‘Teen Titans Go’ Hits Major Milestone

Teen Titans GO! has quietly amassed quite a following, and it’s about to celebrate a huge milestone.

The stylized animated series is about to enter some pretty elite company, as Teen Titans Go! will celebrate it’s 200th episode on Cartoon Network. The show quickly established itself as a humorous spin on the beloved Titans characters, and president of Warner Bros. Animation and Warner Digital Series Sam Register feels that is what helped the show resonate with audiences.

“One of the things ‘Titans’ has been very great for is it allows us to be very current, not only in the humor but the style,” Register told Variety. “I think that’s great for a studio that leans on legacy to be able to have something that really feels contemporary.”

Go! was the second series based on the Titans for the network, but the show’s predecessor was much more along the lines of Young Justice or Justice League in tone. Go! is definitely not, and executive producer Michael Jelenic reveals that part of that is due to how the show twists the heroes on their heads.

“To subvert the genre in a comedic way, the genre has to be super popular,” Jelenic said. “Early on we had this idea of, ‘what if we treated the superheroes almost as the villains?’ Not that they’re bad but that they can be more destructive.”

Teen Titans Go! premiered in 2013, and part of the show’s success came from being willing to take risks according to executive producer Aaron Horvath.

“They’re comic book characters, and we play with a lot of tropes, but it was never intended to be something like the original show would have done with, ‘who’s the villain and let’s save the world.’ The joke is taking a small idea and blowing it up — like going to get a sandwich but having to get parts from the four corners of the universe,” Horvath said.

Horvath revealed the setting of Teen Titans Go! serves two purposes, and they directly benefit each other. “Since we focus on the characters and making their interaction funny, you can set that anywhere,” Horvath said. “The scale grows in the third act, but for the first two acts, the bulk of the episode can just take place in their bedrooms or kitchen. That grounds it but still has a wish fulfillment factor of superhero kids living in a place with no supervision at all.”

That allows the team to put together episodes in a much quicker fashion than others of its kind, hitting 200 episodes in just 4 years. The crew is also taking on a feature film project in the near future title Teen Titans Go! to the Movies, and the franchise shows no signs of stopping.

“It was fortuitous timing,” Horvath says of the film deal. “We keep thinking the show has hit its peak, but somehow it keeps going and the audience keeps getting bigger.”