Bubble UK First Look Preview: DAVE buys their first ever animated series “The Bruvs”

Howdy Folks! Jambareeqi here. With US adult animated sitcoms like Family Guy and South Park making it big in the UK, what’s stopping the United Kingdom from emulating this format? Well, one such producer isn’t hesitant to break the mold, and prove that us Brits can match the US, when it comes to cartoon situation comedy for grown ups.

Meet Ian Brown, a former producer on Top Gear, who has kicked off a new animated miniseries called “The Bruvs”, an adult cartoon about a pair of brutish brothers called Doug and Den; who want to begin doing good, but it’s hard for the two thugs to adapt.

Each episode clocks in at 2 minutes long, and tell relatable sketches based around these two violent East-end hooligans. While the show has a cheap shoestring budget, you can really feel potential for it to eventually develop into something along the lines of Family Guy or American Dad, because it features some very sitcom based scenarios.

It’s refreshing to find a show like “The Bruvs”, a series that blends the charms of British life with the thuggish violence of London crime. The series taps into the grudges held by cynical Brits, from pretentious art to waiting in the Que, and how these brothers deal with their frustrations. Even though each episode flies by, you can certainly see the seeds for an edgy mean spirited animated comedy sitcom, one that’s along the lines of “Archer” or “Rick & Morty”.

Luckily, 11 episodes of the series have been bought by the comedy channel Dave, and these shorts are frequently broadcast on TV at late night or early morning. The series is also available on Youtube and Dave’s on demand website UKTV Play. I recently Skyped with Ian Brown, to discuss “The Bruvs”:

JAMBAREEQI: So, where did the idea for “The Bruvs” come from?
IAN: Well, it started about 10 years ago in a pitch for a children’s animation, and originally the brothers were two heavy worms patrolling an allotment area, but, they quickly evolved into human characters. The inspiration for the characters included people who lived near me in East London, the Mitchell brothers, and famous London villains. A huge amount of people, particularly those on our social media, will go “That’s me/my brother/my dad/my uncle”, there’s a HUGE amount of recognition with them.

JAMBAREEQI: Sweet, so which animated adult shows would you say inspire “The Bruvs”?
IAN: We’ve never really had animated sitcoms in the UK, we’ve tried, but nothing like the successful juggernauts of America. South Park, American Dad, The Simpsons, and Family Guy are inspirations because those are the shows we aspire to get to; but with quirky English appeal.

JAMBAREEQI: I see, and so British Adult Animation is quite rare on UK television, why do you think that stations are reluctant to pick up more mature cartoons?
IAN: Animation is a huge risk and very time-consuming. I suppose a lot of people got their fingers burned in children’s animation because there was a massive peak long ago with things like Bob the builder, Rory the racing car, and of course now there’s the all powerful Peppa Pig. Peppa seems to be the only brand in the UK that’s really dominating because episodes are running on loops now on various kids’ channels. I think the fear of adult animation is purely the cost, I did tout this round to numerous companies over a 5 or 6 year period, but it’s a very expensive medium. If you look at the credits for things like The Simpsons or Family Guy, it goes on forever! It’s like movie length credits. Now having said that, we had a smart deal with Dave, where they got an absolute knock down price on 11 short animations, but we were able to keep them up online on Youtube. It was a mutual deal that enabled them to get their first adult animation, but not at the genuine cost of what it would have been if they had made it from scratch.

JAMBAREEQI: And what would you say is the appeal of “The Bruvs”?
IAN: Well, I like to say that the charm and appeal is probably the stupidity of the menace and violence. If something makes us laugh, we generally put it in, if we have the time and resources to animate it. I suppose the charm is that the brothers are quintessentially English villains, but they’re also trying to make a new life; they’re aspiring to better things, but it all goes wrong. It’s kind of against the American Dream, where anything is possible, these guys keep getting thwarted in their ambitions to better themselves, and it’s their journey through this terrible process that makes us chuckle hopefully. In a way, some of the violence and things you can do with them using animation, make us laugh as well. People are recognizing these characters too, and so we’ve been able to get a fan base from these characters because of that.

JAMBAREEQI: Cool, what kind of audience do you have in mind for the show?
IAN: Well, it’s all people really, I’d have to say that my nephew has been watching the Bruvs since he was 9, and he loves them; that’s not just family loyalty. There’s a bit of swearing in them, nothing A class I would say, and some cartoon violence, but nothing stronger than Family Guy or any games kids play now. So, I think the age range can go quite low to high as you like, we’ve got some senior fans out there, plus a load of teens and twenties, a completely wide age range. Because we are online, we also have the international reach, we have pretty big followings in America, the Hispanic community, and Australia! Pretty much any English language territory seems to have taken to them. The brothers have very broad appeal.

JAMBAREEQI: So, how do you plan to expand the shorts into a 20-minute sitcom series?
IAN: Well, the key thing at the moment is us getting as much exposure and loyalty as we can. It’s a terrible word, but we’re trying to build the “brand”, basically grow on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter; we just need to get to a certain level where we’re a bit difficult to ignore. We’re thrilled to have the great opportunity to be on Dave, but we’re scheduled very late at night or very early morning, and it’s a very random. We are however on Dave’s catch up service UKTV Play, which has more of a profile for us with them. The plan is to grow the shorts, brand, and Youtube content, then hopefully get to a position where someone somewhere will say “Perhaps we can take this a bit further , here is some money”. Me and the show’s animation director Eoin Clarke are content growing the awareness of the Bruvs.

JAMBAREEQI: So, in the process of turning “The Bruvs” into a sitcom format, what kind of additions or changes would you include?
IAN: Well, in technical terms, we’d have to take on more animators because we’re a tight setup. Right now, It’s me, Eoin, and an amazing sound recordist called Paul Richmond, musicians Stig Winslet and Pete Harbour; we’ll have to grow the team to make longer episodes. Other than that, we’d like to introduce other characters, and just develop the main characters. We have a huge amount of ideas for these characters, and we want to make all those come true. What we’re currently limited by our resources and time while having to earn money in other ways. We have the ideas for longer episodes, we know what we’d like to do with the characters, but we need more personnel to make it happen.

JAMBAREEQI: You just mentioned introducing new characters, are there any British celebrities you’d love to have as guests on the show?
IAN: We’ve had many suggestions from fans, like Ray Winstone, Danny Dyer, Steve McFadden, and Ross Kemp. Obviously, I do work with many celebrities in my work, but I resisted going that road up to this point. Guest appearances would be great, but we don’t have the resources to pin ourselves to a known name doing a regular voice. It would be great to have guests involved though, I’ve got numerous heroes like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, it’d be a dream come true to be big enough to have them.

JAMBAREEQI: And how do you hope the show will affect the British adult animation industry?
IAN: I hope so, it’s a shame that it’s so rare because there are a million talents in this country’s animation community. When I first hooked up with Eoin to do this show’s animation, he had so little work before that it was almost criminal, with the talent and experience he has. Admittedly, that’s turning around now, most animation places in the UK are busy, but it’s a very tough market. I’m sure there are lots of writers and producers like me who have ideas for animated adult comedy. There’s a lot of cartoon shorts for adults out there obviously, but it would be great if there was more stuff on UK television, because there seems to be a market for it; Family Guy had HUGE ratings over here. There’s an audience for this kind of animation, so hopefully, others will come along and go “We’d like to get there first please”.

If you’d like to check out “The Bruvs”, you can check out episodes on Youtube, UKTV Play, or Dave. Here’s the newest episode for those who are interested: