Thurop Van Orman

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).

Thurop Van Orman
Born	Mark Ashton Van Orman (1976-04-26) April 26, 1976 (age 48) Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.
Alma mater	California Institute of the Arts (BFA)
Occupations	Animator voice actor television producer director writer
Years active	2000–present
Known for	The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh The Angry Birds Movie 2 North Woods
Spouse	Sherri Van Orman ​ (m. 1999)​
Children	2

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.^[1][2]

In 2001, he made a pitch pilot for The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.^{[citation needed]}

Van Orman worked for the video game company Xantera before going on to study character animation at the California Institute of the Arts.^[3] 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 a 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.^{[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]}

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.^[11]

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^[12] and Hazel.^[13]

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.^[14]

Filmography

Film

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[11]
TBA	Untitled vikings film	Screenwriter

Television

As Crew

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

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	Additional voices	8 episodes
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