The Jumping Ground

The Jumping Ground is an New Zealand-American animated science-fiction sitcom created by Lee Eisenhower and Conrad Vernon and produced from 1998 to 2002 for New Zealand television and from 2002 onwards for American television. The show has become famous for its crude language and dark, surreal humor that satirizes a wide range of topics. Over time, it has developed a quirky, humorous and sometimes controversial style. Characters are designed and animated using different styles and techniques (stylized traditional animation, puppetry, CGI, stop motion, Flash animation, etc.) and put on live-action backgrounds.

Initially developed and produced in Wellington, The show ran for five seasons on TVNZ 2, with FX airing the series in the United States starting in mid-1998, becoming one of its most successful series. After being cancelled by TVNZ 2 in 2002, production moved from Wellington to Santa Monica, California, with FX renewing the series for additional seasons. With a 20-year run, 22 seasons, and more than 300 episodes, The Jumping Ground is the first original series on FX and remains the longest-running original series on the channel to date, the longest-running New Zealand animated series, is also one of the longest-running United States animated series, with the show's twenty-third and final season set to air in 2019.

The ongoing narrative revolves around four kids—PuffPuff Humbert, Lance Patrick, Zowie Hosker, and Rob Broflovski — and their bizarre adventures in and around the fictional town of Pencaster, Ohio, exploring the galaxy and defend against alien threats such as the Goa'uld, Replicators, and the Ori. The series draws upon Egyptian mythology, Norse mythology, and Arthurian legend. Much like The Simpsons, The Jumping Ground utilizes a very large ensemble cast of recurring characters.

The Jumping Ground has received numerous accolades, including won a Reuben Award, two Leo Awards, two AACTA Awards, and was also nominated for another four Leo Awards, an Annie Award, two Kids' Choice Awards, and three AACTA Awards, and numerous inclusions in various publications' lists of greatest television shows. Merchandise for The Jumping Ground includes games and toys, and print media. A spin-off series, The Hellucard Show, featuring the minor character Hellucard, aired from 21 September 2009 to 26 May 2014. Another spin-off Troll Patrol, is currently airing since 21 September 2012. The show's recent popularity resulted in a feature-length theatrical film, The Jumping Ground Movie which was released in 15 July 2016, and became a commercial success, with another movie set for release on 10 July 2020. In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Jumping Ground the thirteenth Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time.

Series Overview
The Jumping Ground follows the present-day adventures of a student body/military team from Earth, who venture to distant planets using a fictional alien portal known as a Groundbridge, which in the series is housed in a educational, recreation and science facility known as the Langham Institute in Downtown Pencaster, Ohio. In the first four seasons and Season 14-20, the mission of the students is to explore the galaxy and search for alien technology and allies to defend Earth against the Goa'uld, a snake-like parasitic alien race that takes humans as unwilling hosts. As explained in the series' backstory, the Goa'uld had transported human slaves from Earth to other habitable planets across the galaxy billions of thousands of years ago and now pose as gods of Ancient Earth mythologies, particularly Egyptian mythology, led by Shinnok. The students eventually learns that highly evolved human-like beings, known as the Ancients, had originally built the Groundbridge network millions of years earlier, before they used their extraordinary powers to ascend to a higher plane of existence, after which they pledged to not interfere in the lives of other species. The Ori, who belong to the same race of ascended beings as the Ancients but who use their powers to subjugate other species, forcing them to worship the Ori and to believe a doctrine of religious fundamentalism, assume the role of the main antagonists in seasons 9 to 14. Unicron, an intergalactic despot from Titan, assumes the role as the main antagonist of Season 21 onwards, along with his deciples, the Black Order, and later the Ten Terrors of the Underworld, and seeks the six Infinity Stones, with the intention of erasing half of all life in the universe to prevent overpopulation for the good of the survivors, a process that is randomized for fairness.

Anubis arc (Season 5-8)
After Shinnok's defeat at the hands of PuffPuff near the end of season 4 ("Point of No Return"), the half-Ascended Goa'uld System Lord Anubis assumes the role of the primary antagonist of the show, making his debut in Season 5 ("The Fifth Man"). This new villain possesses much of the knowledge of the Ancients and their technology, and wields the Tesseract, which houses what is later revealed to be the Space Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones. While Earth builds its first interstellar spaceship (the Prometheus) in seasons 6 and 7, In the season 6 finale ("Full Circle"), The students discover a powerful weapon in an Ancient outpost in Abydos that annihilates Anubis's entire fleet. Kamek subsumes much of Anubis's power in season 8, while Anubis, who survived the destruction of his fleet in a disembodied form, quietly begins to re-assert his influence. Human-form Replicators begin to conquer the System Lords, but the group finds and adjusts an Ancient weapon to destroy all Replicators throughout the galaxy. Near the end of season 8 ("Serpent's Song"), it is revealed that the benevolent Ascended being Oma Desala is responsible for Anubis's original ascension. After Desala engages Anubis in battle on Vormir, Puff steals the Tesseract from Anubis, whilst Anubis's mothership is hacked by Lance and crushes Anubis, apparently destroying him. By then, the Replicators and most System Lords have already been annihilated, and the Jaffa win their freedom from Goa'uld rule.

Ori arc (Season 9-13)
After defeating Anubis and giving the Tesseract to the Asgard commander Thor for safekeeping, Zowie's search for the "Lost City" hits new ground when she and her other teammates inadvertently draws the attention of the Ancient-like Ori from another galaxy to the existence of sentient life in the Milky Way. While the Ori, who gain their enhanced physicallities from the Aether (formed out of what is later revealed to be the Reality Stone, one of of the six Infinity Stones), send enhanced human beings named Priors to the Milky Way to spread a religion that will augment the Ori's power, Ba'al and some minor Goa'uld infiltrate Earth through The Trust (a coalition of rogue NID operatives) to rebuild their power. At the end of Season 9 ("Camelot"), the Ori begin an evangelistic crusade with the Aether, their warships and effortlessly wipe out the combined fleet of Earth and its allies. The leader of the Ori, Origin, is introduced in the premiere of Season 12 ("Flesh and Blood"). The students search for the Sangraal, an Ancient weapon that might defeat the Ori. With the help of the powerful Ancient Merlin, The students find the construction plans of the Sangraal and sends a working version to the Ori galaxy. Shortly thereafter, Origin ascends. The Season 13 premiere ("Fear Factor Phony") ends the Ori Arc. The Aether was contained by Lance during the Kids' final confontation with the Ori, and was entrusted by The Langham to the Pencaster Democratic Museum of Art and Culture (PDMAC).

Characters


The show follows the exploits of four kids, PuffPuff Humbert, Lance Patrick, Zowie Hosker and Rob Broflovski. The kids live in the fictional city of Pencaster, located within Ohio The town is also home to an assortment of frequent characters such as students, families, elementary school staff, and other various residents, who tend to regard Pencaster as a bland and quiet place to live. Prominent settings on the show include the Langham Institute, the bus stop, various neighbourhoods, and the shops and businesses along the town's main street.

Puff is portrayed as the everyman of the group, as the show's official website describes him as an "average, American 4th grader". Lance is the lone Jew among the group, and his portrayal in this role is often dealt with satirically. Puff is modeled after Eisenhower, while Lance is modeled after Vernon. Puff and Lance are best friends, and their relationship, which is intended to reflect the real life friendship between Eisenhower and Vernon, is a common topic throughout the series. Zowie is the only female member of the group, whom Lance has a crush on. Rob is a loud, obnoxious, manipulative, racist and obese literal psychopath — is often portrayed as an antagonist whose anti-Semitic attitude has resulted in an ever-progressing feud with Lance, although the deeper reason for the antagonistic relationship is the strong clash between Lance's strong morality, and Rob's complete lack of such. He was written out of the show's sixth season sixth season in 2002, as he ascends to a higher plane of existence at the end of the fifth season, until he re-appears in the towards the end of the season, until finally re-joining the team at the very beginning of the seventh season.

Production
Since 2002, The Jumping Ground  is an international co-production between New Zealand and the United States, jointly produced by New Zealand animation studio Celluoid Features and Fox 21 Television Studios (since production relocated to the USA in 2002; known as Fox Television Studios at the time), in association with Mattel Creations (formerly through HIT Entertainment), who also handles non-US rights to the show.

Music
The show's original theme song was a musical score performed by the band Primus, while the lyrics are alternately sung by the band's lead singer, Les Claypool, and the show's four central characters. Rob's lines are altered after every few seasons. The song's melody is similar to the song "Coddingtown", on Primus's Brown Album. The opening theme song has been remixed three times during the course of the series, including a remix performed by Paul Robb. In 2006, the theme music was remixed with the song "Whamola" by Colonel Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, from the album Purple Onion.

International broadcast
Internationally, The Jumping Ground is broadcast in India, Mexico, and several countries throughout Europe and Latin America on Cartoon Network, a subsidiary of Turner Broadcasting Co. In distribution deals with Endemol Shine International, the show's current international sales agent, other independent networks also broadcast the series in other international markets.

Syndication
Broadcast syndication rights to The Jumping Ground were acquired by Debmar-Mercury and Tribune Entertainment in 2003 and 2004 respectively. Episodes further edited for content began running in syndication on September 19, 2005, and are aired in the United States with the TV-14 rating. 20th Television replaced Tribune as co-distributor in early 2008. The series is currently aired in syndication in 90 percent of the television markets across the U.S. and Canada, where it generates an estimated US$25 million a year in advertising revenue.

Streaming
In March 2008, FX made every episode of The Jumping Ground available for free full-length on-demand legal streaming on the official Jumping Ground Studios website. From March 2008 until December 2013 new episodes were added to the site the day following their debut, and an uncensored version was posted the following day. The episode stayed up for the remainder of the week, then taken down, and added to the site three weeks later.

In August 2011, BBC iPlayer made every episode on the show permanently available to stream in the UK, as part of a multi-year contract with FX and the BBC. When a new episode of the show airs on BBC Two, it will be immediately available to watch.

In July 2014, it was announced that Hulu had signed a three-year deal purchasing exclusive online streaming rights to The Jumping Ground for a reported 80 million dollars. Following the announcement every episode remained available for free on the Jumping Ground Studios website, using the Hulu player. As of September 2014, following the premiere of the eighteenth season, only 30 select episodes are featured for free viewing at a time on a rationing basis on the website, with new episodes being available for an entire month starting the day following their original airings. The entire series will be available for viewing on Hulu Plus.

Re-rendered episodes
From its debut in 1998 until the season twelve finale in 2008 the series had been natively produced in 4:3 480i standard definition. In 2009 the series switched to being natively produced in 16:9 1080i high definition with the beginning of the thirteenth season.

Criticism and Controversy
The Jumping Ground has often been criticised for content inside programmes by some members of the public and by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Most of the criticisms stem from comments from the production team; however, other aspects of the programme have been underlined as unsuitable. Incidents and content ranging from (but not limited to) remarks considered by some viewers to be offensive, promoting irresponsible driving, ridiculing environmental issues, Germans, Mexicans, and Poles, and alleged homophobia have generated complaints. It has been regarded by most critics as the most controversial show on FX, being described as lazy, adolescent humor and "mainstream racism".

The show started lampooning the controversy surrounding its use of profanity, as well as the media attention surrounding the network show Chicago Hope's singular use of the word "shit", with the Season 5 premiere “It Hits the Fan”, in which the word "shit" is said 152 times without being bleeped for censorship purposes, while also appearing uncensored in written form In the days following the show's original airing, 5,000 disapproving e-mails were sent to FX.

The Season 14 episodes “200” and “201” were mired in controversy for satirizing issues surrounding the depiction of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. The website for the organization Revolution Muslim, a New York-based radical Muslim organization, posted an entry that included a warning to creators Eisenhower and Vernon that they risk violent retribution for their depictions of Muhammad. It said that they "will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show." The posting provided the addresses to FX and the production company in Los Angeles. The author of the post, Zachary Adam Chesser (who prefers to be called Abu Talhah al Amrikee), said it was meant to serve as a warning to the creators, not a threat, and that providing the addresses was meant to give people the opportunity to protest. The 200 episode, which also depicted the Buddha snorting cocaine, prompted the government of Sri Lanka to ban the series outright.

In April 2013, Indian-born actress Somi Guha made a formal complaint to FX Networks for $1.8 million, for a racist term used after building a bridge over the Kok River in the Season 16 finale, “A Bridge Over the River Kok”. Upon its completion, PuffPuff said, "That's a proud moment, but there's a slope on it", and Lance added, "Yeah, right. It's definitely higher on that side". This led to complaints that "slope" is a derogatory term for an Asian person. In April, The show’s executive producer Mic Graves apologized for the racist remark. In July 2014 FCC ruled that FX had breached broadcasting rules by including this offensive racial term.

In October 2013, the fourth episode of Season 17 was banned in the United Kingdom over its blatant portrayal of violence over the increasing of university tuition fees in the UK, dating back to October 2010. To fill in the space in its 8:30 timeslot on its usual position on Thursday night on BBC Two, a repeat of Mock The Week was shown in its place. Numerous political figures in the country have also criticized the episode. Prime Minister David Cameron called for the BBC to prevent the episode from being aired and regarded it as "seriously offensive". Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said he was "extremely humiliated" by the episode and what it had portrayed. Despite this, the episode itself is still available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

In May 2014 there were complaints and calls for the show to be pulled off the air after it was revealed that Rob Broflovski, one of the show's central characters, had seemingly used the N-word in a children's rhyme on an unaired take from the show. Co-creator Lee Eisenhower denied having let the character use the word, then apologized when a previously unbroadcast clip revealed Rob doing so.

The Jumping Ground also received extensive criticism in late November 2014 after the Season 18 episode, “Cock Magic”, Aired. The creators, producers and the majority of the voice cast were chased out of the show's production studio in Wellington by angry protesters throwing rocks at the team. This was in protest against the number plate on a Chevrolet Impala in the background which supposedly made reference to the Falklands War (his plate number was H982 FKL). Cartoon Network maintained that the number plate was pure coincidence.

Cultural
Commentary made in episodes has been interpreted as statements Eisenhower and Vernon are attempting to make to the viewing public, and these opinions have been subject to much critical analysis in the media and literary world within the framework of popular philosophical, theological, social, and political concepts. Since The Jumping Ground debuted in the U.S., college students have written term papers and doctoral theses analyzing the show, while Brooklyn College offers a course called "The Jumping Ground and Political Correctness".

Video Games
Following the early success of the series, three video games based on the series were released by Electronic Arts. The first was a platform game simply titled The Jumping Ground was released in October 1998 for the PC, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, and Dreamcast. following its success, a sequel titled The Jumping Ground: Battle for the Ida Galaxy was released in 2000 released for the PC, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and Dreamcast. The third, a racing game called The Jumping Ground: Road Rage was released in 2002 for the PC, PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, and GameBoy Advance.

In 2003, THQ signed an exclusive rights to create video games based on the show. The Jumping Ground: Hit & Run, the first game to be published under the agreement, was released in 2004 for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Xbox. It was a major commercial success. It was then followed by a party game called The Jumping Ground: Lights, Camera, Crud! in 2005. Another platforming game called The Jumping Ground: The Ark of Truth was released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation Portable in 2006, with a port for the Wii and PlayStation 3 being released in 2007.

In May 2010, a soft-reboot of the video game series called The Jumping Ground Game was released for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation Portable. It set a new record in unit sales at the time, having sold about 550 million units worldwide. In the December of that same year, a LEGO-themed game titled LEGO Jumping Ground: Seasons 1-5 was released, making this the first Jumping Ground-branded LEGO game.

After THQ filled for bankruptcy in early 2013, Jumping Ground Studios signed a new, six-year exclusive rights deal with Activision to create video games in the Jumping Ground franchise, having had negotiations with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to acquire overall video game rights fell through. The first game to be released under the agreement was The Jumping Ground Game 2 in late 2013, which made more sales than its predecessor. It was released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita, with versions for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One being released later.

LEGO
in 2009, The LEGO Group acquired the license from HIT Entertainment to produce Jumping Ground-themed LEGO sets. The first phase was released in February 2010, with many more phases rolling out in the following years.

Films
In December 2013, it was reported that a theatrical Jumping Ground movie was in development. The film is being produced and written by creators Lee Eisenhower and Conrad Vernon and produced by Ryan Todd, Mary Parent, Dan Lin and Chris McKay. On July 10, 2015, the film was confirmed at the San Diego Comic Con to have entered production, under the title of The Jumping Ground Movie with Josh Holt directing. It was released on 15 July 2016 by 20th Century Fox, and grossed $730.4 million worldwide.

Following the predecessor's financial success, Zootopia writer Jared Bush was hired to write a script for a potential sequel. A spin-off focusing on Toad Sanderson is also in the works. On 6 March 2019, a 10 July 2020 release date was set for the next film, which is set to serve as a continuation/conclusion of the series.