I helped make a kids wb parody in 2021
So, my friend Max hit me up to work on a parody of those old bumpers that used to play on KidsWB in 2003. A VERY specific parody, for a very niche audience. Hot off the tail of doing that Sonic/Home Movies cartoon this seemed like the appropriate next step. This is what most of the original bumpers looked like:
Originally Max had started working with another animator on this video that just was not delivering on his vision. By that point he was already frustrated, and reached out to me to see if I could take it on. We started by doing a quick animation test of the Tube Sock from the promos. I took a picture of one of my own socks, dropped it into photoshop and shoddily recreated the sock! The original was created in Maya, which for the scope of this cartoon we didn’t want to do. Symbol animation it is!
While not exact, it’s parody safe! This was enough to satisfy Max, and we kept moving!
Since the original promos recycle clipped animation from the various shows, we opted to do something similar by largely reusing the same drawings of Yugi and Joey, and sometimes straight up tracing them. I’ve got no shame admitting that, it was important for the vision Max was trying to pull off.
The storyboard he sent me to work against had pretty much all the shots as they were translated to the cartoon! But it IS a bunch of MS Paint drawings Max did. That said, that’s all he needed to show me his idea and get it done, and it served its purpose well. Experience the director at work, lmao:
The process was basically me taking the audio from the animatic, cutting up into five different scenes, and taking them on over about five weeks in my spare time. Max didn’t even get to see a full cut of the cartoon until maybe a week before release, and then we worked to fix through some minor issues and touched some things up, reworked some of the mouths, and then I passed it off to him for editing!
But that’s a little peek behind the scenes of what it’s like taking an idea on from a client and working together to achieve something fun for the screen! This was a budget video for Max, but still turned out to be something cool and exciting to put out!
Keep an eye out for a couple of weeks from now, I’ll be dropping another cartoon that’s teased on the update on my youtube channel. I am leaving to go to New Jersey/New York with my girlfriend and her family for a week on June 30th, and won’t be back until the 6th of July. No promises because I’m really bad at getting derailed with other freelance from personal projects, but I want to try to wrap up this cartoon and get it out shortly after I get back! I’m gonna work on it this weekend and see how close I can get to the finish line.
Until next time!
Holy website!
Hello!
If you’ve made it this far, then you’ve found it! I decided to make a website. Why?
The short answer, is to put all of my stuff in one place.
I really want to start making content again. Lots of it! Cartoons, music, a podcast, I’ve been working on a comic, we conceptualized and worked on ideas for a variety show, and I want to try to do all of these things! I also want to have a place to update people on the things I’m working on.
I guess the first thing I could show any behind the scenes on would be the Home Movies/Sonic parody cartoon.
This was a project that was started in January of 2019, when my good friend Aron Keyser was living with me! Some people might know that we released a string of cartoons together on his channel for a few months. One of the last things we joked about was this idea before he left back for Germany. I was sitting in a discord call playing Sonic or something, and my friend Charlie and I were drinking and riffing as Coach McGuirk and Brendan for some reason. We might have had the DVD’s on in the background of our room. Aron was drawing in the background, and feeling inspired did this lovely sketch.
Aron’s original sketch!
This is where it all started!
That’s when we knew we had to come up with a cartoon. It didn’t take long to write the short, Charlie and I kept riffing back and forth, I played Sonic, he played Eggman. Aron would interject with jokes occasionally. The next fiasco was going to be casting the cartoon. It wouldn’t be worth it if it didn’t sound legitimately like Coach McGuirk. I animated a test using some actual Home Movies dialogue, and I knew it had to be done right!
Believe it or not, I had paid someone else to do the voice originally, but I wasn’t happy with what we got back! My friend Rob told me about his buddy Routt, who is an immense powerhouse of talent. He nailed the Jon H. Benjamin voice and made this project happen.
I was only recently able to come back and finish the last few minutes of the project, but got it done!
As far as the future is concerned, I’ve learned a lot from a few friends about how to make content at a faster rate. I’d like to try to get several cartoons out in 2021. But before that, I’ve already started working on another cartoon with my friend Charlie! Stay tuned for updates on that!
Until then,
-RocketDogShawn