Attention people
Tony Millionaire is a friend of mine. A few years ago I tried very hard to get a movie made of his rather astounding Sock Monkey comic.
Now, in the world of showbiz coincidences that is Los Angeles, this fella Eric Kaplan, who just happens to have a child at the the exact same school as my own son (thus proving that Tony Millionaire controls the universe, to borrow the title of another Eric Kaplan show), has created (with Mr. Millionaire) The Drinky Crow Show, for everyone’s pals at [adult swim].
This show is destined to be a paradigm-shifting event especially if you make it so. It’s easy — you go to [adult swim]’s website, watch the Drinky Crow Show pilot, take a moment to absorb the sheer strange, horrible beauty of it, then rate it on the little rating-button thing.
One thing I will guarantee: You have never seen anything like it.
By coincidence, I watched it tonight on [as]…didn’t realize the Tony Millionaire connection or indeed the Kaplan connection. “Andy Richter Controls The Universe” was one of my favorite sitcoms of the past ten years. I’m sure most sensible people concur.
Drinky Crow was by far the most visually engrossing of the pilots they showed. I was really wowed by the character design and the artwork. The rest of it was stunningly warped. Strange, horrible beauty sums it up nicely. I’ll go watch it again on the website so I can contribute my wee tiny vote of paradigm-shifting approval.
That was pretty crazy, that was!
I liked it a lot, but does anyone know who did the voices?
I hear Billy West in Uncle Gabby, the Gators, the Captain and the Bug, so I’m going to guess he’s Drinky Crow too. Does Tony Millionare always imagine him with such a deep voice? Anyway its great!
So is SuperJail btw. Jackson Publick does a voice there too, so the blog-o-sphere connection continues to exist!
Both pilots very VERY amazing! Yay!
I assumed it was Andy Merrill and C. Martin Croker as Uncle Gabby and Drinky Crow…but then I kinda thought I heard Dan Castellanata. Frankly, another TMBG theme song is enough for me to give it another shot; everything else was a bonus.
I love the visual style of Superjail and Drinky Crow, in particular the nightmarish evolution of Superjail and the nostalgic line-art/cel-shading hybrid of Drinky Crow. I’m also interested to see what they’ll do with such a limited situation in Let’s Fish.
I enjoyed all of the Night of a Thousand Pilots – they’re a BIG step up from their recent paradigm of “two stoned guys goof around in a voiceover studio for 15 minutes, and then we illustrate it with as little animation as we can get away with.”
The Drinky Crow pilot was definitely the best of the lot – stunning to look at (not surprising, since it’s one of the best-drawn comic strips out there), and full of genuine wit and interesting ideas. But I also loved “Superjail” and “Let’s Fish.” The only one I didn’t care for was the “Squidbillies with people” one, and even that one demonstrated a lot more effort and thought than Adult Swim’s last batch of stuff.
I enjoyed Drinky Crow well enough, but it didn’t seem like it was firing on all cylinders the way, say, Let’s Fish was. That said, I would not turn down the opportunity to see more.
If you want to see a pilot for a brilliant show that doesn’t fire on all cylinders, try watching the pilot for The Venture Bros again. There is barely the merest shadow of what that show would become.
Maybe so, but I still have a great fondness for “The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay” since I was lucky enough to catch it the first time Adult Swim aired it way back when. Maybe when I see the brilliant show Drinky Crow is able to grow into, I’ll be able to look on this pilot with the same kind of warmth.
I hope this show succeeds, because adult swim certainly isn’t promoting it very well (just a clip of the crow barfing in someone’s face, which makes it look like another crappy ATHF clone).
God, I love Tony Millionaire . . . are you friends with everyone cool? Damn. I think the first Sock Monkey I read was the one where they decide to be hunters, and I was hooked instantly. “Strange, horrible beauty”, that about covers it. Billy Hazelnuts is the finest piece of modern surrealism it’s ever been my joy to read. It’s the sort of thing you hand to new people you meet and if they don’t like it, you can safely ignore them.
Pilots on a star
I watched all the pilots last night and I try to be pretty optimistic with adult swim. Though most of the pilots felt incomplete in some way. I didn’t think this one was very funny. But we’ll see maybe it will pick up after a few episodes.
It was a great weekend for cartoonists — Tony’s pilot and Mr. Kupperman’s TV Funhouse on SNL, both in 48 hours!
Is that Mr. Kupperman the same as the creator of Snake ‘n’ Bacon’s Cartoon Cavalcade?
The very same.
Curses! If only I watched television.
Please congratulate Mr. Kupperman for me.
It’s already been posted here:
http://3.upload.dailymotion.com/mychannel/sivousplait/video/x1ys48_tv-funhouse-big-boobed-einstein/1
And, soon, it should be on that “YouTube” thing that everyone’s talking about.
I think I remember seeing Drinky Crow like about a decade ago on SNL. It was a short where he mowed lawns for $3 to make money and purchase booze for $2. After a few rounds of mowing lawns he had $5 left over and he bought a gun and killed himself with it. It was fucked up, but strangely funny.
That short and one or two others were made for SNL, all based on Maakies strips from the past.
To learn more about Drinky Crow and Uncle Gabby, consult your local comics store or online at maakies.com.
awesome! Thanks for the link!
amazing……..
I am so happy that shows like this can actually get on the air.
I am witholding my judgment of the cg animation until the show has a proper budget. Go back and watch the pilot of Venture Bros and check out the ill-fitting cg animation in that.
I agree with comments pointing towards “terrible beauty” here. But then again, that covers alot of things on tv nowadays. Like so much of Adultswim, a clear line style synthesizes what should be otherwise an ill-fitting combination of parts, some familiar nostalgia yet also some “whaaa…?” It seems more like newspaper-comics, I am thinking Windsor Mckay, “Little Nemo” drawing style. It feels like that drifting in and out. Which is kind of cool.
I am willing to watch more. But. First off, the voices sound too…been there. Not the combination of “wow” factor that ties character and specific (newer) voice, as the first time hearing ATHF, or Ventures.
adultswim was a respite from just ad hoc repeating certain cartoon tropes. Including mayhem. MTV reached a dead-end with happy tree and suicide squirrel etc.. but adultswim brought something else that got its audience going. I sort of don’t yet see this in that line, it’s hard to imagine from the pilot, what is going to maintain a series. It could be dished out in shorter sequences, slipped inbetween bumpers and programs, but as a longer series…
But sure, I would watch for more.
Also – adultswim p.o.v. to its online animation site is totally provincial and PC-centric. It always makes problems for 1) apple users to watch these filmclips (had to go to my pc) and then 2) some b.s. about being in Europe! They practically force you to go download torrents. Like they are only for Americans… incredible really. Not the most up to date marketing strategy.
Eat duz not verk viss my Minitel seeztem eyezer. Merde on [as]..
Sure I would imagine licensing and something like that – but that’s just odd, it’s been years now – ATHF is around for a while, so are the VB. CN has a global satellite program.
If the CN / adultswim website spent money designing it to NOT allow distribution to some regions, that would usually red flag some issues concerning the overall corporate strategy in lieu of the times. Imagine: “Here’s the plan, we spend extra budget to police our website so that, for five years (more now) we stop anyone from seeing these except in North America.” On a website for a tv channel? It’s not found anywhere else as an example. So why not just make memberships then, and ensure they are “American”? Seems odd.
It just greenlights downloading torrents as their audience demographic are those that make the most use of it.
Whatever their intention, it seems contra to existing marketing, whether indie music or corporate publishing, and just raises the question if anyone believes such as ATHF or VB translates at all to the world outside of the North American market. Meaning, if only by accident, it makes adultswim as a new vanity license, offered to only one regional market.