Infinity Train

From October 18, 2019, a series of ten shorts titled "The Train Documentaries" was uploaded onto the Cartoon Network app and YouTube channel. Each short focuses on One-One showcasing a different car on the train, including "The Green Car", "The Tiny Wizard Car", and "The Kaiju Car".

• Tulip Olsen (voiced by Ashley Johnson) – A 13-year-old girl struggling with her parents' divorce who finds herself trapped on the train when trying to get to a game-design camp. She is analytical, down-to-earth, and determined to get off the train.
  • Naomi Hansen and Lily Sanfelippo voice younger versions of Tulip, respectively at age 5 and from age 6 to 8.
• One-One – A spherical robot consisting of two separate hemisphere-shaped robots. In Book 1, One-One accompanies Tulip on her journey, and eventually learns that it is the rightful Conductor of the train. At the end of Book 1, One-One resumes its duties as Conductor, overseeing the operations of the train and passengers.
  • Glad-One (Jeremy Crutchley) – The exuberant and optimistic part of One-One.
  • Sad-One (Owen Dennis) – The morose and pessimistic part of One-One.
• Atticus (Ernie Hudson) – A talking Corgi and the king of Corginia, one of the train cars. He accompanies Tulip on her journey.

• "MT" (Ashley Johnson) – Tulip's reflection, freed from the mirror world by Tulip in an episode of Book 1. At the start of Book 2, she has been living on the train as a fugitive from the reflection police. She accompanies Jesse on his journey through the train while struggling with her sense of identity as an independent person, rather than Tulip's reflection or a construct of the train. Upon leaving the train at the end of Book 2, she names herself Lake.
• Jesse Cosay (Robbie Daymond) – A passenger who becomes MT's friend and helps her escape the train. He is easygoing and friendly, but has a hard time resisting peer pressure; his experience on the train teaches him how to stand up for his friends.
• Alan Dracula – A magical white-tailed deer, a denizen of the train who accompanies MT and Jesse.

• Grace Monroe (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) – The young adult leader of the Apex, a gang of passengers who aim to raise their numbers to remain on the train indefinitely, and believe One-One to be an impostor who usurped the role of Conductor. After appearing as a secondary antagonist in Book 2, Grace returns as one of the main protagonists of Book 3, in which she gradually begins to see the error of her ways and decides to try to fix her mistakes.
  • Brooke Singleton voices Grace as a child
• Simon Laurent (Kyle McCarley) - Grace's second-in-command and best friend, who first appear alongside her in Book 2. Although the two are very close, they gradually drift apart during Book 3, due to Simon's sociopathic and murderous behavior and his unwillingness to acknowledge his mistakes and learn from them.
  • Samuel Faraci voices Simon as a child
• Hazel (Isabella Abiera) - A 6-year-old girl who travels the train. Although she has a number on her hand, it does not glow; unknown to her, she is actually a denizen of the train created by Amelia's experiments.
• Tuba (Diane Delano) - Hazel's gorilla friend and protector, a denizen of the train.

• The Cat (Kate Mulgrew) – A talking cat who is a collector and con artist. In Book 1, she is an agent for Amelia; in Book 2, she runs a carnival. Book 3 reveals that her name is Samantha, and she was Simon's companion when he first boarded the train.[11] (Recurring Book 1 and Book 3; Guest Book 2)
• Randall (Rhys Darby) - A sentient liquid person who tries to build a business involving the distribution of the "Donut Holer" (which is just an ordinary pipe used to poke a hole through various objects) with his duplicates, that of which he creates at will, as proposed by The Cat. He helps Tulip steal One-One back from The Cat in "The Beach Car". (Recurring Book 1; Guest Book 2 and Book 3)
• Amelia Hughes (Lena Headey) – A passenger who overthrew One-One and usurped his position as the Conductor, hoping to use the train to recreate her dead husband Alrick Timmens (voiced by Matthew Rhys). In Book 3, Amelia works with One-One to make amends and undo the mistakes she made on the train. (Recurring Book 1 and Book 3)
• The Steward (voiced by Ashley Johnson) - A menacing robot that assists the Conductor. (Recurring Book 1; Cameos Book 2 and Book 3)
• Ghoms (Dee Bradley Baker) – Dog/cockroach-like creatures that inhabit the Wasteland outside the train and attempt to suck the life-force out of the living. (Recurring Book 1 and Book 3; Cameo Book 2)
• Megan Olsen (Audrey Wasilewski) – Tulip's struggling mother and Andy's ex-wife who works as a nurse. (Recurring Book 1)
• Andy Olsen (Mark Fite) – Tulip's depressed father and Megan's ex-husband. (Recurring Book 1)
• Makayla (Reagan Gomez-Preston) — Tulip’s best friend before she get in the train.(Recurring Book 1)
• The Reflection Police, or "Flecs" – A pair of officers pursuing MT in order to destroy her for abandoning her responsibility as Tulip's reflection. (Guest Book 1; Recurring Book 2)
  • Agent Mace (Ben Mendelsohn) – The gruff senior partner of the team.
  • Agent Sieve (Bradley Whitford) – The more upbeat junior partner to Mace.
• Toad / Terrance (Owen Dennis) – A toad whom passengers must kick in order to exit the Toad Car. (Recurring Book 2)
• Nathan "Nate" Cosay (Justin Felbinger) – Jesse's younger brother. (Recurring Book 2)
• Lucy (voiced by Jenna Davis) – A young girl and member of the Apex. (Cameo Book 2; recurring Book 3)

Guest voices for Book One include Matthew Rhys and Ron Funches. Guest voices for Book Two include Wayne Knight, Laraine Newman, Nea Marshall Kudi, Bill Corbett, and Rhys Darby. Guest voices for Book Three include Rhys Darby, Edi Patterson, Phil LaMarr, and Alfred Molina.

Prior to creating Infinity Train, Owen Dennis worked as a storyboard artist on Regular Show. Dennis conceived Infinity Train in 2010, originally as a film. He was inspired by "the feeling of waking up in an unsettling space" which he felt while on a return flight to the U.S. from China. Claiming when he had "woken up. I looked around, and there were a bunch of people staring into screens in the dark in this quiet room. I thought this was kind of creepy. And it sort of started from there."[12] Like protagonist Tulip, Dennis created video games as an amateur in his teens, including point-and-click adventure games and mods for titles such as Half-Life 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004. He has stated that Myst has been one of his primary influences since he was 13, and its influence continued in Infinity Train.[13] He also cites Doctor Who, Agatha Christie, The NeverEnding Story, The Matrix, Philip K. Dick, Star Trek: Voyager, Sliders, and "The Mysterious Stranger" segment from The Adventures of Mark Twain as influences, along with novels such as Nightbirds on Nantucket and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.[14][15] Dennis has also described Infinity Train as "Saw for kids," in that each season is essentially a morality play based around machinery designed to help one overcome personal issues and appreciate life.[16]

Infinity Train has three staff writers, who make up the main story team in addition to showrunner Dennis and supervising producer/director Maddie Queripel. Cole Sanchez served on the story team for Book 1's development but departed to work as supervising producer on Summer Camp Island. The process on each episode was that a writer would make an outline, an expansion of the outline, a script, and then would send it to a team of two board artists. The ‘boarders’ would have 5 weeks to make thumbnails, then the full boards, and then clean them up, before it would be sent away for animation. The animation is done by Sunmin Image Pictures in South Korea using traditional animation methods.[17]

The pilot was first released on the Cartoon Network App and VOD on November 1, 2016, and released the following day on the official Cartoon Network YouTube channel. The short garnered a million views within its first month of availability and has since gained 5.2 million views as of July 2020, making it the most viewed pilot on the channel while two other originals, Welcome to My Life is the second most viewed pilot, and Twelve Forever (later moved to Netflix) being the third most viewed pilot.[19] A petition to greenlight Infinity Train was made shortly after the pilot was released and garnered over 57,000 signatures.[20] On March 11, 2018, Cartoon Network's official website launched a teaser for Infinity Train that confirmed the pilot had been greenlit as a full series and would premiere in 2019.[21][22]

Top: Tulip, One-One and Atticus as seen in the pilot. Bottom: the same group as seen in the season 1 episode "The Corgi Car."

In July 2018, a sneak peek of the first season was revealed on the Cartoon Network panel at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con. It was released a couple of hours later on Cartoon Network's social media platforms. A full trailer for Infinity Train was released in June 2019 which was unlocked by playing the show theme on the Infinity Train website. It was later uploaded to Cartoon Network's YouTube channel. On July 11, 2019, the show was confirmed to premiere on August 5, 2019.[3] On July 20, 2019, the first episode was shown during the Infinity Train panel at San Diego Comic-Con. It was then released on the Cartoon Network app and website later that same day.[23] The first season would be 10 episodes long, with two episodes airing each night from August 5 to August 9, 2019.[24]

From October 18, 2019, Cartoon Network started uploading a series of Infinity Train shorts onto their app and YouTube channel called "The Train Documentaries", which focused on One-One showing off a number of cars in the train, including "The Green Car", "Tiny Wizard Car", "The Kaiju Car" and "The Tech Support Car".

A promo after the final episode of the first season confirmed the series would return.[5] On November 22, 2019, the Infinity Train website was updated with a new claw machine puzzle. Completing the puzzle leads to a trailer for Book 2. The trailer was then released officially the next day.[25] Book Two debuted on January 6, 2020.[26]

On July 6, 2020, Book 3 was officially announced with a release date of August 13, 2020.[27] Unlike its predecessors, it aired on HBO Max instead of Cartoon Network. Dennis revealed in a reply to a tweet that Infinity Train was originally planned to air on HBO Max from the beginning, but due to the streaming service's delay from its original 2019 launch date, the first two seasons were aired on Cartoon Network instead.[28] It was later revealed at San Diego Comic-Con that the book would be titled Cult of the Conductor.[29] Book 3 was released in batches, with the first five episodes debuting on August 13, the next three on August 20, and the final two on August 27.[30]

Infinity Train received critical acclaim upon its debut. On Rotten Tomatoes season 1 has an approval rating of 100% based on reviews from 8 critics.[34] Season 2 has an approval rating of 100% based on reviews from 6 critics.[35]

Caroline Cao of /Film declared it a "wild triumph",[36] while Nerdist's Andrea Towers declared it "one of the best animated programs of the year."[37] Reuben Baron of CBR favorably compared it to Cartoon Network's animated miniseries Over the Garden Wall in its perfection, hailing it as "a beautifully handled piece of self-contained, character-driven storytelling."[38] Skyler Johnson from Comic Watch called it "excellent", with "emotional depth that is rarely seen in children's television", "witty, clever humor", and "stellar voice action."[39] Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media gave the series 5 out of 5 stars. In her review Ashby praised the positive messages about friendship and self-reflection. Ashby also praised the character of Tulip and the show’s emotional moments.[40]

The third season of Infinity Train particularly received critical acclaim. William Hughes of The A.V. Club praised season 3 for its darker themes and messages, hailing it as "the best, most challenging season yet."[41] Petrana Radulovic from Polygon praised the series' complex character arcs and noted the third season is a testament to the infinite potential of the premise.[42] Andrew Kolondra Jr. from The Vanderbilt Hustler called season 3 "genre-defying" and said "thanks to shows like Infinity Train, the modern animation world is finally approaching a point at which it may break free of the notion that animation is ‘just for kids.’"[43] Observer Media said the show has grown into its own, developing a compelling world and internal mysteries "that will draw you in with a masterclass in character development to fuel your drive to keep going."[44] Beth Elderkin of io9 praised season 3 for "enhancing the show’s dedication to avoiding black-and-white views of morality". Elderkin particularly praised episode 5 of season 3 for it’s "stunning revelations" saying "it’s worth watching for those alone."[45]

To test the waters for a potential full series, the pilot for Infinity Train was first aired on Cartoon Network on Saturday February 11, 2017 at 6:00 AM without any advertisements for it.[46] Despite this, the pilot pulled in approximately 703,000 views amongst the 18–49 year old demographic and ranked as the 33rd of the top 50 original cable telecasts for February 11, 2017.[47]

In September 2020, Parrot Analytics found that the audience demand for Infinity Train was 21.3 times the demand of the average TV series in the United States within 30 days of its release.[48] In December 2020, Observer Media reported that Infinity Train was the fourth most-watched original series on HBO Max since its launch in May.[49]

The first season (termed a book), Infinity Train: The Perennial Child was nominated in 2020 at the 47th Annie Awards in the category Best Special Production.[50]