Picture: GLITCH
What’s on Netflix has learned exclusively that the psychological dark comedy YouTube animated series The Amazing Digital Circus is coming to Netflix in a new licensing deal. On October 4th, Netflix will add the two prior episodes and the recently teased third episode day-and-date alongside its YouTube premiere.
Created by Cooper Smith Goodwin (better known by their online pseudonym Gooseworx) and the GLITCH team, the show follows cartoon characters trapped in a crazy virtual world run by artificial intelligence and seemingly powered by personal traumas. The first episode was first released in mid-October 2023, with the follow-up second episode recently released in May 2024.
The voice cast of The Amazing Digital Circus includes Lizzie Freeman as Pomni, Alex Rochon as Caine, Michael Kovach as Jax, Amanda Hufford as Ragatha, Marissa Lenti as Gangle, Sean Chiplock as The Announcer, Ashley Nichols as Zooble, and Gooseworx as Bubble.
To say that the series has generated a lot of interest since its pilot release is an understatement. The pilot on YouTube has now amassed over 346 million views, and the follow-up has well over 120 million. To put that in perspective (although not a perfect comparison by any means), Netflix’s top-performing movie for the entirety of 2023 and the first half of 2024 has pulled in 180 million views, with that being the Jennifer Lopez movie, The Mother.
In addition to housing episodes 1 through 3 starting October 4th, Netflix will license all scheduled future episodes (4 through 9) day and date alongside their YouTube release. Specifics on release dates or windows for future episodes were not revealed.
Following the announcement, GLITCH posted on social media:
“BIG NEWS GUYS!!! – From October 4th, The Amazing Digital Circus is also coming to Netflix with Episodes 1-3 available to stream both there AND on YouTube!
And to be clear; We’re still independently funding everything, we still get full control of the show, and episodes will continue to ALWAYS come out on YouTube first.
Honestly feel that this is a HUGE step for indie animation and we couldn’t have done it without you all”
A teaser trailer for the third episode was released yesterday. It promises that episode 3 will be the “funniest” Digital Circus episode of them all. The episode is expected to focus on Zooble and Kingers’ characters.
For some avid fans of the YouTube show, the news of this licensing deal may not be entirely surprising. Recently, fans spotted it in their “worth the wait” section, although it was only there for hours.
The news comes as Netflix continues to look towards platforms like YouTube again to gain fresh IP. Just recently, Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg reported that Netflix was discussing with BuzzFeed to bring their flagship talk show series, Hot Ones, to the streaming service. In prior years, it tapped the Miranda Sings YouTube channel for two seasons of Hater Back Off! and, of course, a slew of kids titles like CoComelon have also made the jump to Netflix.
Are you excited for The Amazing Digital Circus coming to Netflix? Let us know in the comments.
