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JERRY BECK
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Danger Planet
by jerry
September 30, 2009 5:30 pm


For several hours over the weekend, 14 Cartoonstitute shorts were posted on You Tube. Monday morning they were all gone. However, one of them - Derek Drymon’s Danger Planet - has escaped and I’m pleased to post it below. Watch it while you can:

09/30/09  6:04pm
compn says:

after watching dana snyder in so many shows, you’d think i’d be sick of him by now.

nope, hes great! “THAT WAS THE ALIEEEN”
this short is hilarious. i hope it makes it to series and they can form some kind of great linear arc plot for it too.

some great toons in those 14 cartoonstitute shorts. i just wish they had the money to make the 39 that were originally planned.

09/30/09  6:26pm
Kelly says:

Danger Planet had some fun stuff in it - I never thought I’d dig a video game as a main character. Woo!

09/30/09  6:47pm

Pretty good origin episode. Great premise. Minimal nonsense.

More!

09/30/09  6:50pm

JG Quintel’s short, REGULAR SHOW, is still on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOs1KdD3FQg

This is probably the best of the bunch. I love the art design and how it’s laid back (yet still weird at the same time). Cartoon Network must’ve loved it, too, because this actually got greenlit into an actual series (see? This shorts program wasn’t a total waste).

09/30/09  6:55pm
Gio Renna says:

Wish I could watch the other 13. Sounds like a cool experiment. I wonder what convinced the Cartoon Network execs to go through with it.

09/30/09  6:59pm
Dock Miles says:

Pretty durn entertaining — didn’t laff out loud once, but never stopped smiling. Don’t know if it could be stretched into a series. Would like to see somebody try. Curse you, constrained budgets!!

09/30/09  7:00pm
doug holverson says:

Kind of retro-’80s. Although, I suppose that the genuine ’80s item would be stiffer, more listless and hokier, with blander humor. I like it, with the morphing alien providing a bit of an unhinged comedic foe.

Any reason why CN posted and yanked these so fast? I throw out the cynical conspiracy WAG that the Cartoonless Network suits didn’t want any short-changed cartoons to possibly upstage their precious Real.

09/30/09  7:12pm
ask says:

All gone?

CN must really hate Cartoonstitute!

09/30/09  7:34pm
Mr. Semaj says:

Interesting.

The only other ones I saw before Monday were the ones from Genndy Tartakovsky and Paul Rudish. Rudish’s cartoon has cool background and character designs, great music, and creative use of sound effects.

09/30/09  8:44pm
Zekey says:

I really like the setting of this. Hope it gets picked up. Or anything, really.

09/30/09  9:18pm
Anonymous says:

“Cartoonstitute is a Cartoon Network project created by Cartoon Network executive Rob Sorcher that would have been a showcase for animated shorts created without the interference of network executives and focus testing. ” -Wikipedia.

Maybe the executives saw the shorts, realized how good they were, and pulled the plug since this would serve as a solid example that they contribute nothing to the cartoon creation process.

09/30/09  9:58pm

Pure fun and uniquely entertaining! :) Love the writing in this short as well. Hope they keep this on YouTube for a long time (though doubt it).

09/30/09  10:11pm
mukpuddy says:

By the looks of it there are still 4 of them up!

JG Quintel’s is our fav of the bunch!

10/1/09  3:55am
Gagaman says:

Dig the arcade cabinet as the main character 9why hasn’t anyone done that before?) but all i can think of when I hear his voice is master Shake from Aqua Teen, I presume it’s the same actor. The animation on that morphing alien was fantastic! Really enjoyed it.

10/1/09  4:44am

The really nice thing about these is how little they resemble the rest of CN lineup…

10/1/09  5:15am

Now that’s a character driven cartoon. The way it should be done. Of course it doesn’t fit on CN schedule. They only play “conceptual” cartoons with annoying screaming kids and dumb parents.

10/1/09  6:02am
FP says:

There’s a torrent floating around of the other Cartoonstitute shorts, ripped from YouTube.

10/1/09  8:14am
juanma says:

This is great.

is it just a short?

Or a tv series Pitch pilot?

10/1/09  8:40am

This was awesome. I had seen a drawing of that human character somewhere, so I loved seeing the cartoon it’s a part of. If only there were enough grace in the world to produce more of these pieces independently…

10/1/09  9:39am
Charles Thompson says:

Loved the cartoon! Great work.

10/1/09  9:39am
Brock says:

That was fantastic! Loved the shape shifting alien, all the characters were well done and had great performances. Very inspiring!

10/1/09  9:44am
gweelok says:

here’s another cartoonstitute short…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LvIG7MDSys

10/1/09  10:07am
Robiscus says:

That was fantastic!
(Love the homage to John Carpenter’s “The Thing”)

10/1/09  2:14pm

WOWOW! I liked Danger Planet. But I really really really liked the UNCLE GRANDPA short. I wish I knew who worked on it so I could give them a hearty congrats. TONS of laughs, lots of cartoony logic, and most importantly it’s SUPER FUNNY and pretty appealing. Love the obvious Basil Wolverton influence. Check out Uncle Grandpa, guys! We should try to get that greenlit!

Highlight this show, too, Jerry! It deserves it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LvIG7MDSys

10/1/09  2:19pm

I really enjoyed that and I hate damn near everything. Cool short!

10/1/09  2:50pm

I liked how different it was from the rest of current schedules, and how nonsense driven the premise was, but I didn’t like IT. Didn’t find it funny. Guess that’s me.

Can’t help thinking that between 1987 and 1992, this would have felt as tired and familiar as the things it is now dissimilar to. Removing it from that context is not enough to make it seem fresh to me.

10/1/09  4:41pm
Mike Milo says:

@ Chris Allison:
Pete Browngardt created, wrote and storyboarded Uncle Grandpa. He was a writer/storyboard artist from Chowder and now he is working on Flapjack. A very talented dude.

10/1/09  4:43pm
Mike Milo says:

Derek is quite a talent… he’s now the producer on the highly anticipated Adventure Time.

10/1/09  5:33pm

@ Mike Milo:
Thanks dude! I tried to find a blog of his or something but to no avail. He’s got a great sense of humor and I’d like to see more of his stuff!

10/1/09  6:15pm
Mr. Semaj says:

Today would be (the channel formerly known as) Cartoon Network’s 17th birthday.

10/1/09  6:21pm
Max says:

“Cartoonstitute … would have been a showcase for animated shorts created without the interference of network executives and focus testing. ” -Wikipedia.

“Maybe the executives realised the shorts proved their obsolescence.” -previous anon

There is literally no other explanation for why they would make these and not show them. No level of financial return is less than the zero of hiding the shorts away.

Why am I able to accept that this level of insane evil is how businesses work? Was it ever thus? Why can’t some rich maverick step in, finance good stuff, and wipe flash-based focus-tested crap off the earth?

Someone should do more reporting on this, it’s criminalinexplicable for this stuff to be completed and shelved.

10/2/09  5:29am
gavin says:

I’m guessing they plan to role these out at some distant point, and the whole put-them-up-no-take-them-down thing is to seed a sense of intrigue, thereby adding to the shorts’ desirability and giving them a legendary status.

That, or the execs are just stupid.

10/2/09  5:50am
Satorical says:

At least six of the fourteen are on YouTube right now. Just search for cartoonstitute.

If these were viewed as pilots, I have a feeling Uncle Grandpa would wear thin very quickly. Spleenstab could work a la Korgoth (if only that had happened). The Regular Show characters could be more than a one-off as well.

Regardless, loved how inventive most of these were, if not always laugh-out-loud funny. More please.

10/2/09  8:51am
Mr. Semaj says:

“Why am I able to accept that this level of insane evil is how businesses work?”

‘Evil’ would be the best way to describe this charade. No sane businessman would purposely hide a winning product just to keep up with their agenda of mediocrity.

10/2/09  12:25pm
shadowcat016 says:

you know you probaly never heard of this but it actually reminds me of a manga series called space family carlvinson though it may be merely a coincidence but here’s the opening and ending to it’s one-episode ova which is to date the only anime adaptation of it

opening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGlOdEZpNNk

ending
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNDXXgbOCRY

10/2/09  3:16pm
dave Smith says:

I made a short. It’s called “YES”. No one liked it. It’s not on youtube.
Oh Well. By the way. once i made a cartoon for disney called “bozzelbags zip” and Amid hated it. I’ll never make it.

10/2/09  5:19pm
Kyle says:

That was wonderful for so many reasons!

10/3/09  9:41am

I liked Yes and Bozzelbags and I like you too Dave.

10/4/09  12:57am
kent says:

Bozzelbags Zip is awesome!

10/4/09  10:17am
robert alvarez says:

Dave Smith is one of the funniest guys working in animation today. I would be happy to work with him on any project he does.

10/5/09  9:04am
Dave Smith says:

you like me… you really like me!
Thanks friends!

10/5/09  11:23am
robert alvarez says:

I was very lucky to work with Derek on Danger Planet. He is an amazing talent. The end result of Danger Planet shows why he was chosen to be one of the core members of the Cartoonsitute program.

10/5/09  12:43pm
dany says:

thats was AWESOME ? why take it down ? the heartbreak never ends.

voice of duck from peep in the big world, right ? i love that guy.

fantastic. creepy, funny, exceptional.

dany

10/6/09  10:06am
adamredwoods says:

I would buy a Cartoonstitute DVD.

Thanks for the other link to “Regular Show”. That was amazing. Both these cartoons are excellent and a great testament to what can be done if animation lovers are left to their own devices without corporate interference.

10/7/09  12:36pm

Derek Drymon just posted a whole lot of great development sketches and paintings from the show at Danger Planet Blog

10/7/09  9:55pm

Not sure why that link didn’t post, but Derek Drymon’s Danger Planet blog is at: http://dplift.blogspot.com/

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