North Springs

North Springs is an American created by Don Grayman and Rob Farlane for TBS. It is set in the titular fictional town in the state of, and revolves around the lives of ten-year-olds Philly Lyndon, Tommy Briggs, Cole Makowski, and Ben Sears. The show has become very popular to due its satirical depiction of the modern world and commentary on a wide range of topics.

The series is animated in-house using two-dimensional computer animation, which has been produced by various companies over the years of the show's production. Since 2009, the series has been animated by North Springs Studios. It is currently produced by TBS Studios and distributed by.

The series premiere, "Ben Almost Dies", was originally broadcast on June 2, 1996. In 1998, it became the second most-watched television series on pay television in the U.S., and it reached first place in 1999. 400 episodes have been broadcast as of September 2022, with the series being renewed by TBS all the way through season 30 in 2025. The show has also been adapted into a feature film and three video games, as well as several home media releases.

North Springs has been nominated for numerous awards, including Jupiter,, , and. It generates around $3.4 billion in revenue each year, making it one of 's most profitable non- properties. Its satire, unique visual style, and music have earned it generally positive reception from critics, though some have criticized it for a perceived decline in quality, and the series has faced multiple controversies.

Setting and characters


North Springs takes place during present time in North Springs, a fictional city in the U.S. state of. Its state was first revealed briefly in the season four (1999) episode "Rise of the Funky Kids".

Tommy Briggs, Philly Lyndon, Cole Makowski, and Ben Sears are the protagonists of the show, who all debuted in the series premiere. Supporting characters include Greg Wendy and Katie Emery.

Style and themes
Don Grayman and Rob Farlane credited  and the works of George Maroon as inspiration for the humor in North Springs. Their idea was to have the show look like a "kiddie" cartoon while retaining its adult themes. As a result, they created the show's simplistic art style, often excluding noses on child characters and females and fingers.

Child characters curse frequently, which Grayman said was because he and Farlane know that children use strong language when adults are not present. The duo also included the element of young characters being interested in adult topics.

Writing
Writing for most episodes begins on Wednesday, with Grayman, and/or Farlane brainstorming episode ideas with other members of the writing team. After exchanging ideas with the other staff members, Grayman and/or Farlane will then write a rough draft script for an episode, and the script will undergo various phases of editing until the team finally agrees on something that "sticks". The writing phase typically ends on Thursday or Friday.

Each individual episode has a five- to six-day production deadlines. This is done because so the show can stay relevant and respond quickly to world events, oftentimes faster than other satirical animated series. The earliest known example of this is the season four (1999) episode "Can I Have Cash?" referencing 's game-winning penalty kick at the, which occurred just four days before the episode's broadcast.

Animation
The show's animation style is inspired by a combination of the more shape-based artwork in early short films such as  and. Grayman and Farlane intentionally chose simplistic design and animation styles to make designing and animating the characters a speedy job. The characters are simply made up of basic geometric shapes—including circles and rectangles—and primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. All characters are two-dimensional and seen from a single angle, and they are deliberately given very few movements.

The characters are drawn and painted in EyeSpace Paint. The characters are then imported into Devcom Axis Motion. The process begins with characters being drawn and colored in EyeSpace Paint. The artwork is then imported into Devcom Axis Motion and animated in that program. While EyeSpace Paint is a high-end program often used for advanced character design and artwork and Devcom Axis Motion is normally used for three-dimensional animation, Grayman suggested using these programs because of their ability to make the show look "homemade and cheap", intentionally contrasting their professional nature. As of 2022, the show is edited with Starmix Video.

The show occasionally uses alternative styles of animation. For example, the season eighteen (2013) premiere "Fate of the Virtual" implements  machinima footage. Portions of the season twenty-four (2019) episode "Neon Mechasis Judaision" use an -based animation style, as do some scenes in the season twenty-seven (2022) episode "The Twitter Bio Mysteries".

Critical reception
The show was rated 8/10 overall by OEN, the website writing, "Spectacular animated sitcom manages to keep its high quality to this day." It was also rated 8.2/10 by users on, with a B+ rating on ViewBox.

On June 29, 2010, Screen Heads named North Springs the Best Animated Comedy of the 2000s. On January 20, 2016, The OMG listed North Springs as the fourth Greatest Animated Series of All Time. On December 5, 2019, the show was ranked as #2 in Alpha.com's "Top 10 Best Animated Series of the 2010s".