Back of the oven!
It has been (all told) thirteen years in the making but finally it has hit the screens. On Easter Monday, Channel5 the new animated kids show, Shane the Chef hit the screens. After all this time and now that it is out there I thought I would write a few posts about the origins of the show. A lot can happen over thirteen years.
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2005. Myself, my wife and our two daughters were sitting round the dinner table at Easter.
We had just finished a nice Sunday dinner. It was around that time that I first started working in TV. Up to that point I had been a GRaphic Designer, a Comic Book artist, an Illustrator and a Concept Artist for the games industry. But at this point in my career the opportunity had come for me to work in TV designing characters for an animated kids show called Legend of The Dragon. While sitting around the dining table the girls were reminiscing about the shows that they had enjoyed as kids. All sorts were mentioned and one of their favourites was Postman Pat. The other significant thing is that on that day our son was not able to be with us. He had recently started an apprenticeship as a chef and was working over Easter. With all this in mind my wife Lesley said “Why doesn’t someone make one of those sort of kids shows but about a chef” ………………..
And that was it. The seed was sown. The idea was born. We all chatted about some of the things that could be in it. The character could have his own restaurant. He could have a friend who is an organic farmer to supply the vegetables. The following day I sat in my studio and formed it all into an outline. The town and some of the characters and the idea that at the heart of its intention it could help young people understand food. Good, healthy fresh food. Just as the context of the show and not in an overt didactic way. Back then the main character was called Jeff (the chef). He worked in a small seaside restaurant owned by his father, ‘Pop’. And his organic farmer friend was a woman called Lilly. I took the proposal to show the producer of the TV show I was working on telling him I had an idea for a kids show. “We all have an idea for a kids show” he said. And he was right. Most people in the industry do. But with good grace he took a look at the idea anyway. He got it. He really got it and put me in touch with a TV writer he knew who had worked on a lot of Bob the Builder episodes. A good fit, right? Turns out that I had worked with said writer before, back in the old UK Marvel comic book days, on a Doctor Who strip. Anyway, we bashed it around and he used his skills to properly format it into a TV pitch that we could present to some producers.
Next post I will let you know how those pitch meetings went. And just exactly who those people that gave it the push were 🙂