Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Breakdown: Muppets Bleed Red

Some episodes of mister CUJO Explains it All are completely pulled from the pop culture soup I call a brain, while others are based in some sort of factual happening.  Alright, most start from some actual event that I then throw chunky heaps of referential material on. Muppets Bleed Red would probably be the most straight forward of account of what actually happened.

My Aunt Patti, bought me a Kermit puppet when I was around nine years old.  I have no idea what brought that on.  We did live on the Southside of Chicago at the time and things had a tendency to fall off the back of trucks, so maybe she got a deal.  It could be that she saw me talking to myself (something I did often) and thought a buddy on my hand would make me look less awkward in public.  Anyway, that's how I ended up with a Kermit, that would ultimately meet it's end in a really bad rain storm after our basement flooded.  Here's a look at some of the artwork and animation from the episode.

Real American Hero

I was a straight up G.I. Joe kid.  The 3 3/4 inch tall figures that you could conveniently fit a whole slew of into a pimp suede Crown Royal liquor bag.  That shite came at the right exact time for me and my cronies, so everything revolved around the Joe Team for a certain time.  The G.I. Joe cartoon was an actual "run home" event after school and I couldn't wait to get home and binge on the over saturated, cel shaded adventures of 80's toy commerce.

It was originally Duke and Scarlett that I drew to take on the large and formidable "Cybernetic Clothes Pin Army."  Then, I stopped production of the show to focus on shooting a movie.  When I came back to finish the episode, this image felt too static.  I was going to do a more dynamic pose, but by that point, I had gotten the desire to draw Duke and Scarlett out of my system and I now wanted a reason to draw Lady Jaye and Snake Eyes.  Which, where many of the decisions of what to put in the show comes from.  I'll have a base idea or outline for an episode, then I think "you know what would be fucking cool to draw?" And that's how I ended up with the characters of Snake Eyes and Lady Jaye, for the actual episode.


Jurrasic Muppet or KermZilla


Making Kermit, a Cobra controlled, fire spitting, agent of pure destruction and mayhem was probably more fun than it should have been. The original script had a bit about the fact that the Kermit puppet had velcro on his hands.  So it could do different expressions by making it feel itself up all over it's muppet fur.  But, instead of drawing multiple images of a sexually frustrated Kermit rubbing his amphiba-nips, I rewrote it to include a giant Kermit under the malicious thumb of Cobra.

This again brings into play, "you know what would be fucking cool to draw?"  Or to be more accurate "you know what would be fucking cool to animate?"  The time factor of producing the show means I animate things sparingly, but I wasn't going to pass up putting Godzilla flames into a muppet's mouth.

Which gives us this...



Hillbilly Jason


Then there's Hillbilly Jason, from Friday the 13th Part 2.  Before he went Gretzky and starting sporting the iconic hockey mask, Jason Voorhees was just a guy with a sack over his head and an eye hole cut out.  He wasn't super human yet and he actually tried to chase you down, not simply slowly walk behind you, then magically appear in front of you David Copperfield style.  Those elements, makes this the scariest version of the character, cause that's some shite you might actually run into in the woods.  I already put the hockey fan Jason, into the Bar BQ and Government Cheese episode, so this gave me the opportunity to illustrate the bag head maniac.

I hope you enjoyed this closer look at the inspiration and thoughts behind this episode.  Here it is again for you to check out...


Until next time, have a happy...

- Myron A.

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