Few subjects are as ripe for comedy as celebrities and their lifestyles ‘ but parodying the likes of Flo Rida or Britney Spears in animation has always been tough because of the lengthy production process.
Or at least that was the case until Popzilla. Debuting Sept. 28 at 6:30 p.m. on MTV, the Animax Entertainment series can bring its brand of micro-sketches to life in as little as a week using Flash animation.
Popzilla may be the most visible project coming out of Animax, founded in 2001 by Emmy-winning writer, actor and producer Dave Thomas and serial advertising entrepreneur Andrew Bain. But it’s far from the only animated project coming out of the Van Nuys-based studio, which also creates virtual worlds, branded entertainment, and digital agency and production services for advertising, animation, web sites and games.
Thomas, who co-created the classic sketch comedy series SCTV and many of its most memorable characters, directs the creative aspects of the studio. On a recent visit, Thomas and his creative team ‘ executive producers Tim Hedrick, Kevin Pederson, Jared Miller (plus the absent R.J. Fried) and director of animation Rob Fendler ‘ were most pumped up about Popzilla and the potential for the 300 or so sketches they’d written to take off on either the eight half-hour episodes MTV has ordered or on digital platforms.
Thomas says the average sketch is about 35 seconds long and created on the premises using photographs of celebrities animated in a sort of South Park style.
‘We turn them around as quick as we can with this fairly simple style of animation,’ says Thomas.
For example, a short sketch about a current celebrity can be pitched to the network with a one-line description and, once approved, work begins on designing the sketch an the script can be done in a day. Once the script is approved, it goes to full animation.
Doing all the work in-house speeds up the process, with the writers, producers and Thomas working directly with the animators to walk through the sketch, block it out and tweak the movements. Not having to deal with the time differences, translations and cultural specifics that come with farming out animation work to overseas studios saves a tremendous amount of time.
Thomas says the voices are recorded in a small studio at Animax, which also has on-site mixing rooms and video editing facilities.
With so many short sketches, the show is ideal for viral marketing, the internet (via the Animax-built site Popzilla.tv) and mobile platforms, including an iPhone app the studio is developing. ‘We will ultimately hit something topical that is right on, and it’ll get in on one of those viral tidal waves that gets 2 million hits in a day,’ Thomas says. ‘That’s what happens when you hit the right chord. And you just have to be in the business of doing that.’
The other animated series Animax is working on has so far aired only in the Great White North. Bob & Doug, an animated version of the McKenzie Brothers characters Thomas and Rick Moranis created nearly three decades ago for SCTV, is airing on Canada’s GlobalTV. Thomas says they’ve completed half of the 22 episodes ordered by the network.
Thomas suggested the idea to Christine Shipton at Global during a pitch session, and it stuck. As a Canadian tax credit production, the finances are complicated and requires a certain amount of work to be done in Canada.
Thomas says the animation is done by Ottawa’s Pip Animation, with writing and most of the creative decisions being made at Animax. ‘We did enough work in Canada that we played by the rules and conformed to all the content,’ Thomas says. ‘But we kept the creative control down here.’
Creatively, there were a few challenges in turning the beer-swilling, back bacon-eating McKenzies ‘ who headlined the 1983 live-action movie Strange Brew ‘ into an animated series. ‘We had to create the world for Bob and Doug, which didn’t exist,’ Thomas says. ‘So who are their friends? Do they have parents? What does their house look like? All that came out of the minds of [the writers], you know?
The characters still drink their beer, but gave up smoking (on screen, at least). Thomas ‘ who voices Doug in the cartoon, with Dave Coulier taking over Bob from Moranis ‘ says they aimed the show at roughly the same demo as South Park and Family Guy, and so far the show has delivered. And the characters kept their most distinctive quality: being Canadian.
‘One of the things a couple friends of mine who worked on The Simpsons ‘ Josh Weinstein and Bill Oakley ‘ said to me was ‘Don’t make them American. The fact that they’re Canadian is part of their charm,” Thomas says.
Thomas says they expect the show to sell to an outlet in the United States soon ‘ a potential deal with Fox fell through over timing issues ‘ though nothing had yet emerged.
Delving into the digital realm is the purview of Animax President Michael Bellavia. In addition to the original animated series, he rattles off a long list of other projects for major clients in terms of online game development, virtual worlds and advertising.
One of the company’s most popular and visible projects was a series of Slot Car shorts made Robot Chicken-style in stop-motion with toys and real pyrotechnics. The project was used by the fast food chain Carl’s Jr. and can be seen online at slotcar2009.com.
Bellavia also says a lot of interactive work has been done for children’s content, including work for Disney and Sesame Workshop. Other projects include creating DVD content for Warner Bros. featuring such characters as Scooby-Doo, Kangaraoo Jack and Tom and Jerry.
On mobile, Animax also worked on bringing Little Pim, the well-known language-learning program for children, to the iPhone. A Popzilla iPhone app also is in the works, he says.
The company uses its in-house resources for this work, with people often crossing over from one area to another.
‘Some of the people working on Popzilla for TV will also work on it for iPhone,’ Bellavia says. The pipeline is slightly different, but not so different that people can’t learn to cross over, he says.
Thomas credits the studio’s talented crew with making Popzilla and Bob & Doug possible, saying he has a newfound appreciation for the large amount of work that goes into animation.
‘I would have walked away from the show if it had been up to me to do it myself. I just wouldn’t have done it,’ he says. ‘And it was because of the diligence of these guys that it got done. And that’s how shows happen. You have really funny guys who actually care about it and want to work on it and make it happen, and then it gets done.’
