MUMBAI: After music and sports-based themes, the reality genre is poised for broadening its horizons in the US but through animation. Viacom's Comedy Central has announce a new show Drawn Together.
 

The show kicks off in October. It tells the true story of eight characters, picked to live together in a house to find out what happens when people stop being real and start getting animated.

On the show cartoon characters from various genres of animation are brought together to live under one roof. The characters leave their animated "reality" and enter a new world where their cartoon universes collide with a bang. The show will combine different styles of animation and different personalities all of which have been Drawn Together.

The series has been drawn traditionally and in 2-D digital ink and paint animation. The eight stars/ housemates represent iconic archetypes from the world of animation. They include Captain Hero a not-so-moral do-gooder reminiscent of the Saturday Morning US TV super heroes of the 1970s. Then you have Clara, a 20-year-old sweet and naive fairy-tale princess.

A character that sounds interesting is Spanky Ham a foul-mouthed Internet download pig. Giving an Asian spin to the scenario is Ling-Ling an Asian trading card mini-monster.

The characters, all with different lifestyles and personalities, create alliances with some of their housemates. However, quite often the fighting and backstabbing take center-stage. This skewers the world of animation, and also parodies many cliches prevalent on reality television.

Also, whenever the moment calls for a musical number, the characters are prone to break into song. The songs too are spoofs from various genres of animation (the emotional love song ballad, the girl-group rock band, group sing-a-long), but with original lyrics.