I Just Learned How Long It Really Takes To Animate A TV Show, And I'm In Shock

If you’ve ever completed a flipbook in the corner of your school copybook, you’ll likely have thought to yourself, “How can animators do this for entire episodes?” 

Even given that backgrounds are reused, many animated shows use 24 frames per second ― the thought of drawing enough to last you, say, 30 minutes is enough to make me giddy.  

Luckily, both TV writer Michael Jamin (formerly of King Of The Hill and Beavis & Butthead) and animator Butch Hartman (who’s worked on shows like Danny Phantom and The Fairly OddParents) have answers.

Unluckily, however, both their accounts mean I’ll never be able to watch a cartoon in the same way again.

It’s a lonnng time

According to Jamin, he spent about six weeks writing a 30-minute episode of King Of The Hill with his colleagues ― after that, they’d spend a couple of weeks making the episode’s soundtrack. 

Animators needed the final cut of the track to ensure their characters’ mouths moved in time. 

When those were sent to the animators, he said the storyboard (not the whole animated show ― just the storyboard) took “a month or so.”

A month or two after that, they’d watch an early “animatic” to see how it flowed ― but only “a few months after THAT” would they see the coloured-in version. This was still months before the final edit.

“From beginning to end, when it’s ready to air, it’s about nine months,” he added.

That seems to check out

Hartman agreed, saying Danny Phantom and Fairly OddParents both consisted of two 11-minute animated sections. 

In the end, it would take “about ten months to do.” 

That’s from conceiving the script to completion, though, he says.

However he adds “it’s sped up now with flash animation to about six months, but that’s about the time.” 

Oh good... a casual half-a-year!