This year is Crash Bandicoot’s 25th anniversary, a year in which we’ve recently said could bring in a plethora of exciting things to look forward to. One of these things was the long-rumoured cartoon, and we’ve made several posts about it, as recent as a summary post explaining the more recent developments that could’ve finally brought it to life. And while that is probably still the case with the other stuff, the show unfortunately met its fate as recently as of Tuesday, January 12, 2021.
This was the day that this thread by one of the writers on the show, reported that it was cancelled abruptly without warning within 24 hours of its posting (on Monday, to be precise). This post will go over the details about what the show was about, why it was cancelled, and what to take away from it. This post will not cover the previous developments rumoured prior to the cancellation, as we’ve already had done that.
The other thing to note is that for the sake of the original poster’s sake at the potential of making their endangerment of position and privacy, we will not be naming them throughout this post.
The Premise
The clip that you see above compares both the first and second revisions of the test animation for the show, with the first one being more crude but still quite fluid. Regardless, there is a lot of influence seen in the clip, with the slapstick and style from Loony Tunes, Animaniacs, Cupheads, Gravity Falls and more. It’s made pretty clear from the get-go that this is a fast-paced, snappy and gags-filled show that stays within the spirit of the franchise as a “cartoon”, rather than adhering itself as a “video game” (that is the idea the Bible document describes it as), which is what the original crew at Naughty Dog aimed to embellish the franchise as when developing the original game, released back on September 9, 1996.
Despite that, the tone and style is still drastically different from what some have expected the show to be, especially given that Crash (1996)’s unused cartoon cutscenes are pretty much in the spirit of the cartoons around that time, with Jim Cummings narrating the theme song. You can see Neo Cortex successfully recording his achievement of mutating Crash, as the “General” of his “Cortex Commandos” using the Evolvo-Ray, this plan is then ruined by his recklessness of destroying the switch, and in the process and failing to make an obeying mutant from the experiment. Crash then proceeds to break out of the tube and start going crazy around Cortex, then starts messing with him and proceeding to kiss him and eating his ray gun after Cortex instructs him to “obey your creator”. Obviously, this ends up in havoc and Crash not only shoots out of his mouth, but proceeds to spin around and escapes the room. Cortex then says his ending line “What have I done?!”.
The show’s format was proposed to be a half-hour collection of 7-minute episodes, with the focus being on slapstick and comedic energy that is still kept within what the series is known for, characters described as “imperfect” being relatable as well, giving the show a “healthy combination” with the cast’s diversity of the show’s lore and pacing. Indeed, does this document exactly point out that this show was intended to be a celebration of the franchise’s 25th anniversary, and it clearly shows just from the clip alone. These episodes would include format examples, such as “phony commercials”, “fake movie trailers” and “short improv-style interviews” that includes “quick one-gag setups”.
The setting was going to take place in a chaotic, unpredictable, crazy and zany “Wumpa Islands”, much like the original games, the “entropy” would be basically the uncertainty that carries the plot for its comedy and fun attitude, otherwise, it is said that “there would be no need for creativity or innovation” as it serves a purpose. Neo Cortex wants to divest in his own rules, or he would go for complete insanity in order to have it his way, while Crash’s lack of seriousness, but not self-awareness, care and purpose, brings his animated and speechless character to life in this show, where predictably but still always a delight to see, bringing down Cortex and his servants’ antics down without fail.
Now, for the characters, Crash is described as an “anti-hero” kind of ‘Chaotic Good’ hero protagonist, obsessed with Wumpa fruits, carefree kind of marsupial anthropomorphic person. He doesn’t talk (unlike in Skylanders Academy), risk-taking and generally likes to relax in the sun (as seen in the games). Within the games’ spirit, Crash’s interaction is also carried out verbally beyond his actions with Aku Aku’s dialogue, as well as Coco Bandicoot, and just like the games, does not inherently posses special powers to make him plow through obstacles and enemies. Eric Bauza was offered to take the role of Crash.
Neo Cortex takes a page from the bible as being part of a family of circus clowns, being the youngest son. And yes, the birth name used here is “Neo Periwinkle Cortex”, he was bullied, introverted and wanted to take revenge against those who stood in his way, this ends up taking a tragic turn in what is described as “incapacitating” his entire family, leaving him to not only take control of his life, but “the entire world”. Cortex’s shtick is his insincere seriousness, with his intelligence and determination of what he wants to accomplish, but his insecurity leaves him hanging on a thin thread, which ends up ruining his ego and angering him every time he doesn’t get what he wants to have (villain being beaten by the protagonist trope). As to be expected, he utilizes his henchmen antagonists to conquer the world in order to attempt fulfilling his dream of the “Cortex Commandos”, this sort of confidence is only contrasted by his jitteriness. Bill Kopp took the role of voicing Cortex, as seen in the clip above.
The other characters were also offered to have several actresses as well (specifically mentioned were Coco and Nina), as well as staying within spirit, each one was also given a bit more spice to differentiate themselves from the games, in order to make the show more dynamic and interesting. This can be seen in how Coco Bandicoot was going to have an ecological mindset, becoming fisty against Nina Cortex (a relationship described as “acrimonious girlfriends”, putting out their differences, working together despite them being enemies to each other), Aku Aku being forgetful despite having the utter voice of wisdom, Tiny being the most loyal to Cortex despite being more “butler-like”, and Papu Papu actually gaining magical powers at his own disposal. Dr. Nitrus Brio, Dingodile, Ripper Roo, Koala Kong, and even King Chicken were going to make it to the show, with each having similar but spiced up personalities comparable to the games/material that they have originated from.
There are 12 ideas listed for episodes with this April document, with many containing several varying themes of gags and setups for the characters to interact with. They are as listed:
- CLUCK-OFF and FRY! – Involves containing a foul fowl that would rampage the islands, involves Farmer Ernest, Cortex, Crash and Aku Aku.
- BEACH BLANKET BANDICOOT – Involves a face-off against Koala Kong for the affection of Tawna, as well as getting interrupted by Land Sharks, involves Aku Aku as well.
- GOOD KNIGHT SWEET BANDICOOT – Crash is placed in a fantasy fairy tale, sees a princess and falls in love, involves him and Aku Aku to rescue the princess from Cortex, but plot twist is that Crash isn’t seen as that “handsome hero” that the princess hoped for under that “shiny armour”.
- WHAT A BABY! – Cortex gets turned into Baby Cortex accidentally by Tiny Tiger using the ray laser. Nina must deal with babysitting him and calls Coco for help, they end up in a fued over that, and must fix the “ETERNAL LIFE RAY” to restore Cortex back to his normal self.
- BULL-BUSTING BANDICOOT – Cortex is placed in a rodeo setting, building robot broncos, this ends up knocking out all of his henchmen, with Tiny Tiger, Ripper Roo, and
Dingodile defeated out of the competition, leaving Crash at his mercy, predictably Cortex ends up losing. - NOT SO GLAD-IATOR – Crash is kidnapped by Cortex, placing him in a Roman coliseum (like Crash 3: Warped), with Tiny Tiger, Dingodile and the Komodo Bros at the arena for combat.
- BIG TOP BANDICOOT – Involves Cortex rejoining the circus by building his own with all the bells and whistles, lures Crash to compete against Ripper Roo, with stunts, insane challenges.
- VORTEX IN THE CORTEX – Cortex’s brain somehow escapes from his head, and Tiny Tiger takes his body to the “Secret Brain-Vault” to replace his brain, while Cortex’s brain enjoys a little break where it meets up with Crash.
- SUPERCOOT – Involves Cortex setting up a meeting with all of his “evil-doers” to destroy the world, involves Papu Papu.
- MINE ALL MINE – Coco finds a map to find a mine that has a temple inside, involves a duel against Koala Kong and the treasure turns out to be Papu Papu.
- HOLD THE ICE – Involves Polar Bear, with Crash and Aku Aku heading for a fun snow sport competition, but are met with “jet-pack powered penguins”, this is likely a reference to Twinsanity.
- ELEMENTARY SCHOOL OF… EVIL! – A more direct Twinsanity-inspired episode involving N. Brio, Cortex and Madame Amberly at the Evil School.
- ANTS IN MY PANTS – Cortex and N. Brio create an Ant Farm that’s “nano-robot termite” kind of deal, which posses powers of eating anything and everything to wreck havoc to the world. This predicaibly ends up in chaos, as they attempt to control the situation with Dingodile’s “extermination service”.
It also was suggested by Activision that Mario would be incorporated in a racing scene, which was thought by the poster as “the dumbest idea we had heard yet”, as it was like “throwing out random ideas and not respecting that this was an actual real project”, with the impossibility and absurdness of getting the rights from Nintendo to use the character at all.
The Details
There are other important details regarding the cancellation of the show, as well as its production, we’ll be going through them in this section!
As noted earlier, the show was abruptly cancelled without warning during the 24 hours period that the original thread went up, the reason was attributed to the “creative differences” between Activision, Amazon and the studio that was heading the show, based in India. Activision was going back and forth about the show’s scripts, demanding some things to be changed or adjusted, the poster described it as having a “few executives” in the game and development department having control over what is greenlit for the production. This broke the camel’s back with an episode involving Baby Cortex, named “WHAT A BABY!” over disagreements between Activision and Amazon regarding the way it plays out.
It was also said that Amazon aimed for the show to be more kid-friendly, as opposed to Activision’s direction to have it be “adult gross out humor”, and described the “one joke” as sort of an exaggeration. In addition, the relationship between Activision and Netflix was described as ruined during the run of Skylanders Academy, as well as the recent poaching lawsuit for the CFO. This rippled out to other companies rejecting the show, from Disney+, HBO Max, Cartoon Network, Nickeloden, Quibi were all the examples mentioned, and the poster said they had no idea why until they have heard about the stories of people describing said relationship with Netflix, thus leading them to not even get in talks with Activision about the Crash show. It was being developed, scripts and characters were done, approved and suggested actors were being discussed, and the deal with Amazon was signed on to distribute it, and started production around October 2019, lining up with the timing of the rumours. It also should be noted that the show had two scripts for the clip(s).
The show was going to be two seasons on Amazon Prime Video, in development for a year, with the showrunner being Bill Kopp, and rumours suggesting that Jeff DeGrandis helping out too. We spoke out previously that Kyle A. Carrozza was likely involved in the show, and a recent tweet further confirmed not only his involvement but the cancellation of the show. This is also supported by what JumpButton has said over on Twitter has gathered and discussed in several threads, confirming and asserting that people should be careful about the subject matter. In addition, it should be noted that JumpButton has suggested that people probably shouldn’t worry about this ripping through the other projects potentially going on for the franchise, as there is no indication that this has any other reason than “creative conflict”.
The Conclusion
For months, we were hearing about the show and excitement was slowly rising up when more and more people started to hear about it, especially as the 25th anniversary approaches and after the major release of “Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time”. It is sad and unfortunate that the people were fired away from this much-awaited project so suddenly, and what I personally think is kind of a dumb reason. Again, this happens in the industry and isn’t too uncommon, but its still worth considering that the effort and care put into here should be admired however you feel about the planned episodes, details and the clip(s) shown.
This is especially disheartening when you find out that a lot of video game franchises like Sonic, Cuphead and Castlevania all have either gotten or are going to get cartoon/animated shows based on their video games, and with such a franchise like Crash basically begging to have something like this see the light of day after years of potential and attempts at similar things, it’s no wonder why this is seen by some as a big loss.
That’s all for now, a video is currently in production regarding this subject matter. If there’s any error or missing info, please let us know!