Apple TV+’s has reportedly ended production of its first original adult animated series, the musical comedy Central Park. The news was seemingly confirmed on Instagram by Josh Gad (Frozen franchise, Avenue 5), who voiced the series narrator Birdie and also served as co-creator and executive producer alongside Loren Bouchard and Nora Smith (Bob’s Burgers).
Responding to a fan’s question about the show’s return, Gad replied, “Sadly, it’s done.”
Produced by Disney-owned 20th Television Animation, the 2D-animated series centered on the family of the park manager living in Central Park, which is under threat of redevelopment by a flamboyant entrepreneur. The all-star cast featured Leslie Odom Jr., Kathryn Hahn, Stanley Tucci, Daveed Diggs, Tituss Burgess and Kristen Bell, who originally voiced the family’s biracial daughter Molly, but was replaced by Emmy Raver-Lampman for Season 2 & 3 amid a wave of changes to non-representative voice casting in animation. Bell returned to voice Hahn’s aspiring actress sister in S3.
After winning a heated bidding war for the high-profile project in 2018, Apple TV+ premiered Central Park in 2020 and rolled out the third, apparently final season in fall of 2022. The streamer’s remaining adult animated comedy, Strange Planet, premiered in August of this year and is pending renewal.
The stand-out on this show was the music. Loren Bouchard always found ways to work musical bits and songs into his series, but this was the one where they put all their stats into Performance. All of the music just seemed to go 50% harder than it actually needed to, which I really appreciated.
Stand outs: