HBO Family: 411

*"HBO Family: 411. Hip tips."* ~ Show tagline.

***HBO Family: 411*** (or simply *411)* was a short animated interstitial series that was seen during commercials on HBO Family. The shorts, which used 2D claymation, first aired in 1999, and new ones were produced up until 2000. The shorts reran for nearly two decades, until presumably January 2016 when the channel was rebranded. The series also aired on the *Jam* and *Magnet* blocks; the former airing it for it's entire lifespan, and the latter airing it for a while.

This interstitial series is mostly lost, with only four episodes surfaced, so information on this series is fairly limited. *Cuppa Coffee Studios*, the same company behind *Crashbox*, animated this series.

## Synopsis

Each episode begins with a telephone ringing labeled with "HBO Family 411" on it on a white background, then an arm with either orange and blue, or pink and yellow stripes pulls down the logo title card with a voice saying "HBO Family: 411, cool tips that'll make you hip!".

The title card goes up and transitions to Rex and Mouse, a yellow dog with a blue nose and a grey mouse who are best friends, doing something that corresponds to the short's lesson. Each episode explains a "hip tip" that can be done by the viewer to help others or the world out, such as saying thank you or recycling. At the end, the arm pulls down the card again, and the two characters appear on each side of the screen. The announcer states "HBO Family: 411, hip tips."

## Episodes

The only known episodes:

* Keeping a pet dish cold (pilot)
* Friends
* Saying Thank You: Show appreciation to others by sending notes or calling them to thank them for what they do. *(Found short)*
* Breakfast in Bed: Serve your parents breakfast in bed with simple things like cereal, toast, etc. to show how caring you are. *(Found short)*
* Planting a Tree: Plant a tree to help clean the air, as one day the little tree you plant will grow nice and tall. *(Found short)*
* Recycling: Recycle things that need to be recycled and talk to friends and neighbors to get a recycling program started. *(Found short)*
* Hobbies
* Logging onto computers
* Apologizing

## Trivia

* According to the old version of Cuppa Coffee's website, the series' target audience is to 8-10 year olds, despite airing on *Jam* and that most of it's lessons/tips that are only targeted for preschoolers.
* The name "411" is a reference to the directory assistance number with the same numbers, which was still common to call during the time the series initially aired, but became redundant over time due to the increasing popularity of internet search engines. It also is another word for "information".
* Depending on when the shorts were produced, the arm that pulls the series' title card in the beginning and end of each shirt vary from being either pink/yellow-striped or blue/orange striped.
* Both a boy and girl narrated the series.
* According to Kidscreen, the budget of the entire series was $250,000. With this information, it is known that each episode costed approximately $6,250 to make.
* In *Recycling* and *Breakfast in Bed*, the main characters were revealed to have relatives; Mouse's relatives appeared in the former short, while Rex's mother appeared in the latter short.
* The series have some differences between the 1999 and 2000 shorts.
	+ In the 2000 shorts, most of the characters look off-model, most notably Rex.
	+ Most of the 2000 shorts have a red shading. This wasn't present in the 1999 shorts.
	+ Most of the 2000 shorts have a female narrator, while most 1999 shorts had a male narrator.
	+ The music used in the 2000 shorts is noticeably longer than the 1999 shorts.
	+ Even the backgrounds were different in the 1999 shorts compared to the 2000 shorts.
* Sometimes, Jam would abruptly cut and/or fade out a few seconds aside in the end of the shorts.

## Gallery

### Characters

#### Rex

Rex's 2000 model.Rex in the closing card.