By Gavin Boyle
The Backyard Sports Franchise released an 11-minute short that tackled life lessons through sports, reminiscent of the Peanuts comics.
“It’s Opening Day at Steele Stadium. But team superstar Stephanie ‘Bubbles’ Morgan is in crisis. She’s lost her lucky bubble gum! With just 30 minutes until game time, the Backyard kids embark on a wild mission to track it down and save their season!” a description of the short reads.
Related: Everything We Know About the New BACKYARD SPORTS Special
Backyard Sports! was an extremely popular video game franchise in the ’90s and early ’00s but fell out of popularity for many years. In 2015, however, fans of the series bought the rights to the franchise and got to work reviving the games. After making many of the games available through modern means, Playground Productions, the studio now in control of the IP, announced a new Backyard Sports game.
“We have these 30 characters, plus our announcers, that we want to showcase,” Playground Productions chief product officer, Chris Waters, told Sports Illustrated. “And so first and foremost, that’s our priority. In terms of other partnerships, whether it’s professional athletes, whether it’s leagues, those are conversations we’re excited to have.”
The opening day short is another step by the franchise to bring Backyard Sports! to a new generation of players.
“We’re excited to bring these animated characters to the world and storytell in the ‘Backyard Sports’ universe,” said Playground Productions CEO Lindsay Barnett before the short was released. “Each of these actors is a perfect fit for their role, and we can’t wait for fans to see these characters come to life on screen later this month.”
Now that the short has been released to audiences, it is easy to see just how these videos could become a part of wider culture. In the same way that Peanuts has for decades, the short focuses on teaching life lessons through a method that younger children can relate to, while older audiences can have fun as well.
“What makes Backyard Sports special is the characters,” Waters told IGN. “For us, the opportunity to take your favorite characters and bring them to life in a new way was a no-brainer as we’ve already said this is a multi-platform franchise we want to go beyond games. We all loved how beautiful the animation was in the games and how much love and care they put in, and it made you love and understand the characters and made you want to pick a certain character. So, we are really, really humbled to be able to extend that into more animation.”
“This special was our way of establishing a tone, establishing a look, and really putting our flag down to say, Backyard is a multi-platform franchise. You’re going to be able to experience it in lots of different ways,” Waters added.
The short has racked up over 800,000 views in four days, proving just how popular this idea can be. Hopefully we can see more shorts coming from the Backyard Sports! franchise as it looks to become a cultural staple during its revival.
Read Next: New Video Game From ‘Backyard Sports’ Franchise in the Works
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