‘Sherlock Holmes’ May Get the Animated Treatment From a ‘Shrek’ Producer

Here’s a duo you don’t expect: Sherlock Holmes and Shrek. There won’t be any content crossover if a new animated Sherlock Holmes series—tentatively titled Animated Sherlock—gets off the ground, but the shared behind-the-scenes interests are there. Also of note, the series wouldn’t adapt the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle source material but rather a novel series that puts a more risque twist on his classic tales.

As Variety reports, Animated Sherlock would tap into The Unexperguated Adventures of Sherlock Holmes books by N.P. Sercombe; the series purports to reveal the “uncensored accounts of every Sherlock Holmes case” written by Dr. John Watson before they were edited for publication, and are filled with “remarkable frankness, startling humanity, and occasionally shocking revelations,” according to the book series’ website.

The 16 entries have titles like A Balls-Up in Bohemia, My First Proper Rural Murder, The Mysterious Marriage of the Gay Bachelor, and Death By Dandruff, so you can kind of tell the sense of humor here and why an adaptation would be aimed at adult audiences. Author Sercombe is the CEO of Harry King Television, the producers of the new series, along with David Lipman, whose credits include producing the first two Shrek movies.

According to Variety, “The animated series will skew toward mature viewers, structuring each season around central mystery arcs while connecting individual episodes to Doyle’s original Holmes canon. The show promises to explore character backstories for Holmes, Watson, Mrs. Hudson, and Moriarty through a contemporary lens aimed at international adult demographics.”

There’s been no shortage of creative Sherlock Holmes interpretations, including the current Watson TV series on CBS, which stars Morris Chestnut as the doctor-turned-detective and Holmes’ former partner. Animation, however, is new turf for the stories. What do you think of Animated Sherlock putting the sleuth into a new medium, with seemingly racier takes on his familiar cases?

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