the fins as feet). Her design was likely inspired by the character Ariel, from The Little Mermaid. Bernie (voiced by Giuseppe Calvetti) is a red anthropomorphic hermit crab, and Zig's best friend since childhood. He often collaborates in Zig's schemes to capture Marina, though holds no grudge against her or Sharko, in reality. He is often denoted as being quite smart, and capable of coming to the rescue when needed. Aside from the main characters, various episodes feature a variety of background and minor characters to the stories - jungle animals, aquatic lifeforms, and various human characters - in the first season, one of these human characters is portrayed as a Japanese cargo ship captain, who, as a running gag, frequently crashes his ship into the island and is forced to return home with a rubber dingy. Throughout the first season, several episodes featured the supporting character of Neptune, based on the mythological Roman god of the sea and portrayed as a vain, muscular merman with numerous killer whale henchmen, who competed with Sharko for Marina's love, despite her disliking him. Marina despises him and often has to rely on Sharko and Zig to keep him at bay. The second season introduces Poseidon, portrayed as a muscular elderly merman, who served as Marina's adopted father in the episode "Father-In-Law", and an amnesiac human cargo plane pilot who often exhibits the behavior of a monkey due to his condition - one episode revolves around a flashback, where the pilot has met up with actual simians. Episodes Production and development In 2008, the television group Canal+ decided to develop pilot episodes for nine out of 135 animation projects received, including Zig and Sharko, for television broadcast during the 2010–2011 season. A development budget of 6 to 6.5 million euros ( to million US dollars) was allocated to the series. The original title was The Mermaid, the Hyena and the Shark, and it is a co-production between the television channels TF1 and Canal+ Family which broadcast later this series. The type of animation is similar to the American series of Tex Avery, Bob Clampett and Tom and Jerry. Dong Woo Animation and Armada TMT were the animation studios chosen for the series, similar to that of Space Goofs second season and Oggy and the Cockroaches third and fourth seasons. The development of the series was carried out by the French studios Xilam Animation.