Thursday, September 3, 2009

Strange Things

I just received an email alerting me that an old animation project I created in 1989 is on YouTube. I'd forgotten all about it, but here it is in all its homemade glory as part of a popular indie TV show of the day in Canada. The show was out of Toronto, as I recall, and dealt with comics and graphic novels and sci-fi stuff. The first part of this segment is about The Watchmen and V for Vendetta, my segment starts at about 3:50 in. Please enjoy.



The first part of my segment, showing me as a 32-year-old pup, was taped on a home video recorder in the Dallas commercial art studio in which I worked at the time. The voices from off camera are my coworkers. The actual animation was all done with hand-made props and pictures in a local cable TV station with my friend, Steve Dirkx, who knew how to do that stuff. I tried to sell this thing but never got anywhere. It's fun to see it again.

11 comments:

Jeremy said...

I love the earring, very 80s.

Don't give up hope though Dan, the 2 graphic novels they showcased both became movies so maybe someone is looking at your segment there to be a movie.

Never mind. Its like a mix between Team America: World Police and Monty Python. What a rip-off, dude!

Urban Garlic said...

Thanks for the video -- I haven't seen Command Rick in ages, but I used to catch his show regularly in the late 1990s, followed by Daniel Richler's book-review show. TVOntario was awesome.

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh!

As a Torontonian, I used to watch this show. It was a great program and a way to keep on top of geek culture. TV Ontario had some great programming and it is sad that there is not more of this kind of stuff. But then, I quit TV years ago. Because there was not enough of this stuff.

Awesome animation. Your style changed since then...more cleaner. Your voice seems to have a bit of a twang.

Anonymous said...

Prisoners of Gravity! I remember watching that on TVO... I esp. loved that guy's cheesy wrist PDA thingie he'd tap on to start or stop just about anything. The host was also a frequent guest on CBC's "Red Green Show," where he'd always play the klutzy sidekick to Red's fixit "silent movie" mini-episodes. More useless trivia... this show your cartoon animation appeared on was directed by Mordecai Richler's son, Daniel. Final note: your "video letter" reminds me a lot of film maker Co Hoedeman's animation techniques (the NFB is digitizing Hoedeman's films, only two so far) in a film entitled "The Box." http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=18082
Yours is like this, with a dash of Monty Python's stop-motion animated bits that linked sketches (y'know... "and here's Margaret Thatcher's knee... And now for something completely different.."

Peter said...

That was awesome and so creative! I can't believe no one bought it. Should you ever get bored when living on the Bahamas during your early retirement, please create more of these.

matts2 said...

Interesting, but it is mostly not animation. Animation consists of making the moving image one frame at a time, not moving a drawn item. Sorry.

b0b said...

Don't quit your day job, Dan.

Ray Avito said...

Very cool, I liked the opening also. Of course the juvenile in me cracked up at the wig flying off!

I was quite taken with that Casio strapped to the host's arm...

Tiago said...

loved the animation! kind of remindes me of Monty Phyton. do you still does this kind of stuff?

Penny Mitchell said...

Most excellent. I enjoyed this very much!

Anonymous said...

I love Rick Green!!