BREAKING: ‘Lil Guildies’, ‘The Guild’ Prepping Animated Spin-off

Something is up with The Guild. This morning we were doing what any good web series site does when we procrastinate getting actual work done—watch reruns of The Guild on YouTube. (Season 3 is just rolling out its syndication run, how can you blame us?)

But we noticed what appears to be the opening credits to a new animated spin off of the popular gamer comedy—dubbed Lil Guildies—pop up on their YouTube channel. The title reads only “Guild_Dis_Opening_V3.mp4”. We grabbed an embed code and screen shot, but not much else to go on other than this mysterious video description:

“Hey Ted, here is what we hope is the final version (for your eyes only of course). Title card to follow in a separate email. -Kim”

It did feel a bit more kid friendly than the adult skewing live action version. More Rugrats than South Park, leaving us with a brief glimpse of show that may have been made not for Guild fans themselves, but their kids. A cross-generational spin-off?

No one from The Guild camp has responded to our request yet for official word on the video. And so far none of their main Twitter accounts (@theguild or @feliciaday) have even hinted at this thing. Which means it’s likely somebody botched it and let this video out early.

The animated leap follows as a natural next step in the Streamy-winning web series’ extensions into other mediums, most recently bowing the Guild comic book series from Dark Horse last month. Felicia Day and her producer Kim Evey have never been the types to rest on the laurels of the show’s growing success. And keeping fans on their toes is pretty much half of their playbook. Case in point being the “four surprises” that they promised—and delivered—at last summer’s Comic-Con in San Diego.

UPDATE: This was an elaborate April Fools joke that we were a part of. The Guild loves their Holidays! Here’s their “coming clean” update on The Guild’s blog.