Nickelodeon Acquires French Cartoon Mr. Crocodile

With a thirty-year career in the children’s book market, bestselling French author Joann Sfar is responsible for a lot of things, but what’s important to this article is that she created the book Monsieur Crocodile a Beaucoup Faim, or translated into English, Mr. Crocodile Is Very Hungry. It’s got a rather simple plot — there’s this crocodile, and he’s very hungry — but a successful kids book can’t be summed up in words to someone who’s never seen it. The pictures and prose work together to create the charm.

Now the characters of Sfar’s book are being turned into a TV series, which is being produced in France by Sfar’s company Magical Society and distributed internationally by by Mediawan Kids & Family. Nickelodeon announced this week they’ve picked up the rights, and will be airing Mr. Crocodile globally on Nick Jr. channels, except in its native country where it’ll air on the network France Télévisions.

The setup of the series is that Mr. Crocodile lives with his best friend, a little girl named Daisy, in a trailer park community, where Daisy’s time is divided between her mother’s and father’s homes (when I was growing up, you NEVER saw divorced homes on a kid’s show, even though divorce was everywhere). The series will focus on Mr. Crocodile “as he cheerfully navigates life with boundless enthusiasm and comical misunderstandings due to his instinctive crocodile logic.”

“Joann and I are thrilled to launch Mr. Crocodile, our first CGI series based on Joann’s iconic book, through the studio we founded together,” says Aton Soumache, Magical Society Co-Founder and Producer. “Our teams have done an incredible job adapting Joann’s characters and universe into stunning 3D designs, while staying true to his whimsical and mischievous universe. It was deeply moving to see Mr. Crocodile, Daisy, and all their friends come to life for the very first time.”

No date has been announced yet for when Mr. Crocodile will begin airing.