While the American version of The Office took on new life in September with the Peacock debut of the spinoff The Paper, the creator of the original British mockumentary has moved onto a very different type of sitcom. Ricky Gervais will direct and star in Alley Cats, an adult animated series about a group of feral British cats launching on Netflix in 2026.
“I play a fat, lazy, rude, opinionated creature with fangs, who’s not as smart or brave as he thinks he is,” Gervais said in a statement. “So quite a stretch.”
The series will be easily bingeable, with just six 15-minute episodes. Alley Cats follows a group of slacker felines from all walks of life as they hang out and share their thoughts. The cast includes Gervais’ regular collaborator David Earl (Derek, After Life) along with Tom Basden (The Ballad of Wallis Island) and Andrew Brooke (PhoneShop). Alley Cats is billed as offering Gervais’ signature blend of absurdist comedy, social comedy, and heart. The 2D animation will be done by UK-based studio Blink Industries (Dead End: Paranormal Park, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared).
Adult animation has been a winner for Netflix for a decade, and the streaming service is continuing to invest heavily in the genre. Netflix renewed its partnership with BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg by premiering his new series Long Story Short in August and will launch the horror comedy Haunted Hotel, from Rick and Morty writer Matt Roller, on Sept. 19. Mature animal-focused productions seem to have become their own sub-genre. In August, Netflix released Fixed, by Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky, an R-rated film about dogs having a wild night out, and is producing Mating Season, a show about horny forest animals from the team behind Big Mouth.
