A.N.T. Farm

A.N.T. Farm is an American sitcom which originally aired on Disney Channel from May 6, 2011 to March 21, 2014. It first aired on May 6, 2011, as a special one-episode preview and continued as a regular series starting on June 17, 2011. After airing as the preview of the series, the pilot episode "transplANTed" later re-aired after the series finale of The Suite Life on Deck. The series was created by Dan Signer, a former writer an co-executive producer of The Suite Life on Deck and creator of the YTV series Mr. Young. In mid-20November 2010, Disney Channel greenlighted the series, with production beginning in early 2011. The first promo was released during the premiere of Lemonade Mouth.

Taking place in San Francisco, the series stars China Anne McClain, Sierra McCormick, and Jake Short as middle-schoolers in a gifted program at their local high school called the "Advanced Natural Talent" or "A.N.T." program.

A.N.T. Farm revolves around Chyna Parks (China Anne McClain), an 11-year-old musical prodigy, who has just become the newest A.N.T. (Advanced Natural Talents) in the A.N.T. program at Webster High School in San Francisco, California. On her first day, she meets Olive Doyle (Sierra McCormick), an odd girl who has a photographic memory, and Fletcher Quimby (Jake Short), an artistic genius (but otherwise quite dim) who falls deeply in love with her when they first meet. They soon become her best friends at the high school. They proceed to go on multiple adventures, using their talents to their advantage. Before Chyna meets Olive and Fletcher, she meets Gibson (Zach Steel), the counselor, tutor, and therapist of the A.N.T. Farm, who is a strange, goofy guy who isn't the brightest person. The school's "it" girl, Lexi Reed (Stefanie Scott), is one of the teenagers who thinks the ants are little kids at Webster. She proceeds to bully Chyna, thinking of her as competition in being the star of the school. Chyna's bumbling older brother, Cameron (Carlon Jeffery), attempts to avoid Chyna in high school as much as he can, afraid she will be an embarrassment to him. Lexi's best friend Paisley, (Allie DeBerry) and Chyna, Olive, and Fletcher's friend Angus (Aedin Mincks) share major recurring roles on the series.

Season 3 takes place at a boarding school instead of at Webster High School held by a big technology company, Z Tech, ran by Zoltan Grundy (Dominic Burgess). The series ended with Fletcher (Jake Short) winning an art fellowship in New York City.

Disney Channel announced on November 11, 2010 that they had greenlighted the show for production, which began in early 2011. The show was first conceived when Dan Signer, creator of the show, saw China Anne McClain. "The girl had so much confidence. She can nail a joke. She can sing. She can play instruments. It's like China was some sort of child prodigy [...] And that's when it hit me: Why not build a show around a child prodigy? Someone who's got all of this natural talent & ability, but is still challenged when she's sent off to high school at the age of 11?" Signer said in an interview. After the first few episodes of the show were shown, Disney Channel bumped up their order of episodes for the show from 13 episodes to 26 episodes for the first season. On November 19, 2011, the series was renewed for a second season, which would start filming in early December.

Sierra McCormick was cast after an audition where she continually talked about tigers. Dan Signer stated "And as I heard her continually talking about tigers, I thought 'That's just how Olive would sound,' because Olive is a fast talking, intelligent student whose talent is memory. Which is how Sierra got that part." Jake Short was the last of the three core characters to be cast. Caroline Sunshine was originally cast as Lexi and Stefanie Scott as the role of Tinka Hessenheffer in Shake it Up, but Dan Signer decided that Sunshine would be better as Tinka and Scott as Lexi, so the two switched roles. Sunshine, however, would later guest star in the episode "some enchANTed evening".

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   A.N.T. Farm was the number one show on Disney Channel in 2011 within the 6-11 demographic.
   It was nominated for an NAACP Award in February of 2012.

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## Characters

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   Chyna Parks (China Anne McClain) is a 11-year-old music prodigy who is part of the A.N.T. program in her brother's high school. In ParticipANTs, she becomes a cheerleader, only to be tricked by Lexi into losing her voice so she can't audition for the school play. In Bad RomANTs, it is said she thinks better with her guitar. She is very kind, although she seems to be as embarrassed of her brother as he is of her.
   Olive Doyle (Sierra McCormick) is Chyna's best friend and part of the A.N.T program because of her eidetic memory. She can speak Japanese as is mentioned in SciANTs Fair, talks very quickly, and is afraid of several things including spiders, leprechauns, ghosts, and curly fries.
   Fletcher Quimby (Jake Short) is an artistic genius whose best friends are Chyna and Olive. But he thinks of Chyna as more than a friend, even though he fails at flirting with her many times. He tries all kinds of art, from sculpting Chyna out of bubblegum to making wax dummies of everyone to painting the principal.
   Lexi Reed (Stefanie Scott) is a pretty, self-centered student at Webster High who is the lead in all of the musicals, freshman president of student council and is on the cheer-leading squad with Paisley. She is an airhead, will do anything to get positive attention, and can be mean-spirited.
   Cameron Parks (Carlon Jeffery) is Chyna's older high-schooler brother. He tries to avoid Chyna and the other ANTs because he is afraid Chyna will embarrass him. In The PhANTom Locker, it is mentioned he has a blankie, and once was so annoyed by Olive that he covers her locker with jelly and calls it ghost ectoplasm. Lexi mistakes him for Chyna's younger brother, because he often acts much less mature than his younger sister.
   Angus Chestnut (Aedin Mincks) is a computer genius who often runs illegal programs on his computer. He has a huge crush on Olive, though finds Chyna unattractive, and found someone whose name was never mentioned within five seconds. In the first episode, he is trampled by the "big kids" during passing period and goes to the hospital. He is also shown to love food. Paisley Houndstooth (Allie DeBerry) is best friends with Lexi. She is also on the cheer squad, even though she's clueless about almost every cheer. She is often confused about everything that's going on. However, she thinks different from Lexi, because she usually cares about people. She's a sweet-spirited girl, but cluelessly gets roped into Lexi's schemes. Both easily fooled and free with compliments, she is treated badly by Lexi despite them being "best friends."
   Henry Gibson (Zach Steel) is the A.N.T.’s counselor, tutor, and therapist. He is shown to be a dumb person and more of a child than an adult. He likes knitting, mahjong, and feeding pigeons. He doesn't like his grandmother's boyfriend, Bob, and made up a game about himself called "Gibson Pursuit."
   Darryl Parks (Finesse Mitchell) is a 'highly decorated' police officer, and is Chyna's and Cameron's dad. Though he obviously loves his daughter, he can be very overprotective. He considered pulling her out of the ANT program after the first episode because he thought she wasn't ready for high school.
   Roxanne Parks (Elise Neal) is Chyna's and Cameron's mom. She is a children's party entertainer. The only times she was shown she was dressed as a viking and carrying a battle ax and dressed in a pink dress and tiara like a princess.
   Susan Skidmore (Mindy Sterling) is the school principal. She's completely convinced herself that she is young and beautiful, not believing that the person in the mirror is her. She uses the A.N.T Program like a sweatshop, forcing Fletcher to paint a portrait of herself for her 'boyfriend'.
   Wacky the Wolf (Christian Campos) is the school mascot at Webster High. Wacky is a member of the Webster High Dance teams. He has been in most episodes of ANT Farm.
   Violet (Claire Engler) Is a sports prodigy and a new A.N.T. She has a crush on Fletcher that can bring her anger issues out. She is a competitive, hardcore, and tough girl who tends to scare people. She is agressive but calms down anyway.

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