Decode Entertainment

Decode Entertainment was a Canadian television production studio based in Toronto, founded by Neil Court, Steven DeNure and John Delmage, the former two being executive producers on Undergrads. which was responsible for co-funding and co-producing Undergrads with MTV. They are now a subsidiary of WildBrain, who inherited the distribution rights to Undergrads. Their interactive department also made the series' website.

Abby Terkuhle, executive producer of Undergrads and head of MTV Animation, encountered Decode employees on a business boat after Mipcon, a TV distribution convention in France. He decided to co-produce Undergrads with Decode in June 2000 following the successful 1999 screen test as MTV would only have to provide half the series budget, and Decode, under Canadian content laws, would have to do most of the production. This meant that all voice acting, storyboarding, design, animation (the previous two eventually handled by Funbag Animation of Ottawa) and post-production would have to be handled in Canada, and only the writing would be done in the US. There also had to be a certain amount of Canadian voice actors, designers and artists working on the show, most notably in the replacement of Rocko's voice in the Canadian version with an unknown Canadian actor. Decode also hired the music supervisors of the show's Canadian and international versions.

Post-production on Undergrads ended in late spring 2001, by this time, Decode had received news of MTV's plans to end Undergrads, without the knowledge of creator Pete Williams. He retrospectively commented on this as during the final mixer session for Screw Week, long-time Decode line producer Elana Adair began crying because she would miss producing the series. Starting in April 2001, MTV aired the first 6 episodes in completely different time slots each time, before wiping the show off their schedules.

Because of Decode's nationality, Undergrads was counted as a Canadian production under CRTC content laws. One of these was that all channels had to show a certain quota of Canadian programming a day; this quota including Teletoon, whose night block had been short on content with these laws, ended up re-running Undergrads for a decade after cancellation to meet the CRTC quotas, which was a primary force in the gathering of the Canadian fanbase and the revival of the movement to bring back Undergrads. Williams was unaware of this for a long time even when Decode contacted him to write a blog on Teletoon's website discussing the series' popularity in Canada, only realising when holding a panel on Undergrads with lead writers Andy Rheingold and Josh Cagan in Canada. Williams had only expected a few attendees, but a full room turned up to the panel, people had to be turned away and the panel was extended for another day, which led the Williams, Rheingold and Cagan to revive to show and succeeding in 2018.

After Undergrads was cancelled by MTV, Decode and Teletoon attempted to gather the funds for Season 2, however, they did not have enough money, and they legally could not take Undergrads to another major US network as MTV refused to relinquish the IP rights.

Pete Williams met his future wife, Sarah Williams (née Abramovitz) at Decode as production co-ordinator.

Decoded merged with Halifax Film to create DHX Media in 2006, and then shelved its identity in 2011. Undergrads has been mentioned seldom, if at all, by the company, whose main focus is on preschool content only. DHX no longer wished to be in talks for a second season, so a movie was proposed, which would only need rights from MTV.

1. ↑ https://www.appmybizaccount.gov.on.ca/onbis/corporations/viewInstance/view.pub?id=280aa9d4fbca6577ccb365bb8f57e85a2a2cda739872828017d6aa8053a7a2d3&\_timestamp=900177608502318