Recently with our entire post-2001 movie collection hitting the Internet, many inquiries have started to pour in as to why certain movies were unfinished or sequels weren't produced. So, for the next few weeks I will present articles based on unfinished or uncertain projects. Lilredhead Studios has seen a lot of successful movie launches. However, not everything in the past, and hell, the present, has been so successful. But like any good company, instead of admitting mistakes were made, we just sweep everything under the rug and hope nobody notices the mess we created. Well, the time has come to dig up the dirt and talk about these elusive projects.
Previous MIA articles:
Mr. Binkee's Class
Year: 2002 - 2004
Genre: Comedy/Flash Series
Director: Chad Troftgruben
Writer: Chad Troftgruben
Cast: Chad Troftgruben as Mr. Binkee, Zakk, Justin, Pakaday, and Mr. Sanderson Status: Canceled
During a time when Enterprise: Flashed, Walk'n with Walken, and I Am Ahoyager didn't exist, one bald (yes bald, not bold) man stepped up to entertain the masses. Through his 15 episode adventure (one episode not being cannon), this man took a trip to Iraq, quested to save the princess in the Mushroom Kingdom, and even faced death itself. This brave soul went by the name Mr. Binkee, and he marked the starting point of Lilredhead Studios' plunge into Flash animation. Mr. Binkee's Class started in July of 2002. However, the origins of the series go back over a year before that. In 2001 I was a bright faced freshman attending classes at the high school in my hometown. During the last semester of my freshman year I encountered an instructor named Mr. Binek. That's where things took a turn for the worst academically. However, creatively, it was the shot in the arm I needed. Simply put, the man was a jerk. He didn't explain things very well and was mean to most people, especially me. It got to the point where over half of the students in his class got failing grades. It wasn't because the students were stupid, it was because he was an asshole. I would come home every night extremely agitated because I was doing poorly in his class. One night in particular, I came home, plopped down in my computer chair and started animating a movie in Microsoft's 3D Movie Maker. While this program had limitations, it allowed me to vent my frustrations and make a movie about Mr. Binek. The movie was fairly stupid and took me one day to make. It simply involved Mr. Binek yelling at a student and flipping her off, resulting in her to faint. My friends took an immediate liking to it and work on a second episode commenced. Before I knew it, Mr. Binek had evolved well past yelling and flipping people off, for he now went on magical adventures with his students. Mr. Binek went from asshole to asshole with character in a matter of months. 32 episodes were created in 2001 but the series wasn't officially concluded. In 2004, due to popular demand by my friends and the urge to finish the series, I made the 33rd and final episode of Mr. Binek's Class 3DMM, concluding it for good.  Mr. Binek and the gang from the 3DMM version.Mr. Binek's Class 3DMM is important to mention because it was the predecessor to Mr. Binkee's Class, which pretty much was Mr. Binek's Class 3DMM remade in Flash. The major difference between them was obviously the medium. However, the appeal had different effects as well. Most people who see both will say the 3DMM series is better. So what went wrong with the Flash series?
Using Macromedia Flash was a completely new experience. 3DMM was made for kids to animate simple movies, therefore it was an easier program to grab a hold of and dive into. Flash on the other hand can be very overwhelming to the newbie. I tried for several years to ween myself off of 3DMM and onto Flash, but the ease of use of 3DMM kept pulling me back. Finally in the summer of 2002 I slapped myself in the face and with the help of a book I started my Flash adventure. The first hurdle, besides learning Flash 5, was getting a style for the series. I decided to draw out the classroom scene as a test to see how I wanted things to go. The result was a sloppily drawn Binkee.  Mr. Binkee: Version .073 Beta.Realizing that it would be hard to animate with that particular character design, I started to refine. It again be should be mentioned that the character is based off of a real person and unlike the 3DMM series, I could easily emulate his appearance in Flash. The same thing happened when I designed Zakk and Mr. Sanderson, for they too were based on people I knew. Bit by bit I drew and tweened and after about three weeks, Mr. Binkee's Class- Episode 1 was ready for release.
The series didn't hit the Internet right away. It took a few months for that to happen. So I mainly had my friends' opinions to go by when it came to feedback. My friends, while liking the series, weren't as enthused by it as its 3DMM counterpart. This was due to two things. First of all, I was new to Flash and thus everything was sloppy and slower paced. My four years of 3DMM experience benefited the 3DMM series for it had a very fast and snappy pace to it. Secondly, most of the story lines were direct copies of some of the earlier 3DMM episodes. Any Binek fan will tell you that the early episodes of the 3DMM series can't hold a candle to the later episodes. I will be the first to admit that Mr. Binek's Class 3DMM isn't stellar. However, it did deliver the laughs and one thing that is really apparent is the series evolved. The characters, while not terribly deep, did grow and that is very obvious when watching the series from the first episode. I tried to accomplish that in the Flash series. However, I went about it all wrong for I tried to emulate the formula found in the 3DMM series. And since I was emulating the first 3DMM series episodes, which were not the best ever, the Flash series never did hit its stride like its older brother did.  The Magical Dancing Wiener was always the center piece of controversy. His dancing antics divided the fanbase in half, prompting his death.Eight episodes of Mr. Binkee's Class were produced in the summer of 2002. Two more episodes were then produced in the fall of 2002, one of them being Episode 10. Episode 10 is declared the highlight of the series by many for its plot and humor and it didn't rely on old plot ideas from the 3DMM era. 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. Sanderson’s 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. A little known fact is that the episode was altered before its 2003 Internet release. The ending was changed and a more streamlined introduction was created.
When the series finally hit the Internet, I started releasing them weekly on my website. I stopped making Mr. Binkee's Class episodes after the poorly done Christmas Special and concentrated on other things. However, after some people stumbled across my work, my website, along with Mr. Binkee's Class, spread throughout my high school. Before I knew it, students were watching the fowled mouth Binkee in the library of the school. A teacher finally caught wind of this and the site was banned from the server. What's funny to note is I knew the tech guy who banned the site. The tech guy had watched the movies before banning the site and loved them. It got to the point when the tech guy saw the real Mr. Binek in the hallway, he had to bite his tongue so he wouldn't laugh.  Mr. Binkee and the gang set out to save Christmas.In fear of my work being torn down (and being sued), I changed the name of the series to Mr. Binkee's Class. The series was formally known as Mr. Binek's Class (the same name as the 3DMM series). I really should have just kept the name the same, especially now since I've revealed that it is based on the guy.
Mr. Binkee's Class was absent in 2003. However, it was revived again in 2004, along with the 3DMM Mr. Binek's Class series. The final two episodes (excluding the toned down non-cannon release) finally showed that the series could be good, just different than that of the 3DMM series. Episode 12, in my opinion, is the best episode in the series. It used an original plot line, introduced a new character, and played on a fun premise: Mr. Binkee and Zakk spending the night together. Before Episode 13 released, I made a short movie using the Binkee cast for an extra credit assignment in my geology high school class. Entitled “The Temporal Blunder”, Mr. Binkee experiments with time travel using chlorine. Borrowing elements from Mr. Binek's Class 3DMM- Episode 20: The Temporal Blunder, the movie wasn't very good. It didn't feature the snappy personality of the characters and everything was toned down since it was for school and not entertainment. I eventually did release the movie but still stand by the fact it's not a “true” episode.  Two Halloween Specials were developed, however both of them were never finished.Many people declare Episode 13 to be the best episode, for it borrowed a plot line from the 3DMM series, but introduced new things as well. We see Binkee standing up to the devil himself, Zakk being lazy as usual and the Justin character hinting towards being a homosexual. Animation and visual-wise, it was definitely the best and a good way to end the series, even though it wasn't my intention to.
Work on Episode 14 did get started. However, not very much was done before I called it quits. Originally planned as a three-parter, Mr. Binkee and the gang go up to a creepy cabin in the woods for the weekend. What transpires is Binkee awaking the dead, possessed hot dogs, Zakk eating potato chips and Bruce Campbell coming to the rescue. If you haven't guessed it by now (or are not versed in B-grade horror movie lore), the three-parter was to emulate and poke fun at the Evil Dead trilogy. Mr. Binkee and the gang take the trusty yellow submarine in the now canceled Episode 14.I wasn't done yet though, for work on a more ambitious project started to take shape. What started in 2004 was something too big for me to handle, a choose your own adventure Binkee movie. Entitled Mr. Binkee's Adventure, the movie was set to have multiple story lines, at least 20 endings, and give the series a big ass farewell. When mapping this thing out, it completely gave me a headache. I just couldn't stop writing! Before I knew it I had a project that simply could not be done by a single person. I'll try to explain this one the best I can. To break it down, there were two main story lines the viewer could embark on. The story begins when a group of FBI agents barge in on Mr. Binkee. The FBI want Mr. Binkee's help to stop an alien invasion. The user is given two options: help the FBI or run away (well there is a third option, which involves committing suicide and thus ending the movie). From here different and new options are open to the viewer. The viewer must be careful though because there are options that can kill Mr. Binkee. If Mr. Binkee dies he is sent to Hell where the devil gives him so many chances to correct his mistakes (sort of like lives in a video game). Many things were written, including an older Pakaday coming to the rescue with the Ahoyager, Mr. Binkee being able to side with the aliens, Mr. Binkee marrying a mermaid and becoming overload of the seas, Mr. Binkee being able to travel back in time and redo certain choices, and so on. There was even a part in the movie which gave the user three options to get to France: by boat, by plane, or by swimming. If the user chose to swam, Mr. Binkee would eventually get tired introducing three more options. Any of those three options would actually result in Mr. Binkee's death. You can thank my friend Justin Huber for that one. A few things were done with Mr. Binkee's Adventure (even a trailer was shown to a small audience in early 2005) but in late 2005 the project was abandoned due to its complexity.  The player is given a choice to hide in a picture frame in Mr. Binkee's Adventure.In late 2005 work began on a new series starring Mr. Binkee. Entitled Binkee: K-6, Mr. Binkee was released from jail (after an incident involving aliens) and sent to a grade school to teach little kids. The series would have introduced new characters as well as brought back some old Binkee alumni. The series never got passed the scripting stage. Mr. Binkee makes a cameo appearance in the first episode of Walk'n with Walken.Today, Mr. Binkee is enjoying his retirement in the Lilredhead Studios' old folks home along with the Amazing Man and Bubba. I give a lot of credit to Mr. Binkee's Class, for it really did introduce me to the Flash world. While Mr. Binkee's adventures never became as popular as Walken's or Captain Archer's, he still made an impact on many people. So here's to you Mr. Binkee, you showed us that teachers can be lovable bastards and hot dogs can do more than just taste good. You can find the entire Mr. Binkee's Class series plus the older Mr. Binek's Class 3DMM right here on this site! |
