HBO is making an unusually deep commitment to adult animation, ordering original half-hour comedy Merrick & Treves with a two-season pickup.
What HBO has ordered
The series comes from Adam Reed, Casey Willis and Lucky Yates, the creative team behind FX’s Archer and Adult Swim’s Frisky Dingo. It is a period animation set inside Queen Victoria’s top secret Royal Temporal Constabulary, and it follows a group of unlikely heroes as they travel back and forth through time to stop Jack the Ripper.
Reed, Willis and Yates are co-creators and executive producers. Joel Begleiter will executive produce for TFC Productions, with Kelly Wu serving as co-executive producer.
Why the two-season order stands out
The pickup is the sharper signal. HBO Max has plenty of adult animated titles, but HBO itself has only dabbled in the format over the years. Giving an untested original two seasons at once suggests franchise intent rather than a wait-and-see pilot.
“Adam, Casey, and Lucky are exceptional comedic talents whom we have admired for years,” Amy Gravitt, executive VP of HBO programming and head of HBO & HBO Max comedy series, said in a statement. “We couldn’t be more excited to team up with them to bring the wholly original Merrick & Treves to HBO audiences.”
The creators’ response was similarly direct. In a joint statement, they described the HBO home as “daunting” and said they “can’t wait to start working with the creative team behind so many of our favorite shows.”
The business read
- Two seasons up front is a rarity for HBO’s own adult animation efforts.
- The Archer team brings built-in fan awareness to a new franchise.
- A period, time-travel, Jack the Ripper premise gives marketers a genre hook that can travel beyond the usual animation audience.
For media planners and entertainment marketers, the commitment means a longer window to plan campaigns and sponsorships around a property with an existing creative following. The creators’ track record lowers some discovery risk, but the period concept still has to prove it can hold an audience beyond the first burst of curiosity.
For the wider animation market, the order shows that a known creative team and a high-concept genre premise can attract a premium buyer willing to commit multiple seasons rather than a single order. That is a useful signal for producers and studios packaging original animated projects.
What to do about it
Track how HBO positions the show across its linear channel and Max. Because the team arrives with an active animation fanbase, early awareness campaigns can lean on that community instead of starting cold. And do not default to a children’s animation playbook; the period crime premise is pointedly adult.
The premium positioning is part of the value. HBO’s comedy team is steering the project, which gives it a linear-HBO identity as well as a streaming presence on Max. For marketers, that dual visibility is a reason to treat this as a cross-platform release rather than a single-platform buy.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
