Extracurricular Activities: “The Monster Show”

by Bill Chambers Recently, my brother Derek
and I–a failed screenwriting team if ever there was one–took advantage of the new technological democracy and decided to make our own web cartoon, spun off from
a short story Derek wrote ("The Monster Strikes") about a closet
monster who goes on strike and becomes roommates with his intended victim. For
years we had scribbled ideas for a potential TV show based on the concept,
though our initial desire to satirize sitcom tropes changed (evolved?) over
time as we realized we wanted to get away from meta humour and do something
more organically stupid.

Anyway, almost exactly a year ago we
finally made a go of it. I taught myself (2-D) computer animation (warning: I
skipped a few lessons) while Derek cranked out not only our scripts, but also
opening and closing themes and a dazzling array of transitional music that
rivals "Seinfeld"'s between-scenes bass riffs, if you ask me. For me,
it was weirdly like coming full circle: Until I was about 14, I wanted to be an
animator, before I realized how labour-intensive and probably unsatisfying it
was in those pre-digital days. I still yearn to do what I eventually went to
film school to learn–filmmaking–and designing, animating, editing, and mixing "The Monster Show" has satisfied those jones.

I hate self-promoting and I'm no good at
it, but I don't want to make these things in a vacuum, either. Our fourth
episode, embedded above (and available in glorious HD), just went up on YouTube; although there's a light continuity running
through the series, I doubt the newcomer would have any trouble following along from this point. I hope you'll consider watching it, and if you like what you see, you can catch up
with previous instalments here or here. Thank you for indulging me.