Rocket Monkeys is a Canadian animated television series created by Dan Abdo and Jason Patterson for Teletoon. It premiered in Canada on January 10, 2013, and aired its last new episode on November 23, 2016, before entering reruns. Breakthrough Entertainment produced the series in association with Hornet Films and Atomic Cartoons. 66 episodes were produced.
Although the show received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and audiences - while praising its animation, but heavily panned with its frequent crude/toilet humor, it won several Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Animated Program in both 2015 and 2016.
Two anthropomorphic monkey astronauts, named Gus and Wally, work at the GASI Headquarters. They're not quick-witted, but since they are the only ones around, they are called upon to go into space and carry out different kinds of important missions, including battling rogue black holes and aliens. Other members of the brothers' crew include bossy astrophysicist Dr. Chimpsky, who gives the monkeys their assignments; YAY-OK, a devoted robot that is slightly outdated and is the brothers' only hope to help keep them on course; and Inky, a space alien artist who communicates through his ink drawings.
The development of the series began in 2006. The two protagonists, Gus and Wally, were inspired by the complicity of the two creators of the series, Dan Abdo and Jason Patterson, friends since high school. Jason and Dan did some animation tests and sketches, which they showed to Michael Feder. Feder, a partner of Hornet Inc., then helped in the development of Rocket Monkeys under the label of Hornet Films. In 2007, the animation division of their studio closed. 4Kids Entertainment then volunteered to take care of the pre-production of the series from spring 2008.
At the beginning of 2012, pre-production was completed, and Atomic Cartoons in Vancouver took over the animation.
Rocket Monkeys was broadcast in Canada on the channel Teletoon from January 10, 2013, to November 23, 2016. The series is available for digital per-episode purchase in Canada, but not in the U.S. As of 2021, the series (except some episodes) can be seen on the completely free streaming service, Tubi.
On February 21, 2013, Nickelodeon announced that it and its global networks had acquired the broadcast rights to the series, including for the U.S., though its history on that network was marked with several shifts. It premiered on the channel March 4, 2013, but then shifted over to sister network Nicktoons due to low ratings and waning promotion on Nickelodeon, before the network dropped it entirely in May 2014, leaving it off US airwaves for just over three years. The second season finally premiered in the U.S. on July 3, 2017, as part of the over-the-air KidsClick syndicated children's block and aired until the block shut down in 2019. In the United Kingdom, it premiered on Nicktoons in 2013 and ended sometime in 2017, but repeats aired from December 2017 to 28 January 2018. In Southeast Asia and Poland, it aired on Disney XD.
Rocket Monkeys received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and audiences.
Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media rates a show two stars out of five, saying that the show was "tries to be edgy and clever with its humor, but gross-out laughs usually dominate the content." She describes the main characters, Gus and Wally, as "loud, rude, and chronically dim," who are "also persistent in the worst possible way, forever trying to one-up each other or get what they want by whining about it." Overall, she calls the show "hectic and tiresome."
Despite the critical reception, the show won at the Canadian Screen Awards for the Best Animated Program or Series and Best Writing in an Animated Program or Series (Dan Abdo) in both 2015 and 2016, plus, it was nominated for Best Performance in an Animated Program or Series (Mark Robert Edwards) in 2014, and, in the same year, it won at the 10th Annual Shaw Rocket Prize alongside Justin Time and If I Had Wings.