Production
During his time working on Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants, Greenblatt had been sketching various characters for his own animation series concept. Greenblatt originally based the premise on the idea of the sorcerer's apprentice style of story, such as The Sword in the Stone. The plot devices were modified so that the story revolves around a master chef who teaches his young apprentice how to cook. Chowder himself was developed with no specific species in mind, but rather with the intentions of invoking the image of a child's soft squeeze toy. Some of the inspiration comes from Richard Scarry, with other inspiration from Saturday morning cartoons.
Once Greenblatt pitched the concept to Cartoon Network, it was about two years before the series was approved for production with another year in production before the pilot episode aired. Greenblatt estimates he spent about seven years working on Chowder before the show made it to air.
Episodes are produced in seasons which consist of 20 24-minute episodes. Each episode is produced with a 30-second puppet sequence that is meant to run over the ending credits. Episodes can be purchased from the iTunes Store in the United States which are delivered with the sequences as are episodes which are available on Cartoon Network's VOD website also within the United States.
One of the unusual design features of the show is the patterns used on the clothing or players. The patterns are developed as a full screen image and then sent to the production house where the characters are modified to fill the patterns in over the character clothing. Using this technique, when a character moves, their patterns do not follow, but display as a "static" background. A similar technique was used in the Monkey Island video game series (particularly for the Stan) and the Mr. Bean animated series.
The show is also known for the very wide variety of media used in various episodes. These include animation using watercolors and ink-and-paint in addition to the cartoon's classic pattern style. It also uses stop motion animation with real food, action figures and clay; live-action scenes with the voice actors of the show and puppets; both marionette and hand-controlled. This was also sometimes used in Courage the Cowardly Dog. It boasts one of the most diverse varieties of mediums used in any single series.
Chowder was cancelled by Cartoon Network in 2009. C. H. Greenblatt noted this on his blog, saying; "I didn't really think there'd be this many upsides to having a show officially cancelled by a network, but I'm feeling happier than I've been in a long time. Since we've only got post-production, my schedule finally eases up. I haven't had a break like this in a long, long time...Chowder has opened up a lot of awesome possibilities for me, and creatively I'm feeling more inspired than ever." (C. H. Greenblatt also noted that many of the staff signed on to a new project at Disney. This is a reference to the Disney Channel animated series Fish Hooks, which Greenblatt himself also works on as an episode director.)
On April 20, 2012, this series returned to Cartoon Network to show re-runs on the revived block, Cartoon Planet.
Read more about this topic: Chowder (TV Series)
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