Apple TV+ today announced Shape Island, the all-new stop motion series for kids and families featuring the voices of Yvette Nicole Brown (Disenchanted), Harvey Guillen (What We Do in the Shadows), Scott Adsit (30 Rock) and Gideon Adlon (Blockers).
Based on the internationally best-selling trilogy of Shapes picture books by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen, Shape Island premieres globally Friday, January 20 on Apple TV+.
This clever, funny, and inspiring new stop-motion animated series from Apple TV+ takes place on a charming island and invites viewers to join serious Square, intrepid Circle, and tricky Triangle on their silly adventures as they dig up some fun, search for answers, and build on their friendship – all while learning how to navigate each other’s differences.
Shape Island was co-created by book authors Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen, who serve as executive producers alongside Emmy Award-winning Bix Pix Entertainment’s Kelli Bixler and Drew Hodges (Tumble Leaf). Ryan Pequin serves as co-executive producer and head writer.
Buy the Shape book series at Amazon!
Also this month, Helpsters season three returns with all-new episodes Friday, January 6, featuring an impressive lineup of guest stars including Emmy Award winner Andrea Martin (Evil), Emmy Award winner John Oliver (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver), and Emmy Award nominee Tami Sagher (Search Party).
There’s also Nathan Lee Graham (Zoolander), Mario Cantone (And Just Like That), Grammy Award nominee Rebecca Naomi Jones (Genius), Johnathan Fernandez (Gossip Girl), Eugene Cordero (Loki), Maulik Pancholy (Only Murders in the Building), and Sunita Mani (Spirited).
The list continues with Emmy Award nominee Ikechukwu Ufomadu (ZIWE), Emmy Award and Grammy Award nominee Margaret Cho (Fire Island), Grammy Award nominee Alex Newell (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist), Rebecca Henderson (Russian Doll), and Grammy Award and Tony Award nominee Ephraim Sykes (Ain’t Too Proud).
The guest stars are rounded out by Emmy Award nominee Jackie Hoffman (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery), Danny Pudi (Mythic Quest), and Shannon Devido (Difficult People), as well as musical guests Grammy Award nominee Blood Orange, Blanco Brown, Jensen McRae and Grammy Award nominee Syd.
The acclaimed series follows Cody and the Helpsters, a team of vibrant monsters who love to solve problems. Whether it’s planning a party, climbing a mountain, or mastering a magic trick, the Helpsters can figure anything out—because everything starts with a plan.
Emmy Award winner and Parents’ Choice Gold Medal winner Tim McKeon (Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends: Destination Imagination, Odd Squad) is the creator and showrunner of Helpsters. McKeon, Benjamin Lehmann, Adam Peltzman, Eileen Braun and Sesame Workshop’s executive vice president of Creative and Production Kay Wilson Stallings are executive producers.
Apple TV+ today also announced that the second season of Foundation will premiere in Summer 2023. You can watch the sneak peek using the player below.
Based on the award-winning novels by Isaac Asimov, Foundation chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire.
Foundation stars SAG Award winner and Emmy Award nominee Jared Harris as Dr. Hari Seldon; Emmy Award nominee Lee Pace as Brother Day; Lou Llobell as Gaal Dornick; Leah Harvey as Salvor Hardin; Laura Birn as Demerzel; Terrence Mann as Brother Dusk; Cassian Bilton as Brother Dawn; and Alfred Enoch as Raych.
Led by showrunner and executive producer David S. Goyer, Foundation is produced for Apple by Skydance Television with Robyn Asimov, Josh Friedman, Cameron Welsh, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross also serving as executive producers.
Buy the Foundation book series at Amazon!
Last but not least, Apple TV+ announced the new Apple Original podcast Operation: Tradebom, with the first two episodes of the new nine-part series releasing on Monday, January 9.
Hosted by Academy Award nominee and Emmy-winning producer, director and screenwriter Marc Smerling (The Jinx, Capturing the Friedmans, and podcasts Crimetown, Crooked City), Operation: Tradebom tracks the arrival of terrorism to American shores, through the voices of those who watched it happen firsthand – from Cairo in 1981 to downtown New York City on 9/11.
Eight years before 9/11, investigators in New York’s Joint terrorism Task Force, a ragtag team of FBI paper pushers and NYPD detectives, found themselves conducting a new type of international investigation, which they called Operation Tradebom. A group of men set off a bomb in the garage beneath the World Trade Center intending the North tower to fall into the South tower.
At the time, it was the largest improvised explosive device ever detonated on American soil, leaving behind a 100-foot crater five stories deep. The explosion killed six people and injured thousands. But the story has been overshadowed by what came next: 9/11, two Gulf Wars and an endless war in Afghanistan.
Operation: Tradebom tracks the hunt for the mastermind behind the bombing as members of the JTTF come to a frightening realization: what they were dealing with was much larger than anyone understood, born from long-standing tensions over the U.S. exodus from Afghanistan and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Middle East.
Operation: Tradebom reveals larger players at work and global tensions which stymied attempts to prevent future disaster. New podcast episodes will debut weekly, beginning Monday, January 9 with the first two episodes, on Apple Podcasts and via RSS at Apple.co/Operation-Tradebom. Operation: Tradebom is an Apple Original podcast produced by Truth Media in partnership with Brillstein Entertainment Partners. Executive producers are Marc Smerling and Jon Liebman.
Mirko Parlevliet has been reporting on the entertainment industry since 1998 and founded Vital Thrills in 2018 to cover the latest news on streaming, movies, TV, and video games.