Mondo Media‘s 1.29 million subs and 1.35 billion views are a testament to the Internet’s love of animated silliness. Happy Trees Friends has captivated viewing audiences with its shock humor since the Windows 98 days, and newer offerings such as Dick Figures have allowed the channel to stay continuously relevant.
Mondo is taking its prowess for online cartoons to the next level. The studio, already a part of the YouTube Original Channels Initiative, is launching a multi-channel network called Mondo Mojo. It will feature some of the web’s wackiest animators past and present, and will have a home on the Mondo Media website.
Some of the channels included in the Mojo network are:
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- Rug Burn, a new partnership between Titmouse (creators of several Adult Swim favorites such as Metalocalypse, Black Dynamite, and The Venture Bros.) and Six Point Harness, best known for the aforementioned Dick Figures.
- Spike & Mike’s Suck & Twisted, the channel behind one of the world’s most celebrated animation festivals.
- Guy J. Collins, whose partnership with Mondo has already produced the whimsical, jazzy Raised By Zombies series, among other hits.
- Joe Cartoon. As someone who secretly watched Joe’s hyper-violent Frog In A Blender behind his parents’ backs, I’m personally excited about this one. I had no idea he was still making videos.
We can expect plenty more channels to join up with Mondo Mojo in the future, since there aren’t any other multi-channel networks dedicated solely to animation. Mondo CEO John Evershed explained the impetus behind the new venture.
“There are a number of YouTube networks out there with generalized offerings for channel partners, but we think animators have a unique set of needs that only Mondo can properly address. We obviously have a large, passionate audience that we can steer to our partner channels, but our understanding of animation production, distribution and promotion is unmatched. We uniquely tailor our assistance for each channel partner to fit their needs, offering a mix of promotion, monetization optimization, production guidance, localization support, off-YouTube distribution, social media assistance and, in the right situation, content funding.”
Few channels have worked as long or as hard as Mondo to distribute consistently likable products, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up with as much visibility as Machinima, Maker Studios, and the other large networks. Feeding my nostalgia is a great place to start.