top of page
Gradient.png

Seriously, Evolution?!

Blood spurting lizards, fish with hands, nose-picking birds, cube pooping marsupials, baboons with bright blue … ahem … private bits. Was Evolution just having an off day or was there method to this apparent madness? What’s been going through Evolution’s mind the last few billion years?

Based on the hilarious book WTF, Evolution?!, this innovative, witty natural history series dares to imagine, as it celebrates some of Evolution’s greatest
(if not more puzzling) ‘achievements’ – a glorious assortment of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, plants, and other incredible creatures whose very existence leaves us shaking our heads and exclaiming: Evolution! You’ve got an awful lot of explaining to do!

Blood spurting lizards, fish with hands, nose-picking birds, cube pooping marsupials, baboons with bright blue … ahem … private bits. Was Evolution just having an off day or was there method to this apparent madness? What’s been going through Evolution’s mind the last few billion years?

Based on the hilarious book WTF, Evolution?!, this innovative, witty natural history series dares to imagine, as it celebrates some of Evolution’s greatest
(if not more puzzling) ‘achievements’ – a glorious assortment of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, plants, and other incredible creatures whose very existence leaves us shaking our heads and exclaiming: Evolution! You’ve got an awful lot of explaining to do!

GENRE: Natural History FACT ENT

RUNTIME: 13 x 30 mins

Nobody said adaptation was pretty!

Ever since about 3.8 million years ago when the first cells began quivering in the primordial ooze, Evolution has produced a non-stop parade of inflatable noses, bizarre genitalia, awkward feeding habits, aggressively anti-social tendencies, and mucus. So much mucus. Sure, filling the world with an enormous diversity of organisms that can live everywhere from polar ice caps to seething volcanic vents may not be theeasiest job on the planet. Still, it seems as if maybe sometimes – just sometimes – a few of Evolution’s innovations could have used a bit more thought.


Inspired by, and based, on the book ‘WTF, Evolution?!’ written by Seattle-based science writer Mara Grunbaum, this trailblazing natural history series will finally give Evolution a chance to give their side of the story and account for some of nature’s greatest absurdities.


Like the book, it’ll draw on Mara’s ingenious personification of Evolution as a well-meaning but somewhat overworked experimenter whose conversations with a ‘challenging’, sceptical sidekick will form a hilarious lead in to a more sciency look at nature’s most baffling creations.


Each 30-minute episode will see four, 7-minute vignettes focus on four different animals or creatures.The episodes could potentially be organised into themes such as: birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, deep sea creatures, insects, plants, microscopic organisms, dinosaurs, and even us.


There won’t be onscreen talking heads or a narrator as such but we’ll hear two voices doing all the talking and explaining – Evolution and Evolution’s friend/sidekick (which we’re proposing could be a teenage apprentice/intern).

Here’s a sample of the kind of lead-in dialogue we could hear between our two characters:


Evolution: “Look, I made a blood squirting lizard!”

Intern: “Oh wow, that’s bit full on! Are you feeling OK?”

Evolution: “Guess where the blood squirts from?”

Intern: “Its mouth?’

Evolution: “Nope – too obvious.”

Intern: “Its backside??”

Evolution: “What? No! Don’t be ridiculous!”

Intern: “I don’t know Evolution, where?”

Evolution: “Its eyes!”

Intern: “They’ll never see it coming.”


Following this playful banter, we’ll then take a much deeper dive into some of the animals’ unique design features and Evolution’s ‘rationale’ or justification for creating these. Drawing heavily on the latest scientific research, we’ll learn some more intriguing, little known facts or quirks about that creature.


To continue using the regal horned lizard as an example, we’d learn that there’s a chemical receptor in its predators’ mouths that makes the lizard’s blood taste particularly revolting, leaving them salivating, gagging and spitting out the reptile. Delighted to have the chance to explain the ‘method of their madness’, Evolution outlines yet another intriguing use of mucus: Thick mucal cells in the lizard’s throat allow it to wrap up its din dins – poisonous harvester ants, of course! - in the slimy stuff and swallowthem down without getting bitten. Pure genius!! Even the intern is impressed with that one!


At the end of each segment, the ever-curious sidekick is keen to find out how things are working out for each animal numbers-wise, and we’ll take a quick (but meaningful) look at its conservation status through sophisticated motion graphics.

Evo confesses that the blood squirting is working out really well for our aforementioned lizard friend, but they didn’t foresee that the free will and thumbs they gave humans, being put to such shonky use - habitat destruction and ant extermination are depriving the horned lizard of both home and fodder.


This family friendly nature series will look stunning and come with a blue chip look a la ‘Magical Land of Oz’ (shot in 4K) yet without a blue chip budget. Footage will be drawn from a combination of archives, scientific organisations (and the scientists who spend their life’s work dedicated to these animals) plus freshly shot film using the latest technology. It will certainly come with a few million year’s worth of material for a return series or 10! Through its innovative and humour-filled lens, Seriously Evolution?! promises to not only put a fresh spin on the natural history genre but also inspire a new generation of passionate nature lovers. And what with climate change having such a significant impact on the evolution and survival of many species, now’s the time more than ever to tell this important, ever-evolving story.

bottom of page