IFC not looking at adult animation at the moment

We’ve actually known this for a while and certainly it showed when the network cancelled the brilliant Out There series, but IFC President Jen Caserta recently did an interview with The Wrap where the possibility of the network picking up some cartoons in the future came up and here’s what she had to say:

I love adult animation and animation comedy is one of my favorite things as well. We’ve made a conscious decision to have this trajectory, and we did actually try animation — with great projects and great people attached to it — a few times, and it didn’t quite click. I think what we needed to do was be a little bit more mature with that — and I don’t mean “mature” in terms of our humor, because that’s certainly not what we are — mature in terms of our trajectory with the network. So, we took a pause, and we just said, “Let’s go down a particular path.”

So, starting with sketch, building up a nice sketch library, and then, “OK, what does that look like in terms of scripted narrative? OK, now how do we evolve sketch so it’s now more parody? Oh, let’s do an ironic take off of a miniseries. Now, what’s next for us?”

And we talk a lot about not having done everything we want to do in the comedy space, and we’re looking at new formats of comedy, so: panels, talk, green screen — animation is just not there yet. But that’s not to say we won’t get there … we’re just not focused on it right now, and I hope that we are again.

Long story short, IFC really doesn’t want to spend money on animated comedy right now which kinda sucks. Instead the network is trying to focus on the tried-and-true formulas that they have developed in producing weird shit like Spoils of Babylon, Maron, and others all of which are very good with maybe Comedy Bang! Bang! being my favorite show that they have. In any case, hopefully the IFC Prez will start reading some scripts soon because the network’s reputation for cartoons isn’t that strong, and they can make money when you think of not only the advertising revenue that can be generated, but the merchandising revenue as well.