As we boldly step into the year 2007, I cannot help but think how far I have come with Lilredhead Productions.  Starting off with the first episode of Mr. Binkee’s Class and achieving what I have with Enterprise: Flashed and I Am Ahoyager is pretty mind boggling to me.  And if I can come this far, I know I can go even further!  But it’s always fun to step back and see where I’ve actually been and how I’ve gotten to this point today.  Over the next few days I will be doing a feature on the past of Lilredhead Productions and where it’s going to lead us in 2007.  So hold on, grab some popcorn, it’s time to take a trip into the past!

2002- Baby’s First Steps

I had known about Macromedia Flash years prior to 2002.  I had grown up with a program entitled “Microsoft’s 3D Movie Maker” (3dmm).  3dmm was a kid’s program that allowed the user to create simple 3D movies.  The program had limitations, such as preset actors and scenery.  But as the 3dmm online community evolved, new methods allowed us to build characters and scenes with the program’s built-in props.  Even with the amazing strides the 3dmm community made, I never felt like I had total control over my work.  This is where the lure of Flash came in.  Here was a program that allowed me to do anything I could think of.  However, the minute I would open up a new document in Flash, that white blank canvas scared me.  I had no guides, preset actors, or scenes.  It was completely non-linear.  It wasn’t until early 2002 when I acquired a book to help me through the wilderness that was Flash.

After going through the book, I had the basic knowledge I needed.  And I immediately began work on “Mr. Binek’s Class” (later renamed to “Mr. Binkee’s Class”) in the summer of 2002.  This was a series I made in 3dmm and decided to move it over to Flash.  I never released the 3dmm version of Mr. Binek’s Class online.  This was due to the fact I departed from the 3dmm community over a year after I started the series.  But it was really popular among my friends (there was even a small cult following in a neighboring state at one point) and so I decided Mr. Binek and the gang would be a good Flash series to do.  My ultimate goal by the end of 2002 was to have four series up and running: Mr. Binek’s Class, Bubba Has a Gun, Ahoyager: The Journey Home, and Hellraiser.  I didn’t meet this goal in 2002, but later did in mid 2003 (although Hellraiser was replaced with a different series).

The first episode of Mr. Binek’s Class, released on July 25th, 2002, was an exact copy of the 3dmm series’ first episode.  I did enhance things and make some changes, such as Mr. Binek drinking a cup of coffee (and using it as a weapon) and the Zakk character replacing “the chick” character.  But it was pretty much all the same.  From there on I continued a similar pattern, copying the episode structures from 3dmm and pasting them into Flash.  At first, it seemed great, but then I realized that the episodes just weren’t the same.  I didn’t know it then, but what I was trying to do was relive the past by bringing these old stories to a new media.  But since they were old plot lines, they had lost something as they aged.  Not to mention the episodes felt way different in Flash than they did in 3dmm.  Some episodes were new, such as Episode 2’s plot of Mr. Binek losing his glasses, but it still had that same old feeling.  It was time to do something original, something epic.

It was the fall of 2002 and I was up to the 10th episode in the Mr. Binek’s Class series (I should point out I didn’t release these episodes to the net as I made them, and so episode 10 was modified and released publicly in 2003).  I was a bit more comfortable with using Flash now and was ready to take on a bigger project.  Our now deceased beloved dictator Saddam Hussein must’ve been on the news at the time (probably due to the so called weapons of mass destruction his country was holding) because that’s who I focused the plot around.  It was Mr. Anderson’s (later renamed Mr. Sanderson) time to shine as he bravely led a crew of misfits to Iraq so he could “give Saddam Hussein a piece of his mind”.  This movie took me two months to complete.  This was also the longest Flash movie I had made at the time.  It was an exciting project to work on for some reason, and when I finally was able to show it to my friends, they loved it.  My hard work had paid off, for even today that episode is still brought up when I speak to my old friends.  The favorite part of the movie for most people seems to be when the pirate says “arg!”, so yeah, go figure.

After the release of episode 10 of Mr. Binek’s Class, I decided to take a break from that series and work on a new project.  Bubba Has a Gun, another 3dmm project of mine, had seen a very limited audience during its 22 episode run and so I thought it would be beneficial to bring it into Flash.  In many ways I liked Bubba Has a Gun better than Mr. Binek’s Class.  Instead of doing a direct copy like I did Mr. Binek’s Class though, I decided to make the pilot episode for this new Flash series completely original.  It took me a mere week to complete the movie.  On November 13th, 2002, Bubba Has a Gun- Episode 1: The Election was released.  The episode followed the story of Bubba, a dead-beat momma’s boy who worked at a fast food restaurant.  He meets former President Bill Clinton, who apparently is up for re-election somehow.  Needless to say Clinton pisses Bubba off and Bubba runs against Clinton for president of the United States.  As the episode panned out, we got to meet Bubba’s friend Lamont (a character who eventually made his way into the main cast in the 3dmm series), Bubba’s bitchy motel managing mother, and Pakaday (who also made appearances in Mr. Binek’s Class and eventually I Am Ahoyager).  The episode ends with Bubba getting only 4% of America’s votes and being thrown into jail due to a crime he commits.  Looking back, this episode lacks in some areas, but introduced Bill Clinton, who appeared in many of my cartoons afterwards.  Another fun tidbit is if you watch this episode and compare Clinton’s voice to say, his appearance in The Mighty Ones, you can really tell my impersonation of him has evolved through the years.

Finishing off the year, I worked on a Mr. Binek’s Class Christmas Special.  Even though I finished it on January 1st, 2003 (and released it in December of 2003 on the internet), it was still considered a Christmas special.  It followed a similar “epic” feel that episode 10 pioneered for the series.  This episode also started the whole “community” aspect I later molded.  What I’m talking about here is having multiple crossovers, such as Bubba and his family making an apperance in this episode.  And of course Pakaday returns with the hots for Zakk.  And if none off this does it for you, then Zakk taking a shit on Mr. Anderson’s lawn will.

All in all, 2002 was a very strong start for Lilredhead Productions.  It laid the groundwork and did many things that still inspire my work today.  Stay tuned, for our next stop is 2003, the year of Ahoyager: The Journey Home!

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