The Adventures of Andy Griffin

The Adventures of Andy Griffin is a Great Scorrian animated series created by Dylan Jeffries and made by Flux (season 1) and Oyster Animation (all seasons) and has been broadcast by TVGS 2 and other channels. Since it premiered, comparisons have been drawn to Sierran animated series SpongeBob SquarePants.

TVGS and Oyster have announced that, due to an increase in the show's budget as part of GS On Air's animation investments, spin-offs will be created in the near future. It is known that one of the spin-offs will be catered at ethnic Northulesians whose first language isn't English.

The series premiered on TVGS 2 in 2001. So far six seasons have been produced.

Premise

The series takes place in an underwater city supposedly off the shores of the Great Scorrian city of Neptune. The citizens consist entirely of merpeople who live in buildings similar to those on land and don't rely on cars for transportation. The main actions take place in the house where Andy Griffin lives. Down the street live Shelly Griffin and Cody Griffin, his best friends. Andy works at stores at the neighboring mall. His arch-nemesis, Dr. Frathenkorp, is critical of Andy's actions and wants to steal his secrets. The sea is ruled by King Neptune, who is considered to be "the most powerful merman on sea".

Characters

• Andy Griffin: the titular character of the series. He seems to work at an unspecified factory.
• Cody Griffin: a primitive merman who lives in a primitive hut. While not mentioned by the production team, he is definetly an impoverished Naenian merman who is alone in society and has little to no friends.
• Shelly Griffin: Andy's girlfriend.
• Sandra Griffin: A scientist who speaks in standard Kimberlian.
• Cory Griffin: Andy's cousin who lives with Shelly.
• Dr. Frathenkorp: the arch-nemesis of Andy Griffin. In older seasons, he owned a decadent, corrupt corporation, Frathen Korp, after his name.
• King Neptune
• King Taorae: representing the traditional merman king according to Naenian culture.

Episodes

Pilots

• New Employee (Flux)
• New Employee (Oyster)

Season 2

• An Andy Griffin Christmas

Andy thinks Santa can reach the merworld.

Season 4

• The Great Journey: Andy and friends travel to a kingdom (with traits similar to Lenapore City) and wreak chaos.

Production

Jeffries was passionate about animation. In 1996, he drew a few sketches of a merman character, Andy, inspired by a merman he saw. At the same time, Television Great Scorria and Great Scorria On Air underwent a public contest for new local animated series and he decided to turn his concept into a series.

Jeffries submitted his concept art to two animation studios, Flux and Oyster. Both studios submitted pilot episodes with the same premise: Andy was hired by a Sondrian restaurant. Eventually the concept of a Sondrian restaurant was dropped because the two bodies (TVGS and GS On Air) had realized that such a series would incite merpeople to work at restaurants, and that the storylines had to be forcibly changed.

The series was approved by TVGS in 1999. The first season was to be a joint production between the two houses, Flux and Oyster. In the same year, SpongeBob SquarePants arrived to Great Scorria, first on Nickelodeon, then on TV3. Members of the crew watched the series (some did not watch the first episode at all) and noted an uncanny similarity between the Andy Griffin pilots and SpongeBob's first episodes. In January 2000, Jeffries stated that "it was not our intention to make a series that looked just like an international television series with more potential recognition than something made in Great Scorria. Great Scorrian animation is not sold worldwide, and this just shows the flaws that lie in our industry". The owner of a Sondrian restaurant was retooled in order to avoid similarities with Mr. Krabs, yet his enemy, Dr. Frathenkorp, remained. When it was realized that an episode of SpongeBob was going to feature a green-skinned merman (something the producers of Andy Griffin were against), they settled on a more conventional merman style and added King Taorae for "local flavor". Jibes still persisted that the addition of Taorae was an obstacle for exporting. It did, however, generate interest from international broadcasters from getting the rights to it and interest in Northulesian culture, even though the series was not clearly Northulesian from the onset.

The first episode was broadcast in June 2001. It consisted of twenty episodes with two ten-minute segments each. The structure copied that of SpongeBob's first five seasons (especially the first one). If ratings were to be low, TVGS wouldn't renew it. However, it gained an unusual 60% share in its first episode, something considered "unique" for a series that was influenced by foreign cartoons and was made locally.

Comparisons to SpongeBob SquarePants

The series has drawn huge comparisons to SpongeBob SquarePants, however any claims that the series is a rip-off are entirely false, in a similar way to how SpongeBob was incorrectly referred as an inspiration of Disney Channel series Fish Hooks. The key change is the fact that the main characters are all merpeople, not sea animals in general like SpongeBob. The main character, Andy, is some sort of avatar of SpongeBob, as he seems to work. The Sondrian restaurant idea was dropped because "Andy working in restaurants, regardless of the type, was basically the same as SpongeBob working at The Krusty Krab". Cody is an avatar of Patrick.

Broadcast

First-run episodes were shown on TVGS 2 (then TV2) since the series debuted. As the series is a local production, it was prone to have more repeats than the imports. On cable and satellite, the series was picked up by Disney Channel in 2003 in order to reach to the greater Sondria-Northulic region.

The series was sold to individual broadcasters in Lenapore (Kids Central - now Okto), Northulia (Nine Network), the New Michillies (TVNM), Flarland (K-Zone) and Hopeland (Kingson) with limited levels of success. Selling the series to the USS was a complicated task, considering the fact that the Sierran networks weren't highly interested in a Great Scorrian product.