Bryan Brinkman’s Channel Frederator Featured short, The Coffeebird, is bittersweet while still showing us the humorous and touching sides of friendship and life…
Even if it is a beautiful friendship between an old person and his fine feathered friend. I wanted to do something different for this interview, so rather than dish out my usual Channel Frederator Featured Film Interviews, so I opted to interview Bryan Brinkman’s character in his film!
So without further ado, here’s some answers from Coffee Person (Barrista?) Henry Stevens.

1) Your story, has touched millions, and has been made into an animated feature by Director Bryan Brinkman. How was it working with him and has success changed you Henry?
Well Bryan’s tough to work with, aside from his pompous attitude and dangerous drug habits, he’s just plain unprofessional. Also he tends to break the rules of editing and what he comes up with is just sloppy. Not very professional. For me, the film changes my life only slightly, it allowed me to look back and realize how terrible my scarf was, I really should’ve used a brighter color palette.

Bryan Brinkman, Director in Question

2) Did you decide to keep your day-job at the Coffee Shop?
Of Course, that job was and is my life, I’ve spent more than four decades there and I’m not gonna give up on it. Occasionally people come in and recognize me, but it doesn’t phase me, retirement is just around the corner. Then I’ll probably move out of the city and become one with nature.

3) How has life been since you lost your little Bird Friend, and do you still miss him?
Life goes on, if anything it hurt to see something so young go, I went through a short time of guilt and anxiety thinking is was my fault, but overtime the wounds healed.Of course I’ll miss him, he was my little shuga-feathas .(thats my nickname for him, between me and you).

4) You have an interest in Vikings, when did that begin and do you have Viking blood coursing through your veins?
Well as you know Im an old man, my great grandfather was actually killed when nordic vikings pillaged his village. Ever since then, I assumed that my great grandmother was somehow raped by Eric the Red and I have a little bit of Viking in my blood, so I check out the occasional Viking expo. I also as you know take part in their traditions, such as their funerals and song and dance.

5) Did you protect yourself against Bird Flu, while nursing your little Bird Friend, and what are your thoughts on the Bird Flu Epidemic?
I’m not sure what your talking about exactly, I don’t like to watch the news. If your wondering, I did have a flu about two weeks ago, I was vomiting and spraying diahrea everywhere, it was uncontrollable and sloppy. Sorry if thats off topic.

6) Any closing thoughts, or memories you would like to share about your little Bird Friend? Is there anything you would like to say to the youth of America?
Well to my shugga feathas I’d say “Keep your beak to the sky my friend.” And for the Youth of America, I can only say “Stop Snitchin!”

Thanks for answering our Indepth Questions Henry! Thanks also for submitting Bryan!
-Jeaux Janovsky

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94×9RO8JgTA]
While most people can name the Flintstones pretty easily, there are some really strange characters who are tied to the series who may not be so easily remembered.

The Great Gazoo first appeared on the show on October 29, 1965. He is a small, green, alien character who was voiced by Harvey Korman. The Great Gazoo, or Gazoo for short, appeared in front of Fred and Barney at seemingly random times. Even when he attempts to help Fred and Barney out, he usually ends up causing more trouble. The only people who are able to see him are Fred, Barney, and the children (because they believe in him).

Gazoo’s backstory is that he was exiled to Earth from his home planet Botox as punishment for having invented a doomsday machine, a weapon of immense destructive power, and was discovered by Fred and Barney when his flying saucer crashed. His invention was a button which would destroy the universe if pressed, though he insists he made it on a whim with no intent of using it.

Gazoo was introduced during the last season of the series, and then never mentioned again in any of the follow up cartoons.

Captain Caveman was not a part of the Flintstones universe at first. He was the star of his own series, “Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels” which first aired September 10, 1977.

It wasn’t until November 1980, that Captain Caveman began to star in segments of his own on “The Flintstone Comedy Show”, one of many spin-offs of Hanna Barbera’s popular prime-time show “The Flintstones”, often in a role similar to that of Superman. Captain Caveman worked at The Daily Granite newspaper with Wilma and Betty. His “secret identity” was Chester, the office boy. To disguise himself as Chester, Captain Caveman wore a pair of glasses and a tie. Despite the simplicity of his disguise, he required a coat rack and an elaborate transformation sequence to become Captain Caveman. I can’t think of another character in the Hanna Barbera universe who belonged with the Flintstones more than Captain Caveman.

The Shmoo may be a bit of a stretch (no pun intended) as a Flintstones character, but I’m including him anyway. The Shmoo gained its own animated series in the late 1970s, as part of the animated series “Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo” (which consisted of reruns of “The New Fred and Barney Show” mixed with the Shmoo’s own cartoons; the two pairs of characters didn’t actually “meet”). The two pairs of characters did meet, however, in the early 1980s Flintstones spinoff “The Flintstone Comedy Show”. The Shmoo appeared in the segment “Bedrock Cops” as a police officer alongside part-time officers Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.

The Shmoo was created and first drawn by the cartoonist Al Capp in his newspaper comic strip “Li’l Abner”. Their first appearance occurred on August 31, 1948, making him the oldest (created first) character in the Flintstone universe.

The Shmoo also had his own show that was basically a clone of Scooby Doo (as was the Captain Caveman show). His animated appearances have little, if anything, in common with his comic strip counterpart.
-Floyd Bishop

We’ve been pretty busy at Perennial Pictures over the last month working on our own “Crawford the Cat “ property as well as picking up some animation for “The Mr. Men Show” from our friends at Renegade Animation. Mr. Men looks like it’s going to be a really fun show, and we’re happy to be working on it. Look for the show on Cartoon Network in the US and on Channel 5 in the UK beginning in January!

For “Crawford the Cat,” we’ve been putting together model packs for the characters, and this week, Crawford’s walk cycles were being honed.

To see some on the walk cycle animation, Click Here.

Enjoy!

Russ Harris

HANDYCAT Clips
CRAWFORD’S CLASSICS Clips

“Internet People” was cool enough –over 4,000,000 internet people already think so– but the coolest is yet to come. Dan launches the weekly epsiodes of The Meth Minute 39 this Thursday (and the 38 Thursdays afterwards) with “Sex Machine.”

“Can I really get into it?!” “Yeah!!!”

Can you tell I’m really excited?

–Fred

Find more videos like this on Channel Frederator RAW

HALO 3 came out this week. The release was prefaced with a ton of marketing, including television commercials, internet ads, and even a cross promotion with Mountain Dew to create a beverage called Game Fuel.

The marketing did its job. HALO 3 made over $170 million dollars in the first 24 hours of its release! That’s a lot of money. It is the single best opening of an entertainment product ever.

As someone who works in the game industry, it is great to see a game generate so much attention and open so well. Videogames are much more than the time wasters and brain rotters that they are so often made out to be in the press. Congratulations to Bungie and Microsoft for such a successful launch!
-Floyd Bishop

Writing about filmmaker Marv Newland several times over the past year got us in phone touch for the first time in the 21st Century and spawned a few joint projects I’ll be telling you about sometime.

The first is a short film*, Marv’s (and Frederator’s) natural medium. Over the past six months or so Marv’s been sending us from his trips around the world (the one above’s from Hollywood). And in addition to the obvious –our New York address– there’s a cartoon embedded on the left, animated to a hot 1920’s Joe Venuti soundtrack.

Stay tooned.

*Update: Marv’s film is now officially titled “Postalolio” and will be featured in international film festivals throughout 2009; I’ll post the schedule as it becomes booked.

I’m currently working on a “Meth Minute 39″ cartoon that’s basically a hip-hop anthem about peacocks. (It will make slightly more sense when you see it).

I had new intern James Sugure animate some awesome pencil tests of peacocks dancing and I cleaned them up and colored them. Usually the director isn’t the one doing the clean-up, but I keep getting these amazing SVA/Pratt student interns who animate way better than me! (And I need more interns desparately so email me today if you are looking for experience!)

Fred was confused when he saw these pretty peacock feathers on my computer screen. He said he wasn’t accustomed to me creating anything un-grotesque! (He hasn’t heard the song yet!)

By the way, here’s James Sugure’s senior thesis:

-Dan

I ran into my old friend M. Henry Jones yesterday. We were both getting our morning coffee after completing drop off duty. You can see Henry’s work at snakemonkey.tv including his ground breaking film, “Soul City”. He’s got a opening/screening this weekend at the Jonathan Shorr Gallery. All the details are at snakemonkey.tv.

We actually wanted to show this short the other day, but for some reason the file didn’t work for us. I should’ve realized something was whack with the cosmic beehive when I was on the subway, on my way to work, and noticed the Freelancer’s Union poster had a beehive on it with a swarm of bees flying around. I hopped on my 2nd transfer subway car and noticed a poster for the new show, Pushing Daisies. It had a gigantic bee on the flower in that ad. I looked down to my Mister Rogers cardigan sweater I was wearing and noticed the cute little bee patch my girlfriend stitched on for me, emblazoned on my chest. I knew it was gonna be one of those off days.
David Seezen shows off how cute and terrifying bees are in his short, Bees, Lots of Bees.

1. Who are some of your influences?
I’m most influenced by UPA, Chuck Jones/Maurice Noble, Rocky and Bullwinkle. I love that dreamlike, stylized animation.

2. How did you come up with the idea for this film?
Bees are a metaphor for those nasty outside forces of nature/society that make you do or be things you would rather not. For me, for example, it’s all those mundane day jobs I would be stuck in because I can’t seem to land my dream job — which would be the position of Full Time Highly Paid Creative Flash Guy or some similar title.

3. Have you ever been stung by a bee, or by multiple bees? I, for one, have never been stung, and hope to indeed keep it that way.
Prior to the cartoon, no. My first time was just last month. A bee stung me while I was asleep in bed! There was swelling, itchy, and yellow liquid oozing, so it was pretty cool — except when I told my friends they all kept saying “gosh, how *ironic*” like a bunch of ninnies.

4. What do you do when you get stuck creatively?
What do you do when you’re stuck on a crossword puzzle? Take a breather if you can afford to, or just methodically keep working the pieces around. You know, I originally wanted to have an evil beekeeper, and the main character was going to be a hot chick (more internet traffic, you know?) but in the end I made the main character the beekeeper as well, and it’s hard to draw hot chicks, so I drew a cameo of a hot queen bee instead.

5. What are you working on currently?
Some animation for Criss Cheatham (from the band August Christopher)’s rock and roll screen show. He rocks out and video of himself is the backing band on the screen behind him. I’m doing some in between animation stuff.

Thanks for submitting David! Don’t forget to wear that Bee Suit. Watch out for those BEES!
-Jeaux Janovsky

Hey Random Cartoon Kats and Kittens!!!
Yup! The Finsters and I are still lurking about. We hope all is well with everyone and sorry we been poofed out of town for a while.
The Finsters got a gig doing magic and tigers in Las Vegas. It’s at some casino where these other two guys were.
Anyway I’ve been super budy with Dora the Explorer and have written the second Finster Finster episode. There’s also several shows I have in development.
Besides that, my dragster is almost done and getting ready to hit the drag strip soon! Man. Can you believe it????? Those racing slicks will be burning up the quarter mile!!!!
You can check out my latest drag racing cartoons at Drag Racing On-Line Magazine.

http://www.dragracingonline.com/cartoon/ix_9-1.html
That’s it for now.
I wish everyone continued fun and success with their Hollywood motion picture cartoon shows!
Take care Fred and Gang!
We’ll talk soooooon!
Your Cartoon Pals…..Jeff and the Finsters