Mintered

Mintered is a British-American adult animated sitcom created by Jeremy Jones and David Roberts for Channel 4 and the Fox Broadcasting Company.

Development
The show first dates back to 1991, when with the pilot and a series of 18 shorts created by Jeremy Jones and David Roberts aired on The Animated Area. The series, which aired on Channel 4 in the UK, was an animation showcase for experimental animators around the world. After a string of shorts, skits and pilots, Jones and Roberts were appointed by Channel 4 in late 1993 to pitch ideas for a British animated sitcom.

The network were determined to find a "British version of The Simpsons". Whilst there was an inital idea for simply transplanting the Simpsons formula to the UK, there was later efforts made to make the series distinctive, including giving the series a more dry and deadpan sense of humour to suit the UK audience and heavily altering the setting to a large family in a zany, offbeat alternate part of London.

Mintered was commisioned by Channel 4 and went into production in the summer of 1994, at which time the FOX network in the United States began to look for new series from other countries for throughout the 1995-96 season.

A production deal was reached in which the show would be co-produced with 20th Century Fox Television alongside Roberts and Jones's production company DJ Studios and Hat Trick Productions, who entered production of the show after Geoffrey Perkins shown interest.

The voice talent of Mintered was to be pooled from the already sucessful British animation and comedy industries, with the initial voice cast for series 1 boasting names including David Jason, Hugh Laurie, Michael Fenton Stevens, Emma Wray, Harry Hill and Kate Robbins.

Plot
The show centres around the Minter family, a family of Doodles, species with faces of triangles, with human-like bodies. Each has a different color.

Each episode centres around the family’s adventures and antics around the show’s main setting of London. The version of London in Mintered is from an alternate universe, in which anthropomorphic animals and objects are existent, alongside fictional characters and other imaginative beings. As revealed in Series 10’s “Orangebolt and the Minter Factory”, the show takes place in the same universe of all other animated shows set in the UK, and the show often references other British animated series, both well-known and obscure.

The Minter family are as follows.
 * Yellowsilk Minter (voiced by Kate Robbins) - a stressed mother in her late 30's, who's last particular wish was to be raising six children. Her job is as a highly paid social worker and therapist, working with London's seemingly never ending barrage of people who need a lot of help, although she can have trouble balancing this with her extensive family life.
 * Emeraldwolf Minter (voiced by Hugh Laurie) - the relaxed father, around the same age as Yellowsilk. A keen creative man, who spends his days using his imagination writing, drawing, painting, composing, editing and filming.
 * Bluey Minter (voiced by Tim Snowdon) - The second-eldest child of the Minter family, who initially is a 11 year-old who gets used to transitioning to secondary school, but having dropped out of school later in the series finds himself having difficulty navigating the troubles of teenhood, but without any of the courage to properly speak up about it. He is autistic, which makes his experiences of growing up unique and different to everyone else he knows.
 * Pinkstone Minter (voiced by Liza Tarbuck) - Bluey's twin sister, Pinkstone has a split personality. a sporty, tough cookie who is ready to fight for anything flipped with being a soft but lazy person who can't help but slack and shy away from stressful situations.

Movie
Sources reported in 1997 that a movie based on Mintered produced by 20th Century Fox was in production. It was released in 2000.

Syndication
In Spring 1996, 20th Century Fox Television announced that Mintered would make it’s syndicated debut that fall on TBS Superstation, and began on September 7, 1996, exactly a year after Fox began airing the show, airing in a 8:30pm timeslot. Initally, only airing once every fortnight, due to a small amount of episodes, TBS Superstation gained rights to the second season in November, and began airing once a week, alternating between seasons 1 and 2. Episodes were also aired on TNT and sometimes on Cartoon Network, TNT stopped around 2000, due to TNT moving into dramas, while it was little seen on CN, leaving altogether with the launch of Adult Swim in 2001. In the fall season of 1999, Mintered began airing in local syndication.

International
In the United States, new episodes of Mintered are broadcast on Fox. In syndication, Adult Swim and TBS have aired the show since 2006/2009 and joined FXX and Freeform in 2019.

In the UK, it was originally broadcast on Channel 4 on 8th September 1995, and aired all of the first series before Fox broadcasted them. E4 began airing the show in 2005 (however was slated to air from 2001 launch, but right issues stopped this, they only started airing Mintered after the channel became free). Sky One shows it on pay TV and has since April 1996 and Fox since 2008 has showed the pay TV repeats. Channel 4 also sydnicated many Mintered episodes with the Welsh channel S4C until 2010, due to C4 being unavailable in Wales. S4C mainly showed it later at night than the C4 showing, and only the first 5 series aired on S4C in tandem with the Channel 4 broadcast.

In Ireland, Mintered made it‘s Irish debut on Network Two (shortly after a channel rebrand) in September 1995, where episodes were simulcast with Channel 4 in the UK. From 2006, the show was moved over to new entertainment network Channel 6, and subsequently 3e. RTÉ 2 began to air Mintered again from September 2018, due to 3e dropping Mintered as a result of rebranding as Virgin Media Two.

In Kuboia, the show is broadcast on Vision One, and debuted in June 1996. It typically airs in the 9:00p.m. timeslot.

In El Kadsre, the show originally broadcast the first 2 series on El TV Kadsre 2, and those series aired in reruns on youth focused sister channel El TV Kadsre 3, from January 1999, Mintered moved to ETVK3, while ETVK2 continued to air reruns until 2005, when the show moved to Viva 2 (later V2) but for Series 12, Mintered returned to El TV Kadsre 3, and starting in 2019, classic episodes will air on El TV Kadsre’s youth channel, ETVKK. On pay television, Mintered airs on Fox EK. The French dub airs on El TV Kadsre Francias.

In New Zealand, the show currently airs on TVNZ 2, TVNZ Duke and Sky 5, and previously on TV3, C4 and Four.

In Canada, Mintered airs on CityTV, Adult Swim and Much. It was aired previously on Global and Teletoon.

In Australia, Mintered was originally broadcast on Channel 10, in the slot following Neighbours and before The Simpsons. In 2011, it moved to sister channel Eleven. Starting in 2018, Mintered moved to rival channel 7mate after it acquired all Fox series after Network 10 (which included 11) was bought by CBS. Mintered also began airing on cable network Fox8 since 1997 and has since.

In Germany, It airs on Pro7, Comedy Central, Pro7 Maxx and Pro7 Fun. It previously aired on Viva Germany and MTV. Despite this, the show was intended to broadcast on Premiere (now Sky Cinema). In other German-speaking countries, In Switzerland, it currently airs on 3 Plus TV, 4 Plus TV and 6 Plus TV, and also on TV25, while in Austria, it broadcasts on ORF 1.

In the Euro Republics, Mintered began airing on October 31, 1995, at 10pm, on Channel 4. The actual series made it‘s debut the following May on TV3, along with reruns on Spark, Sky One and Spark 2. When Spark Animation was launched in 2018, Mintered began airing on that channel, with first run rights.

In Sweden, it was originally broadcast on TV3 for it’s first nine seasons, before moving to TV6 when that launched.

Ratings

 * USA - TV-PG (most episodes)
 * USA - TV-14 (some episodes)
 * USA - TV-Y7 FV (some episodes)
 * Canada - PG (most episodes)
 * Canada - 14 (some episodes)
 * Canada - G (Full Circle; Teletoon)
 * Kuboia - 9
 * UK - PG (most episodes)
 * UK - 12 (some episodes)
 * Australia - PG (most episodes from season 10 onwards)
 * Australia - M (some episodes from season 10 onwards)
 * Australia - G (first 10 seasons)
 * New Zealand - PG (TVNZ and most episodes on Sky 5)
 * New Zealand - M (a few Sky 5 episodes)
 * France - All ages (most episodes)
 * France - 10 (some episodes)
 * Germany - All ages (most episode
 * Italy - Green label (most episodes)
 * Italy - Yellow label (some episodes)
 * Italy - Red Label (Belly & Jelly)
 * Starzota - 15+ (most episodes)
 * Starzota - 17+ (some episodes)

Games

 * 1998 - Mintered (by Fox Interactive)
 * 2001 - Mintered - London Lifestyle (by Fox Interactive)
 * 2005 - Mintered Arcade (by Radical Entertaiment)
 * 2009 - Mintered: 10 Years On (by Electronic Arts)
 * 2010 - Mintered Mobile (by Electronic Arts)
 * 2018 - Mintered The Sixth (by Electronic Arts, Rockstar Games and FoxNext)