Two Great Animated Shows Just Dropped New Seasons On Max – But WB's Marketing Sure Didn't Let You Know
(Welcome to Animation Celebration, a recurring feature where we explore the limitless possibilities of animation as a medium. In this edition: season 3 of "Clone High" and "Jellystone!")
Animation fans (and fans of good movies regardless of style) have been thrust into an emotional tornado spinning as wildly as the Tasmanian Devil regarding the release of director Dave Green ("Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows") and writer Samy Burch's ("May December") live-action/animated hybrid Looney Tunes courtroom flick, "Coyote vs. ACME." What should be an absolute no-brainer hit at the box office is at risk of being scrapped for a tax write-off despite positive test screenings, the result of yet another frustrating corporate decision prioritizing capitalism over creativity, and an all-out attack on the art of filmmaking.
Of course, you realize, this means war.
Listen, I don't think I need to tell anyone that despite the animation industry literally keeping Hollywood afloat during the quarantine era of the pandemic, a startling number of industry executives and studios are deprioritizing animation offerings at a concerning rate. And while animation is a medium and decidedly not exclusive to children's media, you can learn a lot about how a person values the importance of animation based on how they talk about it. During the studio's 2023 Q3 earnings call, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav admitted that Max had been lacking in children's programming, claiming, "We have a huge amount of kids' content. We're going to attack that. We think that really differentiates us and we're going to have to really promote it. We haven't been." The cruel irony is that this is the same guy who also purged the animation library on Max to save a quick buck, and for all of these claims of needing to "really promote" struggling projects, two of Max's best animated shows both dropped their third seasons with next-to-zero fanfare: "Clone High" and "Jellystone!"
'Our angst is entertaining (Clone High)'
"Clone High" was one of those offbeat animated shows in the 2000s that never got its fair shake yet developed an extremely passionate fanbase. One of the earliest projects from animation maestros Phil Lord and Christopher Miller ("Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," "The LEGO Movie"), in collaboration with TV maven Bill Lawrence ("Scrubs," "Ted Lasso"), the series about genetic clones of famous figures throughout history having to deal with the trials and tribulations of high school in our current era was a quirky parody of early aughts teen dramas like "Dawson's Creek" and "Degrassi," but was given the reboot treatment two decades post-cancellation with a season 2 in 2023. The series hadn't missed a beat and if anything, "Clone High" is even better now than it was the first time around.
The show was given the green light for season 3, which was hastily dropped on the Max streaming platform on February 1, 2024. "Clone High" has yet to be granted an original advertisement post on the official @StreamOnMax X/Twitter page, with the only advertisement for an animated project in the month of February being a clip of "Space Jam: A New Legacy" on February 4, 2024. It also wasn't featured on Instagram until February 26, 2024, although it has been frequently advertised on TikTok. Still, it's a sad state of affairs when the majority of promotion I've seen for "Clone High" season 3 has been from the animators and writers who worked on the show's personal social media accounts, as well as Lord and Miller — who are already well into Oscar campaigning for "Across The Spider-Verse" and shouldn't have to depend on self-promotion for their other projects when platformed by a multi-billion dollar company with dedicated marketing teams.
The entertainment landscape is beyond oversaturated and a series just can't find its audience if viewers don't even know it exists. It was sad enough when Max all but ignored promoting their brilliant new animated series "Fired on Mars," but to show this blatant disrespect to a legacy series? There's no justification.
60 years of hilarious history in Jellystone! is being ignored
On February 22, 2024, Max debuted the first half of season 3 of C.H. Greenblatt's gut-bustlingly hilarious "Jellystone!" (a show I've described as a Saturday morning cartoon for weirdos as one of the highest compliments I could possibly give). "Jellystone!" injects new life into the classic cartoon characters from the world of Hanna-Barbera like Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Top Cat, and Jabberjaw, with cameos from famous franchise players like Scooby-Doo, the Jetsons, and, as of season 3, the assorted characters from "Space Ghost" (plus the voice cast from "Space Ghost Coast to Coast," another show Max unceremoniously dumped). This is a show that represents over six decades of cartoon history, and yet Max has been even worse about promoting it than "Clone High."
"Jellystone!" has yet to be featured on the official Max TikTok or X/Twitter account. On the day season 3 premiered the only posts on the streamer's account were for "True Detective" being renewed for season 5 and the announcement that "Dream Scenario" was coming to the service ... in March. The "True Detective" announcement makes total sense, but it feels weird to completely disregard promoting a new show exclusive to the streaming platform in favor of promoting a movie licensed for streaming that won't be arriving for weeks.
"But I saw the show promoted on Instagram!" you may cry.
Yes, but the only "Jellystone!" promotions from the official StreamOnMax account were cross-posts from the FamilyOnMax Instagram account. The latter only has 102k followers on the app compared to the flagship account's 3.2 million followers. This is starting to feel like malicious compliance, a way to say, "But we promoted it, there's nothing else we could have done" before justifying a cancellation after the show doesn't perform with "House of the Dragon" numbers. Zaslav has already scrapped the planned Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe after "Scoob!" so "Jellystone!" is the last bastion of one of the longest and most prolific worlds in entertainment history. To see it pushed aside like this isn't just an insult to the show but to the legacy of a formative franchise.
Animation deserves better
I've certainly lost count of how many times I've written some form of "animation deserves better" here on /Film, but it's something I'll be repeating even if my DNA is harvested so my clone version can attend high school with other niche micro-internet personalities for the "Clone High" reboot in 2090. Animated projects are dismissively canceled at exponentially rapid rates, animators are overworked and underpaid, and they're constantly battling against grotesquely wealthy tech bros who don't know the first thing about how an animated series comes to life and foolishly believe AI is the future (it's not).
The absolute bare minimum the corporations and studios platforming their work can do is let their millions of followers and subscribers know when a new season, series, or movie is out ... and they can't even do that. Instead, writers and animators try like hell to drum up attention through their personal accounts, while fans and entertainment writers do their best to spread the good gospel.
It's extra annoying to see Max drop the ball on these shows so heavily because both third seasons are fantastic and well worth renewal. "Jellystone!" in particular is a show that could boast the longevity of something like "Bob's Burgers," but considering how many people don't even know the show exists (let alone recently dropped a third season), it's hard not to feel like those who love it are just screaming into the void.
Anyway, season 3 of "Clone High" and "Jellystone!" are available on Max, and it's exhausting that I have to be the one to tell you and not, you know, the people who host the show.