The Ricky Gervais Show

If you've ever listened to Ricky Gervais' podcasts you are most likely familiar with the likes of Karl Pilkington. He's an oddball who carries bizarre perceptions of the world that are so wild, it sends Gervais and his partner Stephen Merchant into wails of laughter and incredulous commentary. If one could open the top of Karl's brain, you'd most likely find a Willy Wonka factory of weirdness in there. That is why Gervais and HBO have teamed up to bring you the animated version of The Ricky Gervais Show. Audio is combined with Hanna-Barbera type characters to bring Ricky's, Stephen's and Karl's strange online chats to life.

The Ricky Gervais Show premieres this Friday on HBO.

NYTimes has an interesting feature on how the creators married animation to podcast audio. 'Animating Ricky Gervais'. Here's the related article by the terrific Dave Itzoff.

Ricky Gervais Returns to HBO

With Upfronts week upon us, my mind is buzzing just from the Fox schedule for next week alone. It all looks like reality shows, animated comedies and dramas. However, in the middle of the mire, HBO has announced plans for a new animated series based on Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's highly acclaimed and massively downloaded podcast, The Ricky Gervais Show. The series will have thirteen episodes due to will air in 2010. The show will revolve around Karl Pilkington, Gervais' and Merchant's bald, strange sidekick, whose otherworldly notions of life have been an object of fascination for the duo and fans alike.

Source: Variety