Handycat

With HANDYCAT behind us, Brian and I have been experimenting a little bit with some new characters and concepts at the studio. FAT TUEZDAY is one of them. Tuezday is a hippo trying to lose weight. We’re planning a series of these under-a-minute shorts just to see where they might go. Don’t know how many. Don’t know when they’ll be done. Don’t know exactly how they’ll be exhibited.. For now, however, the first FAT TUEZDAY is on our website. Click below to take a look…even if you’ve always been thin!

Fat Tuezday in Walk The Dog

We’ve got a HANDYCAT clip coming up for the next post, so…

Stay tooned.

Russ Harris

If the above link doesn’t work, see the video here.

I was surfing the internet the other day and found the first short we made for Fred Seibert on YouTube. (Ya gotta love YouTube) O.RATZ in RAT IN A HOT TIN CAN. It was for the What A Cartoon! Series on The Cartoon Network. I remember having a lot of fun making that short. We recorded the dialogue at the old HB studios in Hollywood and then brought the track back to our home studio in Indianapolis to produce. (like we did for HANDYCAT.)

I remember when we were casting, we seem to be having a lot of trouble finding the perfect voice for O.Ratz. Kris Zimmerman, the HB Casting Director at the time, would call us up in Indy and have actors audition for us over the phone. After a few of these fruitless sessions, I was getting a bit frustrated. [Read more…]

Handycat got a little emotional Sunday night when the home team won a trip to the Super Bowl. He was so moved that he offered Peyton Manning free handyman services on his house in Indy. Oddly, Mr. Manning declined. Anyway, while Handycat awaits responses from the other Colts players, have a look at some more animation from his short.

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With the completion of “Handycat” behind us, a few random thoughts about the making of our “Random Cartoon.” To Russ and I, this was more than just a 6:52 short. To us, this was a revolution – the reinventing of the wheel – our first production in Flash outside of some experimental pilot pieces.

Fred was the first one to say “go Flash.” Then a really good friend, Adam Dykstra who is an animator at Disney Feature said the same thing. Another good friend, Glenn Zimmerman, who has done most of the Flash animation for the “Garfield” website for the past several years, was already telling me how great it was. When the world starts talking, it’s time to start listening, so, as much as I was caught up in the romance of doing things the “old way”, we took the plunge and set up a Flash workstation.

Two days into working [Read more…]

The animation is over, but not the kudos. Another long time friend and colleague, Charlie Cooper also helped with the animation chores on Handycat. Charlie started as an assistant animator at our studio back in 1992. Since that time he’s worked with us in many capacities from head animator to animation director. Charlie has also put some time in at a few Hollywood studios. In 1999 Charlie move to LA and did stints as an animation director on “Dilbert,” and on the first couple of seasons of “Family Guy.” He moved over to Nickelodeon in 2001 and worked on “Invader Zim”, “Fairly odd Parents”, and “The X’s.”

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Handycat was in a jolly mood when the screening of the rough cut started….

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Every good handyman needs power tools, and of course, so do all good cartoon characters from time to time. In fact, several of the Random Cartoon creators felt the uncontrollable urge to include a scene or two featuring a chainsaw.

Click below for a short scene that includes Handycat and his chainsaw. If your media player allows you step through the animation, it’s fun to look at all the bizarre inbetween drawings one by one. This scene was animated by Daryl Pyle.

We’re experimenting with SFX now. The idling chainsaw SFX has been added by our sound guy Keith Myran. Other sound effects for this scene will be layered in later.

Click here!

More soon - Stay tooned!

~ Russ Harris

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The above drawing is from Valerie Takineko. It’s Handycat’s first fanart! Thanks Valerie for the fun picture! I think I’ll print it out and put my crayolas to it!

We haven’t posted lately as we’ve been up to our ears in production on the cartoon. The animation is almost done, however, and we’ll be posting more animation art, QuickTime clips and soundtrack bites very soon!

Stay tooned!

~ Russ Harris

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