A.N.T. Farm
Format:
Teen sitcom and Musical show
Created by: Dan Signer
Starring: China Anne McClain, Sierra McCormick, Jake Short, Stefanie Scott, Carlon Jeffery, Aedin Mincks
Theme music composer: Toby Gad, Lindy Robbins, China Anne McClain, Lauryn McClain, and Sierra
McClain
Opening theme: "Exceptional", performed by China Anne McClain
Country of origin: United States
Original language(s): English
No. of seasons: 3
No. of episodes: 59 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s): Dan Signer and Stephen Engel
Camera setup: Videotape (filmized); Multi-camera
Running time: 22 minutes
Production company(s): It's a Laugh Productions
Gravy Boat Productions and Disney Channel Original
Productions
Broadcast
Original channel: Disney Channel
Picture format: 480i (SDTV) and 720p (HDTV)
Original run: May 6, 2011 – present
A.N.T. Farm is an American sitcom which premiered on Disney Channel on May 6, 2011 as a special
preview and continued as a regular series on June 17, 2011. The pilot episode, "transplANTed" aired
after the series finale of The Suite Life on Deck. The series was created by Dan Signer, a former
writer and co-executive producer of The Suite Life on Deck and creator of the YTV series Mr. Young. In mid-November 2010, Disney Channel greenlighted the series, with production beginning in early 2011.
The first promo was released during the premiere of
Lemonade Mouth.
Taking place in San Francisco, the series stars China Anne McClain, Sierra McCormick and Jake Short
are middle-schoolers in a gifted program at their local high school called the "Advanced Natural
Talent" or "A.N.T." program.
On November 30, 2011, A.N.T. Farm was officially picked up for a second season, which premiered on June 1, 2012 with two back-to-back episodes. On October 2, 2012, A.N.T. Farm was officially
renewed by Disney Channel for a third season which premiered on May 31, 2013 with a one-hour special. It was also announced that Carlon Jeffery will not return for the third season and Aedin Mincks will join the main cast.
On December 26, 2013, McClain announced via Twitter that the third season of the show would be its
last.
A.N.T. Farm revolves around Chyna Parks (China Anne McClain), an 11-year-old musical prodigy, who has just become the newest A.N.T. (Advanced Natural Talents) in the A.N.T. program at Webster High School in San Francisco, California. On her first day, she meets Olive Doyle (Sierra McCormick), an odd girl who has an eidetic memory, and Fletcher Quimby (Jake Short), an artistic genius (but
otherwise quite dim) who falls deeply in love with her when they first meet. They soon become her best friends at the high school. They proceed to go on multiple adventures, using their talents to their
advantage. Before Chyna meets Olive and Fletcher, she meets Gibson (Zach Steel), the counselor,
tutor, and therapist of the A.N.T. Farm, who is a strange, goofy guy who isn't the brightest person.
The school's "it" girl, Lexi Reed (Stefanie Scott), is one of the teenagers who thinks the ants are
little kids at Webster. She proceeds to bully Chyna, thinking of her as competition in being the
star of the school. Chyna's bumbling older brother, Cameron (Carlon Jeffery), attempts to avoid Chyna
in high school as much as he can, afraid she will be an embarrassment to him. Lexi's best friend
Paisley, (Allie DeBerry) and Chyna, Olive, and Fletcher's friend Angus (Aedin Mincks) share major recurring roles on the series.
Season 3 now takes place at a boarding school instead of at Webster High School held by a big
technology company, Z Tech, ran by Zoltan Grundy (Dominic Burgess).
Production
Development
Disney Channel announced on November 11, 2010 that they had greenlighted the show for production,
which began in early 2011.[9] The show was first conceived when Dan Signer, creator of the show, saw China Anne McClain. "The girl had so much confidence. She can nail a joke. She can sing. She
can play instruments. It's like China was some sort of child prodigy [...] And that's when it hit me:
Why not build a show around a child prodigy? Someone who's got all of this natural talent & ability, but is still challenged when she's sent off to high school at the age of 11?" Signer said in an interview.
After the first few episodes of the show were shown, Disney Channel bumped up their order of episodes for the show from 13 episodes to 26 episodes for the first season.
On November 19, 2011, the series was renewed for a second season which would start filming in early
December.
Casting
Sierra McCormick was cast after an audition where she continually talked about tigers. Dan Signer
stated "And as I heard her continually talking about tigers, I thought 'That's just how Olive
would sound,' because Olive is a fast talking, intelligent student whose talent is memory. Which
is how Sierra got that part." Jake Short was the last of the three core characters to be cast.
Characters
Main characters
This article may be written from a fan's point of view, rather than a neutral point of view. Please
clean it up to conform to a higher standard of quality, and to make it neutral in tone. (December 2012)
The main characters of A.N.T. Farm: (from left to right) Lexi Reed, Olive Doyle, Chyna Parks,
Fletcher Quimby, and Cameron Parks. Can also use cursor to identify.
Chyna Parks (China Anne McClain) is the A.N.T. program's musically gifted member, who can play the guitar, piano, violin, trumpet, saxophone, flute, cello, harp, bagpipes, French horn, bugle,
theremin, drums, harmonica, keyboard, bassoon, tuba, the spoons, and the banjo. She sings as well.
Chyna is adventurous and sees high school as an exciting place. Her friends are usually wary of her
ideas; nevertheless, she manages to get them into her plans anyway. Chyna can play numerous
instruments: once she claims that the concrete number is 37, elsewhere she reveals that the only
instrument she cannot play at all is the triangle.
Later in the series, Olive says that she plays 47. Chyna can mostly solve problems by singing a song.
Olive Doyle (Sierra McCormick) has an eidetic memory and is always ready with a seemingly random
fact. She is shown to have many different phobias, such as ghosts, leprechauns, and curly fries. In
the episode "replicANT", Olive reveals that her middle name is Daphne; therefore, her full name
(Olive Daphne Doyle) in initials spells the word "odd".
Fletcher Quimby (Jake Short) (full name Fletcher Pumpernickel Quimby as revealed in the episode
"informANT") is an artistic genius, gifted in all media – painting, sculpture, drawing, and other
forms of art. Fletcher is shown to have an obvious/obsessive crush on Chyna since they had
first met. He has trouble keeping his crush a secret, as he is constantly immortalizing her in
his art.
Lexi Reed (Stefanie Scott) is Chyna’s biggest rival at Webster High. She is the series' main
antagonist. Chyna is seen to be the leader of the ANTs; however Lexi still considers herself the
Queen Bee. She was known as the star of every school play until Chyna showed up, creating a
rivalry between the two. However, she begins allying with Chyna and her friends, especially
Cameron. Eventually, she becomes Student-Body President. Her best friend and sidekick is Paisley,
who will listen to every word Lexi says, but sometimes in the wrong way. Lexi might be a little
self-centered but she does have a nice side. She hates Vanessa (Vanessa Morgan) because everyone
thinks Vanessa is prettier than her. She works at Hippo's restaurant. Lexi loves to manipulate people, such as when she kisses Cameron (on the cheek) in the episode "detective agANTcy" as a bribe so that he can accept her friend request on the school's social network web site, Wolf Pack.
She is also the winner of many pageants. In the Season 3 premiere "trANTsferred", it is revealed
Lexi is a math prodigy, with the explanation that she has become good with numbers with all the
shopping she does.
Cameron Parks (Carlon Jeffery, seasons 1-2, regular; season 3, guest star) is Chyna’s older
brother, though he spends a lot of time in her shadow. While she’s a prodigy, he’s not especially
gifted at anything, but is determined to find something at which he excels. Cameron is unhappy
that his younger sister is at his school, so he tries to keep his distance. Occasionally, Cameron
will step up to help Chyna, especially when it involves problems with Lexi. In some scenarios, it
is vice versa. He is under five feet tall, even as a sophomore. Sometimes people even think he's an
A.N.T. Ironically, he often seems to get along with his sister's nemesis, Lexi, who mostly goes along
with his plans to entertain herself because she wants to see how ignorant he is. He later has a
girlfriend who is a model, Vanessa, but she broke up with him due to the fact he kept on spending
time with lots of girls to keep Vanessa away from other boys, but she felt he had lost interest in
her. After Cameron's break up he reveals that he has a crush on Lexi and smiled when Lexi kissed him
on the cheek. In "replicANT," Cameron reveals that his initials are C.O.P. This is a joke because Cameron's father is a cop (This also leads fans to assume that his initials spelling,"cop," was
intentional and that Chyna's initials could possibly also be C.O.P). He will not be part of the regular cast in season 3. As revealed in "detective agANTcy", both he and Paisley have been in second grade twice. In their second year of 2nd grade, Paisley and Cameron started a tradition in which they share a soda and burp at the same time once a year (they call it their "burp day").
Angus Chestnut (Aedin Mincks), seasons 1-2, recurring; season 3, main role) is a computer
genius who often runs illegal programs on his computer disguised as video games. He has a huge,
but unrequited, crush on Olive. Overweight and obsessed with food, he avoids physical activity, to
the point where he, in the episode, "ClairvoyANT", rides on an elderly scooter so he doesn't have to
walk. He often casually wears only boxer shorts. In one episode, he says, "I think better with my pants
off." Aedin Mincks joins the main cast in Season 3 when it was announced that Carlon Jeffery was not
in the main cast anymore.
Recurring characters
Paisley Houndstooth (Allie DeBerry) is Lexi's empty-headed best friend. She is also on the cheer
squad, even though she's clueless about almost every cheer, and often hopelessly confused about
everything that's going on. However, she thinks differently than Lexi because she is more a
friendly and sweet-spirited girl who cares about people. Both easily fooled and free with compliments, she is treated badly by Lexi despite their being "best friends." Paisley is shown to be an animal lover, shown by her love of badgers, kissing a frog she found cute, and owning a giraffe and two parrots. She now is Employee at Z-Tech's Animal Product's Division as shown in "Animal husbANTry".
Gibson (Zach Steel) (season 1-2) is the counselor and tutor of the A.N.T. Farm. He is shown to be
caring, sensitive, and somewhat dimwitted, as well as acting more like a child. He likes knitting,
mahjong, and feeding pigeons. He doesn't like his grandmother's boyfriend, Bob, and in "Bad RomANTs," he has gotten back together with his childhood girlfriend despite the fact that she's in jail.
Gibson keeps many items in his voluminous hair, from tissues to assorted foods.
Susan Skidmore (Mindy Sterling) (season 1-2; season 3, guest star) is the corrupt school principal.
She's completely convinced herself that she is young and beautiful, to the point where she cannot
believe her own reflection is her. She runs the A.N.T Program like a sweatshop, to use the kids' talents for her own use and benefit. She is at all times finding ways to spend as little of the school budget as possible. Examples include replacing dinosaur nuggets with different nuggets because they cost five cents less, replacing the school nurse with a first aid kit and using wacky the wolf
as a clock. It is also revealed in the episode "trANTsferred" that she uses the A.N.T. usually
seen on a stationary bicycle to power the school's electricity. She loves the trophies that were won
by students. She even speaks to them. She is dating a city councilman who is revealed to be much, much older than her (so much older that he has a daughter that was born in 1925). In the episode
"unforseen circumstANTs", it was revealed that she was fired from being principal due to the ANTs
leaving Webster High(but more likely got caught embezzling from the school budget) and wound up a
hotel maid.
Darryl Parks (Finesse Mitchell) (season 1-2; season 3, guest star) is Chyna and Cameron's hopelessly
stupid father. He loves his daughter dearly, but can be very overprotective at times, going to
extreme and often ridiculous measures to ensure her safety(all the while insulting and neglecting
Cameron). He is also known to be criminally cheap. Though known as a "highly decorated" police
officer, he is rarely seen taking his job very seriously and is proud of having "San Francisco's
cleanest cop car" Episodes have shown that Darryl would make a better criminal than policeman, such
as stealing gifts for Chyna out of the evidence locker, and taking Cameron on unauthorized
ride-alongs. Although he loves his children, he is often seen mistreating them in a comical way (such
as when he has them defrost lamb chops under their arms, uses Cameron's mouth as a blender, or when he speaks of playing fetch with Cameron as a child).
Wacky the Wolf (Christian Campos) (season 1-2; season 3, guest star) is the taciturn school
mascot. The person inside the costume is never shown. However, on Season 2 episode "fANTasy girl",
Fletcher removes the head, and there is no one inside the suit, yet it still moves. He is good friends with Chyna, Olive and Fletcher. Wacky is shown to take his job as school mascot very seriously.
Zoltan Grundy (Dominic Burgess) (season 3) is a businessman who first appears in "TrANTsferred". He made the school's ANTPads, and many more products that are basically the same. He creates a boarding school for the ANTs. Zoltan tends to wear T-shirts of famous rock bands, including Led Zeppelin, the Foo Fighters, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the Rolling Stones.
Winter Maddox (Zibby Allen) (season 3) is Zoltan Grundy's Vice President of Acquisitions. She was
assigned the job of "Den Mother" of the ANTs, even though she hates children. She is shown to be
arrogant, strict, mean, vain and selfish. She repeats lots of times that she went to Harvard.
Kennedy Van Buren/Kumiko Hashimoto (Piper Curda) (season 3) was pretending to be Kennedy who is a debate prodigy and student at Z-Tech Prodigy School. She's starting a political party, because she's going to be running for president in 2032.
She thinks she can be the president of 2032, because she's in touch with the voters. She is portrayed by Piper Curda. In "trANTsferred", when Lexi asks Kennedy to go to her party, she talks about her political party and how she will become the President of the United States since she's in touch with the voters and such. When she asks about her party, Lexi says "nevermind." Later on, when Lexi says, "At least Angus is doing the Cat Daddy", she says that the cat mommy is attacking him since he got too close to her kittens.In "secret agANT", Fletcher asks Kennedy out in order to make Chyna jealous. Kennedy accepts, but after doing a survey, discovers that the entire country dislikes Fletcher, and after Angus suggests it, she decides to have him change his name to Scott. In "Unforeseen circumstANTs", she is still dating Fletcher. She obviously really likes him and looked excited when Chyna told her he was in love with her. Chyna tried to warn her that Fletcher intended to break up with her, but Kennedy misinterprets it as an attempt for Chyna to claim Fletcher for herself. Rather than break up with her, Fletcher says that she's the sweetest girlfriend ever. Fletcher then tells Chyna that he was so focused on how unlike Chyna and Kennedy were, that he completely overlooked her positive qualities. In the episode finANTial crisis, it is revealed her real name is Kumiko Hashimoto, that she is Hashimoto's daughter, and that was pretending to be Kennedy to sabotage the Z-phones.
Roxanne Parks (Elise Neal) (season 1) is Chyna and Cameron's mom. She is a children's birthday party
entertainer. So far, she has only been seen in four episodes, but has been mentioned in three episodes.
Although she is busy with her work, she still loves her kids. In "studANT council", Darryl jokes that
he tricked her into marrying him. She did not appear in season 2.
Hippo (Matt Lowe) (season 1-2) is a strange man who went from the music business to the movie business to the restaurant business. He often changes the theme of his restaurant (which is eventually named the International House of Whatever or I.H.O.W.) to ensure that it is stylish or as he explains it, "in right now." Chyna guessed that he is called Hip-O because he dresses really hip and his name starts
with the letter O (Hippo's full first name is Oswald), but Hippo corrected her by saying that his friends call him Hippo because he's fat and likes to sit in hot tubs with only his eyes above the water (similar to a hippopotamus).
Violet (Claire Engler) (season 1-2) is the newest A.N.T, with sports and anything athletic as her
talent. She has an explosive temper, and reacts with violence to the slightest offence. In Ballet
DANTser, it is revealed that she has a crush on Fletcher. She appeared in "InfANT", when Chyna,
Olive, and Fletcher have to find a baby's talent. She also appeared in "fANTasy Girl", in which she
wanted Fletcher to go to a dance with her, but Fletcher didn't want to go with her, so much so
that he convinced Chyna to go with him instead. She also appeared in the episode "idANTy thief". It is
unknown if Violet now attends the same boarding school as Chyna and the others, as she was not seen
in the Season 3 premiere "TrANTsferred".
Mr. Hashimoto (Tom Choi) (season 3) is a Japanese CEO of the Hashimoto Soda Company who first
appeared in The Suite Life on Deck. He appeared in the episode "IndependANTs", to seal a deal with
Zoltan Grundy. However, Zoltan Grundy did not like his soda flavors, ending their deal. He also made a
reference to "Suite Life On Deck" when he ran into a dinosaur statue and saying "Oh, no! Godzilla, not
again!" when in "The Suite Life On Deck" Zack wore a Godzilla costume and destroyed the set. Hashimoto also owns a phone company to compete with Z-Tech. In "Product MisplacemANT", Chyna confronts him at Toky-OMG and beats him at a Karaoke contest. He then steals Chyna's prototype Z-Phone 4.
Special guest stars
Sequoia Jones (Zendaya) (season 2) Sequoia Jones is a teen movie star who loves to play her role
perfectly by shadowing a person and almost stealing their identity. Her only appearance was in the
episode "creative consultANT". Vanessa (originally credited as Jeanne) (season 2) (Vanessa Morgan) is a model from Canada and Cameron's girlfriend. Chyna tracks her down so Cameron would feel better, because in the episode FANTasy Girl, Cameron imagines Vanessa is his date to the dance, but thinks her name is Jeanne Gossamer because he was dozing off, looking at Lexi's magazine where she was on the cover of a jeans catalog. Chyna helps Cameron track down his imaginary model girlfriend, who is actually Vanessa LaFontaine, and Chyna and Angus do everything they can to help Cameron impress her. Vanessa has bandages on her eyes that kept her from seeing what Cameron actually looked like. In ANTswers, Lexi gets jealous of Vanessa when she models for Hippo's new restaurant, and convinces Cameron that Vanessa might be an alien. In the end they find out Vanessa is an alien, but not the kind they thought. She is from Canada; therefore not a US citizen, making her an "alien". In ANTagonist, Cameron joins the several clubs with Vanessa which Lexi is the president of to keep the guys away from her.Vanessa thinks Cameron hangs out with the girls because he has lost interest in her, leading to
their break up.
Tasmanian Neville (Billy Unger) (season 2)
Tasmanian Neville is an Australian "Explorer". He claims to be a proper survivalist when he turns out
to be a weakling. His only appearance was in the episode "endurANTS". Chyna, Olive, Fletcher, and
Angus meet him at an A.N.T convention in Australia. The A.N.Ts find out he is only an acting prodigy
later in the episode. Chyna develops a crush on Neville, which leads Fletcher to be jealous and go
on an outback trek where he gets lost. While going to rescue Fletcher, Neville gets lost with Angus,
Chyna, and Olive. They hide from wild emus and are eventually rescued by Fletcher, who managed to
drive away the group of emus that was threatening the rest of the gang. At the end of the episode,
Fletcher makes a guest appearance on Tasmanian Neville's T.V. show where Neville lies to the
public by saying that he was the one that rescued Fletcher from the emus.
Chris Rock (himself) (season 3) He appears in "Animal HusbANTry". He visits the A.N.T.'s school
to buy a rare animal for his daughter.
Episodes
Main article: List of A.N.T. Farm episodes Season
Episodes
Originally aired (U.S.dates)
Season premiere
Season finale
1
25
May 6, 2011 (preview)
June 17, 2011 (premiere)
April 13, 2012
2
20
June 1, 2012
April 26, 2013
3
TBA
May 31, 2013
TBA
Special episodes
Title
Type
Air date
"America Needs TalANT"
Special episode
November
25, 2011
"chANTs of a Lifetime"
Special episode
November
23, 2012
"trANTsferred"
Special episode
May 31, 2013
Soundtrack
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