Fish Hooks

Fish Hooks is a Disney Channel animated cartoon created by Noah Z. Jones. It stars Chelsea Kane, Kyle Massey and Justin Roiland as Bea, Milo and Oscar respectively. It premiered on September 3, 2010 with "Bea Stays in the Picture" as a preview, and premiered officially on September 24, 2010.

Plot
The series follows Milo, Bea and Oscar, three best friends who live in a giant fish tank trying to navigate their way through the choppy waters of high school. Together they experience the typical life challenges and triumphs, including friendship, dating and sports, along with more atypical situations such as giant lobster attacks and, with the use of special land suits, school field trips to the hamster cages.

Episodes

 * Main articles: Episode Guide, Season 1, Season 2

Characters
The main characters are Bea, Milo and Oscar. Bea is the overly dramatic fish and awaits for her chance at stardom. Milo is the adventurous fish, and is always looking for a chance to party. Oscar is the high-strung fish and enjoys playing video games. The show also includes many of the fish's friends, all of which go to Freshwater High with the three. Jocktopus is the tentacled octopus bully, while Albert and Jumbo, the smartest fish at Freshwater, get bullied frequently by them. Clamantha, Shellsea, Koi, Esmargot and Finberley are Bea's friends, who usually spend time together shopping at the mall or having slumber parties. There are also other students at Freshwater, including the evil crab Randy, the most popular student Steve Jackson, Jocktopus' henchman Pass, Punt and Fumble, Jocktopus' girlfriend Piranhica, the farming-obsessed student Bo Gregory and the French posh student Hugh Edmondson. There is also Freshwater's teachers, all of which are either boring, over-excited or not willing to do their job.

Other animals in the pet store often get involved with the fishes' adventures, as well as Bud, the pet store owner.

Voices
There is a big Fish Hooks cast. The main cast is Chelsea Kane, Kyle Massey and Justin Roiland who voice Bea, Milo and Oscar respectively. Some supporting cast are Alex Hirsch (Clamantha), Atticus Shaffer (Albert Glass), John DiMaggio (Jocktopus), Tress MacNeille (Bassy) and Kimberley Mooney (Finberley). There are also guest stars voicing characters in most episodes. Some guest stars are Doug Brochu, Lauren Tom, Felicia Day and Kevin Michael Richardson.

Early production
The series started out when Noah Z. Jones was contacted by Disney executives after seeing some of Jones' work online. They asked Jones if he would like to do anything with his drawings for a television series. Jones sent Disney five ideas for a short, and out of those ideas, Disney picked one that would eventually become Fish Hooks. Originally, the series was to revolve around a band, but the band angle was dropped in favour of a more situational comedy approach, because there was a lot of band concepts for series around at the time. During early production, Fish Hooks was called Fish Tales. The original pilot is likely to be an early version of "Bea Stays in the Picture" (the pilot), and parts of it have only been seen in a promotional advertisement for 2011 TV series and movies in Latin America.

On October 30, 2009, president of entertainment Gary Marsh announced that Fish Hooks was under production. He said of the show, "The ' Fish Hooks ' team has created one of the most original, inventive animated series on television – bringing an ingenious twist to the classic archetypes of high school life." The series is produced using a mix of 2D digital animation, CGI, and photo collages.

The first season
On August 26, 2010 a press release was released, which revealed Fish Hooks ' recurring cast and premiere dates. A schedule of releases was also released:
 * Friday, September 3
 * A preview of Fish Hooks (10:00 p.m., ET/PT) follows the premiere of Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam on Disney Channel. Viewers can enter the world of Fish Hooks online at DisneyChannel.com/FishHooks to meet the characters, Bea, Milo and Oscar, in the "Interactive Fish Tank" and to play Fish Hooks themed games.


 * Saturday, September 4
 * Preview of Fish Hooks available on mobile VOD.


 * Friday, September 10
 * Preview of Fish Hooks available on iTunes.


 * Friday, September 17
 * A full episode preview of Fish Hooks available on Disney Channel SVOD.


 * Friday, September 24
 * Fish Hooks series premiere on Disney Channel (9:00 p.m., ET/PT) with simulcasts on Sprint TV, MobiTV and Flo TV.

21 half-hours were produced in the first season.

Picking out the details
Jones chose to do a series on fish, because fish are easy to draw and are very colourful. "They look like little gumdrops with faces," Jones said. He chose the location of a pet store, so the fish could have a massive world to explore. Noah said that he chose a high-school environment because it's a rich environment for stories, and high school is a time when friends are most important to your life.

Other production
Sometimes, when the crew designs a new character, they make it look a bit like their voice actor; usually it's by accident. When the board artists pitch a new episode, they show a rough comic-strip on the story, and show it to the rest of the crew. When producing characters, the crew of Fish Hooks create the character and come up with a story to go around it, and sometimes its the other way round.