Mystery of the Town

Mystery of the Town is a European-American animated series produced for NT Family's Saturday Night Toons block, later NFCartoons' SaturNight block. It is the third collaboration between Aura Networks and Ravenworks Studios, following The One and Summer Camp 13. It is the first series created by Yuliya Yemelyanovna, a writer and director for various Ravenworks series. The first half of the first season started airing from August 8, 2020, to October 31, 2020, with the second half planned to air in January of 2021.

The show is rated TV-PG-V overall.

Season 1
The first season took a more episodic "monster of the week" approach, with about 6 total mythology episodes which looked deeper within the secrets of the Town itself.

Season 2 and 3
Season 2 and 3's episodes are mostly focused on mythology, with one or two episodes per part (excluding Part 3) acting as a monster-of-the-week approach to appease advertisers and viewership.

Production
Production started in August of 2019, with planning and pre-production. Production officially started in October of 2019, with animation being down at Ravenworks' 2D animation studios in Russia, Sweden, and France. Firebasket Asian Animation also aided in production, supplying in-between and key animations, as well as the overall polish of the animation. A twelve-episode second season was greenlit by Firebasket Studios in January of 2020 for a summer 2021 release. This was later elaborated as a "bomb" release format, with five episodes being released in the summer, five episodes being released in the fall, and two episodes being released in early December.

Coronavirus was an issue for the early parts of the production, but since the animators already had experience working from home in the past, there wasn't so much of a hassle getting materials in on time.

The later parts of Season Two and the whole of Season Three were finished in a hybrid office/remote environment.

Episodes

 * Season 1 Part 1 (August 8, 2020-October 31, 2020) {13 Episodes}
 * Season 1 Part 2 (January 16, 2021-April 10, 2021) {13 Episodes}
 * Season 2 Part 1 (July 3, 2021-July 31, 2021) {5 Episodes}
 * Season 2 Part 2 (October 3, 2021-October 31, 2021) {5 Episodes}
 * Season 2 Part 3 (December 4-5th, 2021) {2 Episodes}
 * Season 3 Part 1 (July 3, 2022-July 31, 2022) {5 Episodes}
 * Season 3 Part 2 (October 1, 2022-October 29, 2022) {5 Episodes}
 * Season 3 Part 3 (December 3-4, 2022) {2 Episodes}

Broadcast
The show started airing on NT Family during their Saturday Night Toon block at 9:30pm, and during the inaugural airings, the show received high praise and high social media attention for it's writing, characters, and story. When NT Family rebranded as NFCartoons, the show would stay with the channel as part of their SaturNight block, being one of the flagship shows.

Home video
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment acquired home video rights for the series, and released them in volumes. UPHE also released the videos through electronic sell through alongside Aura Networks Distribution.
 * Season One Volume 1
 * Episodes 1-13
 * November 2020, $29.99
 * Season One Volume 2
 * Episodes 14-26
 * November 2021, $29.99
 * Season Two Volume 1
 * Episodes 27-31
 * June 2022, $15.99
 * Season Two Volume 2 & 3
 * Episodes 31-38
 * August 2022, $18.99
 * The final two episodes are presented on their own disc, and labels them as a movie.