It’s officially opening day at Steele Stadium, and Pablo Sanchez and the Backyard Baseball team are ready for their first at bat as the first-ever Backyard Sports animated special goes live on January 29.
The special, which can be found on the Backyard Sports YouTube channel and playing in Dave & Busters locations across the U.S., revives the beloved franchise with new content for the first time in well over a decade. In it, the iconic Backyard kids must help team superstar Stephanie ‘Bubbles’ Morgan find her lucky bubble gum with just 30 minutes to game time.
The trailer gives a taste of just how dire the situation is, as Stephanie’s is totally thrown off without her gum. It’ll be a team effort to get her in shape before the time runs out. Watch the trailer above.
Deadline exclusively broke the news about the special last year, including the all-star voice cast that features Tiffany Haddish as Kiesha Phillips and Arturo Castro as Pablo Sanchez.
The all-star voice cast includes Tiffany Haddish as Kiesha Phillips, Arturo Castro as Pablo Sanchez, Ego Nwodim as Stephanie Morgan and Jocinda Smith, Chris Mintz-Plasse as Dmitri Petrovich, Donald Faison as Dante Robinson, Ashleigh Crystal Hairson as Sunny Day, Adam Pally as Pete Wheeler, and Utkarsh Ambudkar as Achmed Khan.
Playground Productions CEO Lindsay Barnett, who acquired the rights to the games several years ago and relaunched them for mobile devices and modern consoles, lends her voice for Vinnie and the Webber Twins, and Michael Vlamis voices Tony Delvecchio.
Barnett debuted the animated special on January 24 at Dave & Busters Hollywood, screening the full special for Backyard Sports fans before a Q&A with with members of the cast and crew including Hairston, Vlamis, and Deborah Baker Jr.
The special is just the first new piece of content to come from the revived Backyard Sports franchise. In addition to Backyard Baseball, Barnett also owns the rights to the football, basketball, soccer and hockey iterations of the video games. It’s a unique situation, as Barnett has opted to independently finance this revival rather than give up any creative control to work with a major studio or streamer. Dave & Busters helped finance the animated special.
After the premiere screening, Barnett reiterated her commitment to new games and, hopefully, more animated episodes to come.
In an interview with Deadline, Barnett previously assured: “Our millennial fans have been itching for storytelling, and now that they have kids, they’re like, ‘We want to have a program that we can watch with them and really enjoy, and we might even enjoy it more than them.’ So that is what we’re really excited to continue to create.”
The special is executive produced by Chris Waters, Lindsay Barnett, Avi Savitski, and Ari Pinchot, with Phil Crain serving as Line Producer. It is written by Joe Purdy (“Hey Arnold!”) and directed by Mike Roberts (“Final Space,” “BoJack Horseman”). Animation production is handled by Lighthouse Studios (“Bob’s Burgers The Movie,” “Rick and Morty,” “The Cuphead Show”) and with original music by Jonny Shorr.