Father of the Pride

Production

In 2002, Jeffrey Katzenberg came up with the idea for the series when he visited Siegfried & Roy's show in Las Vegas: "I thought, I wonder what it's like for those lions. What must life be like from their point of view? [They're] living in Las Vegas, trying to raise a family and earn a living. In animation, we look for those things — a way to look at our lives through a fantasy world. It allows us to take on subjects that are too difficult to do with real people. It allows us to be more controversial. Edgier. There can be parody and innuendo and satire. Things can be sophisticated in a way that even our feature films can't be."

According to Katzenberg, the series was created for "an 18- to 49-year-old. It's not about checking to make sure you don't leave the 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds behind. This is purely an adult show."

Each episode cost an estimated $2 million to $2.5 million to produce, making it at the time of its release one of the most expensive half-hour television comedies ever.

It took more than 200 animators two years to make the series. Computer animation was produced at Imagi Animation Studios, in Hong Kong. Father of the Pride employed a small group of seasoned directors which included Mark Risley, Bret Haaland, Steve Hickner, John Holmquist, John Stevenson, and Mark Baldo. Felix Ip served as creative director for Imagi.

Long before its broadcast, the series was nearly cancelled, following the near-death of Roy Horn in October 2003; but after his condition improved, both Siegfried and Roy urged NBC to continue production. Katzenberg recalled, "There was a short period of time where we all just rocked out on our heels and couldn't be particularly creative and certainly not very funny. But Siegfried kept saying, every step of the way, that this show meant so much to them. So much to Roy. Then, even more than it ever did."

Opening sequence

The opening sequence starts off with a red sports car, with the Nevada license plate "MAGIC1," being driven by Siegfried and Roy past many of the attractions in Las Vegas. Cast names are presented on the marquees of the Strip hotels that, along with the Mirage, belonged to the MGM / Mirage Group at the time, before the car swerves into the Mirage Hotel. The scene then changes to the lions' house. Larry wakes up, late for his performance, on the couch before dashing towards the stage (but not before having a beer given to him by Snack). Larry (voiced by John Goodman) sings a rendition of Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas" as the background music throughout the title sequence.

Release

The series' debut on NBC on August 31, 2004 attracted 12.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched series of the week on the American television. However, the series was expected to do better, especially considering heavy promotion during NBC's coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Its opening ranked only the 13th of 16 fall comedies that NBC introduced since 1999.

The series' ratings began to decline. By November 2004, it was pulled from NBC's sweeps line-up. In early December, Jeffrey Katzenberg announced that he did not believe the series would be picked up for a second season. Over the next few months, the network aired several of the remaining episodes outside of sweeps periods, but the show did not return for a second season.

Father of the Pride received a negative response from TV critics, who considered it to be little more than a gimmick and a shill for other NBC and DreamWorks properties (two early episodes extensively featured The Today Show's Matt Lauer and another featured Donkey from the Shrek franchise). Also, many TV critics noticed that the series' humor was very similar to South Park (one episode had a character say, "Screw you guys, I'm goin' home!").

According to Katzenberg, Siegfried and Roy's reactions were more positive: "They laughed. A lot. They kept asking us to create more contradiction. Literally, one's blond and one's dark, and every aspect of their life is as black and white as that. They are always playful with one another, always playing tricks on one another. They encouraged us to have fun with that."

Home media

Father of the Pride was released on DVD on June 7, 2005, containing the original pilot, an alternate pilot (which draws heavily on the original), an un-aired episode, and one episode that was voice-recorded and not animated (and therefore, remains at the storyboard stage).

Protest from the Parents Television Council

In October 2004, the Parents Television Council's launched a campaign against Father of the Pride. Reasons cited for their opposition were the aforementioned use of anthropomorphic animals and the use of "from the creators of Shrek" in their promotions. The film in question was seen by the Council as much more family-friendly than this series, which the PTC stated could inadvertently draw the wrong audience based on the way it was promoted by NBC. Their campaign led to over 11,000 complaints to the Federal Communications Commission. In March 2006, the FCC ruled that the show was not indecent.

Awards and nominations

Father of the Pride won an Annie Award in 2005 for Character Design in an Animated Television Production. It was also nominated for a 2005 People's Choice Award in the category Favorite New TV Comedy Series.