No WoW Animated Series Yet?

There still isn’t a World of Warcraft based animated series on cable TV yet. (And what is the right phrase for “not on network TV” these days?  I haven’t had cable for over 8 years now.)

What is going on here?  This seems to me to be a natural.  Seriously, I thought we were past due on this a year ago.

Azeroth is a colorful place, full of conflict, humor, and garishly mis-matched armor.  Given some of the stuff I have seen on Cartoon Network of late, WoW seems poised to dominate there as well.  It certainly has more narrative potential than Sonic the freakin’ Hedgehog in my opinion, who recently got his own show.

And yet, nothing.

Is it possible that Blizzard, after pushing out or approving action figures, keyboards, a board game (which has two expansions already, that being one more than WoW actually has as of this date!), a trading card game, novels, posters, the sound track, a VISA card, some T-shirts, and a couple of hats, has drawn the line on licensing?

Is that it?

Has somebody down in Irvine said, “We need to reign in the money train here! No cartoons!  And no Zippo lighters!  Look what happened to EverQuest with those lighters.”

I only bring this up because I have been watching the cartoon version of Viva Pinata with my daughter recently.

Best cartoon ever!

If WoW could get something half as fun and funny, they would own us.

8 thoughts on “No WoW Animated Series Yet?”

  1. yunk

    The difference between a WoW cartoon and the old DnD cartoon, is that in the old DnD cartoon they had those special magic weapons that no one else had, and so Venger was always trying to steal them.

    In WoW, they’d be walking along, magic items falling out of their bags.
    “hey you dropped a magic item!”
    “meh I’ll get another one”
    *clubs nearby kobold on head, he falls down with X’s for eyes and a new magic sword pops out into the air and caught by 2nd character*
    “see? I told you”
    “neat”

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  2. DeSlisser

    Wilhelm, there are WoW comics already. At least in Europe I have seen them in stores, they could easily adapt that into a cartoon. As the story is quite ok. I mean nothing extraordinary, but in an adaptation it is easily good enough based on currents day cartoon standards.

    I have also seen some nice fan published parodies in comic form too, that would do great as a small cartoon production (http://deslisser.blogspot.com/2008/08/waow.html).

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  3. Saylah

    The success of the South Park I expected something animated as a series. I’d certainly tune in! Maybe they dont want the airwaves used as a medium until the movies comes out – if it ever does. Movies cost millions to make and a failed TV series could impact the movie audience potential.

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  4. Wilhelm2451 Post author

    Yes, the movies. *sigh*

    See, I think a episodic medium like television is much better suited to building up a relationship with an IP like WoW than a 90 minute in-theater experience.

    Not that I have a short attention span… I once drank a Big Gulp then sat through Spartacus… but I think bite sized chunks would serve them better for the long run. It would allow them to build up a cast of characters that could later translate to the big screen.

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  5. *vlad*

    WoW movie = D&D movie = big big turkey that is an embarrassment to anyone who plays the game.

    I’ve seen the comic books, too, but they look poor.
    Hand it over to the Japanese and let them make a decent Anime out of it. Only thing is, it would probably end up being adults only.

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  6. Scott

    I’d prefer an adults WoW movie, not that they’d make one, as it’d be like every other animated movie where clueless parents take their kids to it without minding the ratings, then bitch out the theatre later for not warning them.. sorry going off on a rant.

    I’d much prefer an epic high quality animated production similar to the scope of LotR. I think Blizzard could pull it off, their current animation trailers have always shown that internally they can pull off amazing video’s. If they could hire out and output that quality of animation plus nail some excellent voice actors and script – it’s possible.

    I think it was quoted somewhere where they were interested but would only do it if it was up their standards, ie. not a Uwe Bol production.

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