China, IL


China, IL is an American adult animated sitcom created by Brad Neely for Cartoon Network's nighttime programming block Adult Swim. It follows the surreal adventures of the staff of a college located in the titular city.
The series was originally conceived as a web series on Adult Swim's defunct comedy website, Super Deluxe, in 2008. Neely, who had done I Am Baby Cakes and The Professor Brothers shorts for Super Deluxe in 2006, envisioned the characters in each series to coexist in the same universe. With the relationship in mind, he produced a four-part internet series entitled China, IL, which was published on Super Deluxe in 2008. An 11-minute television special combining the shorts, titled "China, IL: The Funeral", aired on Adult Swim on May 25, 2008. Neely stated that a major inspiration behind the premise of the series derives from his lack of college experiences and his Arkansan upbringing. Episodes are written among a writing staff headed by Neely of six-to-eight people; for voice-over work, the crew works on two or three hours of dialogue for a certain character, followed by storyboard meetings, dailies, and rough cuts, with Neely directing other actors who come in after him.
China, IL ended on June 14, 2015, with a total of 30 episodes, following the series finale "Magical Pet".

Plot

The series takes place at the "Worst College in America", located at the edge of the fictional town of China, Illinois. The school's uncaring faculty and staff celebrate its poor reputation; they are constantly shown drinking while teaching, or trying to avoid teaching altogether.

Characters

Main characters

  • Steve Smith – The laid-back and hedonistic older brother of Frank Smith who is a history teacher at the University of China, IL.
  • Frank Smith – The narcissistic and insecure younger brother of Steve Smith who is also a history teacher at the University of China, IL.
  • Pony Merks – The teaching assistant of history at the University of China, IL.
  • Mark "Baby" Cakes – A large undergraduate who is the son of Leonard Cakes and is often seen with Frank, Steve, and Pony.
  • The Dean – The unnamed and impossibly macho head of the University of China, IL.

    Recurring characters

  • Professor Leonard Cakes – The father of Mark "Baby" Cakes who is a teacher of "super science."
  • Dr. Jack Falgot – A physician and wrestling coach who runs the campus health center at China, IL.
  • Sammy Davis – An elderly female history teacher at the University of China, IL.
  • Crystal Peppers – A professor of Spanish, history, and philosophy who is Steve's competitor. It is revealed that she is a transgender woman.
  • Matt Attack – A student at the University of China, IL. And the star quarterback and pitcher for UCI's football and baseball teams, respectively.
  • Gang Sang – A giant panda who is the mascot of the University of China, IL. He is often seen standing around the campus.
  • Golden Bowl – The golden-haired newsman of Channel 3 News and Channel 8 News at China, IL.
  • Ronald Reagan – The 40th President of the United States who has made appearances on this show.
  • Mayor – The unnamed Mayor of China, IL who is the Dean's nemesis.
  • Transfer Billy – New transfer student at UCI.

    Development

Concept and creation

The series was conceived as a web series on Adult Swim's defunct comedy website, Super Deluxe, in 2008. Neely, who had produced I Am Baby Cakes and The Professor Brothers shorts for Super Deluxe in 2006, envisioned the characters in each series to coexist in the same universe. With this relationship in mind, he produced a four-part online series entitled China, IL, hand-drawn by him in his apartment in Austin, Texas. The series was published onto Super Deluxe in 2008. Intended for online consumption, he considered the web series independent from China, IL, due to the differences in format and structure that he stated he feels his work should be dictated by.
Executive producer Daniel Weidenfeld stated in an interview with The Huffington Post that before they knew Super Deluxe would be folded into Adult Swim Video, he talked to senior executive vice president of Adult Swim, Mike Lazzo, about translating the online series to a television special. The special, entitled "China, IL: The Funeral" combined the four-part series into an 11-minute television special, which aired on May 25, 2008. Weidenfeld explained the special "was great, and it was insane that they would have ever put that on TV, but that itself never would have worked as a show." Weidenfeld explained the plot outline for the short, consisting of three stories involving the four main characters; he explained in the interview that having to do "four beginning, middle and ends with one larger beginning, middle and end is the craziest sort of storytelling imaginable." Weidenfeld had previously stated in an interview with MovieWeb that the combination of the shorts "isn't representative of what we've turned this show into. Or what the shorts were, even."
Shortly before Super Deluxe ceased operations, Weidenfeld moved to Los Angeles, while Neely started working as a story consultant for South Park in 2007, during the show's eleventh season. Neely eventually got a deal to write another script for Adult Swim; Weidenfeld and his brother Nick Weidenfeld, who oversaw development for the network encouraged him to use the existing characters in China, IL. Neely stated that he had never done third-person narrative stories for television before, but collaborated with the Weidenfelds anyway and produced a pilot for the network ; he jokingly stated that "nobody will ever see ."

Production

Neely stated in an interview with The A.V. Club that a major inspiration behind the premise of the series derives from his lack of college experiences: "I had this very small slice of an understanding of how college life is. To me, it's high school for adults, and I guess I'm depicting it that way. My sister is a professor.... I'm around professors, but I'm kind of misinformed a bit. My information is broken and that's what makes China wonky and interesting, because it's what's so fucking wrong about college." Similarly, in the series, Neely parodies popular culture elements that he knows only through passing mentions. The season two episode, "The Diamond Castle", parodies the Mad Men episode, "The Other Woman", which Neely stated he had never watched before; he explained that "We do that often where we'll just take my ignorance and run with it." The A.V. Club interview also has Neely describe aspects of the series inspired by his Arkansan upbringing; he admits that he "talk about all the time, it turns out. The final episode of the season is about hog infestation. It's happening all over southern United States, where wild boars are just overpopulating—they tear up the land and land owners and cattle ranchers have to hunt these things and put Kevlar vests on their dogs because they have horns and shit."
The second season doubled the running time of the first from 11 minutes to 22 minutes; according to Weidenfeld in an interview with USA Today, this was done in accordance with the network's expanding timeslot. Neely stated that "I think we decided, in concert with the network, that it would benefit the show. The show kept growing, and our storytelling style and structure just needed more room. I didn't know what I was doing when I was writing in the 11-minute format; I was just cramming 22 minutes in there." Weidenfeld considered the first season "essentially 10 mini-pilots" converging into a larger show. He stated that the network thought the increase in length led to a "perfect fit" for the show's expanding universe. He stated that he and his crew had developed up to 300 named characters which will be inserted throughout the series.
In writing for season one, Vernon Chatman, a consulting producer for the series, would assist in outlining and "weighing in" on scripts, while Neely would write all the scripts himself. During season one, Neely said his staff would make each episode encapsulate various genres, stating "We're trying to tell as many different things as we can do in a quarter-hour." Since season two, with the episodes being 22 minutes, the series employs six to eight writers per episode. In their writing room, the crew discusses a given episode synopsis and create a detailed, 22-page outline, which gets sent to the network for notes. After the network approves of the outline and the crew is satisfied with it, the outline gets made into a script, which also goes through the network for notes. According to Neely in the Huffington Post interview, at the height of production of the second season, the production crew was working on six or seven episodes simultaneously, all at various stages of completion.
In the United States, the special was rated TV-MA, while the series is rated TV-14. When asked about the network's Standards and Practices, Weidenfeld stated that "I find when something comes back that you can't say, we're able to skirt around it and make something funnier." According to Neely and Weidenfeld, the network forced them to cut smoking out of the show; Jack Falgot, a character in the series, was planned to smoke on a cigarette in every scene he appeared in. The network issued to have the cigarette changed to a lollipop for broadcast. Neely revealed that his team try to incorporate some of the "hallmark components" of his shorts, but find their audience not "really have the patience for that sort of thing". In sticking to a mostly third-person narrative, his team is more confident in the reception toward the series.
An episode takes approximately one year to complete; Neely states that six or seven episodes may be produced simultaneously, all at various stages. Animation is done at Titmouse, Inc. in Los Angeles. When asked about the slideshow presentation of his animated shorts in an interview with The College Hill Independent, Neely felt that the approach was not "an aesthetic choice, it was sort of the only thing I was able to do. I'm not an animator." He stated that, out of "ignorance and not having a whole lot of options", he hand-drew each frame on paper and scanned them into a computer; he felt the restrictions "really paid off and I enjoyed the form.... But, it never was something I felt I was needing to defend or stick to, or that it represented me artistically." Other changes to the art style from the shorts were dictated by animation director, Mike L. Mayfield. Weidenfeld stated that Mayfield "was instrumental in turning Brad's original style into what we had the first season." Among them were the addition of pupils which, according to Weidenfeld, some of Neely's fans were unhappy over. Neely states that "I had a long run of drawing those Orphan Annie style of eyes. That worked well for print. But as soon as things move, the characters start to look like zombies."