Tooning Out the News

Describing itself as an animated news program, Tooning Out the News draws its satire and animation from recent news stories, political figures, media organizations, and often uses self-referential humor as well.

The first season consisted of four main segments, "Big News," "Inside The Hill," "Hot Take," and "Virtue Signal," resembling shows seen on cable news channels, plus added interstitial vignettes covering other stories not mentioned in the main segments. The second season added two new segments "The Establishment with Tory Hughes" and "Smart Talk Tonight."

Three of the main segments originally debut on Paramount+ Tuesday through Thursday (the morning after a new The Late Show with Stephen Colbert episode), with the fourth, plus a compilation "Week in Review" show containing all four plus vignettes are released every Friday. Some interstitial vignettes are previewed on The Late Show. Regular episodes expanded to a half-hour starting on October 8, 2021 and the series would switch to a weekly format.[4]

• R.J. Fried as James Smartwood
• Maureen Monahan as Kylie Weaver/Sarah Sabo/Nicole Vance
• Jack Bensinger as Tyler Templeton
• Naima Pearce as Tory Hughes
• Ikechukwu Ufomadu as Dr. Ike Bloom
• Addison Anderson as Rich Ballard/Austin Sparks
• Simone Norman as Eleanor Palmer
• Jeremy Bent as Teddy Hopper/Jonathan Keene
• Zach Smilovitz as James Smartwood Jr.
• Megan Stalter as Bonnie Davis
• Neil D'Astolfo as Peter Womack/Troy Lawson
• Alise Morales as Lila Moreno
• Nathan Min as Brian Min
• Otter Lee as Otter Lin
• Keisha Zollar as Susan Shephard
• Graham Techler as Kenneth Parsons
• Corin Wells as Lydia Parker
• Steph Cook as Charlotte Fitzgerald
• Jeremy Levick as Jeremy Levy-Levin
• Rajat Suresh as Rajat Mehta

The show was set to premiere on March 16, 2020, but production was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[5] The series debuted on April 7, 2020, instead, after production continued remotely, with animators and showrunner RJ Fried, who has also produced The Late Show and the animated show Our Cartoon President, working via Zoom and Slack.[6][7]

Tooning Out The News has been nominated for a Critics' Choice Award for Best Short Form Series[8] and an Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series.[9]

Regular episodes expanded to a half-hour starting on October 8, 2021 and the series would switch to a weekly format.[10]

The show originally used motion capture to "record" the actors' performances on the show, after converting David Letterman's old personal screening room at the Ed Sullivan Theater as a control room.[11] After the pandemic forced animators to work from home, they switched to remote production, shipping equipment to animator's houses and using Live2D software, including Adobe's Character Animator, to animate the show's virtual hosts in real-time.

The pandemic also forced producers to find a remote solution for guests, who were set to be filmed in studio. Because the show's back-and-forth banter required low latency, producers partnered with The Video Call Center to handle acquisition and quality control of guest connections.[12] The VCC developed a custom process that enables the show’s animated hosts to have topical, live, natural conversations with newsmakers.[13]

The show features interviews with politicians, activists, and celebrities, including:

• Alan Dershowitz[5]
• Barbara Lee[5]
• Charlamagne tha God
• Charles M. Blow
• Deepak Chopra
• Donny Deutsch[14]
• Eric Swalwell[14]
• H. R. McMaster
• Joe Arpaio[15]
• Lea Michele
• Kal Penn
• Ken Burns
• Mark Hamill
• Norman Lear
• Padma Lakshmi
• Rick Wilson[16]
• Salman Rushdie
• Touré
• Walter Isaacson[17]
• Ziwe Fumudoh

• Official Site
• Tooning Out the News at IMDb