Why did Aardman/Decode’s CG-animated chickens cross the road? To get on Cartoon Network, silly! That’s right, the three Kung Fu-fighting chickens of Chop Socky Chooks will premiere on Cartoon Network in on Friday, March 7 at 9 p.m. after having much success in Canada and Europe.
The new toon follows the adventures of Chuckie Chan, KO Joe and Chick P’known as the mysterious Chop Socky Chooks’who live and work in the vast shopping mall of Wasabi World. The trio dedicates their lives to opposing Wasabi World’s owner, Doctor Wasabi, who’s set on world domination.
Here’s the back story, courtesy of the Cartoon Network crack p.r. team: Disguised as law-abiding mall dwellers, the philosophical Chuckie Chan, the streetwise KO Joe and the enigmatic Chick P transform into fighting mode at a moment’s notice. Raised by Monks, local Dojo owner Chuckie Chan has a very calm, centered, cautious and idealistic attitude for life. KO Joe rents the shop next door to Chuckie’s Dojo and runs a small but popular comic book emporium. Joe, orphaned at young age and raised by his grandfather, knows the Wasabi World mall like the back of his hand and has a larger-than-life attitude that is as big as his afro!
Chick P, the most down-to-earth of the three, works as a mall maintenance engineer, which allows her access to the innermost workings of the mall and an unrivaled opportunity to keep tabs on the felonious Doctor Wasabi. Her personal vendetta against Wasabi stems from childhood, when the deranged Doctor bulldozed her home in order to expand his ever growing mega-mall. The Chop Socky Chooks employ a combination of martial arts, espionage and razor-sharp wits to defend the citizens of Wasabi World from Wasabi and his monstrous egomaniacal schemes, be it Bonsai Shrink Rays or deadly Karaoke Zombies.
The series uses a combination of CGI and 2D design. All characters are created in full 3D models, which, in addition to allowing for great range of movement, brings a whole new level of excitement to the action sequences. The setting of Wasabi World is a helter-skelter neon-lit mall which thrusts out of a sea of fog like a re-imagined, futuristic Tokyo-Vegas mall/metropolis. Its many levels, advertising hoardings and surreal details create an exciting, unique and whimsical environment in which to set the Chooks’ adventures.
Chop Socky Chooks is created and directed by Sergio Delfino, an Aardman animator who worked on Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit in A Close Shave. The voice cast includes Paterson Joseph, Shelley Longworth, Rob Rackstraw, Paul kaye and Rupert Degas. Toronto-based C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures also contributed to the animation. For more info, visit www.chopsockychooks.com.
