THE WINNERS

And the winners of the 2009 TDA Hallowe'en contest are:

The CHEF pumpkin by Jackie

And best costume and overall character impersonator ... CITPRINCESS for her Courtney.

Congratulations to them! They will be receiving signed dvd copies of the first season of TDI -- as soon as Todd and I manage to get copies and sign them. Thanks to everyone who joined in this year -- I hope we can do this again next year too.

~M

Drum roll please ...... our honourable mentions

Hey guys!
Thanks so much for all of the contributions to our contest this year. There were some pretty great entries. It was tough picking winners so we wanted to name a few honorable mentions.
Big thumbs up to these folks for their original and/or well-crafted costumes and pumpkins. There may not be a prize in it for them, but they did great.

Here are our honourable mentions ....

Last Minute Entries

gwen
harold

duncan

dj

chef pumpkin + harold + gourd

batchris
beth

chris

courtney

courtney

duncan

gwen

harold

duncan and courtney

SIERRA!?!?!? -- wait a minute ... she's not on till next season.

trent

Hallowe'en Contest Update

Hey guys!

We've had some great entries as you can see, and tomorrow is the last day to enter. So if you haven't already done so, send us your costume and pumpkin pictures. I'll post the remainders on Saturday.

There have been a few questions popping up in emails and in posts so I thought i'd address them.

• Nope, there's no voting from the fans. Todd and I are looking at the pics and selecting the winners based on effort, originality and overall execution of the costumes and pumpkins.
• Nope, there are not multiple categories for winners. We don't exactly have a budget for this thing, we're just doing it for kicks. We have to go out and buy copies of the DVD somewhere to send as the prizes (we actually don't have copies ourselves)
• Hallowe'en has an apostrophe in it because the word is an abbreviation of the term All-Hallows-Even, which is the night before All Hallows Day. Look it up ;)
• People keep stating that the blog will be ending when season 2 is done. I don't know why. We don't have any intention of closing the blog that soon. Both Todd and I have been working on season 3 in some capacity and still have access to the artwork. We hope to continue putting work up.
• I don't have any control over the broadcasters. So I don't know why CN has gotten further ahead than Teletoon in air dates. I also don't know when either network plans to air season 3. But! From all of your complaints it's clear that I can't stop posting stills or artwork from season 2. I will start posting again soon -- being careful not to put anything up that is a true spoiler.
• YES i did see that CAKE's website posted something that might look like it gave away the identity of the final 2. But that info is constantly changing -- if you've noticed -- and those marketing folks have clever ways of getting people talking about their shows. ;)
• The season 3 voice actors for Sierra and Alejandro are ..... one minute I have it somewhere .... nope that's my parking receipt .... um... hang on ... aha! Sierra is voiced by Annick Obonsawin, and Alejandro is Marco Grazzini. At least that's what I'm told.

I hope that answers some questions. Again, we're impressed with all of the costumes and pumpkin pics we've received so far. We're looking forward to revealing the winners on Monday. I'll get back to regular posting shortly. There will be another bit of a break in posting when we go to Burbank for the CTN-Expo but after that expect to see some more design and screen grabs.

Costumes Part 6 ... and the rest.

A family affair ... Chris, Courtney and Zeke.
Noah
Katie

Gawsh .... it's Harold.

Total. Drama. Chris.

Leshawna.

Someone tell Lindsay we found Tyler.

Eva.

Cody.

Tr ...hey! .... weren't you Duncan? I guess the kids put you up to dressing up as two characters. Wicked.

BILLLLLLLYYYYY!!!!!!

Who's Bill you might ask? Well apparantly Billy is the name that these fine fans gave to our intern. Long live Billy.

Costumes Part 5 ... Courtney

Costumes Part 4 ... Duncan

Costumes Part 3 ... Gwen

Costumes Part 2 .. Lindsay and Bridgette

Lindsays!

Bridgettes!

Costumes Part 1

Hey everyone! here is the first batch of costume pics. A nice showing for everyone's favourite absent character... EZEKIEL.

Total Drama Pumpkin Patch ... update

Hey guys!!

Thanks for sending in all the pics! We've received lots, and I'm still going through all of the character photos... but here are some pumpkins in the meantime.

Don't forget, you have until this Friday to submit your photos. We'll announce the winners on Monday. Good luck!

Chris

Izzy

Cody and Noah

Noah

Cody

Ezekiel

Killer Bass w/ Gopher on the flip side!

and um.... an apple that looks like Cody.

HALLOWE'EN is almost here!

Hey guys!

Hallowe'en is nearly here and we've been getting loads of pictures. But we still want more!!

So after you've gone trick or treating, had a costume party, or carved a TDI/TDA pumpkin send your pics to tdiblog@gmail.com

I'll start posting the entries next week and will revel the winner the week after that! We have decided to give a prize for best costume AND pumpkin.

The prize is going to be a DVD of season one -- autographed by Todd and me -- and maybe a few other folks we find around here too. So dress up as your fav TDI character and send away.

(As far as new screen grabs from episodes go -- I need to figure out where we are in the broadcast schedule. I'm not sure what has aired in the US and what has aired in Canada. I don't want to spoil anything ;) )

~M

UPDATE

Hey kids! Just a quick update. Sorry there haven't been any posts in a while but this last week was spent in Ottawa at the International Animation Festival. Lots of great short films and a sea of film makers and fans.

There was even a Meet the Film Makers panel where folks got to chat with Tom and Jen about the creation of 6Teen, Total Drama, and Stoked.

We've been receiving a lot of costume pics -- some really good ones too! So if you haven't already entered, please do. tdiblog@gmail.com

I hope to post more stuff soon

~M

Hallowe'en Contest .... UPDATE

HEY KIDS!!

It's almost that time of year again. We had so much fun looking at the costumes from last year that we thought we'd have another contest. This time we'd like to add a pumpkin carving contest to it too!

So carve a pumpkin or dress up as your favourite TDI/TDA character and send the pics to tdiblog@gmail.com

Be sure to write HALLOWEEN as the subject so that we don't miss it and be sure to include your parents' permission if you want the pic of you to appear on the blog.

This is the only way to submit photos to the contest -- don't upload them to photobucket, or flixter or anything else -- just email them to us.

We don't know what we'll do for prizes -- but we'll send something for the best costume and also the best pumpkin. The deadline will be the friday after Hallowe'en -- that'll give you guys enough time to submit pics from Hallowe'en parties or trick-or-treating. We'll announce the winner on Nov 9th.

Stay tuned to find out what we have for prizes -- we don't have much -- it might actually be stale candy from last Hallowe'en.

Get to it!

Back at it

Hey Kids!

Back from vacation with the family, trying to catch up on posting.

Here are some screen grabs from ep 41.

Just so's ya know...

Hey folks -- I'm on vacation for the next week so I won't be posting anything or updating comments. But don't worry -- I'll be back to posting real soon.

Oh -- and my apologies for posting pics of an ep that hadn't aired in Canada yet. I was sure that Teletoon was going to start airing new episodes this week and that everyone on both sides of the border would be on the same ep.

Maybe it'll all be sorted when I get back.

~M

EP 40 -- Screen Grabs

Happy Trent Day

Today is 09/09/09

Happy

Trent Day!

Guess Who's Back -- EP 39 grabs

Courtney's Audition Tape

Fans of last season (and those watching the new DVD) will have seen Courtney's audition tape.

But have you seen the CIT Princess' live action tape?

Here's our friend Courtney, who you may remember from our Hallowe'en costume challenge last fall, doing a shot for shot recreation of Courtney's season one audition.

Brava!

Ep 38

Geoff's blackmail video evidence -- that didn't pay off the way he'd hoped.

Gordon, from London ..... @#$% Ontario.

We LOVED a fan's Cody doll video that we posted last year so much that she inspired this scene -- starring a rather less well-adjusted fan. How's it going Liana?

Katie and Sadie?

My dog Buddy passed away earlier this year :(

In recent months , my wife Laura has been checking out the animal adoption sites almost daily -- hoping to find the perfect new member of our family. Today she came across this listing on the Northumberland Humane Society site.

Katy and Sadie - ADOPTION PENDING (Sadie)

Katy and Sadie (Katy left, Sadie right) are two 1-2 year old hound crosses who came from the Kingston Humane Society with their hound ladyfriend Lady, who has since been adopted. They all get along very well and like other dogs. They have all been tested with cats and are fine with them as well, though a little nervous... which could be a good thing were they to go to a home with a cat not used to dogs! These ladies seem well adjusted but have not yet been tested with children. Sadie and Katy have been at the NHS since July, 2009.

I think whoever names the dogs at the NHS must be a fan of the show.

An interview with Tom McGillis

Hey Kids!

Today on newsarama.com Steve Fritz published a recent interview with TDI creator, Tom McGillis. It's a nice article about the origins FreshTV and the shows TDI, 6teen and Stoked.

Go HERE to read the article and you'll even find out a little bit about Total Drama: The Musical.

Release Day

Hey kids!

Today's the day that the DVD set comes out from Cartoon Network. I haven't seen it yet (well the box set that is ... I mean I did see the shows... like on TV and stuff) so I don't know what sort of "extra" content there might be -- or what the package art looks like. From what I read in this review , the bonus features are made up of the audition tapes of the original 22 campers.

I thought I'd put out our own "bonus features" this morning. A few rotations that people have asked for, and that are missing from this version of the blog.

Who's Brady????

Some people say "Bean Juice".

What do you think?

Spell Check

There's been a lot of debate (why, I'm not sure) about the proper spelling of Chris' last name.

Maclean?

McLane?

McClane?

MacClane?

MacClean?

McClean?

And because I've received literally hundreds of emails on the subject -- I guess I should put an end to the guessing. Here is a copy of a page of the script of the first episode of Total Drama Island. I've circled the spelling of it there -- and that's good 'nuff for me.

..... but that's not to say it isn't spelled differently in other scripts ;)

Disastrous Pics

Hey all!

Here are some screen grabs and poses from episode 36 "Masters of Disaster"

Grosser when it moves.

EWWWW!

Ep 35 Question: Which is grosser?

An impaled host?

A creepy haunted outhouse?

Or these two kissing?

Ep 33 screen grabs

Ep 30 -- Stills

Not a dry eye in the house -- EP 29 Stills

And we're back...

Sorry for the delay folks. We've been really busy here -- too busy to blog even. Believe it or not we've been putting the finishing touches on the final episodes of Total Drama Action! Season 2 is almost officially "in the can" and season 3 is well underway. I'll be catching up with screen grabs and artwork over the next little while. Thanks for hanging in there.

The Gilded Chris

Special thanks to our friends at Cartoon Network for sending a real Gilded Chris statuette to the folks at Fresh TV and Elliott Animation. It's much heavier than it looks!

(no, it's not made of chocolate)

More questions answered ....

A few answers to some questions ...

Q: How is the order of elimination decided? Is is scripted from the beginning? Or do you actually wait until writing each episode to decide?

Yes and No. Way back at the beginning of the season -- before any writing takes place, we have what's called a "Writer's Summit". The Story Editors, Producers and Directors get together over the course of a few weeks and talk about what we would like to see happen in the season. Story ideas are pitched in, and character plot-lines and story arcs are roughed out. We break down the whole season into how we think it should happen. This includes who will be eliminated in which episode. Then the writing begins. All of these scratched out ideas start to fall into place and the characters and stories start to take on a life of their own. But, the situations have a way of revealing themselves naturally -- and on more than one occasion, we have changed the order of elimination because a certain storyline had become too much fun to do away with.
As far as the final episode goes -- we have actually written and produced multiple endings of the show -- so that no-one but a select few people actually know who the REAL winner will be. They may know the final 3 -- or even the final 2 -- but they won't know for sure who wins until it airs on TV.

Q: When You're Producing Episodes For The Show Do You Animate Episodes First Or Record The Voice Actors First,And Do Any Of The Voice Actors Add Lib To The Original Script?

A: All of the voice work is done first. Most of the actors come into the studio here in Toronto -- but a couple of them do their recordings remotely from places like Vancouver and Los Angeles. They stick pretty much to the script and record the lines AS WRITTEN -- but guys like Scott McCord (Owen and Trent) have a tendency to drop the odd ad-lib in. For instance, when Owen eats the entire fake food buffet in season two it was scripted that he tells everyone he's fine -- and that he has a gut like a goat. Scott recorded that then at the last second blurted out-- "nope! call 911". That line made us all laugh so we kept it in. Often our board artists think of funny gags too that need additional lines -- season one's "Purple Gerbil Fishpants" was coined by board artist Ted Collyer when he storyboarded the sequence when Owen got stung by bees. Since these new lines are often written long after the recording session, the actor's have to be called back to do the line. Sometimes the actor isn't available to record the new line before the scenes have to be animated. When this happens we record what's known as "scratch". One of the editors, or Todd or I will record the lines ourselves (There's a reason why some people are voice actors and some people are not) and the animator will animate to our voice. Then later on, the actor will have to watch the scene and say the lines to match the animation.

Good questions -- keep em coming.

A Note About Posting

Hey Kids!

Just a few words about the blog. Since the launch of the show on CN we've been getting a lot more comments -- which is totally cool! If you want to make sure your comments make it on the page try to stick to these simple guidelines ....

1. No swearing -- I won't publish anything I wouldn't want my own kids to see.
2. No flaming -- If you wanna fight, meet at the bike racks at recess.
3. No email addresses, phone numbers, personal info etc. -- I've read some great posts and ended up not publishing them because people have included their email address. You really don't want the folks who read this blog tracking you down do you?
4. READ before you WRITE -- if your questions or comments have been submitted before by someone else again and again, chances are I'm not going to publish them again and again.
5. No saying bad stuff about the show -- JUST FOOLIN' -- all comments are welcome.

Keep the comments rollin in. And if there are specific questions you have about how the show is made, fire away. ~M

Custom poses -- TDA episode 2

Here's some more custom posing from the second episode of Total Drama Action

(AKA episode 28 --- because it's the 28th scripted episode of the series)

EP 2 -- SCREENGRABS

Thanks For Watching!!

From TVBYTHENUMBERS.COM

"Cartoon Network’s Total Drama Action Premieres as Most-Watched Program of the Day on All TV among Kids 6-11, Kids 9-14, All Boys

New Animated Reality Series Rockets Network to Its Best Thursday Night Prime Time Performance Year-to-Date"

I guess a few of you tuned in. ~thx

RANDOM SCREEN GRABS

Hey Kids!

Hope y'all liked the first ep. Whether you saw it for the first time or the twenty-first time, we appreciate you tuning in. Here are some random stills from the show.

Check out the new digs.

Geoff's glad to be back.
Owen's feeling avuncular...

... and a little run down.

Chef's workin' it.

Workin' the animatronic monster that is.

What's Justin up to?

PLACES EVERYONE!!

Hey Kids!
Today's the big launch of Total Drama Action on Cartoon Network down in the good ol' U.S. of A. I know most folks up here in Canada have watched the first 6 or 7 episodes already (over and over again) so it's good to know everyone'll soon be caught up. Here's a bit of production info for fans old and new:
Total Drama Action is animated in FLASH. The main character models are drawn from a number of angles with multiple hand positions, eye-blinks, and full mouth charts. (We've posted the character rotations before) These pieces are considered MDP (Master Design Pack) and the animation crew skillfully moves them around to make the actions that you see in the show. For the most part, the master designs cover all the the actions that the characters need to do. Sometimes though, the characters need to be in a position, or make an expression that the animator just can't recreate. For this, our posing department creates scene-specific drawings. Here are some samples of the custom posing done for the first episode of TDA

THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING US!!!

Just one more sleep 'til TOTAL DRAMA ACTION premieres on CARTOON NETWORK!!

Be sure to tune in!

TALENT TIME

Hey Kids!

Here are a couple of youtube clips of folks playing the theme. We love seeing this stuff. Send more!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

Hey Kids!

Grab a crayon and circle June 11th on your calendar. That's the day that Total Drama Action debuts on CARTOON NETWORK.

It doesn't matter if your calendar isn't a fancy official Cartoon Network calendar like mine (with Owen as Mr. June). Just scrawl 06/11/09 on a post-it note and stick it on the middle of your TV screen. Your folks won't mind. Honest.

Nominated for a 2009 ACT award

Congrats to the cast and crew of Total Drama!

We've been nominated for an ACT award of EXCELLENCE!

The awards are presented June 3rd in Toronto.

Cartoon Network begins merchandising 'Total Drama'

Read all about it: HERE

Cartoon Network Ad

Some folks say this was playing in movie theaters in the US. Anyone see it?

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Well some of your prayers have been answered. At long last the complete first season of Total Drama Island is being released on DVD. It comes out AUGUST 18th and you can preorder it now on AMAZON.com


I found out about it here.

Congratz!!

Congratulations to my nephew Noah for taking 3rd place in his school's public speaking competition! What was the speech about?

Why, Total Drama Island of course!

Way to go dude! (P.S. Love the shirt)

Total Drama Musical??

Nah -- it's TOTAL DRAMA CARAMELLDANSEN!!!

Thanks Madi!

Total Drama In The City

The annual Kidscreen Summit is going on in NYC this week. It is "the largest and most important event of the year for kids entertainment executives." TDI creator Tom McGillis is there and sent us these photos from the big Cartoon Network event. Looks like Owen's heading for the buffet table. RUNNNN!!!!!

OPENING storyboard

Hey everyone -- seeing as how we haven't put up much artwork lately -- here's the storyboard for the new opening of TDA. Todd and I figured out the whole thing with scribbles on post-it notes and in Flash, planning out all of the shots while trying to keep it as close to the original opening as possible. After that was sorted out I sat down and drew the board up in a bit cleaner fashion, using Sketchbook Pro. This final board contains all of the camera moves and scene transitions along with action notes explaining what's going on. The scenes with orange boxes in the top corner are ones that needed some 3D elements and had to be sent for modelling. The first 2 pics above show the mapping of the 3d elements and how we envisioned the moves happening. Going from here to the finished opening is a ton of work -- all of which was handled amazingly by the crew. They had to take my chicken-scratch and make it the slick full colour opening that's at the head of every episode. The team did a fantastic job, even adding some of their own extra touches.

QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Wow -- since Todd said his goodbye last week, people have been asking all sorts of questions. So here are a few answers:

• yes
• no
• yes
• yes
• no
• red
• yes
• sometimes
• never
• yes

I'll leave it at that.

In answer to some of your other questions ... season 3 is already in preproduction. And nope, we're not directing it. While we LOVE the TDI/TDA series, with other projects on the horizon for Todd and me we felt we couldn't commit to another full year on the show. And we sure wouldn't want to leave anyone in the lurch. Rest assured, the show is in good hands. Keith Oliver is taking the helm as director. He knows the show inside and out -- he's been on it as animation director since day 1 of season 1. He's not going to let any of you down.

As far as what's happening to the blog ... well this is our personal blog. It's not funded or maintained by any of the companies involved with making TDI/TDA. Todd and I have been doing this ourselves since the show first went into pre-production (with everyone's permission to show artwork and stuff of course). Because we're interested in these things ourselves, we wanted to show anyone who cared what goes on behind the scenes when making animated shows. What's cool is that soon it became a bit of a fan hangout (over 1.5 million views) where you all shared theories and and your thoughts on the episodes. We have to say -- that was an unexpected bonus.

So when the time comes that neither of us are working on TDI anymore, I imagine the blog will cease to be. We enjoy the instant feedback we get from all of you, and hope that when that day arrives we'll get the same dedication from fans on our next production.

toodles, Mark (Thorny) Thornton

That's All Folks!!! NOW WITH MUSIC!!!

Today will be my last day directing. The past two seasons have been a blast and I can't believe how much everyone likes the show - who woulda thunk.

Mark (Thorny) will continue directing till the end of the season and then a new director will be coming on for 3rd season (which is shaping up to be pretty slick).

As a small thank you, I did a quick and dirty sketch of Duncan's head. It was done in Sketchbook Pro and I just started using the software...so no laughing.

Bye ;)

SPOILERS????

Hey Folks!

We've been getting lots of emails telling us not to publish spoilers -- followed by just as many telling us to publish new stuff. Kinda puts me in a weird place.

To be honest we've just been too darn busy to put up any new artwork, and as far as not wanting to see spoilers ... why the heck would you come to a blog about TDA if you don't want to find out about TDA?

We'll try to put up a bit more artwork from the season as time goes on -- we have tons -- we are nearly finished the pre-production of the entire season. We just need it to air before we can post any of it.

TDA Premieres today online! -- UPDATE

Hey everyone! (IN CANADA) -- Over on Teletoon.com the first episode of TDA is now online.

The big Television Premiere is this Sunday at 6:30pm -- but if you can't wait, you can watch it on the web. For those who can't see full episodes yet -- here's the opening titles. Be sure to click on high quality.

People are a bit upset about the Geo-Fencing I see. But due to broadcast regulations and stuff like that, the online episodes are only available to those with Canadian IP addresses. It goes both ways folks -- we can't watch anything on cartoonnetwork.com here either.

14? 15? or 22?

COOL

Found this on Youtube today -- if anyone has a better copy let us know.

oh -- and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Golly thanks!

Over on ToonZone.net they've just announced the nominees for the 2008 Toon Zone Animation Awards.

We're happy to say that Total Drama Island was nominated as Best Foreign TV Series and as an added bonus both Todd and I were nominated as Best Directors for a TV Series.

For those who don't know it yet, Toon Zone is a website dedicated to the world of animation. It is chock full of news and information and there are hundreds of forums about countless topics.

You can go here to go to the site, see all the nominees and find out how to vote.

Happy New Year!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Hey Kids! --

Wishing you all a safe and happy holiday with your friends and family.

Our pal Megan and her sister sent us these pictures of some Christmas ornaments they made.

She tells us that in her family it is tradition that they make ornaments that symbolize something that they did or enjoyed in the past year.

I'm honoured to think that TDI made the cut. Thanks guys!

See you next year!

I guess some people watched it ...

From Cynopsis Media:

Cartoon Network's debut of the finale of the animated reality series Total Drama Island on Thursday, December 11 at 9p, as part of the Har Har Tharsdays block (7-10p), set a new record becoming the top telecast among Tweens 9-14(1,559,000) for the network ever, and the most watched show among K6-11(1,592,000) since September 8, 2000 (Premiere Premiere, 9p). The show was the top program of the day across all TV among K2-11 (1,968,000), K6-11 and Tweens 9-14, as well as being the top telecast ever for the network among Girl Tweens 9-14.

A second season of Total Drama Island, entitled Total Drama Action premieres on Cartoon Network in late spring 2009.

Thanks for watching! ~m

The Finale!!

Hey Folks

Tomorrow night is the season finale of TDI on Cartoon Network

Once everyone's up to date, we can start spilling more news about season 2

The show is still airing in other markets around the world -- so it'll be tricky not to give away too many spoilers.

I guess people who don't want to know what's coming up should turn their eyes away -- or stop snooping.

I bet they sneak under the tree and unwrap presents before Christmas too.

CN Paint Theme...

Some creative TDI ads from Cartoon Network

Harold turns 35?...

Brian Froud, the voice of Harold, turns 35!!!!

Happy Birthday Buddy!!

Just a reminder ....

TDA Trailer

THE WINNER IS ......

Beth!!

While all of the costumes were great, we all agreed that "Beth" here took the cake!

She wears here Beth-ness with pride and even managed to capture subtle details like the images on her pins.

What does she get for winning?....

MORE PINS!!

Here's the very first complete set of TDI pins. Handmade by Todd and Myself.

(actually it's the ONLY complete set of pins -- we've made a few singles in the past, but never put them all together until now)

Congratulations to "BETH"!!

And thanks to everyone who sent in photos. We were REALLY impressed with the quality of everyone's costumes and the amount of effort that was put in to making them just right.

We really do have the best fans.

Cheers.

Teletoon -- Nov 29th 6:00 pm

"The Special"

airs on Teletoon

at 6:00 PM

on

Saturday, November 29th

2008

LAST ONES

Well that was fun!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to send their pics in.

They all looked fabulous!!

Visit us Monday to see who we chose as our favourite.

One More Pic .... DUNCAN!

If there are any more pics out there send 'em in. We'll be picking our winner this weekend.

OWEN is ... um...um... AWESOME!!!

Gwen made an appearance -- with her man trent on her shoulder

Trent and Izzy in da house

More Costumes!!

COURTNEY

TRENT

GWEN

BETH

BETH

Fabulous Fans!!

Well here's the first batch!

Duncan showed up in Florida and we had a Canadian Lindsay and Heather.

They're fantastic!

Keep sending your pictures in
but remember..

GET YOUR PARENT'S PERMISSION!!!!!

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!! -- UPDATE -- Permisson Please

Hey Kids!!

we've been pretty busy getting season 2 ready and haven't had much time to post.

But seeing as how today is such a special day we thought we'd say "boo!"

If anybody out there is dressing up as one of their fave TDI characters, take a pic and send it

(ALONG WITH YOUR PARENT'S PERMISSION!!!!!)

to us at tdiblog@gmail.com .

We'll post some of them.

(And maybe even send a little treat to the best dressed)

Have a great Hallowe'en!

We've received some great pictures so far -- but we really need your parent's permission in the email before we can accept your photo and put it on the site.

This is what my house looked like for Hallowe'en.

Too bad I only had about a dozen kids come by. What am I going to do with all the left over candy?

P.S. This is a peek at what the best costume earns you.

More Rotations...

Roll Over!!!

Reached 1 MILLION hits !!!!

BIG thanks to all the fans ;)

A Wee Taste of Season 2...

TDA TRAILER

It's Official!...UPDATE

~Season 2 Press Release~
All those questions you've been dying to know the answers to ;)

The article says there are 15 of the original contestants coming back - that's true. There are 15 players plus Chis and Chef, to make up 17 characters returning.

NO NEW CHARACTERS ON TDA
JUST 17 PEOPLE FROM SEASON ONE
15 PLAYERS - ??????????????? *
1 CHEF - CHEF
1 HOST - CHRIS
* FOR REAL

And More...UPDATED

MORE ROTATIONS...

Labour Day Fun

Well it's the last weekend before school starts so I took my family to....

.... nope, not Camp Wawanakwa...

Centreville Amusement Park on Toronto's Center Island

for the Teletoon 2008 Tour!!

The Hummer was there.

(hey dudes!)

They had games ...

hosted by my new buddy Jeff and his crew, with



trivia contests,

(the answer is Harold)

and other fun things to do like playing in a Bakugan tournament.

My kids got cool prizes like this Teletoon hat

and these sweeeeet Teletoon playing cards with the loveable Lindsay on all the diamonds.

If you live in the Toronto area and are looking for something to do on the very last day of Summer Vacation, you might want to check out the Teletoon 2008 Tour

Tomorrow (Sept 1st) is the last day.

Thanks go out to all the great folks we met. We had a blast.

CN's TDI Website Kicks Some Major *SS...

Umm, WOW. Thanks for all the hits folks ;)

Rough Character Rotations...

My apologize to those of you who have seen these already from last year - but I think its only fair that we put up some of our old posts from TDI for the viewers outside of Canada...cool?

The Gemini Award Nominations are in...

Best Animated Program or Series

Chop Socky Chooks
(Decode Entertainment Inc., 2006 Aardman Animations Limited, CSC Productions Inc.)Miles Bullough, Neil Court, Steven DeNure, Pete Lord, Dave Sproxton, Beth Stevenson, Jacqueline White

Leon in Wintertime
(Folimage, National Film Board of Canada)Emmanuel Bernard, Marie-Josée Corbeil, Christine Côté, Pascal Le Nôtre

Ruby Gloom
(Nelvana Limited)Scott Dyer, Pam Lehn, Doug Murphy, Merle Anne Ridley, Rita Street

Storm Hawks
(Nerd Corps Productions V.I. Inc.)Asaph Fipke, Ken Faier, Chuck Johnson

Total Drama Island
(Fresh TV Inc.)Tom McGillis, George Elliott, Brian Irving, Jennifer Pertsch

GWEN Bus Shelter...

If any TDI fans come across cool promotional stuff please, please take a pic of it and send it our way.

WE LOVE THIS STUFF!!

More Ratings ...

Hey Folks -- looks like those of you who weren't watching the Olympics picked TDI as your cartoon to watch.

We're humbled. Thanks all.

Source -- http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Younger_viewers_49/But_one_group_s_not_into_it_Teen_girls.asp

ANSWERS...

The special to air in October is not TDA. It is a continuation of TDI - thus the pictures of the voice actors do not represent the characters coming back for second season.

Also - almost ALL the question that have been asked in the past month have already been answered. You just need to read the blog. We're not ignoring you, we just don't have time to answer the same questions over and over again.

The show is made in Toronto.

...and no word on the DVD. Believe me, you'll know if we are putting out a DVD set.

Geoff and Bridgette...

Kristin Fairlie - Bridgette

Dan Petronijevic - Geoff

Har Har Tharsdays...

Well the ratings are in and I'm proud to say we're at the TOP.

CHECK IT YO! ~ CLICK

Some Not So Familiar Faces...

Here are some "first take" original drawings I did for TDI aka CAMP TV.

Almost Famous

There's a song about knowing you've made it big when you're on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Is there one for making page 7 of Archie's Double Digest?

TDI - FAN ART (or FART for short)...

MORE VOICES...

Christian Potenza - Chris

Sarah Gadon - Beth

Emilie-Claire Barlow - Courtney

Megan Fahlenbock - Gwen

Novie Edwards - Leshawna

Your Questions Answered .... ?

Hey Kids!

We've been getting lots of questions about season 2 ... and I mean LOTS!

Most of them have to do with the cast -- seems you all wanna know who will be returning for the second installment of Chris' tortuous challenges.

Well I'm sorry -- but I ain't telling. The whole season 2 project is under tight wraps. In fact, everyone working on the show from cast, crew and the entire production team has signed a non-disclosure agreement. That is -- no-one's allowed to spill any beans. I mean, I'm directing and I can't even tell you who'll be joining Chris and Chef in the next season.

(Oops! Imay have said too much.)

So it looks like you'll all have to keep guessing.

Other questions we've been asked:

• What's this special? And when will it be on?

The 1 hour special is in the works right now. It's a fun visit with the whole cast of season one as they celebrate after the grand finale. That might not sound too dramatic or exciting -- but you have to have figured out by now that Chris can't just stand by and let the campers enjoy themselves. You'll have to wait until the fall to see what he has in store.

• Two versions? What's up with that?

There's been a lot of talk about the differences between the shows airing in Canada and those in the good ol' U.S. of A.

I mentioned in an earlier post that broadcast standards differ from region to region -- and some words and situations that are acceptable in one place just don't fly in others. Take "crap" for instance. Who knew that a little word would cause such a buzz. I've seen a few youtube videos showing the corruption of young American minds as they are exposed to that horrible 4-letter word.

Up here it gets used willy-nilly. I think it might even be in our national anthem -- or is it in the theme to Hockey Night in Canada? I'm not sure -- but I hear it a lot.

(It turns out willy-nilly is considered vulgar in 4 other regions and will have to be replaced - m.)

Another reason for the different versions -- is that producer's thought it'd be cool to mix it up a bit and let our new audiences enjoy the show without any spoilers. It turns out that some people like to ruin other peoples' fun by telling them the endings to movies or books -- letting them know what's in the Christmas present they're about to unwrap -- and telling the birthday boy that there's a surprise party waiting for him. To those people ... Ha!

See if you can spot the differences.

Like I said -- we get LOTS of mail -- and a whole bunch of questions. Please keep em coming. Understand that we don't want to give too much away about the next season -- but if you have any questions about the process of making the show... fire away!

We'll do our best to give you the answers.

The Voices Behind The Characters...

Rachel Wilson - Heather

Brian Froud - Harold

Katie Crown - Izzy

Scott McCord - Owen & Trent

Stephanie Anne Mills - Lindsay & Katie

Adam Reid - Justin

Here's just a few of the fabulous actors that help make TDI come to life. I took these shots while we were recording the "SPECIAL" episode that will be airing in the fall.

TRUE or FALSE?

Somethin' new before season 2

Hey Folks!

We've had lots of requests for new stuff from the upcoming season 2 of Total Drama Island,
but we're not allowed to talk to much about it. We'd hate to spoil things for the folks just getting season one on Cartoon Network.

What we do think we can share though, is a snippet from the upcoming 1 hour special.....

That's right. A special episode. A bit of a reunion if you will.
Bringing back everyone from season 1.

There'll be laughter, tears and fist-fights with crocodiles!!!

These board panels are by our good friend Troy Quane. He boarded a few eps for us last season too. We were lucky to have him help us, as he was really busy with a little project called "ENCHANTED".
Troy was the Storyboard Supervisor on Enchanted -- If you want to see some more great boards check out his site.

Todd and I are going to try to put as much development art and behind the scenes stuff up as we can -- but we need to do it without spoilers.

Keep watching!

A KAGILLION VIEWERS - GOSH!!!!

Well, you asked us to keep you posted on the CN ratings...so, here ya go!

~CLICK~

"HEAD"-ing INTO SEASON 2...

Mark and I found Chris' expressions to be quite limited in season one. So this time around I spent a bit of time playing with his "dot" eyes so the animators could pull out more emotion.

TDI OPENING TITLE SEQ...

For those outside of Canada who didn't get the opportunity to take part in all our season 1 posts, we will be putting up a few things here and there. (no spoilers though - I promise)

Here's the opening title sequence above and the TDI theme song download below.

~CLICK~

Woo Hoo!

Hey Everyone!

We've received a really warm welcome from our American friends watching on

Cartoon Network!

To celebrate, Owen's doing his naked victory dance from episode 2.

Right click and save target as... to keep his little animated gif on your own computer.

The smaller image below can be used as an MSN emoticon.

Thanks again!

Howdy Neighbour! ... (or is it neighbor?)

Those of you in the good ol' U.S. of A. will now be able to watch season one of

Total Drama Island.

It starts this Thursday night at 9:00 pm on CARTOON NETWORK.

Tell your friends!

SEASON 2 -- UPDATE

Hey Folks!! -- we've had many many many requests for updates about season 2 of Total Drama Island. We're working away feverishly on the new shows, and can now reveal that the title of the new season is indeed .... TOTAL DRAMA ACTION.

Some of you may have noticed that last season's postings have been archived. That's because TDI season one will be seen in new markets shortly, and we're trying to keep the spoilers to a minimum. So .. shhhhhhh. Don't tell anyone who won.

So ... when/if the blog resurfaces, it will be more of a behind the scenes blog -- with stills of artwork, and possibly some pics of cast and crew. As far as when season 2 will hit the air ... it's still a few months away. Stay tuned to Teletoon for more information.

And check back here in a few weeks to see if we've gotten around to posting any new artwork.

Cheers.

SEASON 2's a secret -- BUT LET EVERONE KNOW HOW MUCH YOU LOVED SEASON ONE!!!

The top secret location for season 2 of TDI has been determined. The contestants have been selected and sequestered. Season 2 is in the works.

It'll be a while before any of what's going on makes it to your television screen, but in the meantime you can watch your favourite episodes from season 1 on Teletoon.

And don't forget to vote for TDI as your favourite show on Teletoon's Spin Cycle!! The grand finale is this week!

Go HERE and click on "FAN FRIDAY" to register your vote. We'd really appreciate it ;)