An ambitious indie animated series project will soon mark a major milestone, as 2D dramedy The Swines approaches its Season 2 finale on Friday, September 11. The show is a comedy-soap opera set in the eccentric town of Oinkersfield — populated entirely by animated pig-folk. The penultimate S2 episode launches today on YouTube.

In today’s episode, Sebastian St. Piggleton finally returns to Hog Heaven Ranch after 10 years’ absence, coming face to face with his family for the first time in the show … leading viewers to many an end-of-season cliffhange. S2 Ep. 7, “Hog Sweet Hog,” will also welcome back returning guest star Sarah Douglas (Superman).

The Swines is created by Humanitas Prize-winning writer and Wonkybot Entertainment Founder/CEO Stewart St John, whose writing, producing and directing credits include Sabrina: The Animated Series, V.R. Troopers, Droopy: Master Detective, Tom & Jerry Kids Show and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. He is also the creator of the television drama California Heaven, the recently launched kids’ animated YouTube series Bliss and the Tara Tremendous podcast series. St John also provides the voice of the prodigal son, Sebastian.

As The Swines wraps up Season 2, St John shared a few thoughts with Animation Magazine. Here’s what he had to say:

Animation Magazine: How does it feel to be completing your second season?

Stewart St John: Reaching the end of Season 2 feels like a pretty extraordinary milestone for all of us. The Swines started as this crazy idea to create a full-blown animated primetime comedy soap, essentially Dallas meets Schitt’s Creek, only everybody has a snout … loosely based on my family members and funny situations and stories (and drama!) that I’ve stored away for years. I wrote and produced the original movie Seventeen Again many years ago, and named many of the characters after my relatives, but this takes things to a whole new level!

Somehow, we’ve now built an entire world, produced two seasons independently, and assembled this wonderful cast who have completely embraced these characters.

Our actors have been fantastic. They’ve given these hogs real personalities and, somehow, real humanity. And they are all wanting to come back for Season 3 because it’s been an absolute blast. And I should also mention The Swines is international — we’ve recorded in Australia, the U.K., Germany, and right here in the U.S.A.

What have been the greatest challenges and triumphs of your indie animation journey?

I still remember landing my first animation contract at Hanna-Barbera, where I had the incredible good fortune to be mentored by Joe Barbera himself. We’d sit together breaking stories for Tom & Jerry Kids on Fox Kids, and he taught me so much about the ins and outs of writing comedy. He also predicted that one day I’d be running my own studio! I wish he were here so I could tell him he was right — although I’m not sure he would have predicted it would be populated by a bunch of dysfunctional pigs.

The biggest challenge has probably also been our greatest triumph: doing this independently. Producing an animated series at this level is enormously demanding, particularly with a small team, and we’ve learned an incredible amount about what’s possible. Every episode has been an education, and I think you can actually see the show becoming more ambitious and complex as Season 2 progresses.

What I’m proudest of is that we never treated The Swines like an experiment or a collection of animated shorts. From the beginning, we approached it like a network or streaming television series with continuing storylines, cliffhangers, an expanding ensemble and characters whose lives keep getting messier and messier.

We’ve also learned that producing the show is only half the battle. Finding an audience for an independently produced series in today’s incredibly crowded landscape is its own challenge. Ho boy! But the people who have discovered The Swines seem to genuinely connect with it, particularly viewers who miss those big, addictive primetime soaps where you couldn’t wait to see what happened the following week.

These final two episodes really bring everything we’ve been building toward all season to a head, beginning this Friday. And then we have a major cliff-hanger episode two weeks later on Friday, September 11!

Where are these melodramatic hams headed?

For us, the next chapter is bringing The Swines to an even larger audience. I’ve already plotted out Season 3 and many seasons beyond that, and we’re beginning to explore what the right platform and partners for that next stage might look like.

Mostly, though, we’re incredibly proud that this little dysfunctional family of country hogs made it through two seasons without killing each other.

… Although, there are still two episodes left. So I probably shouldn’t say that quite yet

Source: Animation Magazine