FISH HOOKS

Fish Hooks is an original animation comedy for the Disney Channel created by renowned children's book illustrator Noah Z. Jones, who using a clever amalgamation of digital animation and photo collage, tells the hilarious stories of three BFF's (best fish friends); Bea, Milo and Oscar. 

Set inside the large fish tank of Bud's Pet Shop, the fish friends go to high school and encounter typical life challenges involving friendship, dating and sports; as well as field trips to the hamster cage, thanks to their wet suits - that squirts out water every so often so they do not die in the air.

This sort of inventiveness with the format and tweaking of genre expectations, embracing the apparent limitations of fishes in a tank and giving them opportunites to go into the outside world, helps elevate this show above the usual slapdash animation/children television show you see on children's television.  The new series of Fish Hooks is making a splash on Disney Channel UK in the next few weeks.

The two episodes I have seen 'Bea Becomes An Adult' and 'Doggonit' both showed moments of appeal and typical moments of good dialogue due to the talented voice cast. Bea was allowed to embrace the 'Juno' like vernacular that made that such a good hit; a typical high school wish of being an adult and then realising that being an adult is not all it is cracked up to be; adults look older, eat terribly and work is hard work in fact, before realising that being at school and tended over by your needy mother is not to bad after all.
      'Doggonit' allowed Oscar (the worrier of the group, with a soft spot for Bea) to come to the fore, as well as the photo collage mixing with the digital animation most commonly when depicting a dog in a fish tank (!), it sounds loony but the conviction of direction and briskness of the script allows the episodes to whip by. 

The running time of each episode is only 10 minutes, which is perfect for the attention span of children in this day and age, especially the age group of 10-14 for which this is aimed at.  Already a success in its domestic market of America, I am sure given time to find its audience and with the willingness and support of Disney Channel UK it will be just as successful on these shores.