Mercury Filmworks veterans develop toon

BloopyMerps follows a robot and an alien to an apparently lifeless planet

Mercury Filmworks in Canada is developing a 2D animated, serialised children’s adventure series created by three long-term employees of the company.

BloopyMerps is part of Mercury’s plans to nurture its own in-house talent to develop career paths and create new opportunities.

Heath Kenny

It was created by Shane Plante, a 15-year veteran of the company who has spent over eight years working on Mickey Mouse; Ross Love, a 10-year employee focusing on location design, specifically on Hilda; and David Laliberte, a nine-year senior animator who supervised animation on Hilda season one.

The trio conceived the idea for BloopyMerps, which centres on a rules-loving robot and a soft-hearted alien on a mission to terraform a lifeless planet that’s not as lifeless as they thought.

Evan Thaler Hickey (Go Away Unicorn, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!) is on board as writer, with the show bible and pilot script already complete. Hickey has also worked with the creators on the eight-episode season one story arc.

Heath Kenny, chief content officer at Mercury Filmworks, said: “With BloopyMerps, Ross, Shane and Dave have created a concept that explores friendship, trust, loss and, ultimately, absolution. Though the setting may be otherworldly and the characters alien, the story is rooted in our very human need for connection and growth.”