preschoolers,\u201d says van Waveren. \u201cI\u2019ve met quite a few people, a lot of our American producers and other people that we work with, and when we say we\u2019re involved with that they say, Oh yes I\u2019ve got a 3-year-old niece and it\u2019s her favorite show!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTotal Drama<\/em> was always seen as a show [with] 7- to 9-year-olds who would watch it,\u201d van Waveren adds. \u201cWhat was unique about it was that the audience stretched all the way to 14- and 15-year-olds.\u201d A very broad audience by kids\u2019 comedy standards\u2014but with Total Dramarama<\/em>, CAKE expanded it even further. \u201cBy resetting it and placing it in a daycare center, it actually extended the audience downwards in age, but the original audience and the original fans of the franchise love it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom van Waveren, CAKE\u2019s CEO and creative director, talks about the difficulty of finding the right formula for comedy\u2014particularly the kind that appeals to kids of all ages living all around the world\u2014and how series like the Total Drama spin-off Total Dramarama get it just right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1033,"featured_media":18233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,21],"tags":[100,2171],"class_list":["post-18232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","tag-cake","tag-tom-van-waveren","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nCAKE\u2019s Total Dramarama Gets the Comedy Calculus Right - TVKIDS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/cakes-total-dramarama-gets-the-comedy-calculus-right\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CAKE\u2019s Total Dramarama Gets the Comedy Calculus Right - TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tom van Waveren, CAKE\u2019s CEO and creative director, talks about the difficulty of finding the right formula for comedy\u2014particularly the kind that appeals to kids of all ages living all around the world\u2014and how series like the Total Drama spin-off Total Dramarama get it just right.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/cakes-total-dramarama-gets-the-comedy-calculus-right\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-13T13:00:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-03-16T13:17:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/07\/2020-03-12-Totaldramarama.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"338\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chelsea Regan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chelsea Regan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/cakes-total-dramarama-gets-the-comedy-calculus-right\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/cakes-total-dramarama-gets-the-comedy-calculus-right\/\",\"name\":\"CAKE\u2019s Total Dramarama Gets the Comedy Calculus Right - TVKIDS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-03-13T13:00:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-03-16T13:17:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/2a2c6d8fb3c7c8b4220b8877ecffb79a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/cakes-total-dramarama-gets-the-comedy-calculus-right\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/cakes-total-dramarama-gets-the-comedy-calculus-right\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/cakes-total-dramarama-gets-the-comedy-calculus-right\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"CAKE\u2019s Total Dramarama Gets the Comedy Calculus Right\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\",\"name\":\"TVKIDS\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/2a2c6d8fb3c7c8b4220b8877ecffb79a\",\"name\":\"Chelsea Regan\",\"description\":\"Chelsea Regan is the managing editor of World Screen. 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