‘Samurai! Daycare’ Proves Its Chops on YouTube

Pipsqueak Films’ new animated series Samurai! Daycare has made a big impression on YouTube. Created by Disney veteran and Emmy nominee Mike Blum (The Adventures of Baxter and McGuire, The Zit), Samurai! Daycare debuted on August 9 on Smosh’s Shut Up! Cartoons channel and has generated 250,000 views in less than five days.

Shut Up! Cartoons, the animation channel launched by YouTube chart leader Smosh has attracted over 612,000 subscribers (with over 49.3 million views) since it went live on April 30. Smosh, which was acquired by Alloy Digital last year, is also the third-most subscribed-to YouTube channel.

The Flash animated series features a deluded, sword-wielding daycare instructor who “teaches” a bunch of preschoolers the ways of the samurai. New episodes will premiere Thursdays at noon (PST) for 10 consecutive weeks. Produced by Pipsqueak Films, Smosh, and Alloy Digital, the Flash-animated show stars Matthew Lillard (The Descendants, Scooby Doo), Bobby Lee (MAD TV, Animal Practice), and Cathy Shim (MAD TV, Oishi High School Battle). It’s also billed as first animated show created for the web to be covered by the WGA.

In its first week, Shut Up! Cartoons was #1 for subscriber gains and continues to rank Top 3 for weekly views among the original channels, according to current VidstatsX. The channel has quickly catapulted to #205 in the YouTube universe.

Check out the first episode of Samurai! Daycare:

Samurai! Daycare