Squarely hitting the entertainment sweet spot that unites 5-year-olds and the totally stoned, Fox has announced plans to develop Axe Cop—an adaptation of the web comic co-created by brothers Malachai and Ethan Nicolle—as the first addition to its burgeoning late-night Saturday animation lineup. For the unfamiliar, Axe Cop concerns a policeman who wields a firefighter's axe (so it's not just a clever name) as he battles crime with the help of various allies such as another cop who is also a flute but sometimes a dinosaur and occasionally an avocado, and a magical wish-granting baby with a unicorn horn. "What, did a little kid write this?" sneering skeptics ask, only to be chagrined to discover that, why yes, Malachai began writing Axe Cop in 2010 at the age of 5, and so those people should feel bad.
Besides, the comic has the excitingly unfiltered, accidentally absurdist humor of an innocent child and/or heavy drug users, which makes it perfect for Fox's Animation Domination HD—the network's recently launched Adult Swim-aping programming block (run by Adult Swim alum Nick Weidenfeld) that’s scheduled to begin airing a mix of recurring 15-minute series and one-to-three-minute shorts in 2013, in the late-night slot opposite Saturday Night Live. Fox has picked Axe Cop to "set the tone" for the entire ADHD (probably not an accident) family, so expect even more additions soon that fall within that intersection of little and lit-up people.