Channel Frederator Blog

Funkadillo CEOs

Funkadillo: Hey there, Channel Frederator!

Barfy just informed us that you wanted to know a little more about the two of us. He does all of our emailing and what not, but since he has hooves at the moment, he wasn’t able to write you back himself. He was so excited you’d taken an interest in him, we had to hose him down in the backyard till he was calm. Ah, that pig sure does love the hose. The neighbors think we can’t see them peeking through their blinds.

Channel Frederator: How long have you two been animating?

Joel: I think we’ve both been at it pretty much all day. We took a lunch break, then there was the laser tag, the trip to the aquarium, the deep fryer incident, and building the squirrel-a-pult, but yeah, other than that, it’s been nothing but animating.

Ryan: I don’t think that’s what they meant. We’ve been animating professionally coming up on two years now. Joel over at Rhythm & Hues, and me down the street at Sony Imageworks.

We’ve trained in animation since 2004. Well, let me rephrase that. We started pushing vertices around an environment then. But we REALLY started animating when we met our fantastic mentor, Patricia Hannaway. She really whipped us into shape (Joel still has scars) and got us pointed in the right direction.

CF: How did you both come up with Barfy? What’s his (or her?) origin story?

Joel: Barfy came about while we were working on “MacGuffin’s Night Out,” our senior project during school. We were dealing with a lot of different technical issues on that and we really wanted something quick and fun that we could just make ourselves laugh with.

Ryan: That’s right. Bare minimums on technical stuff, just animation. Nothing more than Pig + Anvil = lawsuit. Or something like that. But the idea of Barfy was one we’d been sitting on since the previous year. Funny story, really. Joel had this really bad case of…

Joel: …….

Ryan: Uhhh…. I was scrounging up bail money and…

Joel: ……..

Ryan: Barfy comes from cotton candy and happy thoughts.

Joel: Same place unicorns come from. Barfy lived with unicorns before this. He showed up on our doorstep one day wrapped in a pancake.

Smiley Cat

CF: We want to know. Favorite pig. Ever.

Ryan: Oh. This is a tough one. There are so many great pigs out there. I’m gonna have to say something like this.

* 4 pork chops
* salt and pepper to taste
* 2 onions, sliced into rings
* 2 sweet potatoes, sliced
* 2 apples - peeled, cored, and sliced into rings
* 3 tablespoons brown sugar
* 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
* 1 teaspoon salt

First you preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Then season the pork chops with salt and pepper to taste, and arrange in a medium oven safe skillet. Top pork chops with onions, sweet potatoes, and apples. Sprinkle with brown sugar. Season with 2 teaspoons pepper and 1 teaspoon salt.

After all that’s done, you cover and bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, until the sweet potatoes are tender and the pork chops have reached an internal temperature of 160 degrees F (70 degrees C). Delicious!

CF: Favorite animation?

Ryan: Well I think my love of animation really started with Saturday morning cartoons, the animation quality would start low and then crescendo at 11am with an hour of Looney Tunes, I think my favorite of those being “Duck Amuck”. I’m also a big fan of “Rooty Toot Toot” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” from UPA, the Pocoyo series from Zinkia, Surf’s Up from SPA, and The Incredibles from Pixar.

Joel: Dino-Riders.

CF: What makes you puke?

Joel: Too many hydraulic sandwiches.

CF: Can you tell us about any upcoming projects?

More characters, more zaniness, more of a complete world, etc. Oh! And eventually more merchandising! We were lucky enough to have a source to prototype products that we keep very secret and hidden away…

Ryan: Joel’s mom.

Joel: Hey! Anyway, there is a lot of stuff around the corner for Funkadillo, and we appreciate all the support we get from great places like this! We’re also happy that you guys like watching a pig that throws up on himself…

Ryan: Whoops! Barfy got out, I’ll go get him.

Joel: Ok then, this seems like a good place to wrap up the interview.

Ryan: Hey! I can see my house from up here!

(You can watch Funkadillo’s latest Barfy the Pig episode right here in Channel Frederator, episode #164. – CF)