Summer Camp Island Creator Reacts to HBO Max Content Purge: They Pulled Our Show 'Like We Were Nothing'
Summer Camp Island creator Julia Pott is expressing her frustration with HBO Max, whose latest content purge includes the entirety of the beloved animated series’ run — including 20 unreleased episodes.
HBO Max announced Wednesday evening that more than three dozen titles — among them 20 Max Originals, including Cartoon Network transplant Summer Camp Island — would be removed this week, as Warner Bros. Discovery prepares to combine HBO Max and Discovery+ into a single, unified streaming service. Shortly thereafter, Pott took to Twitter to lament the decision.
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“We worked for five years to make 100 episodes of animation,” she said. “We worked late into the night, we let ourselves go, we were a family of hard working artists who wanted to make something beautiful, and HBO Max just pulled them all like we were nothing. Animation is not nothing!”
Pott went on to address the series’ final season, which was on tap for a 2023 release. “We worked through the pandemic to make 20 linear episodes that are our most beautiful work yet,” she continued. “I cannot wait for you to see them. YOU WILL SEE THEM! I will not rest!”
Storyboard artist Ryan Pequin, whose additional credits include fellow soon-to-be-purged titles Close Enough and Infinity Train, also expressed disappointment. “We put…….. a lot of work into that,” he said of Summer Camp Island‘s final season. “Except for Regular Show and the current project I’m on, every single animated thing I have ever worked on is apparently getting disappeared for tax purposes. Can this possibly be accurate.”
Added voice actor Cole Sanchez: “We have a final season of Summer Camp that has not aired and to hear about this via Deadline with no information from the studio is very disappointing.”
In addition to Summer Camp Island, the HBO Max purge includes the above-mentioned Close Enough and Infinity Train, and fellow animated titles Aquaman: King of Atlantis, Esme & Roy, The Fungies!, Infinity Train, Little Ellen, Odo, Summer Camp Island, Tig n’ Seek and Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs.
By removing series and movies from its library, HBO Max no longer has to pay licensing fees for them, which is a bottom line-boosting measure for the streamer even when said checks are being made out to sister company Warner Bros. Television.
TVLine has reached out to HBO Max for comment.
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