A buddy of mine at work showed me a few clips of a pilot that recently aired on Adult Swim called “Superjail”. Its easily one of the most insane and well crafted pieces of animation I’ve seen in a while, and makes me wonder why we don’t see more of this stuff as opposed to this crap. The designs are ugly and unappealing, but it succeeds where similarly designed shows fail . Animated in Flash, show creators Christy Karacas, Stephen Warbrick, and Ben Gruber shove just about every gross-out sight-gag they can think of into the ten minute run-time. Check out the embedded Youtube video after the break and see it for yourself.

The show is just plain dirty and doesn’t pull any punches to get the jokes across. Animation was provided by NYC based Augenblick Studios. Major kudos to Animation Director, Aaron Augenblick, for charging the blood dretched visuals with tons of snappy timing and grisly poses.

It makes me wonder if this will work as a series. The pilot screams along at such a break neck pace its hard to see how a series would be able to keep up at that level. Still, it shows tons of promise, and happily pushes the medium into the entertaining realm of the absurd. Its a deffinate must watch.

There’s one movie in wide release coming out today. One more movie to add to the list of those trying to topple the great Spider-Man 3 from atop the box office list. Even though this is a highly anticipated summer movie, its not getting the greatest reviews. Can the superhero movie in its third weekend beat out another sequel of this popular animated movie? We’ll see come Monday.

Third times a charm… even though every movie made a lotta Hooch!

Shrek the Third – this is the 3rd movie in the pop culture referencing animated ogre tale. Shrek (Mike Myers) is named King of Far, Far Away due to marrying Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and The King (John Cleese) becoming ill. He doesn’t want to be king so he searches for the rightful heir (Justin Timberlake) with his buddies Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) while Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) tries to take over. Wow, that’s some synopsis I just gave. Great voice talent and I’m sure I’m missing some.

First off, what do you guys think of the new logo? I’m really happy with it, I think it fits the theme of the cartoons and the site fairly well, and unlike the original logo, you can actually read it. A big thanks to Jim (aka Sithlord) for doing the sweet redesign. Expect us to brand some product with it in the near future.

Second, ‘Crapfest Force‘ went live last night and I couldn’t be happier with the response thus far. Believe it or not, but the idea behind the short has been brewing for about a year now. In fact, if you listen to the very first Shamoozal radio, you’ll hear me quip about wanting to make a cartoon about a turd and a banana… I wasn’t joking around. Frank and I are really happy with how the short turned out. I think we really explored a lot of different territory (the crusty underbelly of Flash and TV animation if you will) and I tend to look at it as our “Grindhouse” of the shorts. I recently posted the cartoon over at Newgrounds, where it’ll hopefully meet with some acclaim, but you never know. I have my fingers crossed. A big thanks to Frank and Joe, they really put loads of effort into the short.

Funny I brought up the podcast, as we’ll be (hopefully) recording the next Shamoozal Radio (that’s #07) on the 26th of this month. You know, this will be our “year” anniversary for the show, so I’m really looking forward to celebrating. We already have some fun stuff lined up for it that I think you guys will really dig.
If you have been wondering where my blog updates have gone over the last two weeks, it was all thanks to Crapfest. Now with it out of the way and we begin to plan our next project, I’ll have time to start giving you guys some meatier updates.

Pan’s Labyrinth – A Spanish language fantasy movie dealing with a little girl on a military base with her mother and sadistic military officer stepfather. She creates a fantasy world to escape the harsh reality of the war going on around her. Directed by Guillermo Del Toro.
The Fountain – Hugh Jackman is shown in 3 periods of life (past, present, and future). It’s a love story mixed with time travel dealing with the fountain of youth. In each time he is trying to help his love, Rachel Weisz. Directed by Darren Aronofsky.
Stomp The Yard – the box office hit (seriously) about a kid who is recruited to be on the step-show dancing team for his school because he has some badass street style moves baby!

Other notable releases are the little known Seraphim Falls with Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson, Half Past Dead 2 starring former WCW wrestler Goldberg, and the box office flop live action/animation mix Arthur & The Invisibles.
On the TV show front we get American Dad Volume 2, Wings Season 4, Frasier Season 9, ER Season 7, Everybody Loves Raymond Season 8, The Rockford Files Season 4, Home Improvement Season 6, The War At Home Season 1, and Coach Season 2. Wow, that’s a hefty load.

Its undeniable, I’d go with Pan. It was a pretty awesome movie. If you can get passed the whole subtitled deal then it’s a good ride. The whole movie is in Spanish though so don’t look for it to eventually become English. But its creepy, interesting, and cool. I highly recommend it.

Yes, we’re as shocked as Grey and Jacquo since our newest Shamoozal episode ‘Crapfest Force’ is now live and ready to be watched. Just head on over to the episode section and get watchin’. Let us know what you think.

Just wanted to drop a quick line and say that the new episode will be ready tonight. I tried everything in my power to finish it yesterday, but there was an audio hiccup thanks to the ever trustworthy Flash. Regardless, after spending over nine hours trying to iron out the problem, it was solved right before I went to bed.

Four movies try to knock the wind out of the mighty Spider-Man this weekend. Does any one of them look like they have the gusto to overthrow King Spidey? I doubt it. Record breaking box office numbers for opening day and opening weekend will definitely drop but not enough to be anything less than #1 for the weekend. Spider-Man 3 is a movie juggernaut. Even though its getting mixed reviews, people will still be going out to theaters in hopes of a lesser packed theater to see the web slinger. Anyway, on to the competition….

LETS GO SEE THE MOVIE!!!!

28 Weeks Later – the sequel to the pretty successful 28 Days Later. It’s a zombie movie but they’re not zombies. They’re infected with RAGE! Anyway it’s obviously 28 weeks after the original movie and all the infected are supposed to be dead. But I guess they’re not. The ragies are on the loose again.

Why don’t I just stick to Scrubs?

Hey all. I just wanted to make a quick post and update everyone on progress on the new short. Animation is complete and we have a final picture lock. We have a final run-time of 5 minutes, but that’s not including the (new!) intro, titles, and credits. Right now, our sound expert and composer, Joe, has the FLA in his hands adding all the little nuances and sound effects to make it all that much better. Look for it here at Shamoozal.com next week!

A co-worker sent me this link today off of youtube. Its a pretty decent short by Alex Hirsch staring a lovable, squiggly blob, Wallby, and his adventures. Its a mix of live-action interacting with the Flash animated Wallby. While the character animation itself isn’t mind blowing, its well done and quirky enough to make it convincing. Pretty fun stuff. Enjoy!