If you’ve been to the forums recently, you will see the news post that I will be quitting one of my two jobs. I am happy about the prospect of more free time. More free time means that there may be more time I take away from playing Saint’s Row and put that wasted time into cartooning.

Currently though, I have way too much college art work I have to do that I can not even play Saint’s Row. I know, I know… it’s tough, but hopefully after this week, I will have a tremendous load off of my shoulders.

What’s this site about? Oh yeah, cartoons… not me whining about my life.

Gary and Mike Episode 1 is up. It’s going to become a Monday thing as best as I can. Nobody snitch…

ATHF – The “Dick” episode. You know… I didn’t laugh. I didn’t laugh at all, except a small chuckle when I realized that everyone listed in the credits had their first name replaced with “Dick”. And to top it off, they played an equally unfunny episode afterwards, the one that has the two frat boys from outer space, where the only funny bit, is when the Plutonians get sucked out of the window at the very end.

About the “Dick” episode though, I am glad they did it, to some extent. It’s the same reasoning behind South Parks‘ “Shit” episode… where they just bombard you with the word until it has lost meaning and you are desensitized that it does not matter anymore and we can get on with our lives and realize that it is just a word and the world won’t Ker-Plode. Now, if only we could get the people who are offended with such language to actually watch these, then we would be set.

Frisky Dingo was interesting, especially because no characters from the previous episode were on the second episode, but it worked, because it was introducing more characters you just know are going to be the protagonists to our antagonist. The new characters were fun to listen to and the jokes were great. It’s probably not season set purchase-worthy for me, but it is something that I’ll be watching everytime there is a new one.

Stroker and Hoop – I totally missed recording the opening of Sundays show, before the title sequence with Stroker in the stand of the courtroom.. I got the schedule mixed up and expected another ATHF episode before I had to get ready to record. And looking ahead, I don’t see them playing through the season again. I believe they will, someday, replay the season one more time. And when Ep 8 gets here, I’ll be getting that one minute of footage I missed.

Harvey Birdman – or HB is my personal nickname for him… I’m glad it was two-parter along with last week’s episode. I felt that there was more to be explained, and it did, but then it ended with a bit more ‘xplaining to do. We’ll see about next week.

And apparently there are going to be Brak show audio dramas coming up on adultswim.com sometime soon. I wasn’t a big fan of the show, but it’ll be fun to listen to while working on the cartoons, and just know a friend of mine will be stoked to get more Brak. They might as well continue some Space Ghost tracks, like those CD’s they used to sell.

Congratulations to Bill Lawrence and his gorgeous wife Christa Miller. They welcomed their third child, a boy, on Sunday October 8. The couple are also parents to daughter Charlotte, 6, and son William, 3. I hear that this third one is actually a clone in some elaborate scheme to keep “Bill” around for another generation of television. My source may be sketchy as I and my source are one in the same.

I went through exhaustive measures to get a picture, and although its just a picture from the ultrasound, I believe you can get a good look at this baby’s features. Quite the cutie.

Let’s talk toons…

New Aqua Teen Hunger Force hits this weekend. And as for their movie, apparently it will only by showing at select art theaters and college campuses. I’ve been trying to find out if my campus will be showing it, but not many people know about it.

I’ve got most of the Stroker and Hoop episodes and I luckily haven’t missed one of this re-running of the season. I don’t even know if they’ll rerun it again, so I’m trying my best to keep them so I can make myself a DVD. I doubt one will be released, but I’d buy it the day it comes out.

Gary and Mike is a claymation show that was on a couple years back. I may be the only person with a copy of each show. You can watch episode 5 up on youtube for now. It may not make full sense without seeing the first episode of the series, but it will definitely give you a sense of the humor.

Frisky Dingo – filled with lots of funny little jokes. I was a bit apprehensive about it earlier with some pretty lame adverts, but I’m glad I finally came around to watching it. I actually caught it on adultswim’s Fix and will be looking forward to the next episode.

Harvey Birdman – “Babysitter” was a pretty good episode. Lots of good jokes and some great animation for the type of show it is. And the return of Bird-Girl. Rawr!

Venture Brothers – So apparently season two is already over. I may have missed some episodes, because that was quite the fast season. But the great news is:

We just started talking to the network about the dvd project and are tossing around special features and packaging ideas with an eye toward a March release, I think (don’t quote me on this… these things always change). The deleted scenes should generally be a bit more compelling on the next set than they were on the Season 1 set, since Doc’s being really good about saving all the original animation in separate files this time for just that purpose. Also, Dave Paterson has been doing full 5.1 Surround Sound mixes for each episode in addition to the standard TV stereo mix, so the DVDs should sound great, as God intended them to.

Awesome. And I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that the gay monk character on Dr. ORPHEUS’s team was voiced by the same actor as Master Shake from ATHF. Very funny. Oh, and there had better be a season 3.

No, I’m not giving out quotes to the fan-episode, but I was browsing through the oodles of info I have stored about the Clone High series on my computer and found some fun quotes and images, and I thought I would share.

By the way, I received the James Stewart CD and have enjoyed much of the music so far and have picked two songs to add to the fan-ep, along with some Abandoned Pools. Just need to go through that “is it okay” phase.

And the last season of Harvey Birdman is starting up, and I am afraid I won’t be seeing my Captain Planet and the Planeteers spoof. <sigh>

In real news, Phil Lord and Chris Miller are still in action, besides their work on the fabulous show “How I Met Your Mother”, have started to work on the CG-adaptation of Judi and Ron Barrett’s children’s book, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

I personally have no idea how the book is, but the movie may be worth a rental for people of our age.

Oh well, on with the fun quotes and images…

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Lawrence got his first taste of supervising younger writers two years ago when he worked with Phil Lord and Chris Miller in developing the MTV animated series “Clone High,” and he loved the experience.

“I hope to start a long career of taking advantage of people more talented than me,” Lawrence quipped.-hollywoodreporter.com

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“What if clones of famous people went to college together?”Chris Miller, just 24 at the time, made this wacky pitch at a deal meeting at Touchstone Television a few years ago. Great idea, said his buddy Phil Lord, but make it high school — “more angsty.”"We ended up picking the people we thought would have the toughest time living up to being like their original clone parent,” says Miller.Gandhi certainly fits that bill. In Clone High, he’s a kinetic little goofball. Instead of crusading for a free and harmonious India, he’s a horny party dude. “Chris and I just happen to know East Indian kids in our high school who happen to come from high-achieving households,” says Lord. “They get their first taste of beer and they go nuts. We thought that would be an interesting idea for our clone of Gandhi.”

Fox plays Gandhi’s kidney. “It coincided with his desire to do only one line on our show,” says Miller. “He got one million dollars per word,” says Lord.

…the series budgeted at a reported $750,000 US per episode…”

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“Chris, what would you say is Clone High’s worst quality?” asks Lord, the curly haired one, in a three-way cellphone conference call with The Sun.”Being too good,” deadpans Miller.”I think that’s definitely it,” says Lord. “And not being available at all hours of the day.”

“And only being a half-hour long.”

“Yeah, that’s another bad quality. If you think about it, it’s got all kinds of terrible things about it.”

-jam.canoe.ca

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Clone High SellSheet:

CLONE HIGH U.S.A.

From Touchstone Television and the critically acclaimed writing team behind “Spin City” comes Clone High U.S.A., where the teenaged clones of famous dead people are brought to life in this brilliantly inventive half-hour animated series.

Mentally deranged scientist Dr. Cinnamon J. Scudworth created test tube clones of the most important people in history back in 1984. Now, 16 years later, the babies have all grown up and attend “Clone High School,” where they are secretly monitored by a government agency planning to control their minds!

Featuring the most famous cast of historic characters ever, Clone High U.S.A. gives a hilarious new spin on the lives of history’s most famous personalities. Icons from every time period will interact for the first time in history and the result is nothing less than hilarious!

Who will win Cleopatra’s heart: Gandhi or JFK? Who will win a fist fight between Sammy Davis Jr. and Tupac Shakur? The answer to these and other absurdly funny questions will be answered in the most original show to hit television in years!

Executive Producer: Bill Lawrence.
©Touchstone Television.
ABC half-hour comedy

-Taylor T. Grant

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Below is an image I found this while poking around Dartmouth’s humor magazine (Jack-O-Lantern) back when Phil Lord and Chris Miller were there. And the idea of the “Very Special” Episode was born:

He totally mentions the “Very Special Episode” idea…. Hilarious! We got the celebrity encounter episodes a-plenty, but I don’t remember any “Break-In” episodes.

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Oh, and here’s a fun little comic.

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And let’s finish this fun post off with a look back in time, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s art projects back from their college days. (Which, by the way, they came back to Dartmouth during the CH haitus and had an animation night with the current school class, showing their old work, and two episodes of CH, one never aired on USA TV)Lucky.Here’s the link to two of the four available award winning animated shorts done by Phil Lord and Chris Miller. I wish I could get my hands on the other two.

Hmm, still haven’t gotten my James Stewart CD through the mail, but then again, it is coming from Southern Africa to Washington, D.C.

Looks like all my clamoring finally paid off. No more Tom Goes To The Mayor. I did, in fact, watch the last episode, as [adult swim] claimed all over that it was the best episode. It wasn’t too bad. But it wasn’t all that great. I know enough of the show to understand what was going on, and followed it easily. It was less odd than the other episodes I stumbled upon and all I can say is that they must have gone out with their top episode.

I just hope the money that would have been a season three goes to something more deserving, say, Undergrads?!

Here is a newer version of the opening credits. There is more already done, but this was nice enough to show off. There may be some color differences to be adjusted, such as Cleo’s skin color and the ground, but for the most part, their animations are done. There will be additions, though, that will blend this to look even more like the original opening (such as translucent animations in the curtain background).

I received some emails of encouragement, and I do appreciate the thought. I am hard at work on this when I can, but my current semester’s art projects are taking well more time than I had planned for. Hopefully I will have a more fun update next time.