Sacha Baron Cohen, Greg Daniels, Mike Judge and Michael Koman Developing Animated Series For HBO & Cartoon Network

Sacha Baron Cohen, Greg Daniels and Mike Judge are set to release an animated comedy for HBO Max and Cartoon Network. The network is hoping younger audiences take a liking to Chelm: The Smartest Place on Earth. Michael Koman of Nathan For You fame is handling the writing duties on this special. Chelm will riff on classic folktales in the eponymous town according to The Hollywood Reporter. There’s absurdist humor that’s a trademark of the entire creative team’s output. Judge and Daniels have climbed back into the animation ring in a big way this year. Their Bandera Entertainment imprint is hard at work on a King of the Hill revival and over at Netflix they’re plotting an Exploding Kittens show. So many projects are in the works, it feels like its hard to keep track of all of it. But, this is a fun partnership for Cartoon Network and HBO Max. The animated output of the streamer has only increased in the time since the first bit of the pandemic and doesn’t look to be slowing down.

“This pitch was so hilarious; we just knew the HBO Max audience needed to get a dose of this original brand of storytelling. Chelm: The Smartest Place on Earth is a perfect pairing of comedy and satire, and no one does that combination better than Sacha, Greg, Mike and Michael,” said Amy Friedman, head of kids and family programming at Warner Bros. “This unique project will breathe new, hysterical life into the nonsensical Chelmic wisdom that originated from this imaginary city of folks who aren’t quite the sharpest tools in the shed.”

In some previous comments to THR, the creators explained what made them pursue this revival. “We were very excited to go into different tones and different styles and try to expand the animation art form,” Daniels said at the time. “We’re in a golden age for content, right? That’s animation, too. That was one of the things we were talking about in founding the company: “Let’s push animation into all these different genres.”

“Mostly what Bandera is doing is trying to get us in more of a supervisory goal; that’s what we’ve been really concentrating on: using our taste and the people we’ve worked with and trying to help other people achieve their visions that we think are cool,” Daniels added before tagging Judge back in, “There’s one show that I might be a co-creator of but the rest, it’s mentoring other people and getting people together and being a studio in that regard.”

Does the new animated show sound exciting? Let us know down in the comments!