A three and a half minute traditional animated short done at the Joe Kubert School--created by me, storyboard by me, animated by me, voiced by me, and colored by me. The proud results of 10 months of hard labor for my final project. Starring Gunk and Brunkle, set in the middle of nowhere in some backwoods boonies, mean ol' Brunkle sends innocent moron Gunk out to look for food, unaware of curious aliens fond of abducting rednecks.
Highly inspired by classic cartoons by Bob Clampett and Tex Avery, as well as more recent cartoons based on the classics, like John Kricfaulsi and Danny Antonucci. The film was finished in May 2008 and has plenty of crude cartoon humor.
When I came up with an idea in the beginning of the school year for what cartoon to make for my final project I had to choose between two ideas: one being an action based cartoon with more dialogue, or a comedy with minimal dialogue--the latter being the one I chose, and this was the result. I originally thought that a cartoon with less dialogue would be easier to animate, as I had to make it all myself and with limited time and resources. It turned out it was actually easier to lay out the scenes where there was dialogue as opposed to the ones where there is no speech, since you can easily time a character to a prerecorded voice.
I felt that "Gunk" was a return to my roots, inspired by the cartoons I was inspired by when I was young. Memories of classic Looney Tunes, the early Nicktoons, and the late-night cartoons on MTV. I felt that nowadays you don't see many cartoons with classic animation principles and physical humor, instead modern cartoons are more geared toward hyperactive dialogue and pop culture satire. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just that I feel that cartoons need more variety.
© 2008 Ryan J. Smith