Sanjay and Craig


Sanjay and Craig is an American animated comedy television series developed by Jay Howell, Jim Dirschberger, and Andreas Trolf. Produced by The Adventures of Pete & Pete creators Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi, the series revolves around a twelve-year-old boy named Sanjay, voiced by Maulik Pancholy, and his best friend Craig, voiced by Chris Hardwick, a talking snake.
The series officially began production in late 2011 and first aired on Nickelodeon on May 25, 2013. The series was renewed for a second season on September 12, 2013 that began airing on July 12, 2014, and for a third season on June 11, 2014 that premiered on September 7, 2015. Hardwick confirmed on Twitter on June 10, 2016 that the series had officially finished production. The series ended on July 29, 2016 with the half-hour special episode "Booyah for Bollywood", having aired three seasons and 60 episodes.

Plot

The series follows Sanjay and Craig as they have comedic adventures around the town of Lundgren, often involving their parents Vijay and Darlene. Sanjay also helps Craig as he tries to keep his ability to talk a secret while avoiding their snake-hating neighbor Mr. Noodman.

Episodes

Characters

Main

Howell said that the idea began with a comic he and Dirschberger had made in 2004, where the main character was a snake charmer named Sanji and Craig was his "really crude roommate buddy who's a talking snake". Then-Nickelodeon executive Audrey Diehl recruited Howell and Dirschberger after finding an internet cartoon they had created titled "The Forest City Rockers", the namesake of Howell and Dirschberger's production company.
Sanjay and Craig was unsuccessfully pitched twice to Nickelodeon before Trolf, Dirschberger, and Howell sought advice from Loren Bouchard, whom Howell had designed characters for while creating Bob's Burgers for Fox Broadcasting Company. Dirschberger said of the meeting that " showed us the “Bob’s Burgers” pitch packet, which was, like, four pages of beautifully executed writing and art, and that was it. So we combined what we had learned from the first two pitches, put it in this really simple presentation." The series' usage of gross-out humor is based on the fact both Howell and Dirschberger have mothers who are nurses, "and they've told us a lot of gross stories over the years", which also served as the basis for the character of Darlene. Over the course of development, Dirschberger changed Sanjay to a twelve-year-old boy "without a weird quirk or affectation", and the premise during the second pitch was "four kids who lived in a garbage dump", providing the basis for Sanjay and Craig's friends Megan and Hector.
Since none of the three creators had produced a series before, Nickelodeon chose McRobb and Viscardi as executive producers; Howell said that their experience on Pete & Pete helped them add "surreal kids' stuff" to Sanjay and Craig. Unlike most animated series, Sanjay and Craig does not rely on scripting; instead the writers make an outline which is then converted to a storyboard. Thurop Van Orman, known for creating The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack for Cartoon Network, served as the supervising producer for the first season.
The series is notable for featuring celebrity guest stars as fictionalized versions of themselves, including Snoop Dogg, Anthony Bourdain, and Dolph Lundgren. Certain episodes are also based on past Nickelodeon game shows and similarly feature their hosts: a first-season episode based on Double Dare features Marc Summers and Harvey, while a third-season episode based on Nickelodeon Guts features Mike O'Malley and Moira Quirk. Bourdain, who voiced a character named Anthony Gourmand, claimed to be a "mega fan of Sanjay and Craig. I've seen absolutely every episode," and that “it’s a little weird seeing my voice coming out of Anthony Gourmand, but my friends have been telling me that I’ve been a cartoon of myself for years, so really I’m kind of used to this." Other guests include Paul Reubens, Adam DeVine, and Michael-Leon Wooley, who voice original characters.

Broadcast

The series airs worldwide on Nickelodeon. It premiered on August 17, 2013 on YTV in Canada, on September 6, 2013 in Southeast Asia, on November 4, 2013 in Australia and New Zealand, on November 5, 2013 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and on February 3, 2014 in South Africa.

Home media

DVD releases

Reception

David Weigand of the San Francisco Chronicle said that the series is "juvenile but also smart and funny" and "understands that kids are kids but also are often more sophisticated than children's television acknowledges." Giving it 3 stars out of 5, David Hinckley of New York Daily News said that the show "doesn't tiptoe around the stuff kids love most. Like gross stuff and absurd slapstick that in real life would probably get you killed." Marah Eakin of The A.V. Club gave the first two episodes an "A". The premiere episode had an estimated 3.6 million viewers. Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media gave the show 2 out of 5 stars, stating, "There's no rhyme, reason, or reality to the characters' misadventures, which can be a fun departure from real life but at the same time doesn't give them anything positive to glean from the content."