1.
What is the origin of College University? How did it all
started?
College University started about 4 years ago when my brother Andy and I
were driving up to Vermont for a weekend of manual labor with our Dad. We had
always joked around and quoted the Simpsons and whatnot, so we decided to just
come up with our own show and try to get it on TV. Then I learned Flash and we
put it up on the web. The rest, how you say...is...history?
2. What was the
development of the characters like? What was the
process
to create all of the characters?
The characters came pretty easy at first. Basically Mike and Parks are a
mix of me and Andy- and the others are either just figments of our imagination,
or based off of friends. When we make a new character, we try to establish one
major characteristic for them, and we usually have a good idea beforehand of
what they will look like. Then I do a sketch of them, draw them in Flash and
we're done.
3. What’s the process of
making an episode of C.U.?
Making an episode is always so much fun. Usually one of us has a basic idea
for a story, we do a rough outline- and then keep adding on to it, editing, etc
until we get something that we all think is funny. From there we do the
storyboards to keep track of each scene and what it's going to look like. After
that we start on the background art, setting up each scene in flash. During
that time we record the voices, edit them, and fix em up until the sound good.
Then the animation starts...and it takes awhile- but over the many episodes,
I've gotten pretty efficient with it, so it's not so bad- After that we post it
on our site- and Newgrounds- and that’s that.
4. How many people are on
the staff of the series?
Right now the core of the staff consists of people: Me, Andy and our
lifelong friend Michael William- We all write, direct, and do voices. But
recently we've had some more help with other important aspects to the show.
Johnie Tidwell from Cartoonmogul.com is our producer, he helps us towards our
goal or TV, and he got us Macho Man. Adam Kramer is our web guru- he put up the
new site with all it's cool stuff- He's a huge help to me because updating the
site everyday was damn near impossible for me. We also have a new background
artist Dan Schoening to help out with the load. In previous episodes I had a
few people help animate a couple of scenes, but this time around I think I'll
be doing most of that. All our friends and family help out with ideas and
especially voices, for example our sister Nancy does the voice of Sarah and a
few others- and Scott Patterson does the voice of Dean Kregger, has his own
character "Scottie" and he wrote the base of the new episode. So we
get a ton of help on College University.
5. What shows or movies do
you two watch to get inspiration?
To me, South Park is a huge inspiration because they started off small and
now have one of the best cartoons ever in existence. Always watch the Simpsons,
Family Guy (when it was on FOX). As for movies, any good movie is inspiring in
it's own way...Even the crappy ones can inspire you to not make a movie like
that...Take Gigli for example.
6. Which is the better
show, Simpsons or Family Guy?
I love both shows, but I have to give the edge to The Simpsons, I grew up
on them and in their hayday with Conan O'Brien producing them...couldn't be
beat. But then Family Guy came along with a new, fast paced cartoon that pushed
certain boundaries...and it was hilarious to boot. Plus I heard that it's
coming back to primetime.
7. At this point, what is
your personal favorite episode of C.U.?
I'd have to say Episode 7- we try to improve with every episode and in
terms of animation, storyline, and voice acting- and I think we hit on all
cylinders with this one. A ton of jokes, and it's the first one that had an
actual storyline and followed it through. Other than that, I liked the Episode
3 series too.
8. What movie series do
you two think is the absolute worse series
on
Newgrounds.com?
To be honest, I when I start watching a movie on NG and it doesn't make me
laugh right away- I shut it off. There are some bad movies there, and some
tasteless ones, but some people like em, and some don't. One series I'm just
not a fan of, but everybody seems to love is that FF Tribute one...it's
probably because I never liked Final Fantasy- I dunno, didn't do it for me.
9. How did you get “Macho
Man” Randy Savage to do a guest spot?
Well, like I said earlier, our producer Johnie Tidwell was looking for
celebrities to do a guest voice on our show. He came across Macho Man and he
happened to be putting out a rap CD. So Johnny contacted Macho Man's PR person
and hooked up the deal that he would do the voices in exchange for playing a
couple of his songs in the episode. It couldn't have worked out any better.
10. What was it like working
with him?
I never got to actually meet him, but he recorded his voices in a sound
studio in Florida while I talked to him over speaker phone here is Connecticut.
He's real cool, and he breezed through his lines. I remember watching
Macho Man when I was a kid and thinking, "This guy is f--king crazy"
and now I'm directing him to say "How bout I smash some Brewdizzogs on
your head!"
11. If College University gets
on TV, will we see Harlem World as a
Ps2,
X-Box, or game cube game?
As cool as that would be, it probably wouldn't happen just cause of legal
issues with Puffy and Ma$e...they probably wouldn't like it too much. But I'm
sure there would be a Kung Fu Karl fighting game!
12. Speaking of C.U. being on
TV, do you see the show to be on TV
within
the next five years?
Absolutely. We've come along way over the past year alone, with the help of
Johnie Tidwell- and we're actually preparing materials for presentations to TV
networks.
13. What makes C.U. stand out
from all of the other Internet
cartoons?
The writing, characters, voice acting...and the fact that we load up each
episode with subliminal messages that tell you to keep watching, donate money
to CU, steal cars, etc. All clean fun.
14. What can the fans except
from future episodes of C.U.?
In future episodes, we're switching our whole format to a show about a
normal family but they have a robot daughter that nobody else knows about- We
were gonna call it "Small Wonder" but we might get in trouble. No
actually in future episodes you can expect more celebrity voices, new crazy
characters, plenty of spoofs, better, longer storylines and an overall better
production of College University...and a robot daughter.
15. Would you guys ever try to
make College University into a
feature
for the big screen? In other words, into a movie?
I dunno, with the exception of South Park (Bigger, Longer and Uncut) most
TV cartoons kinda blow when the make a movie, an example being The Jetsons
movie. I guess if we did make a movie, we would probably make it exactly like
Transformers the Movie...meaning the new robot daughter would transform and eat
other robot planets.
16. Do you two have any advice
for people who want to start their
own
show?
A lot of people do ask me for pointers about starting a cartoon and I
usually tell them to piss off. Then I calm down and tell them to really study
traditional animation and story telling- having a solid background in what
animation is and how it works really helps you tackle issues of how to set up a
story, how to tell that story onscreen and keep people's attention. Another
thing to really pay attention to is comedic timing- very important. But other
than that, really work on building your characters and getting the look down before
you get on the computer.
17. You have a midget, a
sledgehammer, a roulette wheel and the
Ultimate
Warrior, what are your plans for the evening?
Make the midget run the roulette wheel and every time it lands on black,
the Ultimate Warrior has to smash a car with the Sledgehammer....feels like
this should take place in Vegas. People can bet on how long it takes for the
Ultimate Warrior to die of a heart attack and get a replacement.
18. If you could have anyone
from any TV show or movie to come in
and do
some voice work, who would you pick?
I would have loved to have Chris Farley do a voice for the show- anything
that guy said was gold.
19. Anything you two wish to
plug?
Yeah we're gonna be selling the first season DVD soon, so stay tuned. And
we've got Episode 8 well underway!
20. Any final comments?
Thanks to everybody who watches the show, even those who think it's really,
really stupid.
Name association
Matt Groening-
Old School
Seth McFarlane-
New School
Kevin Smith-
Smart and stupid humor
Randy Savage-
Hilarious and out of his mind
Tom and Wade Fulp-
Pioneers for getting flash animation on the web
Mike Parker-
Handsome devil
Andy Parker-
Douche Face Big Brother