Basile and Melba

***Basile and Melba*** was a planned CGI-animated television series under the ZAG Toon brand. It was going to be a co-production between Zagtoon, 2 Minutes, and Europa-Glénat, based on the graphic novel series of the same name that was published by Glénat Editions.

A pilot was created and was shown at MIPCOM 2010. However, the project ended up getting cancelled due to Glénat regaining the full rights to the *Basile and Melba* intellectual property after Europa-Glénat became defunct.

## Synopsis

### Virtual Press Office synopsis

*"Sparks fly and fun and games [are] guaranteed in this 3D series! He is called Basile and her name is Melba. He is a model student and she is bottom of the class. He is rich and she much less so. He is sensible, well brought up and sensitive and she is a tomboy and along with her brothers they are always getting up to mischief! They are so different and proof that opposites attract."*

## Characters

### Basile

**Basile** is one of the two main characters of the series. The only son of a wealthy family, Basile is a very good student in the class. He's sensible, well-brought-up, and sensitive.

### Melba

**Melba** is one of the two main characters of the series. Daughter of a large and financially modest family, Melba is a tomboyish girl who's considered the bottom of the class.

### Ben and Max

**Ben** and **Max** are two older brothers of Melba.

## Production

*Basile et Melba* is a French graphic novel series that was published from June 2008 to June 2010, by Glénat. The three books in the series were written by Mathilde Domecq. Except for the winter season, each of the books is based on a season of the year. So, the name of the books is "Spring", "Summer", and "Fall".

On October 23, 2008, it was announced that Luc Besson and his production company EuropaCorp had partnered with Glénat to launch Europa Glénat, a production company that would produce animated adaptations of Glénat's titles. Europa-Glénat is said to be sharing TV and film adaptation rights to Glénat's property "at a 50/50 split".

In September 2009, it was announced during MIPCOM that an animated adaptation of both *Basile and Melba* and *Job Academy* are being developed internally as a co-production between Univergroup (the original name for ZAG) and Europa-Glénat. *Basile and Melba* is also planned to have 52 episodes and be 13-minute long.

In 2010, the ZAG website was updated to include *Basile and Melba* in a list of licenses ZAG owned the television adaptation rights for. A pilot for the TV series was confirmed to have been produced in around 2010. The pilot was later shown at MIPCOM 2010. However, there doesn't seem to be any interest from French TV channels to purchase *Basile and Melba* for broadcast. As a result, the project isn't able to be developed into a full-fledged series. In addition, *Basile and Melba* was removed from the ZAG website after 2011, indicating that the project has been shelved.

Eventually, ZAG lost the licensing rights for *Basile and Melba*. Europa-Glénat later became defunct, causing Glénat to regain the full rights to the intellectual property and the TV series to be scrapped altogether.

## Trivia

* Despite Zagtoon's involvement with co-producing the pilot, ZAG doesn't own the full rights to *Basile and Melba* due to it being Glénat's intellectual property. Instead, it used to have the licensing rights so it could produce the series.
* *Basile and Melba* and *Job Academy* were parts of Europa-Glénat's plan to develop animated adaptations of Glénat's comic book properties.
* As of 2023, information about the pilot is very cryptic. There isn't any concept art that is known to the public and there isn't any confirmation on the people who worked on it in 2010.
* It's unknown if the pilot would ever be resurfaced to the public.
* In an Animation Magazine article, Basile's name was misspelled as **Basil**.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 https://web.archive.org/web/20140301173129/http://www.virtualpressoffice.com/publicsiteContentFileAccess?fileContentId=174355&fromOtherPageToDisableHistory=T&menuName=Events&companyId=3123
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://kidscreen.com/2009/05/15/univergroup-20090515/
3. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20101016164926/http://www.univergroup.com/series.html
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://www.catsuka.com/news/2010-01-08/pilote-du-p-tit-cosmonaute-et-autres-adaptations-de-bd-le-petit-spirou-samson-et-neon-job-academy-basile-et-melba
5. ↑ https://variety.com/2009/scene/markets-festivals/french-films-turn-to-comic-books-1117998281/
6. ↑ https://www.mtv.com/news/x3w9cc/transporter-producer-luc-besson-partners-with-french-comic-publisher
7. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20101016164926/http://www.univergroup.com/series.html
8. ↑ http://www.animationmagazine.net/features/zagtoon-launches-3d-film-division/

## External links

* Basile and Melba on the French Wikipedia.

**Possibly cancelled/Status unknown:** **Arthur and the Book of Life** • **Balloons** • ****Basile and Melba**** • **Job Academy** • **Kosmic Dancer** • **Legendary Books** • **Powearth** • **Sweet Power** • **Touftouf & Kenotte** • **Transylmaniac**