Thursday, August 29, 2013

RANDOM ACTS OF BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD-NESS


There once was a time when I was the
production designer on the first season of
Beavis and Butthead.

I designed characters.
I designed props.
I animated the boys banging their heads and scratching their crotches.
Which was a privilege
because we actually animated the entire first season in-house at
instead of shipping it overseas.

Therefore,
I made sure to keep a lot of rough animation art
that would have otherwise been lost to the trashcan.

Here's a random sampling:















That first season was kind of wild.
We knew we were working on something exciting
and it was incredible to have a front row seat to the show blowing up!

I'm glad I kept so much delicious art from such a talented crew!


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

KND STORYBOARD PAGES (season fi-- UH OH)

Sooooooooo...

HEY!

Whatcha doin'?

Wow, that's...

um...

great.

...

...

...

So, yeah...

...

I guess you're here
to check out some
original storyboard pages from
Codename: Kids Next Door
season five?

Well...
about that.

See... I kinda can't find them.
I've got seasons one through four.
But I'm not quite sure where seasons five and six went.
There around here somewhere


But I did find the
original sooper rough storyboard I did for
the main titles of
KND:



The final board was done by the 
sooper powered
and is
WAY MUCH MORE EXTRA PRETTIER!

Now...
to look for those
season five and six
storyboard pages!
















Thursday, August 22, 2013

MORE FISH HOOKS MUSIC!



Remember
when I 
rocked you 
a couple
Fish Hooks 
songs
I wrote
way back 

Well,
ima rock you
some more!

Before I became
Creative Director
on
Fish Hooks
I storyboarded an episode
called

In the story,
Oscar does an impression of the
Queen of Fish England
that's so good he's forced to marry
a rich, old Duke.
But Mr. Muscles
(who has a thing for fancy British ladies)
interrupts the wedding to challenge the 
Duke for the Queen's hand in marriage. 

How?

With a
SLOW JAMS RAP BATTLE 
of course.

Deejay...

Hit it:


Tiny Lister
(voice of Mr. Muscles)
tore that jam up!
That same episode had 
a montage with
a song I wrote called
IT'S GOOD TO BE THE QUEEN:


This was a cute number
called
FIERCE
from
KOI STORY:


Writing
lyrics for
Brandon Bubbler's
pop songs 
was always fun.
My all-time 
favorite is
definitely
SNAP GIRL!
knocked the music out of the fish tank
on this one and
we put it in a ton of episodes
including
LITTLE FISH SUNSHINE:


Sometimes
writing a song was as simple as
 writing a couple words:


And lastly,
here's one 
I love
that
Maxwell Atoms
wrote
(and storyboarded)
called
GO FISH:


That's 
the sooper
heavy metal
power
of
singing
right there!
He's so much fun
to work with!

Man,
I've been sooper lucky to get to
write so many songs and get
to work with such
talented musicians!



Monday, August 19, 2013

KND STORYBOARD PAGES (season four part 2)


Ah!
You're back!

I see you've come to sample more
original storyboards from
Codename: Kids Next Door!

Come in!
Sit down!

We're serving up
the second half of
season four!

So
dig in:
_________________________________________________


46B: Operation: MATADOR
Writer: Mo Willems
Storyboard: Guy Moore

First appearance of
ERNEST

Fun Fact:
When we were auditioning voice actors
for sports announcer Nick.
we received a tape from actor
Dave Wittenberg.
On it was
one of the
WORST
imitations 
in the history of
forever!

But there was
something about his voice that we really liked.
He had presence
and great energy.
So we tried him out as Ernest
on this episode
and Mr. Wittenberg killed it.


After that little test,
we used him for a ton of characters
including one of my favorites,
Numbuh 74.239
________________________________________________


47A: Operation: MUNCHIES
Writer: Mo Willems
Storyboard: Kim Arndt

Fun Fact:
This is one of those shows that would have
seriously benefitted
from today's technology,

Endlessly animating backgrounds.
Complicated vehicles that rotate.
Characters in obnoxiously detailed attack gear.

Asking an overseas studio to hand draw this kinda stuff 
is asking for trouble.
These days you can build a 2-D rendered 3-D model of a
S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G.D.A.R.T
and no one has to
suffer drawing it making a 360 degree turn!

________________________________________________


47B: LUNCH
Writer: Mr. Warburton
Storyboard: Kim Arndt

Fun Fact:
The premise of this
episode is a classic example of
what KND is all about:

GROWN-UP CAFETERIA WORKERS 
ARE TOO LAZY TO DO THEIR JOB 
SO THEY STEAL FROM KIDS.

And I still love this
piece of 2x4 tech:


THE LOCKAH-SOCKAH!
________________________________________________


48A: Operation: CLOSET
Writer: Mr. Warburton
Storyboard: Maurice Fontenot

If this wasn't a KND episode,
I think it would have made a fun live action movie
(using a lot of CG, of course)

With its epic avalanche,
grand scale,
and 
Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe-like journey
it could totally work!

Or not.
_______________________________________________


48B: Operation: KNOT
Writer: Mr. Warburton
Storyboard: Guy Moore

FUN FACT:
I really liked this story but
it kinda got away from me.
Somehow we shipped the show too long 
(something we rarely did)
and we had to
cut out a TON of stuff when it came back.
We sped up dialogue
and cut down held shots
and finally finally finally 
got it to time.

But the story has always felt rushed and
choppy to me since then.

Bonus Fun Fact:
 If you think Moosk sounds 
similar to a ranger named
(from one of my all-time favorite RPG's
That's because they're both voiced
by the 
superb-amatic


____________________________________________

 

49A: Operation: SNOWING (part 1)
Writer: Mo Willems
Storyboard: Matt Peters

Fun Fact:
This is another story that came from a dream.
(When you're writing sooper huge epic stories every week
you tend to eat, sleep and dream stories)
The dream wasn't about a
snow day,
but it did have those school bus walkers
picking up children 
who were trying to escape
school.

A word of advice:
Keep a notebook next to your bed and
write down stuff you dream about.
You won't remember it in the morning!
____________________________________________


49B: Operation: SNOWING (part 2)
Writer: Mo Willems
Storyboard: Kim Arndt

Fun Fact:
Gallagher Elementary was
named after the fabulous
Mrs. Warburton
(nee Gallagher)
 but the radio also mentions
Kendall Prep
(after rockstar BG designer Gideon Kendall)
and
Myers Elementary
(after kick-butt character designer Todd Myers)
_____________________________________________


50A: Operation: MAURICE (part 1)
Writer: Mo Willems
Storyboard: Maurice Fontenot

First Appearance of
NUMBUH 9

Fun Fact:
By this point in season four,
Mr. Willems had announced he was leaving to become
So he wrote a 
story about an outstanding operative named 
Maurice
(Mo's given name)
that everyone
desperately missed when 
he was decommissioned.

Ridiculous, right?
__________________________________________


50B: Operation: MAURICE (part 2)
Writer: Mr. Warburton
Storyboard: Guy Moore

Fun Fact:
We always got a
LOT 
of complaints from fans 
about how unfair
decommissioning is.
(and I STILL do)
But when this episode revealed
that there was actually an elite group of KND
operatives over the age of 13,
a collective sigh of relief 
could be heard around the faniverse!
_______________________________________________


51A: COUCH
Writer: Mr. Warburton
Storyboard: Kim Arndt

Fun Fact:
I really wanted to give this board to Matt Peters
but it didn't fit into his rotation.
Not that Kim couldn't handle it.
It's just that this show was really about
big stoopid dumb guys and
Matt Peters
knows 
stoopid.

And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.
_____________________________________________


51B: Operation: LOVE
Writer: Mo Willems
Storyboard: Matt Peters

Fun Fact:
Everyone who touched this episode
NAILED IT!

Mo's songwriting.
The design team's costumes.
Matt's choreography.
And,
of course,
Steve Rucker's music.

We wrote the lyrics
but Steve made the songs 
SING!
Some of his best work on KND!

_____________________________________________


52A: Operation: FERAL
Writer: Mo Willems
Storyboard: Maurice Fontenot

First Appearance of 
Numbuh 74.239
 Numbuh 71.562
and
Numbuh 275

Fun Fact:
After watching Disney's Tarzan
I thought that if a man could be raised by apes,
why couldn't a kid be raised by Rainbow Monkeys?

Bonus Fun Fact:
Numbuh 275 was based on a boy named Jacob
who made a request through the
 Make-A-Wish Foundation
to be a character on
Codename: Kids Next Door.


Sooper character design king Tom Evans 
made this drawing for him, too!
_____________________________________________


52B: Operation: DODGEBALL
Writer: Mo Willems
Storyboard: Guy Moore

Fun Fact:
In the original story,
Numbuh Four was the Beetles of dodgeball prophecy.
But then Mo came in my office to tell me
that Wallabee had to LOSE the 
match with the Dodgeball Wizard.
Why?
Because his little brother Joey
was the Beetles of prophecy.

And I was all like:


Bonus Fun Fact:
This board was another of Guy Moore's
finest moments
although Cartoon Network did ask us to 
tone down some of
the urban destruction
during the dodgeball match.
_________________________________________

Mmmmmmmmm...
that's good storyboardin'!

If you're still hungry for more,
head on back and grab seconds from
the previous seasons: