Animation Once Again

South Park meets The I.T. Crowd” is the sales pitch for Newsbag, 3e’s new Saturday night adult animation, which also contains trace elements of Drop The Dead Donkey, Anchorman and its rock ‘n’ roll-minded Irish predecessor, Eyebrowy.

Created by 2013 IFTA Rising Star Award Gerard Barrett – he’s signed to the same Los Angeles talent stable as Martin Scorsese – its top man is Eric Dundee, a foul-mouthed New Zealand media hard-nut in the Kelvin MacKenzie vein, whose answer to poor ratings (actually, answer to everything) is “more tits!”
His spectacularly useless team includes a lanky Stephen Merchant-type (Gig), a ginger fattie (Moss) and Noel Gallagher-esque sexual fantasist (Lenny).
Add in a camp Norn Iron photographer, granite-faced receptionist Bridget and office hottie Molly and you’ve a chucklesome cast of characters who’ll soon be the subject of excruciatingly bad impersonations in pubs the length and breadth of Ireland.
It’s a dream come true for Maurice Joyce, Newsbag’s animator-in-chief who, before returning to his native Dublin in 2001, worked on the likes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, James Bond Jr., Speed Racer, King Of The Hill and Beavis And Butt-head Do America.
“I’ve always wanted to do a wholly Irish adult animation, but it’s not cheap TV,” the 44-year-old proffers. “Each 28-minute episode takes two weeks to produce with four animators working on it and although you don’t have location costs there’s still a cast of actors to pay. A live action sitcom would be much cheaper, so it’s a big commitment on the part of TV3, who seem to be loving it.”
Hopeless Beavis & Butt-head fan boy that I am I have to ask, “What’s Mike Judge like?”
“Very nice, very funny and very paternal towards his characters. He loves the nuances; there was one scene in Beavis & Butt-head where thieves break into their house and rob their television and we were back and forth for days discussing what shape the footprints left behind by the burglars should be!
“He’s so picky about the details. We weren’t sure how successful as a TV spin-off the feature would be but it took $70 million at the box-office, which is incredible. As head of all the layouts, I got to walk the red carpet at the premiere and meet people like Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, who did voices for it.
“After Beavis & Butt-head, Mike asked me to move from New York to LA to work on the launch of King Of The Hill but I only did one episode because Disney came in with a bigger offer back in New York that I couldn’t say, ‘No’ to. Mike forgave me though; in fact we’ve collaborated on a pilot that the company I work for, Icehouse, has pitched to the History Channel.”
Icehouse being the adult division of Brown Bag Films, who scored a 2002 Oscar nomination with Give Up Yer Aul Sins and subsequent Emmy nods courtesy of The Octonauts.
“I’m not just waving the company flag when I say Brown Bag is a huge big deal in the animation world,” Maurice enthuses before returning to the subject of Disney.
“As you walk in the Burbank Disney gate, the first thing you see is a building held up by pillars shaped like the Seven Dwarfs! Then when you go inside there’s a 40-foot high rostrum camera, which they used to get depth of field on Pinocchio. Nowadays it can be done easily on the computer, but back then it was revolutionary. Roy Disney was still alive and in charge, so the sense of history and heritage was overwhelming.”
Joyce admits to having a dream job in his head – but reckons he’s unlikely to get it.
“There’s a Japanese guy called Hayao Miyzaki who in the animation world is god. He has a huge studio, which won an Oscar in 2003 for Spirited Away, but only one westerner working in it. Him and Richard Williams, who got an Oscar for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, are the guys you dream of being as good as.”
While unlikely to scoop an Academy Award, Newsbag definitely has its comedic moments.
“There are ten episodes that get progressively funnier as you get to know the characters,” Joyce concludes. “I was still laughing at the gags at the end of each production cycle, which is a good sign!”

Newsbag can be seen every Saturday at 10pm on 3e