A.N.T. Farm

A.N.T. Farm is an American teen sitcom that originally aired on Disney Channel from May 6, 2011, to March 21, 2014. It first aired on May 6, 2011, as a special one-episode preview and continued as a regular series starting on June 17, 2011. After airing as the preview of the series, the pilot episode "transplANTed" later re-aired after the series finale of The Suite Life on Deck. The series was created by Dan Signer, a former writer and co-executive producer of The Suite Life on Deck and creator of the Disney XD/YTV series Mr. Young. In mid-November 2010, Disney Channel greenlit the series, with production beginning in early 2011. The first promo was released during the premiere of Lemonade Mouth.

The series stars China Anne McClain as Chyna Parks, an 11-year-old musical prodigy who is the newest member in the Advanced Natural Talent (A.N.T.) program, a gifted program at Webster High School in San Francisco that allows gifted middle school students to skip middle school and go immediately to high school. Sierra McCormick, Jake Short, Stefanie Scott, Carlon Jeffery, and Aedin Mincks also star. The series was successful, as it was the most popular series on television among children in the age ranges 6 to 11 and 9 to 13. The A.N.T. Farm soundtrack was released on October 11, 2011, and was successful, spending five weeks on the Billboard kids chart, peaked at number 29 on the US Billboard 200, and peaked at number 2 on the US Top Soundtracks.

Disney+ premiered A.N.T. Farm for streaming on June 26, 2020.

Plot
A.N.T. Farm follows 11-year-old musical prodigy Chyna Parks (China Anne McClain), who has just become the newest student in the Advanced Natural Talents (A.N.T.) program at Webster High School in San Francisco, California for gifted middle schoolers. On her first day, she befriends Olive Doyle (Sierra McCormick), a girl with an eidetic memory, and Fletcher Quimby (Jake Short), an artistic genius who is otherwise quite dim. The three proceed to go on multiple adventures, using their talents to their advantage.

The school's queen bee, Lexi Reed (Stefanie Scott), views the A.N.T.s as babies who don't belong at Webster High School and often bullies them, particularly Chyna, whom she sees as a threat to her own spotlight. Chyna's older brother Cameron (Carlon Jeffery) attempts to avoid Chyna in school as much as he can, afraid she will be an embarrassment to him. Paisley Houndstooth (Allie DeBerry), Lexi's dim-witted best friend, and Angus Chestnut (Aedin Mincks), a computer science prodigy A.N.T. who harbors a crush on Olive, are major recurring roles in the series, with Angus joining the main cast in season 3.

The third season takes place at a boarding school run by large technology corporation Z-Tech, owned by Zoltan Grundy (Dominic Burgess), after all the A.N.T.s are accepted as students. The series ends with Fletcher winning an arts fellowship in New York City and moving there to follow his dreams, while the other A.N.T.s stay in San Francisco to continue their education.

Main

 * China Anne McClain as Chyna Parks, the A.N.T. program's musical prodigy. She has a natural gift for singing, dancing, and playing many instruments, including the guitar, piano, violin, trumpet, saxophone, flute, cello, harp, bagpipes, French horn, bugle, theremin, drums, harmonica, keyboard, bassoon, tuba, spoons, and banjo. She is the leader of the A.N.T.s.
 * Sierra McCormick as Olive Doyle, an A.N.T. with eidetic memory and great knowledge of many facts, which she calls "interesting factoids."
 * Jake Short as Fletcher Quimby, an A.N.T. with a talent for art. He has an unrequited crush on Chyna; a running gag within the series is Chyna being oblivious to his romantic advances.
 * Stefanie Scott as Alexis "Lexi" Reed, the most popular girl at Webster High and Chyna's vain, self-centered rival. In season three, it is revealed that Lexi is a math prodigy.
 * Carlon Jeffery as Cameron Parks (main seasons 1–2, guest star season 3), Chyna's older brother. Unlike his sister, he has no apparent talents. He shows a passion for film-making.
 * Aedin Mincks as Angus Chestnut (recurring seasons 1–2, main season 3), a computer genius A.N.T. with a gluttonous appetite and an unrequited crush on Olive.

Recurring

 * Allie DeBerry as Paisley Houndstooth, Lexi's ditsy, kindhearted best friend. Along with Lexi, she is on the cheer squad, even though she does not know how to cheer.
 * Zach Steel as Gibson (seasons 1–2), the counselor and tutor of the A.N.T. Farm, who is caring and sensitive, but also dimwitted and childlike.
 * Mindy Sterling as Susan Skidmore, the iron-fisted, unsympathetic, and cheap principal of Webster High School who often takes advantage of the A.N.T.s' talents for her own personal gain.
 * Finesse Mitchell as Darryl Parks, the hopelessly overprotective father of Chyna and Cameron. He is a "highly decorated" San Francisco police officer.
 * Christian Campos as Wacky the Wolf (seasons 1–2), the school mascot.
 * Elise Neal as Roxanne Parks (season 1), the mom of Chyna and Cameron. She is a children's birthday party entertainer.
 * Matt Lowe as Hippo (seasons 1–2), a man who went from the music business to the movie business to the restaurant business. He is the owner of the International House of Whatever (IHOW).
 * Claire Engler as Violet (seasons 1–2), an athletically gifted A.N.T. with an explosive temper. She has an unrequited crush on Fletcher.
 * Dominic Burgess as Zoltan Grundy (season 3), a businessman who is the CEO of Z-Tech and its adjacent school.
 * Zibby Allen as Madame Goo Goo, a pop celebrity intended to be a parody of Lady Gaga, and Winter Maddox (season 3), the vice president of Z-Tech.
 * Piper Curda as Kumiko Hashimoto (season 3), a student at Z-Tech who pretends to be a debate prodigy named Kennedy Van Buren, but is truthfully the daughter of Mr. Hashimoto.
 * Tom Choi as Mr. Hashimoto (season 3), the CEO of the Hashimoto Soda Company who first appeared in The Suite Life on Deck.

Special guest stars

 * Zendaya as Sequoia Jones (season 2), a teen movie star who enjoys method acting, though she often takes it too far.
 * Vanessa Morgan as Vanessa (season 2), a Canadian model and Cameron's girlfriend. Cameron initially sees her on the cover of a fashion catalogue being read by Lexi and hallucinates that she is a transfer student whom he ends up taking to prom; upon discovering that he imagined the encounter, Chyna tracks down the real Vanessa and introduces the two, and they subsequently begin dating.
 * Billy Unger as Berry Figgenbottom, (season 2), an acting prodigy A.N.T. He initially portrays himself as Australian explorer "Tasmanian Neville" and is thought to be an academic prodigy like Olive before his real identity and talent, along with his true sensitive, cowardly nature, are revealed.
 * Chris Rock as himself (season 3), who visits the Z-Tech school to buy a rare animal for his daughter.

Development
Disney Channel announced on November 11, 2010, that they had green-lit the show for production, which began in early 2011. The show was first conceived when Dan Signer, creator of the show, saw China Anne McClain. "The girl had so much confidence. She can nail a joke. She can sing. She can play instruments. It's like China was some sort of child prodigy [...] And that's when it hit me: Why not build a show around a child prodigy? Someone who's got all of this natural talent & ability, but is still challenged when she's sent off to high school at the age of 11?" Signer said in an interview. After the first few episodes of the show were shown, Disney Channel bumped up their order of episodes for the show from 13 episodes to 26 episodes for the first season. On November 30, 2011, it was announced the series was renewed for a second season. On October 2, 2012, it was announced the series was renewed for a third and final season.

Casting
In 2009, China Anne McClain booked the starring role as Janet in the Disney Channel pilot Jack and Janet Save the Planet alongside future co-stars Sierra McCormick and Jake Short. The pilot was not picked up and never aired. After the pilot was not picked up, Dan Signer began creating another show tailor-made for McClain and cast her as the lead. Sierra McCormick was cast after an audition where she continually talked about tigers. Dan Signer stated "And as I heard her continually talking about tigers, I thought 'That's just how Olive would sound,' because Olive is a fast talking, intelligent student whose talent is memory, which is how Sierra got that part." Jake Short was cast after Signer found him to be likable as an artist during his audition. Jake Short was the last of the three core characters to be cast. Caroline Sunshine was originally cast as Lexi and Stefanie Scott as the role of Tinka Hessenheffer in Shake It Up!, but Dan Signer decided that Sunshine would be better as Tinka and Scott as Lexi, so the two switched roles. Sunshine, however, would later guest star in the episode "some enchANTed evening".

Broadcast
In Canada, the show had a preview on May 23, 2011, with the premiere on June 24, 2011. In New Zealand, it premiered on August 15, 2011, and in Australia on the same day, as well on Seven Network on May 19, 2012. It previewed on September 16, 2011, and premiered on October 7, 2011, in the UK and Ireland. It was released in South Africa on December 10, 2011.

Ratings
The sneak preview of the series garnered 4.4 million viewers on its premiere night, ranked as TV's No. 1 Telecast in Total Day among Tweens 9-14 (441,000/1.8 rating) and was also TV's No. 1 Telecast among Kids 6-11 (544,000/2.2 rating). Its lead-in, the series finale of The Suite Life on Deck, received 4.6 million.

The episode "The PhANTom Locker" was the most watched episode of the series, scoring 4.6 million viewers, until August 5, 2011, when an unnamed episode earned 4.9 million viewers right after the Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension. It did better than its lead-in Wizards of Waverly Place, which earned 4.1 million viewers.

In Australia, the episode "transplANTed" delivered 80,000 viewers. In the United Kingdom the same episode had 321,000 viewers, and the episode "participANTs" garnered 240,000 viewers.