'The Great North’ Will Be Back Sooner Than You Think
'The Great North'
Though it shares a lot of DNA with the long-running and beloved Bob’s Burgers, The Great North on Fox is an animated treat in its own right. Centering on a single dad (Nick Offerman) raising four kids in a sleepy Alaskan town, the show strikes a delightful balance between comfort-viewing and offbeat, sometimes startling humor. The show has been renewed for a fourth season, which will air in January 2024. Here’s everything to know about The Great North Season 4, including exact release date and cast.
What is The Great North Season 4 about?
During the annual network upfronts in May 2023, Fox confirmed that it was renewing The Great North for a fourth season. Shortly after that, series co-creators and showrunners Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin signed a new overall deal with 20th Television Animation, the studio which produces the show, which suggests that there could well be more seasons to come.
Fox hasn’t released a specific synopsis for the season overall, but a summary for the first episode of the season, “Bad Speedcher Adventure,” is available, and it goes as follows: “Ham enlists his family for help in finding a speech for his Public Speaking Elective. Judy, Beef, and Honeybee pitch competing stories for Ham to select from and end up secretly drawing from Top Gun, Good Will Hunting, and The Matrix in the process.”
Related: All About Season 14 of 'Bob’s Burgers'
Who's in The Great North Season 4 cast?
Although the voice cast of Season 4 hasn’t been officially confirmed, it’s safe to assume that all of the key players from previous seasons will be returning.
Nick Offerman
Offerman will return to lead the show’s voice cast as gruff but loving dad Beef Tobin. Discussing the show’s origins with Mashable, the Molyneux sisters explained that Offerman was a “muse” for them as they were conceiving the central character. “We came up with [the name 'Beef'] as almost sort of a placeholder," Lizzie said. "I mean, it's a Nick Offerman character named 'Beef.' It just felt right. We weren’t necessarily sure that it would stick forever, but then we started building off of that personality."
Jenny Slate
Slate plays Beef’s only daughter, Judy, a budding artist who finds inspiration in unexpected places (most significantly in a fantasy version of Alanis Morissette, who appears to her to give advice on a regular basis). “The script was so funny, in this specific style that Bob’s [Burgers] and Wendy and Lizzie and Loren [Bouchard, the show’s executive producer] all have,” Slate told Deadline at a screening shortly before the second season premiere, “which is that it’s super-duper sweet. It’s a kind show, and the comedy is just so, so strong.”
Will Forte
Longtime SNL mainstay Forte plays Beef’s oldest son, Wolf, a sensitive and upbeat “Golden Retriever-type” twenty-something who longs for his father’s approval.
Dulcé Sloan
Sloan will return to play Honeybee, Beef’s daughter-in-law and Wolf’s wife. “When I was looking at the writing for the audition, it was like, ‘Oh, okay. [Honeybee] speaks how I would speak,'” Sloan told Deadline, reflecting on what set the pilot script apart. “A lot of times when you see Black characters, you can tell that they’re written by someone who’s never spoken to a Black person before…I was really excited about [the character] because she felt like a real person, like if this was live-action, I could actually play her.”
Paul Rust
Rust, who’s best known for creating and starring in the Netflix series Love, plays Beef’s middle son Ham. The show has drawn praise for its depiction of Ham, who is openly gay and unconflicted about his sexuality. "We felt like it would just be great to hit the ground running in the first episode—just to have it sort of established that Ham is gay, everyone's totally happy with it, and that he's a character already sure of himself," Molyneux-Logelin told Esquire. "It was just important for us just to get his character established, and let it be part of his character, but not be the whole focus of an episode or having that be that drive for his story."
Aparna Nancherla
Nancherla rounds out the cast as Moon, Beef’s 10-year-old youngest son. The Molyneux sisters have explained that Nancherla’s audition led them to essentially rewrite the character to fit her. “When we first conceived of the character, it was more of a chaotic energy, more of a total wild man," Wendy says. "Aparna has a sort of natural gravity to her voice and that very measured pace and seriousness—and suddenly, we were like, 'Oh wow, Moon is very different than we were thinking.'… So we actually play him as more of an adult sometimes.”
Related: Aparna Nancherla on Her Book 'Unreliable Narrator,' What Scares Her Most and More
What is The Great North Season 4 release date?
The Great North Season 4 will premiere on Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024, at 9:30 p.m. ET on Fox.
How many episodes are in The Great North Season 4?
Season 4 of The Great North will be 22 episodes long, in line with the previous two seasons.
Is there a trailer for The Great North Season 4?
Not yet, but Fox is likely to release a promo teaser for the first episode in early January, based on previous seasons. So watch this space, Tobinheads.
How to watch The Great North Season 4
The show airs live on Fox on Sunday evenings, and episodes are also available to stream on Disney+.
