Mitchell Van Morgan (TV series)

*This article is about the Anime-influenced animated tv series adaptation of the Mitchell franchise. For the title character and the protagonist of this series, see Mitchell Van Morgan. For the antagonist of this series, see Marquessa. For the current season, see Mitchell Van Morgan (season 11). For other uses, see Mitchell Van Morgan (disambiguation).*

## Development staff

### Genre(s)

Anime-influenced animation
Action-Adventure
Dramedy
Science-Fantasy

### Directed by

MITCHELL Project
Derek Drymon (creative director)

### Produced by

MITCHELL Project
Donna Castricone (Nickelodeon)
Ken Hagino (Studio Pierrot)

### Production company(s)

MITCHELL Project
Nickelodeon Animation Studio
Studio Pierrot (animation service)

### Written by

MITCHELL Project
Dan Michaeli (since 2002)

## Overview

### Studio

Viacom International Inc. (Worldwide)
Viacom International Media Networks (International)

### Broadcast

**North America*** Nickelodeon (original broadcast since 2000)
* Nicktoons (broadcast since 2004)

**Japan**

* Nickelodeon Japan (broadcast since 2000 to present)

**Europe**

* Nickelodeon UK (broadcast since 2005 to present)

### Running time

22-23 minutes (Regular Episodes)
9-12 minutes (Short Episodes)
1 hour (Special Episodes)

### Original run

May 7, 2000

***Mitchell Van Morgan*** is a popular animated television series based on Nickelodeon's 1998 video game series of the same name created by Viacom Networks Japan K.K.. The pilot episode first aired in the US on Nickelodeon after Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards on February 27 1998. It officially aired on May 7 2000. The main characters are an Afro-Latin American manga artist, Mitchell Van Morgan; his smart chubby African-American best pal Gavin O'Neal Davis; his lucky and loving girlfriend Carolyn Ashley Taylor; Gavin's self-professed girlfriend Jennifer Hooker; and his arch-nemesis Marquessa, who is an African-American evil scientist. Most episodes take place in the town of Raleighopolis (a town and a metropolis city mainly based on Raleigh NC, Orange County, NC (USA), Wilmington, NC (USA), the Charlotte, NC (USA), NYC Twin towers and finally Eatontown, NJ (USA)), the main setting of the series.

The cartoon is designed to appeal to older viewers as much as to children. This has a lot to do with the way of video game life and situations are similar to normal terrestrial lifestyles. Mitchell lives in a house next to a speedway, while his neighbors and his buddies live in different destinations located in Raleighopolis. The suggestion is that a north carolinian metropolis area has urban habitats based on Hillsborough, NC (USA).

Mitchell Van Morgan: The First Movie was released on November 19 2000, This is also the first time he stars in an episode of Nickelodeon Movies.

## History

### Popularity

Mitchell Van Morgan has gained a loyal international following with children and adults alike giving it the similar idea as the series' companion franchises SpongeBob SquarePants and Tak and the Power of Juju. The merchandise based on the show, for instance, ranges from comic books made by Dark Horse Comics, and it's own video game franchise made by THQ (currently by THQ Nordic, because of the chapter 11 THQ bankrupty).

### Controversy

Despite its widespread popularity, the series has been involved in several public controversies, including one centered on former Sega employee Naoto Ohshima liking the series' ideas because it reminds him much of his older days as a Sega employee in the early 1990s. In 2017, Viacom described to the series as the most powerful videogame franchises that Nickelodeon has ever made during the series' 19th Anniversary.

On March 21, 2018, a Spanish-American Youtuber Voodoo Gaming News ask the series that *if you are one of those that Nickelodeon frame his childhood and that today is already a great strange to the Mitchell Van Morgan characters, it has been indicated that THQ Nordic will take charge of the development of the series' videogames including it's sister franchises, like SpongeBob, Rugrats, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Tak and the Power of Juju and finally Nicktoons Unite! for a THQ-Nickelodeon Remastering partnership*.

## Production

### Development

#### Early inspirations

Series creator Viacom Networks Japan K.K. first became fascinated with the Japanimation. Also at a young age, the team began developing their artistic abilities. However, these two interests would not coincide for a long time—the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him.

While taking fascination to the Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water & the series' related companion show The angry Beavers, they created Mitchell Van Morgan, which was used as a platformer video game franchise by THQ. The videogames starred various anime-based human characters with super powers, many of which would evolve into Mitchell Van Morgan characters. The company themselves tried to get the comic professionally published, but mostly published by Dark Horse Comics, they were interested in creating an Original English-language manga comic book series of the tv show itself.

#### Conception

While working as a staff artist in Japan, The MITCHELL Project team entertained plans of eventually returning to their personal art & The Nickelodeon Japan channel is opened on November 1998.

#### Pitching

In 1997, while pitching the cartoon based on the video game to Nickelodeon executives, The MITCHELL Project team donned an Afro-latin American beatnik super hero wearing a police hat a buckled pants white gloves & cowboy boots, brought along an 1990s earthly terrarium with models of the characters", and played video game music to set the theme. The setup was described by Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman as "pretty cool". When they were given money and two weeks to write the pilot episode for "Mitchell Van Morgan", Derek Drymon, MITCHELL Project, Micah Wright and Nick Jennings returned with what was described by Nickelodeon official Albie Hecht as, "a performance [he] wished [he] had on tape". Although executive producer Derek Drymon described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Kevin Kay and Hecht had to step outside because they were "exhausted from laughing", which worried the cartoonists.

In an interview, Cyma Zarghami, the current president of Nickelodeon, said, "their Nickelodeon executives immediate reaction was to see it again, both because they liked it and it was unlike anything they'd ever seen before". Zarghami was one of four executives in the room when Mitchell Van Morgan and his long-time companion series SpongeBob SquarePants was screened for the first time in so many different ways.

#### Animation

Approximately 50 people work together in animating and producing an episode of *Mitchell Van Morgan*. Throughout its run, production of the series has been handled domestically at Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, California, while the finished animation has been created overseas at Studio Pierrot in Japan. Storyboarding for each episode is done by the crew in California. The storyboards are then used as templates by the crew in Korea, who animate by hand, color cels on computers, and paint backgrounds. Episodes are finished in California, where they are edited and have music added. Every season, character designs are updated or modified to solve technical issues in the animation.

During the first season, the series used cel animation. A shift was made the following year to digital ink and paint animation. In 2009, executive producer Paul Tibbitt said "The first season of *Mitchell Van Morgan* was done the old-fashioned way on cells, and every cell had to be part-painted, left to dry, paint some other colours. It's still a time-consuming aspect of the process now, but the digital way of doing things means it doesn't take long to correct" using the same idea from his companion series SpongeBob SquarePants.

In 2008, the crew shifted to using Wacom Cintiqs for the drawings instead of pencils. The fifth season episode "Pest of the West" was the first episode in the series to which the crew applied this method. Series background designer Kenny Pittenger said, "The only real difference between the way we draw now and the way we drew then is that we abandoned pencil and paper during the fifth season". The crew began the shift while they were working on the episode. Pittenger said, "It was while we were working on 'Pest of the West', one of the half-hour specials, that we made the switch ... did you notice?" The shift to Wacom Cintiqs let the designers and animators draw on computer screens and make immediate changes or undo mistakes. Pittenger said, "Many neo-Luddites—er ... I mean, many of my cohorts—don't like working on them, but I find them useful. There's no substitute for the immediacy of drawing on a piece of paper, of course, but digital nautical nonsense is still pretty fun".

A stop-motion opening sequence for the series' 10th anniversary special was created by LA-based animation studio Screen Novelties. The group was re-enlisted a few years later to produce the eighth season episode "It's a Mitchell Christmas!" This was the first full-length episode in the series to be produced in stop motion animation. Mark Caballero, Seamus Walsh, and Christopher Finnegan of Screen Novelties animated the episode, and Caballero and Walsh also served as its directors.

#### Music

The music from the tv show is mostly and entirely based on the show's video game counterpart.the music from the show is edited & created by the MITCHELL Project Music Team.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Producing`
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Childhood`
3. ↑ Richmond, Ray (January 15, 2004). Special Report: Animation. *The Hollywood Reporter*. Retrieved on May 22, 2013.
4. ↑ Tibbitt, Paul (December 9, 2013). paultibbitt: @gozarfan chars r updated every .... Twitter. Archived from the original on December 15, 2013. Retrieved on December 15, 2013.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Tibbitt`
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `OralHistory`
7. ↑ Heintjes, Tom (September 21, 2013). The Oral History of SpongeBob SquarePants. *Hogan's Alley#17*. Bull Moose Publishing Corporation. Retrieved on September 23, 2013.
8. ↑ Zahed, Ramin (November 21, 2012). Stop Motion Casts a Spell on SpongeBob. *Animation*. Retrieved on January 17, 2013.
9. ↑ Template:Cite book
10. ↑ Template:Cite news
11. ↑ Nickelodeon Debuts First Full-Length Stop-Motion Special, It's A SpongeBob Christmas!, Dec. 9, At 7:30 p.m. (ET/PT). PR Newswire (October 31, 2012). Retrieved on May 8, 2013.
12. ↑ Beck, Jerry (November 6, 2012). It's A Spongebob Stop-Mo Christmas. *Cartoon Brew*. Retrieved on January 17, 2013.

***Mitchell Van Morgan***

 ***Mitchell Van Morgan* in other media**