Tonight (Tuesday, April 22) sees that rarest of beasts get an outing on ITV4 - a British animated series aimed exclusively at adults.

Warren United - co-created by Men Behaving Badly's Simon Nye and featuring the voice of BAFTA winner Darren Boyd - is a new animated sitcom about family, football and the passion of being a fan.

"While Warren United focuses on a bloke who's crazy about football, it's really about passion," said co-executive producer Henry Normal. "Football's about human stories - we've tried to capture that."

The first of six Warren United episodes airs tonight at 9pm, but could the series be at the forefront of an animation revolution in the UK?



On April 1, a new tax break for the UK animation industry went into effect, with many predicting a boost for UK-based production - but will that be enough to reverse the long-floundering fortunes of adult animation in Great Britain?

No one's questioning the UK's capacity to create classic cartoons - the animated series that this sovereign state has produced for children's are among the world's finest. But while others have capitalised on adult animation, the UK has for years been lagging behind. In particular, our American cousins have been showing us how it should be done for decades.

Ask your average telly watcher to put forward a cartoon aimed at adults and they will likely namecheck The Simpsons or Family Guy or South Park - all US series.

These three are animation titans - supreme moneymakers - and even those shows that UK residents might not be immediately familiar with - Bob's Burgers, Archer - have a sizeable fanbase Stateside.

US broadcasters even dedicate entire programming blocks to adult animation. The Fox network has aired its Animation Domination block - comprised of The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers and more - for almost nine years, while Cartoon Network has also seen considerable success with its Adult Swim spinoff - airing the likes of Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and new cult favourite Rick and Morty.

So why hasn't adult animation ever taken off in the same way here? Why is the genre such a rarity on UK television?



Perhaps it's because - unlike US TV - we've never had that one defining hit. The contemporary animation landscape in America has been entirely defined by The Simpsons - every single adult-oriented cartoon airing on US screens owes a debt to Matt Groening's veteran series.

Its influence is more evident in some cases than others - Peter Griffin certainly wouldn't exist without Homer Simpson. But, if The Simpsons hadn't debuted to such phenomenal success almost 25 years ago, then perhaps adult animation would be in short supply on US channels too.

Despite the gamut of works proving it to be a falsehood, animation is still too often disregarded as 'just for kids' so making cartoons aimed at grown-ups still seems like a risky endeavour. You need a proven hit to install consumer confidence - but where America had The Simpsons, the UK had Stressed Eric and Bromwell High.

BBC Worldwide



With the rare and notable exception of BBC Three's Monkey Dust, the UK's attempts at adult animation for the television have all floundered in their attempts to mimic America's output - the abysmal Bromwell High in particular was a reheated South Park clone with none of that show's verve or wit.

What's needed to kickstart the UK's adult animation revolution - and to take advantage of those tax breaks - is for someone to dream up a new series that couldn't have been devised anyplace else. Something that's as uniquely British as The Simpsons is uniquely American.

Whatever that series is, it would need to be broader in its appeal than the superb but pitch-black Monkey Dust. The verdict's still out on Warren United but, with its strong comedy pedigree and popular themes - football, family - here's hoping that ITV4's new effort could be the start of something big.

Why is adult animation such a rarity in the UK? Is a big hit needed to kick off the trend? Share your thoughts below!

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