**EXCLUSIVE: Backyard Sports Franchise Scores Its First Ever Animated Adaptation**
After the beloved Backyard Sports video games were revived last year, the franchise has now scored its first-ever animated adaptation. Playground Productions, an upstart company run by former teacher Lindsay Barnett, secured the rights in an unusual way and is launching an animated special featuring an all-star cast.
**Sticky Situation** is a 2D animated special from the studio behind *Rick and Morty* and *Bob’s Burgers: The Movie*. The special features Tiffany Haddish as Kiesha Phillips and Arturo Castro as Pablo Sanchez.
### Logline
“It’s Opening Day at Steele Stadium. But team superstar Stephanie ‘Bubbles’ Morgan is in crisis. She’s lost her gotta-have-it, never-play-without-it lucky bubble gum! With just 30 minutes until game time, the Backyard kids embark on a wild mission to track it down and save their season.”
### Star-Studded Cast
Rounding out the team are:
– Ego Nwodim as Stephanie Morgan and Jocinda Smith
– Chris Mintz-Plasse as Dmitri Petrovich
– Donald Faison as Dante Robinson
– Ashleigh Crystal Hairson as Sunny Day
– Adam Pally as Pete Wheeler
– Utkarsh Ambudkar as Achmed Khan
Playground Productions CEO Lindsay Barnett will lend her voice to Vinnie and the Webber Twins, while Michael Vlamis voices Tony Delvecchio.
### Production Details
Produced by Lighthouse Studios, the 2D animated special was penned by *Hey Arnold!* writer Joe Purdy. Mike Roberts (*Bojack Horseman*, *Final Space*) directs, with music composed by Jonny Shorr.
Playground Productions is independently financing the special with support from Dave & Buster’s. Although there is no official release date yet, the special will debut both on the Backyard Sports YouTube channel and in Dave & Buster’s locations across the U.S.
### The Journey to Revive Backyard Sports
Barnett, formerly an elementary school teacher, secured the rights to the Backyard Sports franchise about a year and a half ago. Her motivation stemmed from struggling to find video games that appealed to her young students during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. She reminisced about playing the original *Backyard Baseball ’97* in her own childhood.
“Seeing a cast of 15 girls and 15 boys of equal playing ability is what drew me into the franchise, and the easy-to-pick-up-and-play game mechanics kept me coming back for more,” she said.
Determined to bring the brand back, Barnett hired a private investigator to track down the rights. After two and a half years, Playground Productions began reviving the franchise, starting with the classic CD-ROM games from the ’90s. There was, however, one major obstacle.
“We, unfortunately, do not have any source code,” Barnett explained. “So we thought the retro titles were completely gone, but we were able to reverse engineer and CD-ROM hack to make the original games playable on modern devices. This ultimately allowed us to bring the IP back into the cultural conversation immediately after acquiring the rights.”
### Maintaining Creative Control
Barnett and Chris Waters, Chief Product Officer at Playground Productions, emphasize their commitment to retaining creative control over all elements of the franchise—from the games and products to any scripted content like this animated special.
This insistence on independence led them to produce the special without the backing of a major studio, despite receiving offers from some of the biggest players in the industry. While it was a risk, they believe it’s worth taking to maintain cohesion and foster their own creative vision.
“We really believe that it’s a multi-generational brand and that the whole family can enjoy it together,” Waters told Deadline. “One might be experiencing childhood and the other might be experiencing the memory of it, but that’s what makes Backyard really, really special to us.”
### Expanding the Backyard Sports Universe
Beyond *Backyard Baseball*, Playground Productions also owns the rights to the football, basketball, soccer, and hockey iterations of Backyard Sports, paving the way for more content in the future.
Barnett and Waters say the Backyard Baseball animated special is only the beginning. With success, they hope to expand the franchise further, potentially adapting it into a scripted series.
“We are really conscious of: How else can we story tell around these characters? Because they’re just such rich characters with so much fun, and we’re so lucky that nobody has story told with these characters before,” Barnett said.
“Our millennial fans have been itching for storytelling, and now that they have kids, they’re like, ‘We want to have a program that we can watch with them and really enjoy, and we might even enjoy it more than them.’ So that is what we’re really excited to continue to create.”
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Stay tuned for more updates on the Backyard Sports animated special and other exciting developments from Playground Productions.
https://deadline.com/2025/10/backyard-baseball-video-animated-special-voice-cast-1236596471/
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