We’ve worked together on so many projects, and there is this beautiful sense of camaraderie between us. It might be corny, but it’s true, and now we are happily working on this show together. I wanted to come up with a show that we could all work on together. “In a way, that was one of the inspirations for us. “There are so many great storytellers at the studio and so much raw and untapped creativity on display during the screening of the projects,” recalls Simmons. Simmons is very grateful to Titmouse founders Chris and Shannon Prynoski, who encourage a creative environment and want everyone at the studio to be involved in the artistic process, a spirit which is reflected in the Five Second Day enterprise. “We looked at Mao Mao as a bit of an experiment from the very start, we wanted to make the kind of cartoon we’d all like to work on as animators.” “I know five years may seem like a long time to some people, but for animation that’s pretty fast, and in this time, there was never a moment when I wasn’t thinking about it or working on it or talking to other people about the show,” says the 32-year-old artist.
#MAO MAO HEROES OF PURE HEARTS TV#
Basically, the idea was to get the ideas up on the screen to see if they are funny, to see if the characters are interesting and does the story work.”Īfter pitching the project to Cartoon Network CCO Rob Sorcher in June of 2017, Simmons got the official greenlight, and now, TV audiences can finally enjoy his colorful and off-the-wall creation this summer. “My friends and I were all in a place where we wanted more individual work, so when the opportunity came up, I started drawing stuff that I liked. “Back then, I was directing animation for Netflix’s Turbo series,” Simmons recalls. Simmons’ original short sparked a lot of interest, so he and his friends began working on a seven-minute version of the short, which was later used as a pitch to Cartoon Network. The origins of Mao Mao go back to 2014, when Simmons entered Titmouse animation studio’s famous Five Second Day event, where employees are encouraged to create their own project. The high-energy new toon, which is the brainchild of Parker Simmons, follows the madcap adventures of a samurai cat/sheriff named Mao Mao and his sidekicks Badgerclops and Adorabat as they try to protect the super-cute residents of Pure Heart Valley from the evil Orangusnake and his pirate clan.
If you like Akira Toriyama’s colorful Dragon Ball creatures and are a fan of vibrant animation with fast and witty dialog, then you are going to love Mao Mao, Heroes of Pure Heart, the latest addition to Cartoon Network’s summer lineup.
***This story was written for the August ’19 issue of Animation Magazine (No.
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