Channel Frederator Blog

I was always a big fan of the animated web series Murry Wilson: Rock and Roll Dad, created by cartoonist Peter Bagge and comedian Dana Gould. Its production was funded by Icebox, which was one of those famous dot com boom-and-bust concerns that burned through about 15 million dollars in a short amount of time. Well, after the company went under, the name and creative assets were bought at auction in 2001 by five guys from the original team (plus some secret investors).

Imagine my surprise when I found that Icebox still exists as a re-launched website. Seems the company has downsized considerably and is now run out of some guy’s house, but if you go to the site, you can watch all the web series that they used to host in the good(?) old days when everyone had enough money to pay for scores of Aeron chairs and animated webisodes written by real Hollywood writers. It’s free!

Zombie College by Eric Kaplan is my favorite. Queer Duck, Hard Drinkin Lincoln, Starship Regulars, Migrane Boy…they’re all here, including the still controversial Mr. Wong. So enjoy opening up this time capsule from the pre-Web 2.0 days by going to the “shows” page .

After the jump, three more Murry Wilson episodes. (From YouTube, since I can’t embed the vids from the Icebox site!) [Read more…]

This cut-out animation (in the style of JibJab) was made for the organization Birthright Israel. I think it’s worth watching just to see cartoon John McCain blow the shofar.

It was produced by Jewish Robot. Written and animated by William Levin. Voices by William Levin and Andrea Praet. Concept by Jesse Epstein.

Here’s an interesting article about William Levin (founder of Jewish Robot) and how he learned Flash during jury duty.

I’m off to eat pot roast. See you all Wednesday.

—Anne D. Bernstein

Two new animated series for grown-ups premiere this Sunday, September 28: The Life and Times of Tim debuts on HBO at 11 PM and Superjail airs on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim at 11:45 .

Here are the official descriptions:

The Life and Times of Tim follows this everyday working guy from one scandalous crisis to the next….Tim is a young guy who always tries to do the right thing, but for some reason the world conspires against him. In many episodes, he’s trying to better himself, but the harder he tries, the worse things become.

Heavy animation and violence run rampant in Adult Swim’s newest original series Superjail! Created by Christy Karacas, Stephen Warbrick and Ben Gruber… Superjail is the most intense and complicated jail in the universe, residing on a remote island under the tedious eye of the mysterious and slightly delirious Warden.

Although I am rather peaceful by nature, I am really looking forward to Superjail. The team behind it are Supertalented; Christy and Stephen first collaborated on the hysterically over-the-top short Barfight. The series was produced at Augenblick Studios in Dumbo. Lots of tasty show artwork and info here.

The Life and Times of Tim seems to be going for an award for Animated Show With the Least Actual Animation Possible. It’s attempting a charmingly inept drawing style, but I don’t think it can compete with the best of the genre: Beavis and Butthead and Dr. Katz. You can check some sample videos on this page. A few red flags for me: the creator’s big claim to fame is that he was co-creator of Budweiser “Lizards” TV campaign; the show was developed for FOX, which didn’t pick it up. But he did make a funny short called Angry Unpaid Hooker. Since HBO hasn’t had an adult animated series since Spawn, I guess I will hope for best…

Both shows plan to be outrageous…my money (okay, eyeballs) are on Superjail!

If you watch either of both of these shows on Sunday, please come by this thread on Monday and post your reviews!

After the jump…Barfight and Angry Unpaid Hooker, for those who haven’t seen them. Both NSFW…especially the second one. [Read more…]

Three episodes of David Fremont’s Glue are now up on YouTube. Glue was an early Flash web series that was produced by Wild Brain during the heady heights of the dot com frenzy.

This blog post from the creator discusses how the series came about.

It’s jam-packed with quite the line-up of crazy characters and a stream-of-consciousness plot executed in Fremont’s trademark funk-patchwork style. Oh…it’s hard to explain…go see it for yourself!

“…I get an abundance of ideas and get anxious to use them all. whatever popped in my head that day ended up in glue. I was kind of like a kid in a puddle of mud making soup; leaves, sticks, an owl’s hairball, all of it went in the bucket. a transvestite troll! an albino frog! yeah, wouldn’t it be funny if ted nugent was in it? and carpet cleaning…”

I hope they post them all, because I’d love to start at the beginning and see how the series evolved. Keep track of what’s up on the Wild Brain YouTube page.

I’m a longtime fan of Fremont’s work, back to the days when he did mostly illustration and comics and designed the board game “Land O Sugar” for Scary Hairy toys–I still have it!

More about Scary Hairy after the jump… [Read more…]

If you are interested in a FLASH of enlightenment, check out these Alan Watts Theater cartoons. They were produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame. According to Cold Hard Flash, animators Chris Brion and Todd Benson are the folks who keyframed original recordings of Watts.

For more on Watts, see this website.

On the jump, another Matt and Trey project from the vault, a hysterical video about Universal Studios . [Read more…]

Channel Frederator is giving away a Cintiq for its Cartoon of the Quarter prize - submit your animation to channelfrederator.com get the most viewer votes and you could win your own Cintiq!

In this video animator Gabe Swarr demonstrates how to use a Wacom Cintiq with 21 inch LCD screen. Gabe Swarr is one of the many animators who submitted to Channel Frederator and recently won our Cartoon of the Month prize. You can check out his work at dummcomics.com and at iam8bit.net

Video by Dave Seger.
Thanks guys!

-Jeaux Janovsky

The Channel Frederator Awards are Here!!! It was a hot, feverish, and fierce competition!!!

Find out if your favorite cartoons claimed the Big, Red, Hunk of Burning Fred!!!

This episode we’re showing you one heck of a funny cartoon. But don’t worry…

This film is mighty.

This film is epic.

This film is really, really, really funny.

Check out which cartoon made us squirt milk outta our noses and won a dang Freddie for our Funniest Film Award.

Watch all the nominees at channelfrederator.com

-Jeaux Janovsky 

Click on the pic to watch the episode in question.

The Channel Frederator Awards are Here!!! It was a hot, feverish, and fierce competition!!!

Find out if your favorite cartoons claimed the Big, Red, Hunk of Burning Fred!!!

Watch which film took home a Freddie for Best Flash Video! Was your pick even close? Our favorite Flash film Flashes so bright, you just might need some Frederator Branded shades!

Kiwi fruit is good. But Kiwi animators are better. Find out which animating New Zealanders won in our Kiwi Award!

And finally, our Cartoonist of the Year Award went to Marjane Satrapi for her work and her film, Persepolis! She is Awesome. We wholeheartedly think you will all agree!!!

Watch all the nominees at channelfrederator.com
-Jeaux Janovsky