Grojband

Grojband is a Canadian animated children's television series created and directed by Todd Kauffman and Mark Thornton. It was produced by Fresh TV and Neptoon Studios in association with FremantleMedia. Executive producers are Brian Irving, George Elliott and Tom McGillis, Jennifer Pertsch, creators of the hit animated reality franchise "Total Drama". It is geared toward children ages 6 to 11. The series premiered on June 10, 2013 in the United States, on September 5, 2013 in Canada, and on April 21, 2014 in the United Kingdom.
Synopsis.
"Grojband" follows the story of a Canadian indie rock garage band of the same name formed by Corey Riffin and his three best friends, Laney and twin brothers Kin and Kon, as they work together to propel their band to international stardom. When they do not have the lyrics, Corey and his friends get Trina, Corey's sister, into an emotional mode to write entries in her diary that Corey can use for lyrical inspiration, so that Corey and his friends can perform a perfect song.
Characters.
The Newmans.
The Newmans are a gender-reversed doppelgänger band to Grojband. They are Grojband's rivals and always compete with them for different gigs or in contests. They are named after the character Newman from "Seinfeld". Their voice actors are the same as the original Grojband.
Production.
Series co-creator Todd Kauffman has stated that he had always wanted to make a series about a garage band, and believed the concept of having the band's songs come out of the diary of the lead character's sister would make the premise more interesting. Using this idea, he was able to successfully pitch the series to Fresh TV and its president Tom McGillis. Soon afterwards, Teletoon, FremantleMedia, and Cartoon Network all took interest in the project and came in to help with its production and distribution.
The series is animated in Adobe Flash, with series co-creator Mark Thornton stating that using the software removes the need to outsource the show's animation to countries outside of Canada as is commonly done with American animated series. In producing the series, the creators sought to homage and take inspiration from a wide variety of movies and television series, particularly the works of American animators like Craig McCracken, Maxwell Atoms, and Genndy Tartakovsky, as well as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and the works of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. They also sought to explore many genres and styles of music with the series, including country music, heavy metal, yodeling, sea shanties, and even elevator music.
Many concepts were changed as the series developed. Notably, "Grojband" was originally pitched as a 22 minute series with its intro and theme song being 60 seconds long, but in the final product, episodes are instead 11 minutes long and the show's intro and theme song are 20 seconds long. These changes resulted in the removal of several plot elements ignored or unexplained in the final product, including the presence of the characters' parents and Corey and his band having to return Trina's diary back to her without being noticed at the end of every episode. Another notable change between the original pitch and the final product is that Corey and Trina's shared last name is "Trippin" instead of "Riffin".
Broadcast.
In the United States, the series was aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang from June 10, 2013 to July 12, 2015. In Canada, it debuted on September 5, 2013 on Teletoon and Télétoon. "Grojband" debuted on February 10, 2014 on ABC3 in Australia and in April 2014 on Pop in the United Kingdom. The show started airing on April 8, 2014 on Cartoon Network in Africa.
In 2017, an official YouTube channel featuring clips from the series was launched.
Home media.
On December 10, 2013, an official website for the series was launched.
In Australia, "Grojband" was released on DVD on June 4, 2014 by Shock Entertainment. Two volumes were released: "Rock On" (containing episodes 1-13) and "Hear Us Rock!" (containing episodes 14-26).
In December 2015, all 26 episodes of "Grojband" were added to Netflix in the US. Two years later, the show was removed.