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Dance with Grandpa: Animated Series Concept

Started by tygerbug, September 12, 2005, 03:49:30 AM

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tygerbug

DANCE with GRANDPA


Another pitch for Adult Swim.

Plus a lot of stuff I would never show to Adult Swim.


"We are the laughing few who understand your soul's torment ... sent from hell to love you."


One night I was feeling a little .... strange. I hadn't slept yet, it was something like 6 in the morning, and emotion and anger and WORDS started to come out of me. As happens when you're that damn tired. I often work this way.

I grabbed a Sharpie and started to scribble. I took out a People Magazine, looking at these blandly famous people. I drew their faces, only it came out warped and horrible in a way I found deeply amusing. A vision of horror. I then scrawled on the page whatever words popped into my head. The result was a strange kind of poetry.

For the title I created a smiling evil face, neither male nor female, reading "DANCE WITH GRANDPA!"




That got me thinking about what kind of show I could create if there were no rules. Something weird and from the gut.

I started to scribble characters, not try to make them look good. Just draw things quickly and wrong, with the wrong hand, like a kindergartener.

Then, I redrew the characers really carefully, but not changing the design in the least, keeping every aspect of the design from the really fast and awful scribbles. The result was slightly ... askew, characters who looked scribbled and off, yet carefully drawn like a proper animated character. Hm.









I knew what kind of comedy show I wanted to do.


I came up with a series, Dance With Grandpa, to pitch to Adult Swim.

I included Horse Hat and Pineapple Jack as seen on my site Fastforward, and a character called Slutty Clown, which I made up as a joke one day with Jason. I also included Stench, a lost character from an aborted movie I was going to work on with someone else maybe.


The idea is to create a series that's ... well .... strange, twisted and wrong on many levels.

The editing is flashy and nonsensical, some of the drawings seem scrawled by a madman. We are in a world of darkness with bizarre characters and a galaxy of fawning, obsequious robots.

When I was pitching to Nickelodeon, I heard the exec grumbling that they see a million series ideas every season, and they just want something really different, something they haven't seen before.

I thought I'd give them their wish. Be careful what you wish for. As an underground comedy filmmaker, the stuff that makes me laugh the hardest is the really out-there stuff, the stuff that doesn't follow conventional rules because it's designed just to be funny. With this series, there are no rules, no boundaries. To the writers, the only rule is to be funny. Pure freedom.

The idea would work if it ever got on the air and didn't complete suck ... Young people looking for something with that strange, sick underground feel immediately latch onto a series that' a bit different/strange. Older audiences tend to be confused at first, and then enjoy the series if it's funny. Network execs get skittery and immediately cancel anything like that. Oh well.

Behind a bizarre exterior, I still want to create a legitimate, regular old comedy series. Keep it funny.

I might make a pilot for this, but I'm still figuring out the exact feel and characters.

It's hard to convey anything about this series on paper actually.

I have decided to give up on trying to be funny in this pitch, because I think on paper I'll fail. Instead, I've just prepared a few pieces of "visual poetry" to introduce you to the characters. They're not exactly funny, but more like haikus to let you know what these strange creatures are all about.

Enjoy.


























Well, those are some designs for the actual animated series ...



But now I'd like to share with you my stream of consciousness babblings from that actual night. The 19 pages of scribbling that came direct from my head without thought that night. I would never share this with Adult Swim, but it has a rhythm all its own. Think upon this, won't you?










































The End.

slim

Both of these animated series posts were interesting, thanks. I find it fascinating seeing how other people formulate and refine ideas into something tangible.

tygerbug

This one isn't quite tangible yet - everything is clearly going to change a lot if and when I do the actual pilot.  Should be fun if I do ...

Borboski

yep some interesting stuff... i flicked through, and my initial reaction was to feel like taking the piss - but then i thought it had held my intention for a good few minutes and so, well, interesting stuff.  i like looking at pictures like that, people's quick scribbles - good stuff.!

tygerbug

Ink test videos for Dance With Grandpa. Animated these last night and yesterday.

Lip synch is not exact, because these were designed to work with more than one line when edited. But here's vaguely what they're saying.

"Stench! I suck dick for money! I don't love you or understand your problems. I am filled with a wistful longing for the past."
http://orangecow.org/videos/stenchtest.mov

"You're great, you're great, you're really wonderful, you're great."
http://orangecow.org/videos/rowgertest.mov

"Of course I'm great. I'm the greatest."
http://orangecow.org/videos/teresustest.mov


And here are two scenes with Horse Hat and Pineapple Jack.

http://orangecow.org/videos/horsehattest.mov
http://orangecow.org/videos/hhpjack2monkeyho.mov


And here's the script.

http://orangecow.org/1ocp/Dance%20With%20Grandpa%20Pilot.rtf

Not quite polished and done yet - it degrades into notes to myself and nonsense at the end, because there was a lot of improv in the recording session and things which I handwrote which didn't make it into the computer yet.