Talking Friends

***Talking Friends*** is an animated web series of shorts distributed by Disney Multimedia. The series consisted of 10 episodes of 3 minutes that released on YouTube from 8 June 2012 to 31 August 2012.

It is the earliest known media adaption of the Talking Tom & Friends franchise.

## History

On 25 May 2011, articles announced that Outfit7 were interested in the concept of expanding their app series into a short Saturday morning cartoon series, specifically mentioning Tom and Ben as characters who could appear within it.

The first episode officially released on 8 June 2012, as a CGI animated web series which was distributed by Disney Multimedia on their YouTube account, and along with Tom and Ben, Ginger, Pierre, Angela and Gina would also appear. The last episode aired on 31 August 2012.

According to *The New York Times*, various studios including DreamWorks Animation, 20th Century Fox (later acquired by Disney in 2019) and Nickelodeon had the chance to adapt the franchise in film or television before passing on the opportunity, until Disney Interactive took the offer.

The show's soundtrack was composed by Alfred Montejano, while two additional songs were released by Walt Disney Records. The first, titled *You Get Me* was released on the iTunes Store on June 12, 2012, to promote *Tom Loves Angela*, and the second, titled *That's Falling in Love*, was released to promote *Talking Angela*. The music video for *You Get Me* was produced by ARX Anima, Walt Disney Interactive Media Group and Outfit7 and released on June 12, 2012, by Walt Disney Records. The scenes featured were originally produced for the music video and were not taken from any existing clips in the series. The music video was, however, was animated in the same style as the series. A teaser video for *That's Falling in Love* was also later released by Disney Music on December 6, 2012.

## Description

This series is based on the Talking Friends series and features some of the characters from the apps, such as Tom, Ben, Ginger, Pierre and Gina, who live in a trailer in the desert. Angela also appears as a recurring character.

## Characters

### Main Characters

* Tom
* Ben
* Ginger
* Pierre
* Gina

### Recurring Characters

* Angela
* The Hand

### One-Time Characters

* Newserator 3000
* Giant Robot
* Large Armadillo
* News Presenter

## Cast

* Michael Tauzin as Tom and Ginger
* Michael D. Cohen as Ben
* Susannah Hillard as Angela

## Release

the series premiere and remaining episodes were released on Disney.com, as well as onto Disney's official YouTube channel, serving as their debut series on the platform. The series finale aired two months later on August 31, 2012.

### Marketing

To help promote the series, Outfit7 created an app exclusive to iOS devices known as *Talking Friends Cartoons* that featured all ten episodes, as well as additional content including descriptions of the characters and downable wallpapers. The app, however, garnered controversy with some of the advertisements. For instance, a banner displayed at the bottom of the screen while the app was launched directed users to take part in quizzes that included prizes such as a 64GB iPad, which were unable to be completed unless users would spend monthly fees for a membership service. This ultimately resulted in many people feeling upset over the product as well as leaving many parents frustrated over the concerns.

A live performance event also took place in Hollywood that featured DJs from Radio Disney, plush toy giveaways and performers dressed and wearing makeup to portray the characters to promote the *Talking Friends Superstars* toy line.

## Trivia

* This series was originally going to be called The Adventures of Talking Friends.
* This is the first series not to be animated by Arx Anima. Instead, it would be animated by Karactaz.
* This is the only series to have Angela and Gina as recurring characters.
* Unlike her appearances in the apps, Gina is a squeaky toy in this series.
	+ According to Talking Friends Cartoons, Gina was portrayed as a squeaky toy because she was too busy to attend the filming.