A.N.T. Farm

&nbsp A.N.T. Farm is an American television sitcom that premiered 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. In mid-November 2010, Disney Channel green-lit the series, with production beginning in early 2011. The first promo was released during the premiere of Lemonade Mouth. On Nov 30, 2011, A.N.T. Farm has been renewed for a second season.

The series stars China Anne McClain, Sierra McCormick and Jake Short as middle-schoolers in a gifted program at their local high school called their "Advanced Natural Talents" program or A.N.T.

Premise

A.N.T. Farm centers around Chyna Parks (China Anne McClain), a 13-year-old music 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), a girl who has an eidetic memory, and Fletcher Quimby (Jake Short), an artistic genius who develops a crush on her, and they soon become her best friends at the high school. They proceed to go on multiple adventures, using their talents to their advantage. The school's "it" girl, Lexi Reed (Stefanie Scott), proceeds to bully Chyna, thinking of her as competition in being the star of the school. Chyna's 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.

Production

Development

Disney Channel announced on November 11, 2010 that they had green-lighted the show for production, which began in early 2011. 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 21 episodes for the first season.

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.' Which is how Sierra got that part." Jake Short was the last of the three core characters to be cast.

Characters

Main characters

• Chyna Parks (China Anne McClain) is a 13-year-old music prodigy who is part of the A.N.T. program in her brother's high school. In ParticipANTs, she becomes a cheerleader, only to be tricked by Lexi into losing her voice so she can't audition for the school play. In Bad RomANTs, it is said she thinks better with her guitar. She is very kind, although she she seems to be as embarrassed of her brother as he is of her.
• Olivia "Olive" Doyle (Sierra McCormick) is Chyna's best friend and part of the A.N.T program because of her eidetic memory. She can speak Japanese as is mentioned in SciANTs Fair, talks very quickly, and is afraid of several things including spiders, leprechauns, ghosts, and Wikipedia:Curly Fries curly fries.
• Fletcher Quimby (Jake Short) is an artistic genius whose best friends are Chyna and Olive. But he thinks of Chyna as more than a friend, even though he fails at flirting with her many times. He tries all kinds of art, from sculpting Chyna out of bubblegum to making wax dummies of everyone to painting the principal.
• Alexis "Lexi" Reed (Stefanie Scott) is a pretty, self-centered student at Webster High who is the lead in all of the musicals, freshman president of student council and is on the cheer-leading squad with Paisley. She is an airhead, will do anything to get positive attention, and can be mean-spirited.
• Cameron Parks (Carlon Jeffery) is Chyna's older high-schooler brother. He tries to avoid Chyna and the other ANTs because he is afraid Chyna will embarrass him. In The PhANTom Locker, it is mentioned he has a blankie, and once was so annoyed by Olive that he covers her locker with jelly and calls it ghost ectoplasm. Lexi mistakes him for Chyna's younger brother, because he often acts much less mature than his younger sister.

Recurring characters

• Paisley (Alexandria DeBerry) is best friends with Lexi. She is also on the cheer squad, even though she's clueless about almost every cheer. She is often confused about everything that's going on. However, she thinks different from Lexi, because she usually cares about people. She's a sweet-spirited girl, but cluelessly gets roped into Lexi's schemes. Both easily fooled and free with compliments, she is treated badly by Lexi despite them being "best friends."
• Gibson (Zach Steel) is the A.N.T.’s counselor, tutor, and therapist. He is shown to be a dumb person and more of a child than an adult. He likes knitting, mahjong, and feeding pigeons. He doesn't like his grandmother's boyfriend, Bob, and made up a game about himself called "Gibson Pursuit."
• Angus Chestnut (Aedin Mincks) is a computer genius who often runs illegal programs on his computer. He has a huge crush on Olive, though finds Chyna unattractive, and found someone whose name was never mentioned within five seconds. In the first episode, he is trampled by the "big kids" during passing period and goes to the hospital. He is also shown to love food.
• Darryl Parks (Finesse Mitchell) is a 'highly decorated' police officer, and is Chyna's and Cameron's dad. Though he obviously loves his daughter, he can be very overprotective. He considered pulling her out of the ANT program after the first episode because he thought she wasn't ready for high school.
• Roxanne Parks (Elise Neal) is Chyna's and Cameron's mom. She is a children's party entertainer. The only time she was shown she was dressed as a Viking and carrying a battle ax.
• Susan Skidmore (Mindy Sterling) is the school principal. She's completely convinced herself that she is young and beautiful, not believing that the person in the mirror is her. She uses the A.N.T Program like a sweatshop, forcing Fletcher to paint a portrait of herself for her 'boyfriend'.
• Wacky the Wolf {Christian Campos) is the school mascot at Webster High.

Episodes

Main article: List of A.N.T. Farm episodes

Season		Episodes	Originally aired (U.S. dates)
			Season premiere	Season finale
	1	25	August 1, 2011	Febuary 16, 2012
	2	21	June 29, 2012	TBA

Season 1 (2011-12

Season #	#	Title	Airdates	Viewers	Prod.Code	Created
1	1	"BeginANTs"	August 1, 2011	101	1.2	Kristoff101
2	2	"Amazing talANTs"	August 15, 2011	103	1.5	Kristoff101
3	3	"Growing plANTs"	August 22, 2011	102	1.3	Kristoff101
4	4	"pANTs on fire"	August 29, 2011	104	1.4	Kristoff101
5	5	"Past, PresANT, and Future"	Sep 5, 2011	N/A	1.6	Kristoff101
6	6	"Secret AgANTs"	Sep 12, 2011	107	1.7	Kristoff101
7	7	"ElephANTs"	Sep 19, 2011	106	1.8	Kristoff101
8	8	"AchievemANTs"	Sep 26, 2011	108	1.9	Kristoff101
9	9	"ContestANT"	Oct 3, 2011	109	1.10	Kristoff101
10	10	"Crust and mANTle"	Oct 10, 2011	110	1.11	Kristoff101
11	11	"Life Without cANTles"	Oct 17, 2011	112	N/A	Kristoff101
12	12	"Scardy pANTs"	Oct 24, 2011	111	1.12	Kristoff101
13	13	"I cANT"	Oct 31, 2011	113	1.14	Kristoff101
14	14	"Get a little RomANTs	Nov 7, 2011	114	1.15	Kristoff101
15	15	"IntellegANT	Nov 14, 2011	117	1.19	Kristoff101
16	16	"DefendANT"	Nov 21, 2011	118	1.17	Kristoff101
17	17	"ThANTs giving"	Nov 28, 2011	116	1.18	Kristoff101
18	18	"TurbulANTce"	Dec 4, 2011	110	1.19	Kristoff101
19	19	"GlANTcing"	Dec 11, 2011	114	1.10	Kristoff101
20	20	"dANTcing"	Dec 18, 2011	112	1.11	Kristoff101
21	21	"First ANT New Years"	Jan 1, 2012	111	1.12	Kristoff101
22	22	"AxcANT"	Jan 8, 2012	113	1.22	Kristoff101
23	23	"wANT to dance"	Feb 5, 2012	119	1.13	Kristoff101
24	24	"Who DunnANT"?	Feb 9, 2012	120	1.15	Kristoff101
25	25	"ValANTines Day"	Feb 16, 2012	121	1.4	Kristoff101

Season #	#	Title	Airdates	Viewers	Created
26	1	"PrANTcing and dacing"	June 29, 2012	122	Kristoff101
27	2	"IdependANTce Day"	July 6, 2012	124	Kristoff101
28	3	"fANTcy People"	July 13, 2012	123	Kristoff101
29	4	"ChANTce Of a Lifetime"	July 27, 2012	125	Kristoff101
30	5	"Bad DeoderANT"	August 3, 2012	126	Kristoff101
31	6	"BrANTs"	Dec 6,2012	127	Kristoff101
32	7	"GrANTed Three Wishes"	June 14, 2013	128	Kristoff101
33	8	"TrANTceferred"	June 28, 2013	129	Kristoff101
34	9	"AssistANT"	TBA	130	Kristoff101
35	10		TBA	131	Kristoff101
36	11		TBA	132	Kristoff101
37	12		TBA	133	Kristoff101
38	13		TBA
40	14		TBA
41	15		TBA
42	16		TBA
43	17		TBA
44	18		TBA
45	19		TBA
46	20		TBA
47	21		TBA

Season 3: 2013-2014 TBA

Season #	#	Title	Airdate	Viewers	Created
48	1	"MutANT farm"	TBA	N/A	Kristoff101
49	2	TBA	TBA	N/A	Kristoff101
50	3	TBA	TBA	N/A	Kristoff101
51	4	TBA	TBA	N/A	Kristoff101

Soundtrack

Main article: A.N.T. Farm Soundtrack

The A.N.T. Farm Soundtrack is a Disney Channel soundtrack from the TV series, A.N.T. Farm. It is currently scheduled to be released on October 11, 2011. In addition to songs by China Anne McClain and cast members Stefanie Scott and Carlon Jeffery, it will feature 2 songs by China and her sisters as the McClain Sisters leading up to their debut album on Hollywood Records in 2012.

Track Listing

1. Exceptional by China Anne McClain
2. Dynamite by China Anne McClain
3. Unstoppable by China Anne McClain
4. My Crush by China Anne McClain
5. Calling All The Monsters by China Anne McClain
6. Beautiful by China Anne McClain
7. Pose by Stefanie Scott ft. Carlon Jeffery
8. Summertime by Carlon Jeffery
9. Electronic Apology by the McClain Sisters
10. Perfect Mistake by the McClain Sisters

Release

Critical reception

The series's premiere earned mixed reviews. It also currently holds a 6.0 making "Fair" rating (based on 56 votes) on TV.com, and 5.2/10 rating (based on 142 votes and 5 reviews) on IMDb.com.

Ratings

The sneak preview of the series earned 4.4 million viewers on its premiere night, ranked as TV’s No. 1 Telecast in Total Day among Tweens 9-14 (441,000/1.8 rating) and was also TV’s No. 1 Telecast among Kids 6-9 (544,000/2.2 rating). Its lead-in, the series finale of The Suite Life on Deck, got 4.6 million.

The episode "The PhANTom Locker", is currently the most watched episode of the series, scoring 4.6 million viewers. It did better than its lead-in Wizards of Waverly Place, which got 4 million viewers.