This AI App Lets You Create Your Own TV Episodes That Look Just Like ‘South Park’
A new app wants to become the “Netflix of AI,” allowing users to watch one of its AI-generated animated series on-demand. Not yet moved? The Showrunner app then allows the viewers to use AI to create their own episodes of the show.
AI production company Fable Studios has today launched the app in its Alpha stage to the public. With it, they’re releasing the first two episodes of an animated series created with Showrunner’s AI tools, a tech-industry satire called “Exit Valley” that looks quite similar to the animation style seen on “South Park” or “Rick and Morty.”
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The first episode, which you can watch here, imagines Gold Rush-era ancestors of Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, and the Winklevoss twins fighting to the death over the valuable element in a satirical take on the cutthroat battle over Facebook. Even their “South Park” is…not quite “South Park.” And we’re not just talking about the animation.
The studio is targeting 22 episodes for a first season. Viewers can input prompts to generate their own episode of the series, selecting the characters, storylines, and shot types. The best user-prompted episodes could one day even become part of the series’ official canon.
“The next Netflix won’t be purely passive; you will be at home, describe the show you’d like to watch and within a minute or two start watching,” Fable Studios CEO Edward Saatchi said in a statement. “Finish a show that you enjoy and make new episodes, and even put yourself and your friends in episodes — fighting aliens, in your favorite sitcom, and solving crimes.”
“Exit Valley” resembling “South Park” isn’t an accident. Showrunner was first unveiled in July 2023 with a batch of AI-created “South Park” episodes as a test case. Fable Studios used the long-running Comedy Central show’s characters, animation style, and even some voices that loosely emulated the main cast (creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone had no involvement). The episodes were viewed just shy of 8 million times on X (fka Twitter), and Fable put out a research paper on how they built the SHOW-1 model capable of generating a script, multiple scenes, and generated dialogue within minutes.
“Our ‘South Park’ episodes were a research project that took on a life of their own,” Saatchi said. “Seeing the huge desire of people to make their own episodes of TV, we’ve built Showrunner as a Netflix of AI to power original works of art that can stand the test of time, and to let people bring their stories to life.”
“Exit Valley” is one of 10 different AI-generated shows Fable Studios announced today, and the Showrunner app is designed to allow users to select their own style they want their creation to resemble. For instance, Showrunner has a series called “Pixels” that looks vaguely like a Pixar movie or one of the “Cars” films. There’s also series like “What We Leave Behind” and “Ikiru Shinu” (the latter is even spoken in AI-generated Japanese) that are each in an anime style. In addition to animation style, Showrunner also allows you to select the genre as well as some flavors of filmmaker style, personality, or humor that you want to inject into the story. So if you want to mix and match and do a horror story in Pixar style or a comedy in anime, that’s all possible.
For now, Showrunner can create scenes of episodes between 2-16 minutes, all with a prompt of about 10-15 words. Those who wish to be more hands on can edit their own scripts, shots, voices, and more, but Showrunner is designed for non-professional or non-technical users who want to immediately create something from their couch.
Saatchi admits Showrunner can’t create an episode with long, epic story arcs, like “Game of Thrones” or “Breaking Bad.” The characters don’t even move beyond speaking directly to the camera in each of the early examples. But Fable says the tech has gotten the attention of Hollywood studios and has started attracting filmmakers who want to create episodes — or even their own series — with the tools.
Showrunner also will restrict people from creating episodes using existing IP, and they have no intention of making or releasing more AI-generated “South Park” episodes with the platform.
“It has been incredibly exciting to see how Showrunner ignites creativity in people,” Jacob Madden, Fable Studios head of Technology and co-creator for Showrunner, said. “The platform allows showrunners to experiment with their stories in real-time, constantly iterating and refining their vision. Showrunner redefines what a TV show can be and I cannot wait to see what stories emerge next.”
Saatchi last October gave a TED talk called “Will Intelligent Life Emerge from a Simulation” and said a self-aware AI might one day be created by accident in simulation tech like Showrunner. In the meantime, the company is excited to see what creative possibilities emerge from the tool.
“It’s become consensus to say that AI is ‘just’ a tool in the toolbox, merely another stage of VFX technology,” Saatchi said. “We believe it’s a much more radical disruption, and that Hollywood will make two-way entertainment: audiences watching a season of a show, loving it and then making new episodes with a few words and audiences putting themselves in shows. Our relationship to entertainment will be totally different in five years and we’re excited for Showrunner to be part of that change.”
Users can sign up at SHOWRUNNER.XYZ
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