He's A Fun Guy Not A Fungus!

We made this pilot at the end of 2008 for a company with an "orange logo", it didn't go anywhere past this stage but we had fun making it and hopefully one day we can make more of them...

HE'S NOT A CAT!!

Last year our friends at Nickelodeon International asked us to make a cartoon for a project they called Open Mic - it was basically a chance for a group of studios to strut their stuff and make cartoon shorts with minimal studio interference. The only condition was that the cartoon must be driven by a 'star character'...

Rewind 10 years to the very early beginnings of Mukpuddy, and a Secret Agent Lemur by the name of Dirk Banzai. Cue hideous 10 year old drawings...





Dirk was the first ever Mukpuddy character, and has been through several incarnations over his 10 years. He starred in a couple of webisodes (back when that seemed like a potential way to make money) and even had his own comic for a short time. We've always thought he had star potential, and thought Open Mic might be a good time to get him out of moth balls and give him a revamp.



The 'secret agent' moniker was dropped, and Dirk became more of a kid who creates drama and intrigue wherever he goes, even when none actually exists. Naturally villains assume Dirk is their nemesis and try to destroy him, but Dirk finds it all quite fun and amusing!



We had a few attempts at trying to find a voice for Dirk, but ended up seeking out the original Dirk - our good friend Matt Kelly. Matt had slipped off the Mukpuddy radar for a few years, but turned out to be irreplaceable. Take that Beyonce!

We also enlisted our friend Richard Simpson as the voice of Dirk's nemesis, The Toyminator.

And Jeremy wrote the theme song (as he often does) with the help of our new-found musical genius Ben Sinclair. It was the first time we worked with Ben, but we doubt we'll ever make anything without him again.

Anyway, it turned out it wasn't really what Nickelodeon were after, but we enjoyed making the short and are grateful for the opportunity. Let's see what you think of it... go on... watch it!

Here's some production work...

Horsing around!

We made a pilot! No silly... not a man who flies planes. A pilot is another name for the first episode of a TV show. Chuckle.

About a year ago our buddies Jamie & Ben (better known in New Zealand as 'Bill & Ben', the creators of the award winning comedy show Pulp Sport) approached us with an idea for a couple of characters called Edward the Horse and Warren the Rabbit.

We took their idea, fed it into the Mukpuddy Cartoon Making Machine, and baked it on high for several months. This is what came out the other side.

We think it's our best work yet, and are particularly proud that we made a NZ-flavoured cartoon that doesn't involve a kiwi. Some of the references may be a little too 'local' for our overseas viewers, but hopefully that will make it seem 'exotic'.

As usual, Alex's pencil went into overdrive. Here's some early development stuff for Ed and Warren...

Secondary character development...

Here's some layouts from the pilot...

And some backgrounds...

Let us know if you'd like to see more!

Jeremy

Finally, something new from us!!!

Some people may be wondering what we've been up to recently, we've had a bunch of stuff on the go but the thing we're most stoked on is a pilot we've just finished up and it's for an idea we came up with a few years ago. The concept is a little odd and one that is a tad awkward to say out loud, the spark of the idea came from when Jeremy found out that when some woman give birth they also do a little poo.

And so our Flash animated 3 minute pilot is called "It's the Pughs" and is the story of a man so desperate for a son that after the birth of his daughter, decides to bring up the poo that follows as "his boy". The idea is based on our observations of the "typical" New Zealand bloke. The dad who wants nothing more that his boy to be the Rugby player he always wanted to be. As kiwi as this is, it seems to us this is a fairly universal trait.

As disgusting as the idea of raising a poo as a child is, we've tried to focus on the relationship between Rudy (the dad) and Peter (his poo son). As much as we embrace that the show will be a lot of gross poo jokes, we like to use the phrase "heartwarming toilet humour". As hard a sell as that is. We feel we've managed to touch on that in this short. We want people to love the little poo, then every now and then remember what he is and gag a bit :)

The Pughs are the quintessential "Kiwi family" and live in a fairly stereotypical NZ setting. We've never been ones for localising our work, as it's never really fit with the type of cartoon we love. But something seemed to click here and it all seems right. The "kiwiness" of the characters adds to their charm and should work on a odd level for people not familiar with the NZ way. We don't see "It's the Pughs" as being a show made only for NZ.

So enough talkie, please watch and let us know what ya think! We really want to make a series of this so feel free to leave comments, so we can show potential sponsors what ya think!!


It's The Pughs - Help Me Rudy! from Mukpuddy on Vimeo.



Here's some sketchy stuff too....



















UPDATE:
We've been lucky enough to have "It's The Pughs" featured on a couple of our favourite sites Frederator , Cartoon Brew , Cold Hard Flash and Drawn. A big thanks to Jeaux, Jerry, Aaron and Johnny, you guys rule!!