Brendan O’Carroll: We're investing in a Mrs Brown's Boys cartoon

Sitcom creator revives the idea of an animated version

Brendan O’Carroll has revived the prospect of a Mrs Brown’s Boys cartoon – more than 15 years after first raising the idea.

The sitcom’s creator says that he’s now putting money into creating an animated version of his Irish mammy alter-ego Agnes Brown so it can be more easily sold to other countries.

He said: ‘We – our own production company – are investing in doing an animation series so that it can go then worldwide.’

If successful, the project could prove immensely lucrative. The Mr Bean animated series, set to be revived on ITVX next year, has run for 130 episodes and is the biggest TV and film brand on Facebook, with 140million subscribers.

O’Carroll first mentioned the idea of an animation in 2012, saying it had already been several years in the making.

He told the Irish Independent: 'About four years ago I started a project in Arizona where I put a team of animators together to turn Mrs Brown into a cartoon series. When you see the titles of Mrs Brown's Boys, that's from the animated series which we're bringing out. The wonderful thing about doing a cartoon is that they translate it into any language.’

A pilot was made in 2012 by Powerhouse Animation, the production company who created the animated titles seen in the live-action BBC One show. And two years later O’Carroll and the rest of the cast - largely drawn from his own family - recorded the audio track as the show was reportedly going into production.

At the time, Rory Cowan, who played Mrs Brown's camp son Rory said: ‘The logic is that it can be sent to all English-speaking countries, and dubbed so it can be used across the world.’

However, nothing was seen of the project, although O’Carroll again spoke about the idea in 2019, saying: ‘We have scripts where she comes across a meteor, digs it up and suddenly develops superpowers. Doing it as a cartoon gave us so many more avenues. We can do stories that you just can’t do on the normal show.’

Mrs Brown

The comedian, in character above, revived the idea when speaking to broadcaster Gerry Kelly in an episode of his podcast released this week.

O’Carroll also spoke about how Agnes had already become a hit around the world, with the BBC sitcom bought by several countries since its launch in 2011. Some broadcast the original show with subtitles but others have made their own editions .

Madame Lebrun

In French Canada it airs as Madame Lebrun, with the lead role performed by Benoît Brière, above, and now useshomegrown scripts rather than just adapting O’Carroll’s original. In Greece it is called Super Mammy and in Czechia it is PanMáma .

O’Carroll told Kelly that Brière is ‘really good’ but added: ‘Having said that, in Romania there is a guy and he doesn’t even bother. It’s like he just puts on the wig and then just speaks. I don’t know what he is saying but I get royalties so it must be the script.’

Aunty florica