It appears that even fictional public media isn’t safe these days, with news that Peacock has canceled its debut adult animated series In the Know.
Created by Mike Judge (Beavis and Butt-Head, King of the Hill), Zach Woods (Silicon Valley, The Office) and Brandon Gardner, the 6 x 30′ show premiered in January of 2024, combining stop-motion puppet animation by ShadowMachine in Portland (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio) with live-action celebrity interviews.
Riffing on perceptions of liberal public radio, In the Know centers on NPR’s “third most popular host,” Lauren Caspian — described as a “well-meaning, hypocritical nimrod” (and puppet) and voiced by Woods — as he conducts in-depth interviews with live guests such as Roxane Gay, Ken Burns, Norah Jones, Mike Tyson, Hugh Laurie and Jonathan Van Ness. The voice cast also included Judge as well as Caitlin Reilly, Charlie Bushnell, J. Smith-Cameron and Carl Tart.
The series was created and executive produced by Woods, Gardner and Judge (for Bandera Entertainment). Woods and Gardner also served as showrunners. In The Know was produced by Universal Television and animated by ShadowMachine (exec producers Alexander Bulkley and Corey Campodonico). The show won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation (Jan-Erik Maas) last year and is nominated for an Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in TV/Media (Jeff Riley). It scored a 71% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 95% audience rating.
[Source: Deadline]
