Zig & Sharko

Zig & Sharko
Genre	Slapstick comedy
Created by	Olivier Jean-Marie
Directed by	Olivier Jean-Marie (season 1) Andrés Fernandez (seasons 2–3) Hugo Gittard (co-director, season 2) Cédric Dietsch (director, season 3) Khalil Ben Naamane (director, season 3)
Composers	Fabien Nataf (season 1) Alain Mouysset (season 1) Vincent Artaud (seasons 2–3)
Country of origin	France
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	78 (234 segments)
Production
Executive producer	Marc du Pontavice
Producer	Marc du Pontavice
Running time	7-minutes per episode
Production company	Xilam Animation
Release
Original network	Canal+ Family (Series 1) Gulli (Series 2-3)
Original release	December 21, 2010 (2010-12-21) – present
Chronology
Related shows	Oggy and the Cockroaches Space Goofs
External links
Website

Zig & Sharko (French: Zig et Sharko) is a French animated slapstick comedy television series created and directed by Olivier Jean-Marie and produced by Xilam Animation. It chronicles the conflict between Zig, a brown hyena, and Sharko, a great white shark, who live on a volcanic island. The conflict is fueled by Zig's constant attempts to devour the mermaid Marina, whom Sharko loves. The series employs silent comedy: characters either do not speak, or use unintelligible vocalizations, gestures, and occasional pictograms in speech balloons (the Indian version dubs Hindi dialogue over the animation). Three seasons with a total of 78 half-hour episodes (234 seven-minute segments) were originally broadcast on December 21, 2010, on Canal+ Family, with the second and third seasons airing on Gulli, and reruns airing on TF1.^[1] The series is available for streaming in the United States on Netflix, Tubi, and its self-titled YouTube channel.

A third season was announced in December 2018,^[2] and later premiered on Boomerang Africa on January 13, 2020.

Premise[]

Major characters in the series (from right to left, as of the third season): Zig, Marina, and Sharko

The series focuses on the exploits and adventures of a group of characters - Zig, a brown hyena; Sharko, a great white shark; Marina, a mermaid with red hair; and Bernie, a hermit crab. Much of the stories of each episode revolve around an eternal war over Marina between Zig, who attempts to capture her to eat her, and Sharko, who loves her and acts as her bodyguard against Zig's various plans. The show itself draws inspiration for its plot and slapstick humor from the cartoons of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, in that Zig often makes use of various items or concocts plans based on things he witnesses with Sharko and Marina, but is often foiled by the former, bad luck, or a combination of both, that often results in him receiving grievous bodily injury. Alongside the main characters, the show is frequently populated by minor background characters, many of whom are animals and aquatic creatures that, alongside Zig and Sharko, are portrayed as anthropomorphic beings. Although Zig and Sharko are real enemies and have intense grudges against each other, they are also best friends; Sharko can't live without Zig and Zig can't live without Sharko, as shown in the episode "Lost in the Jungle."

Characters[]

None of the characters in the series speak; a form of gibberish speech is sometimes used, but most interactions involve hand signals and body language to convey what a character is thinking about. The show's main characters include:

• Zig – an anthropomorphic brown hyena who is currently 18 years old, came to the island as a baby from Africa and was adopted by a female gorilla. He is best friends and adoptive brothers with Bernie, since his childhood, and frequently plots to capture Marina to eat her, but is foiled in the process by Sharko. His schemes that he concocts for this purpose are often elaborate but never truly succeed. The character's behavior and characteristics were in part inspired by Wile E. Coyote.
• Sharko – an anthropomorphic great white shark, the age of 20, who loves Marina and often does everything to protect her from Zig's schemes, as well as anyone else who seeks to harm her. He is often portrayed as muscular and athletic (a recurring element is the character's constant flexing of muscles that aren't generally shown), is a fan of table tennis, and is capable of walking on land (as do all the animated series' aquatic characters) without issue. Although his devotion to Marina is out of loyalty and love, he sometimes occasionally causes trouble himself and often is punished for it.
• Marina – a mermaid, who is good-natured but quite naive. She maintains a positive relationship with everyone, including Zig because of being unaware of his intentions and thus not being afraid of him. She is often portrayed as wearing a small sea star as a decoration in her hair, possessing a smartphone, and capable of walking on land by using the flippers on her tail as feet. She is often intrigued and interested in new things such as farming, skiing, and other activities and hobbies, and often attempts them usually with Sharko offering to help arrange it. She often enjoys singing, though Sharko dislikes it. She was inspired by Ariel from The Little Mermaid .
• Bernie – a red anthropomorphic hermit crab, and Zig's best friend and adoptive brother since childhood. He often collaborates in Zig's schemes to capture Marina, though in reality holds no grudge against her or Sharko. He is often denoted as being quite smart, and capable of coming to the rescue when needed.

Alongside the main characters, various episodes feature a variety of background and minor characters to the stories - jungle animals, aquatic lifeforms, and various human characters - in the first season, one of these human characters is portrayed as a Japanese cargo ship captain, who, as a running gag, frequently crashes his ship into the island and is forced to return home via a rubber dingy. Throughout the first season, several episodes featured the supporting character of Neptune, based on the mythological Roman god of the sea and portrayed as a vain, muscular merman with numerous killer whale henchmen, who competed with Sharko for Marina's love, despite her disliking him whom Marina despises and often has to rely on Sharko and Zig to keep him at bay, the production team also added in the Greek god Poseidon, portrayed as a muscular, elder merman, who served as Marina's adopted father, and an amnesiac human cargo plane pilot who often exhibits the behavior of a monkey due to his condition.

Setting[]

Throughout the first season, much of the plots revolve around the oceans surrounding a tropical volcanic island, alongside its coastline, in which Marina often spends the day residing on a rocky pinnacle off the coast during the day, while residing in an underwater home that she shares with Sharko. In the second season, the plots shifted to the island itself, including its beaches, volcano, and jungle, with some changes for the main characters - Marina takes residence in an ornate, life-sized sandcastle evocative of the Taj Mahal, built by Sharko; Zig and Bernie live with the cargo plane pilot in his crash plane within the jungle, and Sharko operates as a lifeguard for the aquatic lifeforms who frequent the beaches. In the third season, the main characters and the island's inhabitants move onto a cruise ship to travel the oceans, where much of the season's plots take place.

Production and development[]

In 2008, the television group Canal+ decided to develop pilot episodes for nine out of 135 animation projects received, including Zig and Sharko, for television broadcast during the 2010–2011 season. A development budget of 6 to 6.5 million euros (6.85 to 7.42 million US dollars) was allocated to the series. The original title was The Mermaid, the Hyena and the Shark, and it is a co-production between the television channels TF1 and Canal+ Family which broadcast later this series. The type of animation is similar to the American series of Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Tom and Jerry, and Oggy and the Cockroaches, the latter also produced by Marc du Pontavice. Dong Woo Animation and Armada TMT contributed some of the animations for this series.

The development of the series was carried out by the French studios Xilam known for other successful series such as Space Goofs and Oggy and the Cockroaches, the series’ first season has been ordered and picked up by Xilam Animation in 2009, which premiered on Canal+ on December 21, 2010, the series was launched on Canal+ Family on February 12, 2011, on Cartoon+ every Saturday at 7:40 pm. Xilam then produced a second season in 2013.

Episodes[]

Series overview[]

Season 1 (2010–2011)[]

Season 2 (2015–2017)[]

This section may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards, as the listed episodes need to be put into order of broadcast. . The talk page may contain suggestions. (August 2018)

Season 3 (2019–2020)[]

This section may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards, as the listed episodes need to be put into order of broadcast. . The talk page may contain suggestions. (October 2020)

YouTube channel[]

On May 6, 2015, the YouTube channel of Zig & Sharko was created,^[3] with all the episodes from season 1 to season 3. The channel made also compilations episodes. The channel made episodes with English title cards. As of August 2021, the channel has 11.9 million subscribers making it one of the Top 10 most-subscribed French channels on the site.^[4]

As of November 2020, The Were-Hyena sixty-seven episode of the season one is the most-viewed episode of the official channel with over 99 million views.^[5] The most-viewed compilation have 118 million views.^[6]

Reception[]

This section needs expansion. You can help by . (August 2018)

The episode titled "Birthday Party" is part of the official selection at the 2011 Annecy Animation Festival in the category 'TV Shows'.^{[citation needed]}

References[]

External links[]

• Zig & Sharko at IMDb
• Page devoted to the series on the site of Xilam (in English)