Bone (TV series)

Bone is an American fantasy-adventure comedy animated television series created by Jeff Smith, based on his comic book series of the same name. The show was produced independently at Cartoon Books Entertainment, a division of Cartoon Books. It premiered Saturday, September 5, 1998 on Cartoon Network.

Premise
The series centers on the Bone cousins, white, bald cartoon caricatures. In the pilot episode “Out from Boneville” the three Bone cousins, an avaricious and greedy Phoncible P. "Phoney" Bone, a goofy cigar-smoking Smiley Bone, and an everyman character Fone Bone, have been run out of their hometown of Boneville after Phoney's campaign for mayor went awry. After crossing a desert, the cousins are separated by a sea of locusts and individually ending up in the mysterious Valley and must make their way across the fantasy landscape pursued by rat creatures (Fone Bone uses a mysterious hand-drawn map that Smiley had found). They joyously reunite at a local tavern called Barrelhaven, where they are taken in by a mysterious girl named Thorn and her even more enigmatic grandmother. Fone Bone instantly develops a crush on Thorn when he meets her, and repeatedly attempts to express his love through poetry. As they stay longer in the Valley, they encounter humans and other creatures who are threatened by a dark entity, the Lord of the Locusts. The Bones, trying to escape to Boneville, are quickly drawn into the events around them, compelling them on a hero's journey to help free the Valley.

Although Boneville is never actually shown in the story, it is implied as technologically contemporary: Fone refers to its extensive downtown and has comics for Smiley and a copy of Moby Dick in his pack, Phoney carries dollar bills, and Smiley refers to a PizzaInACup™ and a CornDogHut™. In contrast, the Valley is depicted as somewhat medieval, in as much as its citizens employ a barter system, weapons, and modes of transportation similar to those of the Middle Ages, and Phoney persistently refers to the valley people as "yokels".

Background
In the late 1990s, an attempt was made through Nickelodeon Movies to produce a film version of Bone. Jeff Smith said in a 2003 interview that Nickelodeon had insisted on the Bone cousins being voiced by child actors, and wanted the film's soundtrack - like those of previous Nickelodeon fare such as The Rugrats Movie and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius - to include pop songs by the likes of N'Sync. Smith's response was that one would never insert pop songs in the middle of The Lord of the Rings or The Empire Strikes Back, and therefore pop songs should not be placed in Bone either. Smith then decided to abandon the movie idea and instead developed this cartoon series based off his Bone comic stories entirely.

Voices
Rob Paulsen (Fone Bone), Andrew Chaikin (Phoney Bone) and Jeff Bennett (Smiley Bone) played the voices of the Bone Cousins respectively. Drew Barrymore and Julia Roberts are both the voices of Thorn and Rose Harvestar. Lucius Down is played by Paul Newman. Sean Schemmel is the voice of the Great Red Dragon.

Animation
Animation is handled overseas at Wang Film Productions in Taiwan, Tama Productions in Japan and Rough Draft Studios in Seoul, South Korea. For the entirety of the series, this show utilizes digital ink-and-paint.