“Another show we’re doing in house is called Squidbillies,” Crofford continues. “It’s about a family of squids stranded in North Georgia when a flood recedes. It’s been in development a while and we’re still trying to figure out how to make it work. We may have found a solution and we’re shooting for a December pilot, but it’s hard to concentrate on producing another new show when our guys are already working on our current shows.

“We’ve also got Tom Goes to the Mayor coming up for a limited run in November if we can stay on schedule. This one is `Mayberry on acid’ — Bob Odenkirk from Mr. Show is the executive producer. Tom is a young entrepreneur who keeps coming up with ideas that he thinks will make his town run better, like surrounding the playground with bear traps to protect the kids. Tenacious D play brothers who run rival bear trap stores.

“Seth Green is producing our first stop-motion animation show for next year. It’s going to be a real fast-paced, pop culture-referenced comedy sketch show along the lines of Saturday Night Live. Seth’s called in a lot favors from his friends to come and do voices on the show. It’ll probably air in February. We still don’t have a name for it — right now it’s The Untitled Seth Green Project.”

The last show on Crofford’s list will undoubtedly be a major attention-getter for Adult Swim and Cartoon Network: an adaptation of Aaron McGruder’s in-your-face, politically charged Boondocks comic strip, set to premiere in the fall of 2005. “The show’s being done in traditional, full animation,” says Crofford. “It’s going into production right now because we need the full nine months to produce an episode.” When asked how Adult Swim can finance a late-night show with prime-time level budget, he replies “With smoke and mirrors, basically. Actually, Adult Swim is doing so well now, we can afford to do higher-end productions.” When asked what lies further down the road for Adult Swim, Crofford only says “We’re going to keep on throwing curve balls.”

A slew of anime shows and off-network reruns still fill the majority of the late night block’s schedule. Crofford admits “I was a Cowboy Bebop fan for a long time. When I heard it was available, I wanted to jump all over that. A lot of anime series have toys and DVDs they want to sell, so the producers will license them to us at a fairly good price in exchange for the exposure. Eventually we’ll do some co-productions with our Japanese friends.”

Coming this fall: Tom Goes to the Mayor may be Mayberry on acid while a primetime budget and traditional animation will be on view for the adaptation of Boondocks. © & TM 2004 Cartoon Network (left) and © Aaron McGruder. Reprinted with permission of uclick. All rights reserved (right).

Short-lived, off-network shows like The Oblongs, Baby Blues or Mission Hill that originated with Cartoon Network’s corporate sibling Warner Bros. Television are natural acquisitions, with Crofford acknowledging “they’re easy to pick up — we have the inside track on them.”

It was a slot on Adult Swim — combined with awesome DVD sales — that led to the resurrection of Fox TV’s Family Guy. “Fox was shocked at the show’s popularity,” recalls Crofford. “We love the show and gave it a consistent place to be found. The show was jerked all over [Fox’s] schedule. It’s hard to be a fan if you don’t know when the show’s on.

“One faction at Fox was lobbying for the show and one wasn’t. I think what really woke them up was the million and a half DVDs they sold.” Fox vp Scott Grogin agrees, “When you sell that many DVDs, you have to pay attention.” Now that Cartoon Network is sharing production costs, Family Guy will return to Fox’s schedule next summer, with episodes repeating a week later on Adult Swim.

It’s way too early to predict, but in all likelihood Family Guy will rejoin Fox’s Sunday night wacky family block. It would be a perfect match with the network’s cartoon-y live-action shows like Malcolm in the Middle, not to mention its animated perennials The Simpsons (335 episodes under its belt as it enters its 16th season) and (a relative newcomer with a mere 104 episodes and eight seasons). Or Fox may decide to pair it with Seth McFarlane’s upcoming new series American Dad, set for a spring 2005 premiere.

Grogin describes Dad as “incredibly creative and subversive. There’s some similarity to Family Guy, but American Dad is a unique TV show.” This time around dad is Stan Smith, an ultra-conservative, ultra-paranoid CIA operative whose family includes a German-accented goldfish with the hots for his wife and a sarcastic, live-in space alien who sounds like Paul Lynde. In spite of its bizarre cast, the show’s six-minute pilot resembles a traditional sitcom, with the characters exchanging wisecracks around the kitchen table or living room sofa. Whether the series plays out on a wider canvas or is deliberately adopting an All in the Family look remains to be seen.

Remember that Simpsons Halloween episode where the camera dollied past gravestones of other network’s failed attempts at prime-time animation? NBC is crossing its fingers that Father of the Pride won’t be the next show to have its name carved in stone.

The CGI-animated series from DreamWorks owes its life to that studio’s ogre-sized success with Shrek and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s friendship with NBC honcho Jeff Zucker. As Katzenberg recalls, “When the film first came out Jeff Zucker approached me and wondered if it was possible to do something in CGI with Shrek‘s quality. Three and half years ago the technology wasn’t there to do it at a reasonable price. Every six months or so we’d revisit it, then about a year and a half ago I said, `Now it’s possible. It’ll take a long lead time, and it’ll be expensive but not prohibitive’.”