A.N.T. Farm

**A.N.T. Farm** is an American teen sitcom television series created by Dan Signer. The series aired on Disney Channel from May 6, 2011 to March 21, 2014 and had a total of three seasons.

## Plot

A.N.T. Farm revolves around Chyna Parks, an 11-year-old musical prodigy, who has just become the newest student in the A.N.T. program at Webster High School in San Francisco, California. On her first day, she meets Gibson, the goofy counsellor, tutor and therapist of the A.N.T. Farm, as well as Olive Doyle, a girl with an eidetic memory and Fletcher Quimby, an artistic genius (but is otherwise quite dim) who falls deeply in love with Chyna when they first meet. After quickly becoming friends, they proceed to go on multiple adventures, using their talents to their advantage.

The school's "it" girl, Lexi Reed, is one of the teenagers who think the A.N.T.s are little kids at Webster. She proceeds to bully Chyna, thinking of her as competition in being the star of the school. Chyna's older brother, Cameron 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 and Angus, an overweight computer prodigy who harbors a crush on Olive, share major recurring roles on the series.

Season 3 takes place at a boarding school called Z-tech, instead of at Webster High School. The school is run by a big technology company, Z Tech, owned by Zoltan Grundy. The series ended with Fletcher winning an arts fellowship in New York City and moving there with his 30-year-old grandma.

## Cast and Characters

### Main

* China Anne McClain as Chyna Parks
* Sierra McCormick as Olive Doyle
* Jake Short as Fletcher Quimby
* Stefanie Scott as Lexi Reed
* Carlon Jeffery as Cameron Parks
* Aedin Mincks as Angus Chestnut

### Recurring

* Allie DeBerry as Paisley Houndstooth
* Zach Steel as Gibson
* Finesse Mitchell as Darryl Parks
* Elisa Neal as Roxanne Parks
* Mindy Sterling as Principal Susan Skidmore
* Christian Campos as Wacky the Wolf
* Ben Winchell as Dixon Ticonderoga
* Matt Lowe as Hippo
* Claire Engler as Violet
* Dominic Burgess as Zoltan Grundy
* Zibby Allen as Winter Maddox and Madame Goo Goo
* Piper Curda as Kennedy Van Burren / Kumiko Hashimoto
* Tom Choi as Mr. Hashimoto

### Notable Appearances

* Zendaya as Sequoia
* Vanessa Morgan as Vanessa
* Billy Unger as Tasmanian Neville
* Chris Rock as Himself

## Episodes

See Also: List of A.N.T. Farm Episodes

 2 | 20
 3 | 17

## Production

### Development

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 \nd that's when it hit me, Why not build a show around a child prodigy? Someone who's got all of this natural talent and 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.

### Casting

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".

## Broadcast

In Canada, the show had a preview on May 23, 2011, with the premiere on June 24, 2011. In New Zealand, it premiered on August 15, 2011, and in Australia on the same day, as well on Seven Network on May 19, 2012. It previewed on September 16, 2011, and premiered on October 7, 2011, in the UK and Ireland. In Singapore it was released on October 7, 2011, just three weeks after Disney Channel live-action series are discontinued in some feeds due to high cost and in South Africa on December 10, 2011.

## Reception

### Ratings

The sneak preview of the series garnered 4.4 million viewers on its premiere night, ranked as TV's No. 1 Telecast in Total Day among Tweens 9-14 (441,000/1.8 rating) and was also TV's No. 1 Telecast among Kids 6-11 (544,000/2.2 rating). Its lead-in, the series finale of The Suite Life on Deck, received 4.6 million.

The episode "The PhANTom Locker", is currently the most watched episode of the series, scoring 4.6 million viewers., But on Friday, August 5, 2011 a random episode scored 4.9 right after the Phineas and Ferb Across the 2nd dimension. It did better than its lead-in Wizards of Waverly Place, which earned 4.1 million viewers.

In Australia the episode "transplANTed" delivered 80,000 viewers. In the United Kingdom the same episode had 321,000 viewers and the episode "participANTs" garnered 240,000 viewers.

## Awards and Nominations

 Best Performance in a TV Series - Supporting Young Actress
 Best Performance in a TV Series - Guest Starring Young Actress Ten and Under
 Best Performance in a TV Series - Recurring Young Actress 17-21
 2014

**Music:** A.N.T. Farm (Soundtrack)
**Seasons:** Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3
**Episodes:** List of A.N.T. Farm Episodes