The New Adventures of Figaro Pho is an Australian children's animated television series about Figaro Pho, a character with every known phobia. One of the unique attributes of the series is that there is almost no dialogue at all. Instead the show requires strong animated physical-performance-based drama, music score and sound effects to carry the story.
Contents
- Creation
- Games
- The New Adventures of Figaro Pho episode titles
- Reception
- Key cast
- Writers
- Producers
- References
Figaro Pho has been the star of his own two-season television series as well as an anthology series of 26 90-second shorts and three touchscreen games.
The first series is available in over 100 countries on Hulu, Netflix, Cartoon Network Latin America, BBC Canada and iTunes.
Creation
Figaro Pho is the brainchild of creator and animation director Luke Jurevicius. The TV series and the games are produced by Australian production company Chocolate Liberation Front.
Creator Luke Jurevicius suffers from fears and phobias himself, and drew a lot on personal experience in the creation of the series. Jurevicius not only directs the program, but he also performs many of the key roles including doing the voice of Figaro Pho and composing a large part of the music.
The original shorts were first commissioned by the South Australian Film Corporation and The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s New Media and Digital Services Division as an innovative property for broadcast on ABC2 and online at ABC Online. The program was eventually produced for broadcast on ABC1, ABC2, ABC3, ABC iView. Following the success of the original shorts, ABC Kids commissioned 39 episodes of The Adventures of Figaro Pho for ABC3.
In 2014 producers Chocolate Liberation Front formed a partnership with Luma Toons, a new branch of the leading SFX studio Luma Pictures, to produce 39 episodes for the second series entitled The New Adventures of Figaro Pho. The program, which was entirely produced in Australia, was the first long form series produced by Luma.
In 2015 The New Adventures of Figaro Pho has started airing in August 2015.
Games
In 2014 ABC Commercial published a series of three Figaro Pho branded games for touch screen devices. These games are available through iTunes and the Google Play store.
The New Adventures of Figaro Pho episode titles
Reception
The series has been compared favorably to animation from Tim Burton. The series has been recognized for its humour, music and its stunning animation and special effects. It has won numerous awards around the world including being named 2014’s Best Children’s Program on three continents (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Awards.; The Asian Television Awards and Kidscreen New York). The program has also picked up awards for writing, digital effects, animation and post production.