My Child: Teenage Mutant Azanians, the first ever half-hour of adult, animated comedy produced for an Africa audience, will premiere Dec. 5 at the Comedy Central International Comedy Festival.
It will have its broadcast premiere Dec. 11 on Comedy Central Africa.
Created by Nick Wilson and Steven Pillemer, with writing contributions from Nina Hastie, Trevor Gumbi and director Peter Heaney, the self-financed pilot is described as South Park spliced with Animal Farm.
My Child: Teenage Mutant Azanians tells the story of Professor Afronaut, Africa’s top technocrat, as he pilots the maiden voyage of Africa’s first space tourism program, together with Africa’s top leaders and celebrities. While in flight, a cunning chimpanzee is released from his cage in stowage and in the ensuing bedlam the ape bites the spacecraft’s nuclear stabilizer. There is an almighty atomic explosion and all these leaders and celebrities are cross-mutated with adolescent animals. These animal-human hybrids return to Earth and are subsequently exiled to the land of Azania. It is here that Professor Afronaut founds the Nelson Mandela School for Gifted Mutants, with melodrama and comedy playing out amongst the characters with very different backgrounds and divergent personalities.
My Child: Teenage Mutant Azanians began on social media in 2010, achieving 300,000 views over a three-month period.
“The Comedy Central International Comedy Festival and Comedy Central have given us the first tangible opportunity to prove that an audience for our content in Africa exists,” says co-creator and producer Nick Wilson.
