Disney’s New Digital Series ‘Ginger Snaps’ Is Definitely Not For Kids
It’s safe to say that the Walt Disney Company has never aired an animated series like Ginger Snaps on any of its platforms.
The first episode of the short-form digital comedy series revolves around a troop of girl scouts trying to exploit someone’s cancer for financial gain, while the second episode is about a girl scout’s encounter with someone she believes to be a pedophile. Then, there’s dialogue exchanges like this:
“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be nice to have the cash for a new pair of shoes without having to do mouth stuff first.”
“Mom should have sold you into white slavery when she had the chance.”
“She should have let you have that sex change when you asked.”
“Ginger Snaps is an animated series about a group of girl scouts that run their troop like a drug cartel,” explains series creator Sono Patel. The nine-episode series was picked up by and launched in mid-June by ABCd, the digital-first media division of Disney’s ABC network, but the series is produced by Warner Bros. Television Group’s Blue Ribbon Content unit.
The project emerged out of WB Television Workshop’s Fresh Ink initiative, a program “dedicated to seeking out original and diverse voices, with the goal of developing comedy and drama ideas from women and ethnic minority writers into viable pilot scripts for sale to broadcast and cable networks.”
Patel, a writer on CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and NBC’s A to Z, initially pitched and sold Ginger Snaps as a live-action project back in 2014. The project was redeveloped for animation at Blue Ribbon Content, WB’s shortform digital content unit headed up by veteran cartoon exec Sam Register, who is also currently the president of Warner Bros. Animation.
The series features the voices of Lauren Lapkus, Cree Summer, Aparna Nancherla, Ashley Tisdale, Maria Bamford, and Kari Wahlgren, Carlos Alazraqui, and Brian Posehn.
It’s not clear whether the series will extend beyond the nine episodes that Disney recently released, but ABC has confirmed that it’s scaling back on ABCd, though it will continue to produce short-form digital-first content for other platforms.
