The original announcement came in a Tweet, but IGN interviewed brothers Jared and Chad Moldenhauer, founders of Studio MDHR, for further information about their latest venture.
The Cuphead Show will be a comedy of some kind, featuring the adventures of Cuphead (obviously) and his brother Mughead as they journey across Inkwell Isles.
There’s no indication whether the plot of the Cuphead game will influence the show in any way, where the brothers must face off against the devil’s debtors to pay off their own arrears incurred during a gambling match. However, the Moldenhauers told IGN the show is still very early in production, so details are naturally thin on the ground — even for the show’s creators.
What they did say is that the show won’t retell the game’s story and isn’t directly tied to it. Instead, they view it as something similar to Mickey Mouse cartoons, where the plot and Mickey himself could be completely different from episode to episode.
Chad Moldenhauer said The Cuphead Show is designed so it’s safe for children, but it features plenty of things adults would understand and appreciate. In other words, it’s basically like the cartoons of the 1930s and later that inspired Cuphead to begin with.
Speaking of early 20th century cartoons, The Cuphead Show will retain an art style very close to the game’s hand-drawn animations. However, Studio MDHR said they aren’t actually working on the animations themselves; instead, Netflix’s in-house animation studio is responsible for the show.
The primary difference is the approach drawing the frames by hand. Each frame will still be hand-drawn, but not to paper. It’ll be what Chad Moldenhauer called “Tradigital,” where frames are drawn by hand into a computer.
The Moldenhauers will be the show’s executive producers, meaning they ultimately have the final say in the show’s direction, and they’ll be working alongside C.J. Kettler (of Carmen Sandiego, MTV, and Oxygen notoriety) with King Features. King Features is a branch of Hearst Entertainment, a company that owns the rights to classic cartoons like Betty Boop and Popeye, so Cuphead is in good company.
Netflix is certainly leading the charge for games-turned-series, adding The Cuphead Show to its already-announced The Witcher series. Alongside the Final Fantasy XIV TV adaptation and whatever PlayStation Productions has in the works, we’ve come a long way from the dark days of the Super Mario Bros Show.
