Because it’s becoming way too expensive for parents to actually bring their kids to an NFL game, the league is forced to devise other ways to cultivate their next generation of rabid fans. How about a cartoon series on Nickelodeon? Just as SpongeBob SquarePants has caused all children to want to become oceanographers (it hasn’t), the NFL’s new cartoon, entitled ‘Rush Zone: Guardians of the Core,’ will cement their pro football fandom virtually from the cradle. From the Hollywood Reporter:
The 22-episode series is based on the NFLRush Zone, the league’s online world for kids. The series will be comprised of two- to five-minute shorts featuring a kid as the hero, and feature all 32 NFL teams and the voices of NFL players and coaches. These latter include coach Sean Payton, who led the New Orleans Saints to victory in Super Bowl XLIV, and New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning.
In the first episode, Eli Manning helps his mother bake zucchini bread.
Judging from the Rush Zone site, the new cartoon is going to “borrow” from several current TV cartoons, such as Transformers, Japanese Manga, and Nicktoon hits such as The Fairly Oddparents. Don’t expect much innovation … but I could be wrong.
Of course my idea for an NFL-themed cartoon would run more along the lines of The Family Guy. It would have a dad who’s the president of an NFL team and is constantly getting pulled over for DUI, a mom who’s trying to become the first female NFL referee, a son who plays high school football and is secretly gay, daughter who’s dating Reggie Bush, younger son whose Pee Wee football team is coached by a steroid-addled Bill Romanowski, and a talking dog who sexually harasses Erin Andrews.
Meanwhile, the NFL is also covering Cartoon Network.
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NFL To Develop Nickelodeon Cartoon. You Read That Correctly. [Deuce of Davenport]
Nickelodeon, NFL team for ‘Rush Zone’ [The Hollywood Reporter]
NFL Rush Zone
