Hello Neighbor Animated Series Pilot To Air Friday

It’s always interesting to see what games make the jump from the confines of your computer and into the world of merchandising and franchising. Minecraft, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Five Nights at Freddy’s, Assassin’s Creed… okay, let’s not talk about that last one. It’s very common for spooky games—especially the cartoony ones—to draw a large enough young audience to make printing plush toys akin to printing money. With that in mind, I can’t say I’m entirely surprised that Hello Neighbor is getting a pilot for an animated series. The game is probably more popular as a YouTube topic/spectator sport than an actual game.

What does surprise me is that the Hello Neighbor cartoon looks like an actual cartoon for children. As colorful and zany as Hello Neighbor is, it is an actual horror game. I remember a time in early access where the cartoony visuals were meant to juxtapose the terror, not be the selling point. But before you go thumbing your nose at it, kids need their gateway horror. I had Goosebumps. Monster High has probably spawned more new hardcore horror fans than the 2018 Halloween.

At any rate, this might not even be how the final show would look. This is just a test pilot to gauge interest in a larger series. This first episode, titled “Breaking & Entering,” is just 6-minutes long. The plot is simple enough: “A group of kids led by Nicky are breaking into their creepy Neighbor’s house to find their missing friends.” If enough people tune in, the good people at tinyBuild are hoping to get a distribution deal. The pilot is written by Carly Anne West, who wrote the four Hello Neighbor books. And if you’re wondering why it looks like a Cartoon Network cartoon, that’s because the animation studio behind it is Animasia Studios, who are best known for their work on Cartoon Network cartoons.

So if you’re a big fan of the Hello Neighbor lore or are looking for a good gateway horror piece for your kids, then check the show out when it premiers this Friday. It airs at 10 am PST (12 hours from now) on the tinyBuild YouTube channel. You can find where it will broadcast and set a reminder by clicking here. Subscribers to the YouTube Community will also get 14-minutes of behind-the-scenes extras.