Pet Simulator (TV series)

Pet Simulator is an animated television series produced by Picscreen Film Productions and Thunder Entertainment. Directed and written by series creator Charles Bennett, Pet Simulator initially premiered in the United States and other English-territories on August 5, 2018 on Avast Television. Divided into three series, Pet Simulator ran for 306 episodes and ten seasons. Robloxian Educational Television, a Robloxian-based network, handled the production of the Spanish localization.

The series follows the early adventures of Molly Melendez and his pet Axolotl, as well as another group of people who set out to find the "Dog Club," an extremely rare and high-priced treasure at the end of their the world, refers to as the "Dog World". Meanwhile, a group of people from all over the world learn about the "Dog Club" treasure and set out to find it before Molly and her group do. Dominic Gibson, a gold digger, forms an organization to prevent anyone else from acquiring the treasure in order to reach it first.

Pet Simulator has received positive reviews since its release. The animation, comedy, and writing were all praised, but the show's length was criticized for being too long for a "simple animated show about pets." Despite being targeted for older children and young teenagers, Pet Simulator quickly became popular among adults and pet lovers.

Premise

In the world of Pet Simulator, the Robloxians species live with their pets, which have the ability to collect, fight, and evolve into various forms. The series follows the exploits of Molly Melendez, a 17-year-old girl who wants to obtain the rare treasure of "Dog Club". On her way to get it, he meets a group of other characters, including Jorge Wood, Jairo Diaz, Imogen Thompson, and Ryan Cain, who share her desire for the treasure. So they decided to band together as a group and get it themselves. However, during that time, many people were briefed on the hunt for the "Dog Club," which led to the formation of the "Hunt for the Dog Club," which is located on the world's "Dog World," a very rare location that almost no one had ever visited. Dominic Gibson, a gold digger who recently had a broke up with his wife, forms an organization to prevent and murder the others from acquiring the treasure so that he can reach it first.

Cast and characters

• Maisie Gibson as Molly Melendez, a 17-year old girl who travels to find the "Dog Club" treasure.
• Howard Cortez as Jorge Wood, a 16-year old autistic boy; Jorge's parents were interested in finding the "Dog Club" treasure due to the rise of the "Hunt for the Dog Club," so he traveled alone despite the high risks and was joined by Kayson, his best friend from elementary school.
• Kayson Anthony as Jairo Diaz, a 19-year old male.
• Saniyah Hess as Imogen Thompson, a 18-year old female
• Kyndall Estes as Ryan Cain, a 15-year old girl.

Production

Development

Pet Simulator's development began around March 2017. Charles Bennett previously worked as a co-animator for Children's Avast Television since April 2016, before becoming the director of the television series The Summer School (2015-18). In January 2017, while working on episodes for The Summer School, Charlie came up with the concept of a "world with flying pets" and wrote a five-page film treatment that month. Charlie originally planned to turn his idea into a film, but due to other ideas he had, he instead focused on developing a television series.

In February 2017, after completing the second season of The Summer School, Charlie dropped out as director and ordered Alice Hines to work as director for his show, working on scripts for the television series. Early into the series's creation, the plot was described as simple and Charlie indicated that the plot was originally meant to focus on a guy collecting coins and treasures with his pet and would have stories that were for the younger targeted audience. However, his targeted audience turned toward older children, which changed the plot to have more-adventure elements as Charlie thought that the audience would "enjoy that type of content" and to not have children get bored and quit watching the show.

In the later stages of the series' development, Charlie felt that the story was not quite right, so he paused production to work on new ideas. One of these ideas was to have a recurring villain who would appear in the plot. Charlie created the villain as a gold digger and had planned for him to be a female, but to make him more "creepy," he was changed into a male and given the name Dominic Gibson. Early on, for worldbuilding, the world was divided into "worlds" and the characters were supposed to collect coins to get inside, but to match the style that Charlie was aiming for, the worlds were changed and were designed as "separate worlds" that would be good to enter, but the characters had to travel on their adventure to get there. In December 2017, Avast Television described Charlie's planned series as Pet Simulator, which became the actual title. Following the publication of the first trailer in March 2018, the series was slated to be released later that year, on August 5, 2018, which was confirmed in April.

Writing

During the time he worked on the latter story, Charlie wanted the story to be "not all about cute animals and [I] wanted the show to be instead this adventure-type goofy show that would focus a complex plot about a girl traveling around the world to find a treasure with a sidekick along with her side". Charlie described the project, which was refers to as Pets X as the working title, as a "mystery-type show that would have the main character going on an adventure," with a concentration on "gambling" elements, which was toned down heavily by Avast Television. To expand the story, Charlie intended to make the program his longest show, thus he added more characters into the series' plot, rather than the gang joining fairly early on, to develop character development rather than "rushing them out." and to "convey a sense of thought" to the audience about what these people meant in the larger plot. Because of this, the television series, which was ordered for only 26 episodes, was extended to 52 episodes later on for a second season and then for ten seasons.

Unlike other television shows, the series was separated into three parts: Pet Simulator, Pet Simulator X, and Pet Simulator 99 and the seasons was divided into arcs. Beginning in early 2020, the production crew planned to stop the show after more than four seasons, but Charlie wanted to keep it running because his story for the series was not yet done. By that point. Charlie claimed that the series had "barely explored roughly 25% of the plot that he planned to tell." As a result, Charlie consented to rebrand the show as Pet Simulator X, and the fifth season will focus on the Pixel World arc, which was Charlie's first planned arc for the show. By 2023, Charlie said that the story was "now 80% completed", with the Olympus World serving as the final arc before heading into the Dog World arc, which is the focus of the tenth and final season.

Charlie originally intended to have a conflict that would disrupt the main plot while also serving as a crucial major arc. However, after developing the most of the arcs, Charlie decided to abandon the project. However, during the early stages of Pet Simulator X development, Charlie began to focus on the conflict that he had written years earlier. The arc was originally scheduled to last a whole season, but it had to be cut by "about five or so episodes" to "create space" between the Pixel World and Hacker World arcs. In a 2024 interview, one of the editors for Pet Simulator claimed that Charlie had planned from the start that each season would have 20 to 26 episodes, but had changed his mind at the end of the third season and chose to order additional episodes to match the time of how the arcs progressed. As a result, the Axolotl Ocean storyline, which Charlie and the production crew originally planned as a 13-episode season, was expanded to 26 episodes to allow the plot enough "running time" to develop the character development of Maisie and her pet Axolotl. Following the conclusion of the Hacker World storyline, Charlie said that the two seasons will be the final since he considered "the plot was long enough to not jump the shark".

Animation

Pet Simulator was produced by two studios, which were Picscreen Film Productions and Thunder Entertainment. By November 2017, Picscreen Film Productions had committed to develop the television series, assigning approximately 100 of its animators to the project; the budget was projected to be around $3 million. The art style was originally intended to be cartoonish and aimed for a younger audience, but as the show became more direct and special effects were incorporated, the art style was dramatically adjusted to fit the tone of Pet Simulator. Key animators Paloma Eaton and Nicole Mcgee stated that the series went through a "phase of change in art direction," during which the animation was similar to productions such as Robloxians and Lovely World, both of which were Charlie's favorite television shows and served as the primary inspiration for the series' art style. For later seasons, Charlie ordered the art style to "be gradually have a much higher production," with the budget of each episode from season four onwards costing over one to two million dollars to produce, compared to the early three seasons' production budget of over $500,000 to $900,000 dollars.

Music

The composers for Pet Simulator were Tommy Jones. Reuben Sutton, Declan Saunders and Aaden Hardin. Each season, the composers intended to create a new opening and ending theme to complement the story of the arc in which the episodes were situated. Charlie noted that the opening themes took approximately five months to finish, and that the songs were recorded two to three months before their broadcast premiere.

Episodes

Main article: List of Pet Simulator episodes

Distribution

Broadcast

Pet Simulator is targeted toward children aged 9 to 14 and is rated as PG FV. From the first to the fourth season, each episode lasted 21 minutes before being extended by five minutes beginning with the fifth season and the show's rebranding as Pet Simulator X. The series aired on Avast Television, rather on Children's Avast Television. On August 5, 2018, Pet Simulator premiered in the United States as a one-hour television special. In total, the series ran for 306 episodes that were produced and broadcasted as ten seasons, divided into three parts as Pet Simulator, Pet Simulator X, and Pet Simulator 99.

Controversies

The show would get in controversies, as during one of the episodes in the third season would have gambling in it in the form of eggs. It would be in multiple episodes.