Monster Safari Heads to the Bigscreen | Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation

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Monster Safari Heads to the Bigscreen

June 4, 2009 11:28 am

Monster Safari

Awesome news from The Hollywood Reporter: Monster Safari, a project created by the boys at LA-based Screen Novelties—Mark Caballero, Chris Finnegan and Seamus Walsh—is being turned into a stop-motion feature by the Jim Henson Co. Craig Zobel and Matt Chapman, creators of Homestarrunner.com, are scripting the feature. According to THR, the story “revolves around what happens when the Earth’s monsters come out of hiding and a pair of bumbling crypto-zoologists spring into action to save them from a ruthless big-game hunter.”

I’m really excited about this! It’s rare to see stop-motion animation that is as cartoony, energetic, and fun as what they do at Screen Noveltiess, and their cartoons are never anything less than super appealing and entertaining. I can’t wait to see them show off their stuff in a full-length film.

Check out some images posted on their blog from the original Monster Safari short. Below is one of the studio’s earliest shorts, Mysterious Mose, made in 1999:

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20 comments posted in Feature Film, Stop Motion

« « Tim Burton at MoMA | What’s Up: Balloon to the Rescue! » »

06/4/09 11:37am	diego says:
	great news indeed
06/4/09 11:46am	Trevor says:
	Ok that’s the coolest short film I’ve seen all year.
06/4/09 11:51am	Jerold says:
	The word ‘bumbling’ is very small but it really ruins that wonderful mound of vanilla ice cream.
06/4/09 12:00pm	Chansoo says:
	Yes, it’s great to hear. Monster Safari short is a well-executed stop-motion done in a retro cartoony style, signature of screen Novelties.
06/4/09 12:50pm	Tommy says:
	Wow, awesome news. I hope Matt Chapman does some of the voice over work, I honestly think he is one of the greatest voice over artists of all times. He does every voice except for Marzipan and so many of them sound so different. - IMHO
06/4/09 1:22pm	Anthony Strand says:
	It’s been years since I was excited about anything the Jim Henson Company’s been involved in. But Mysterious Mose is one of the Muppety-est shorts I’ve ever seen, and Homestar Runner is great (or was at its peak. I haven’t checked in for a couple of years). This sounds like a good thing.
06/4/09 1:25pm	Saturnome says:
	Wooah! Full of energy and great looking short here.
06/4/09 1:49pm	Will says:
	Wow! Sounds like a perfect storm of goodness a-brewin’. As a big fan of everything & everyone mentioned here, i will be looking forward to seeing it!
06/4/09 2:02pm	Jamie B says:
	Fantastic news - Screen Novelties definitely deserve this shot! Looking forward to it already!
06/4/09 2:13pm	Mike Milo says:
	These guys rock! They do the stop motion in Chowder too. Great stuff!
06/4/09 4:45pm	red pill junkie says:
	Sweet! I have a personal passion with Cryptozoology. Anyone knows where I can watch the original short?
06/4/09 4:47pm	justin rasch says:
	EXCELLENT!! These guys bring the old viewmaster MAGIC 3d characters to LIFE!! I’m so excited for them.
06/4/09 11:44pm	Emily says:
	This is great news! I was always fascinated by Mysterious Mose.
06/5/09 5:42am	Fred Sparrman says:
	That was decidedly Muppetational.
06/5/09 6:35am	Blasko says:
	This is awesome. Heartfelt congratulations. Seamus, I know you read this site often. Congratulations from your friends up in Minnesota. Sounds like you’ll be busy!
06/5/09 7:30am	Tennessee says:
	A perfect pairing of players !! Get ready… because it is a new dawn in stop-motion folks!!
06/5/09 12:46pm	Marc Crisafulli says:
	Yep… these folks are very good at what they do. I think they’re also the ones behind the nifty dream sequence in “Flintstones on the Rocks”? Should be quite a movie!
06/5/09 10:32pm	CRS says:
	Wow, what super work. I bet a feature by these guys would be mind-blowing… I’ll be looking out for it!
06/6/09 2:56am	Andy says:
	Thank you so much for putting up this short of their early work. Now I’m looking forward to their latest project. That short had the musicality of Fleischer shorts, the monsterous puppet designs of Jim Henson, and some stop-motion and 2D animation thrown in for good measure that suits in the wonderful mise-en-scene perfectally. As a fan of many works from the Jim Henson Company, this does look like something that will broaden their horizon beyond the Muppets brand- although weren’t they going to do some puppet film-noir, that was announced a few years back?
06/11/09 1:11pm	Jerold Howard says:
	Congrats to Mark and Chris, and Seamus. Looks like Monster Safari will be a breath of fresh air. Best of luck to you guys!

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