Thurop Van Orman

{{Short description|American cartoonist and animator (born 1976)}}

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{{Infobox person

| image =

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| birth_name = Mark Ashton Van Orman

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1976|4|26}}

| birth_place = Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.

| alma_mater = California Institute of the Arts (BFA)

| occupation = {{hlist|Animator|voice actor|television producer|director|writer}}

| known for = The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack
Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh
The Angry Birds Movie 2
North Woods

| spouse = {{Marriage|Sherri Van Orman|1999}}

| children = 2

| yearsactive = 2000–present

}}

Mark "Thurop" Ashton Van Orman (born April 26, 1976) is an American cartoonist, animator, writer, producer, director, and voice actor. He worked with Cartoon Network to create and produce the animated series The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack (2008–2010), in which he voices the titular character. He made his directorial debut with The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019).

Life and career

Van Orman was born in Norfolk, Virginia and grew up in Panama City, Florida. As a child, he wanted to live closer to the docks and would always love to adventure. He read plenty of adventure novels including from Jules Verne. He and his family moved to Salt Lake City when he was 12. He dreamed about being self-sustaining and wanting to build a hut. He later got a job as a janitor and moved to Shell Island at St. Andrews State Park. He spent a summer living in the jungles of Mexico.{{cite web | last=Zahed | first=Ramin | title=Thurop Van Orman, Creator Cartoon Network's The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack | website=Animation Magazine | date=2008-07-07 | url=http://www.animationmagazine.net/2008/07/thurop-van-orman-creator-cartoon-networks-the-marvelous-misadventures-of-flapjack/ | language=en-US | access-date=2025-03-21}}{{Cite book |last=Perlmutter |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aa0zAwAAQBAJ&dq=thurop+van+orman+1976&pg=PA343 |title=America Toons In: A History of Television Animation |date=2014-03-13 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-1488-5 |language=en}}

In 2001, he made a pitch pilot for The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.{{citation needed|date=March 2025}}

Van Orman worked for the video game company Xantera before going on to study character animation at the California Institute of the Arts.{{cite web |last=Strike |first=Joe |title=A Boy and His Whale: The Marvelous Making of 'Flapjack' |url=https://www.awn.com/animationworld/boy-and-his-whale-marvelous-making-flapjack |website=Animation World Network |date=October 23, 2008}} During his interned for The Powerpuff Girls while at CalArts. Van Orman was a storyboard artist and co-writer for Camp Lazlo, and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. He was also the supervising producer for Adventure Time and served as one for Sanjay and Craig only in its first season.

Since 2013, Van Orman has been working on an animated series under the title North Woods. The project was initially pitched to Nickelodeon the same year; after it was passed, the project was developed as a potential stop-motion animated film named Black Forest. Three years later the project was pitched to Disney Television Animation for Disney XD. The projects development was paused by Disney in 2018 but revived in 2021 for Disney Channel.{{Cite web |title=My cute wifey needle-felted this for my new show... NORTH WOODS |url=https://twitter.com/littlethurop/status/400485866528714752 |access-date=2023-06-12 |website=Twitter |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=@peytonwaldera @cartoonnetwork Nickelodeon... Which is abut to be really good again! |url=https://twitter.com/littlethurop/status/400640587428147200 |access-date=2023-06-12 |website=Twitter |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Yes! It's called North Woods now and is happening at DISNEY✨ |url=https://twitter.com/littlethurop/status/1069089833383936000 |access-date=2023-10-28 |website=X (formerly Twitter) |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=I'm working at Disney now. But apparently I'm not allowed to say what I'm working on... #itsasecret |url=https://twitter.com/littlethurop/status/776209882101850112 |access-date=2023-06-12 |website=Twitter |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2021-03-03 |title=Nikolas Ilic - NorthWoods |url=http://www.nikolas-ilic.com:80/northwoods |access-date=2023-06-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210303012726/http://www.nikolas-ilic.com:80/northwoods |archive-date=March 3, 2021 }}{{Cite web |title=North Woods (TBA) |url=https://www.francescanataledesign.com/north-woods |access-date=2023-06-12 |website=FRANCESCA NATALE |language=en-US |archive-date=June 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230612002057/https://www.francescanataledesign.com/north-woods |url-status=dead }}{{Cite web |title=Demo for Disney Animated Show |url=https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-tisser/sets/disneys-north-woods-demo |access-date=2023-07-05 |website=SoundCloud |language=en}}

= Upcoming films =

Van Orman provided concept art for the film adaptation of The Little Prince. He has also announced via Twitter that he will be writing a film about vikings. In June 2024, it was announced that Van Orman will serve as executive producer and screenwriter for The Angry Birds Movie 3.

Personal life

Van Orman has a brother named Jonny, from whom he took inspiration to start his animation career at Cartoon Network for Flapjack. He has been married to Sherri Van Orman since 1999 and has two daughters: Blossom{{Cite web |last=@littlethurop |date=2023-04-22 |title=Her name is Blossom now 😊 |url=https://twitter.com/littlethurop/status/1649860376597762048 |website=X (formerly Twitter)}} and Hazel.{{cite web | url=https://www.instagram.com/littlethurop/p/CshzzT9RECa/ | title=Instagram }}

Inspirations

Artists who have influenced Van Orman include Joe Murray, Gary Larson, Jim Henson, Stephen Hillenburg, Craig McCracken, E. H. Shepard, Richard Scarry, Maurice Sendak, Mercer Mayer, Ronald Searle, Robert Crumb, Sergio Aragonés and Max Fleischer.{{Cite web|title=Frederator Studios Blogs {{!}} Channel Frederator Blog {{!}} Flippin' Flapjacks: The Thurop Van Orman Interview!|url=http://archives.frederatorblogs.com/channel_frederator/2007/01/30/flippin-flapjacks-the-thurop-van-orman-inte/|access-date=2020-09-03|archive-date=February 3, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160203232438/http://archives.frederatorblogs.com/channel_frederator/2007/01/30/flippin-flapjacks-the-thurop-van-orman-inte/|url-status=dead}}

Filmography

=Film=

class="wikitable"
style="background:#b0c4de; text-align:center;" ! Year !! Title !! Role
2015	The Little Prince	Concept artist
2019	The Angry Birds Movie 2	Director
2027	The Angry Birds Movie 3	Screenwriter, executive producer{{Cite web \|date=2024-06-06 \|title=Rovio, SEGA, and Prime Focus Studios Announce The Angry Birds Movie 3 Is In Production At DNEG Animation \|url=https://www.rovio.com/articles/the-angry-birds-movie-3-is-in-production/ \|access-date=2024-06-06 \|website=Rovio \|language=en-US}}
{{TBA}} \| Untitled vikings film	Screenwriter

=Television=

==As Crew==

class="wikitable"
style="background:#b0c4de; text-align:center;" ! Year !! Title !! Role
2004	The Powerpuff Girls	Story, storyboard artist, and writer
2004–05	The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy	Story, storyboard artist, storyboard revisionist
2005–07	Camp Lazlo	Writer, storyboard artist, and storyboard director
2008–10	The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack	Creator, executive producer, story, writer, storyboard artist, director
2010–11	Adventure Time	Supervising producer, story (season 2)
2013–14	Sanjay and Craig	Supervising producer, creative consultant
2016–18	Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh	Co-developer, story, writer, executive producer
2019, 2022	Amphibia	Voice actor, Special thanks
TBA \|North Woods \|Creator

==As actor==

class="wikitable"
style="background:#b0c4de; text-align:center;" ! Year !! Title !! Role !! Notes
2008–10	The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack	Flapjack / Background Singer / Additional voices	46 episodes
2011–18	Adventure Time	Tree Witch / Kent / Wishy	3 episodes
2011	Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion XL	Flapjack \| Video game
2012–16	Gravity Falls	Gideon Gleeful	9 episodes
2013, 2014	Sanjay and Craig	rowspan = "3" \| Additional voices	8 episodes
rowspan="3" \| 2016	The Magnificent Menagerie of Melvin McMelanie	Short film
Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh	1 episode
Amphibia \|Sprig Plantar \|Pilot only
2018–20	Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles	Todd Capybara	7 episodes
2019	The Angry Birds Movie 2	Duck / Seal	Film
2022	Battle Kitty	Memory Monster	1 episode
2023 \|Kiff \|Louis \|1 episode
2024 \|Universal Basic Guys \|Barry \|1 episode