How Much Some Popular Animations Cost to Produce
A look into the costs of cartooning.
As a lover of random trivia, and as someone who fantasizes about producing an animation myself one day, I’ve lately become fascinated by the production costs of popular cartoons.
Some of the numbers are pretty mind blowing, as are the production schedules. A typical episode of Rick and Morty, for instance, takes upwards of a year to produce. That seems a pretty short amount of time considering some of the crazy worlds and dimensions that show involves.
While you’d think most of the production costs in cartoons goes to the actual animation itself — which is often time-consuming and intricate— sometimes the lion’s share actually goes to the voice talent, as is seen on many network shows.
Starting at the high end and working down, a look into the costs of cartooning:
Family Guy
According to various sources, it costs about $2 million to produce an episode of Seth MacFarlane’s long-running cartoon sitcom. Or roughly $100,000 per random cutaway per episode. There were many different websites that reported…
