Better Call Saul: Fat Albert-Style Animated Show ‘Slippin’ Jimmy’ in Development at AMC

Before he broke bad, he was Slippin’ Jimmy: criminal lawyer Jimmy McGill a.k.a. Saul Goodman, will star in a new animated show from the world of Better Call Saul. AMC Networks on Friday announced it is developing and launching a slate of digital original programming that includes Slippin’ Jimmy, an animated prequel from the Breaking Bad universe about brothers Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) and Chuck McGill (Michael McKean). The Better Call Saul spin-off follows the adventures of the young McGill brothers and friends back home in Cicero, Illinois, years before the two lawyers clash privately and professionally over the law firm Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill.

The new animated show from writers Ariel Levine (Better Call Saul, the Emmy-winning digital series Better Call Saul Employee Training) and Kathleen Williams-Foshee is created in the retro style of Fat Albert and will pay homage to “everything from spaghetti westerns to Buster Keaton to After Hours.”

It’s unclear whether Odenkirk and McKean will return to voice the younger version of their characters in Slippin’ Jimmy. The animated show is named after the future Saul Goodman’s old nickname, from a time when Jimmy would scam money by taking advantage of “slip n’ fall season” during Chicago winters.

AMC also announced a new season of Emmy-winning minisodes series Better Call Saul Employee Training, live-action tie-in shorts that have featured such Saul characters as Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), and Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito).

Filming is now underway on the sixth and final season of Better Call Saul, the acclaimed series largely set before and sometimes after the events of Breaking Bad. Season 6 is expected to premiere on AMC in early 2022.

“My fervent hope is that we can stick to the landing the way Vince [Gilligan] led us to stick to the landing on Breaking Bad. I think a really good story usually has its end, and that’s the thing that you remember,” Peter Gould, who co-created Saul with Breaking Bad creator Gilligan, said in a recent interview. “It’s like, we’ve put down our marker, we’ve planted our flag that Season 6, when we get to shoot it, is the last season, and it’s going to be a big season, and it’s going to be more episodes than we usually do. It’s going to be 13. We’ve never done 13 episodes of Better Call Saul in a season, ever. It’s going to be big and it’s going to be resolved.”

AMC has not set a premiere date for Slippin’ Jimmy.