Trivia / Shaun the Sheep

• Accent Depundent: The name of the series is intended as a pun on "Shorn the Sheep". This only works in non-rhotic accents^note i.e. most accents of Nick Park's native England, as well as Wales, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, where "Shaun" and "shorn" are homophones due to the "r" being lost from the latter word. Viewers with rhotic accents^note i.e. most Americans, Canadians, Scots and Irish will likely not even realise the intended pun.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Shaun the Sheep proved to be Aardman's most-profitable character, with his own ongoing TV series, merchandise line, and cinematic film series.
• Channel Hop: After partnerships with American studios DreamWorks Animation and Sony Pictures Animation, The Movie was Aardman's first film to be co-produced with fellow European company StudioCanal, and to be distributed by Lionsgate in the USA. The second film, Farmageddon was acquired by Netflix for US, Canadian, and Latin American markets.
  • The TV series was originally broadcast on Disney Channel in the United States between commercial breaks. After the 2015 film was released, Warner Bros. would buy the rights to air it on Cartoon Network and Boomerang.
• Colbert Bump: Interest in Shaun spiked enormously when Emma Bunton of the Spice Girls was photographed wearing a Shaun the Sheep backpack, leading to Aardman developing projects focused on him.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Shirley is voiced by the male Richard Webber.
• Late Export for You: The US and Canada blu-ray of Farmageddon was not released until two years later of it's US release on Netflix. Granted, since a lot of Netflix movies don't come out often on Blu-Ray, Farmageddon might have been the exception for getting an Oscar nomination.
• Meaningful Release Date: The movie was released in 2015, twenty years after Shaun's first appearance in A Close Shave. 2015 was also the Chinese Year of the Sheep.
• No Export for You: Despite being published by a Japanese company, the two DS games were never released in Japan, with the second game never being released outside Europe.
• Screwed by the Network: After the success of the film adaptation, Cartoon Network started airing the series in September 2015 as part of a brandless block featuring reruns of Baby Looney Tunes and the modern Peanuts television series, then both Shaun and Peanuts ended up being banished to Boomerang after a month.
• Shrug of God: Aardman's Twitter account isn't saying if Shaun is Timmy's father.
• Sleeper Hit: The first movie. Although it flopped at the US Box Office, it was hugely succesful worldwide, making $106 million from a budget of $25 million. The sequel made $47.8 million worldwide, but its budget remains unknown.
• What Could Have Been:
  • There were plans for an anime adaptation which got scrapped
  • In Shaun the Sheep Movie:
    • The plot originally was the same plot from season 1 episode, "Save the Tree". However, the team of Aardman didn't felt like it was a plot made for a motion picture, and wanted a story that can "take the sheep out of their comfort zone", so they brought writer Mark Burton, to create a new plot line worthy for a Shaun the Sheep Movie. He would eventually become co-director with Richard Starzak, who also wrote the script.
    • The Farmer was orignally intened to be the villain, but it was changed because it felt out of character, so they created a new villain for the movie, Trumper.
    • In early stages of the story, there were some thoughts about including a character who can sing and explain what's happening in the story, Or include a performance poet or some of the humans who could talk. The directors decided to just stick to the integrity of the show which is the lack of dialogue and the narrative though visuals.
  • In Farmageddon:
    • It was supposed to have a world wide theatrical release by Lionsgate but was scrapped due to the failure of Early Man.
    • Richard Strazak was set to write and direct the movie. But then he was replaced by Richard Phelan and Will Becher. Strazak still worked on the final product as an executive producer and story writer.
    • Lu-La was going to be a fussball alien, than whatever she would get angry, she would be a lot larger. The team of Aardman scarped this idea because it felt it would be hard to animate, and it was changed into a puppylike alien. She would also have a different variety of colors. Concept art can be seen here
    • An alternative version of the Supermarket Sequence was storyboarded before the scene was re-written when Lu-La's character design was changed.
    • Original Storyboards of the UFO crash, Lu-La and Bitzer saving Shaun from Red Agent and the alternative climax during the Farmageddon Play can be found here

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