Check it out!

We had fun making it, and it almost killed us. It’s called THE EXHIBITIONIST and it’s not porn, I promise.  Here’s the synopsis:

A man and his suitcase take an extraordinary pixilated journey through MOCA’s exhibition Art in the Streets at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, as works by BANKSY, RAMMELLZEE and KENNY SCHARF come alive all around him.

The film was created in an improvisational fashion during three very busy days at the museum.  What an incredible setting to work in and be inspired by.  It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and we couldn’t say no.  The short was made in collaboration with the Levi’s Film Workshop and Happy Product, Inc.

Produced with the generous support of the MOCA – http://www.moca.org

The MOST EXCELLENT Original Music and Sound Design is by old chum and CalArts alum Pete Houser http://www.bassbintwins.com

Here’s a behind the scenes shot showing you the crazy camera rig I built out of a rolling cart, a plastic crate, two tripods, some bungee cords and hot glue (oh how I miss the smell of hot glue…).  We had to be nimble and flexible to get all our shots.  Our original plan was to do it all in a day, but it ended up taking 3 days total.  It was my first real intense use of the most amazing stop-motion software ever created by humans, Jamie and Dyami Caliri’s DRAGON STOP MOTION.  If you don’t own it yet, get it!

Go check it out, tell us what you think!

ANSWER:  First of, thank you so much for liking the film and wanting to share it with others!  But actually since the film is now available at the iTunes Store, I can no longer give it away for free at sites like YouTube.  Although I would love to keep giving it away, so as many people as possible could see it, the quality of most of the shared versions I have seen is so low that I decided to do a new HD version for iTunes.  Now anyone can go there to buy it for the tiny sum of $2.99 (or $1.99 in standard def).  Each purchase helps offset the cost of making the HD version, and it looks pretty swell in HD, I have to say.  Seems like a good plan right?  Or what do you think, did we sell out?

After a long wait, I am excited to announce that the brand new High Def fully restored version of MORE is now available on iTunes!  I am very excited.  And it’s only 2.99!  Check it out and pass it along please.

I liked it so much I made a new short film with my awesome and multi-talented brudder Kent about it.  It is called THE EXHIBITIONIST and it will be premiere very soon–this SATURDAY in fact!  In the meantime go see the exhibit.  Here’s a tiny taste of the short film:

What do you think?  Look interesting enough?  The short is coming soon to an intertubes near you!

I don’t know who this guy is or where he came from but I can’t wait to see more from him.

Pictures aren’t enough to do this film justice. Picking one image is impossible. Just do yourself a favor and follow this link and see the film on the filmmaker’s site:

http://www.theexternalworld.com/

If it makes you happy, make sure you support this fellow and BUY a DVD HERE!

It’s a pretty solid theory and this is a brilliant analysis. Please donate after watching so we can get to see parts 3 and 4.

Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

…I can’t believe it’s taken me more than 30 years to see this blooper reel from the ONLY three Star Wars movies (seriously, don’t get me started).

Which reminds me, it’s that time of year again! The time where we get to celebrate both LIFE DAY and the fact that modern technology ensures that even pop culture’s biggest mistakes can’t be erased forever.

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about (and I kind of hope you don’t) The Star Wars Holiday Special is a pretty hardcore feature length blooper that appeared in the form of a TV special that aired only once back in the winter of 1978 at the height of the early Star Wars mania. Since Christmas doesn’t exist in the Star Wars universe, they created Life Day, a noble attempt at creating an organic holiday that evokes the feelings of Christmas, but it still feels utterly contrived, sad and hilarious all at the same time.

You can read a pretty interesting set of interviews HEREincluding one with Lenny Ripps, the co-author of the first script for the special. It includes some crazy stuff that I have never heard before about George Lucas’ thinking about the Star Wars universe at that early time:

He said things like “Well, you know Han Solo is married to a Wookiee. but we can’t say that.” [As outrageous as Ripps's recollection sounds, there is evidence supporting it. Pat Proft corroborates it and an early draft of the Star Wars script (January 28, 1975) has Han Solo living with a furry female creature who he kisses. Proft also remembers learning that Han was raised by Wookiees, which is verified on pages 46 & 131 of Laurent Bouzereau's Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays.]

One of the best parts about the whole debacle? The very first appearance of BOBA FETT in the hand drawn animated segment! SPOILER ALERT, but he’s described in the segment as Darth Vader’s “right hand man.” Crazy!

But to get to the Fett, you’ll have to endure tons of your average everyday Star Wars kinda stuff like Harvey Corman as a space age Julia Child, Art Carney just hanging out with some Wookies, Bea Arthur as a bartender in the Cantina, Jefferson Starship performing a musical number (get it STARSHIP?), Grandpa Wookie in his virtual-reality JO machine, etc.

The best part of all? Princess Leia sings the lyrics to the Star Wars theme song (who knew there were lyrics?) and she proves that not only is there no underwear in space, there was no GAFFER TAPE handy on the set of the Holiday Special. I love you you Carrie Fisher.

Please enjoy the video below or HERE. Thank goodness for bootlegs! I kind of hope you’ve never seen it, or you don’t believe me, because you are about to get your mind blown BIG TIME!

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Seth Godin says: “There are three stages of preparation. (For a speech, a product, an interview, a sporting event…)

The first I’ll call the beginner stage. This is where you make huge progress as a result of incremental effort.

The second is the novice stage. This is the stage in which incremental effort leads to not so much visible increase in quality.

And the third is the expert stage. Here’s where races are won, conversations are started and sales are made. A huge amount of effort, off limits to most people, earns you just a tiny bit of quality. But it’s enough to get through the Dip and be seen as the obvious winner.

Here’s the myth: The novice stage is useful. If all you’re going to do is go through the novice stage before you ship, don’t bother. If you’re not prepared to put in the grinding work of the expert stage, just do the beginner stuff and stop screwing around. Make it good enough and ship it and move on.

We diddle around in the novice stage because we’re afraid. We polish (but not too much) and go to meetings (plenty of them) and look for deniability, spending hours and hours instead of shipping. And the product, in the end, is not so much better.

I’m all for expertise. Experts, people who push through and make something stunning–we need more of them. But let’s be honest, if you’re not in the habit of being an expert, it’s unlikely your current mode of operation is going to change that any time soon.

Go, give a speech. Go, start a blog. Go, ship that thing that you’ve been hiding. Begin, begin, begin and then improve. Being a novice is way overrated.”

• In summary, the HAPPY PRODUCT INC STATISTICAL ANALYSIS GENERATOR says: Just get going already, people are waiting to consume your product(s)and an imperfect product(s) is better than no product(s).

Link to the original article.

I just recently had the pleasure to see TESB on the big screen in honor of the 30th Anniversary (with a Harrison Ford Q+A afterwords!) and I was so happy to see that the movie I loved so much throughout my life holds up. I have so much affection for that movie because at 10 years old, I was perfectly primed to soak in everything that movie had to offer. I’m pretty sure I still believed it was all real and it became my religion even more than it had already been. I actaully got to hear Yoda teach Lunk the ways of the Force, so I was convinced I knew everything I needed Each movie had it’s own vibe and feel and as much as I love the first one, Empire and Kershner’s work within that universe is what firmly anchored that universe for me and turned a childhood joy into an obsession. Here are some images of him at work and a video clip to remember him by:

And here’s a nice interview I found today where he talks about his relationship with George Lucas:

And here’s a loving tribute to my most favorite toy from the entire movie franchise:

And you can buy the “Making Of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK” book HERE.

RIP.

That doesn’t seem so hard does it? Go innovate!

(but the HAPPY PRODUCT STATISTICAL PROCESSING ENGINE© believes that he could have been talking about short films as well):

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Follow these instructions and you should make lots of humans HAPPY©!

Seth Godin is an entrepreneur and blogger who thinks about the marketing of ideas in the digital age.

Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

The HAPPY PRODUCT INC. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS GENERATOR says: Do not make broken product(s).

(From: The Stranger)

(Text is Nikki’s, the illustrations were generated by the HAPPY PRODUCT INC.’s STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ENGINE©)

A) An aversion to risk-taking which is a lingering byproduct of the recession and credit crunch. “Studio executives are always afraid of taking risks unless they can point to a big success,” said one writer’s agent. “If a Western did well, they’d want another Western, and they’d get a lot of bad Westerns.”

“Hey, let’s make a super hero movie!”

B) An over-reliance on “branded” properties that became prevalent over the last several years. Rights holders got first dollar gross deals and say over creative issues and release deadlines, even though they don’t know the first thing about making a good movie.

Rubik’s Cube the Movie – “This should work, right?”

C) The rise of one-step screenwriter deals and sweepstakes pitching (where multiple writers compete for a job by pitching ideas for the same assignment). Several writers admitted to me that when their priority is advancing to the next draft, originality goes out the window. They try to please studio executives and producers who thrive in a comfort zone of sameness.

“Don’t try anything fancy and artistic, just do what you are told.”

D) The growing influence of marketing executives in the selection of films that get made. Those executives favor films they know how to sell, which means films they’ve sold before.

“When marketing is in charge, things like this happen.”

The HAPPY PRODUCT INC STATISTICAL ANALYSIS GENERATOR concludes: Take risks, be original, keep your committee as small as possible and give the audience what it doesn’t know that it wants.

Read “As Toronto Unveils Inventive Oscar Films, Why Can’t Hollywood Prize Originality Too?“

MARK OSBORNE© suspects that in EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP Banksy pulls off the ultimate con. Or does he? Something is not quite legit about this, but you’ll be puzzling it out for days. It is from the mind of Bansky after all. Brilliantly executed, this doc is a true one of a kind filled with amazingly rare footage of street artists at work.

Banksy says:

“Graffiti’s always been a temporary art form. You make your mark and then they scrub it off. I mean, most of it is just designed to look good from a moving vehicle. Not necessarily in the history books. But maybe all art is about just trying to live on for a bit. I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”

Check out more of Banksy’s own words on the film and street art in general HERE.

Buy the DVD HERE.

Geoff Boucher from the LA Times renders this amazing interview filled with tons of forehead slapping revelations that I think all of us Empire die-hards suspected or knew to be true in our hearts all along. Not to say that I didn’t love the toys as a kid, I sure did, but I didn’t know what the true cost of those toys was going to be.

Check out the full article (borrowed from LA Times HERO COMPLEX):

Did ‘Star Wars’ become a toy story? Producer Gary Kurtz looks back [Updated]
Aug. 12, 2010 | 12:00 p.m.

– Geoff Boucher

Wow. That’s all I can say. I would totally like to buy this man a beer.

Human factory employee MARK OSBORNE© claims that THIS AMERICAN LIFE on NPR is probably the most consistently engaging and entertaining radio ever. Ira Glass was interviewed about what he’s learned about making such good radio and we here at the HAPPY PRODUCT CORPORATION found that almost all of it applies to story telling on film as well. Check these videos out for some excellent insight. Part #3 is by far the wisest bit of encouragement, where Mr. Glass explains the gap between your good taste and your ambition to do great things, and the tremendous amount of painful work that it takes to close that gap. Excellent advice.

Part 1 – The Basics of Storytelling

Part 2 – On Getting Started

Part 3 – On Good Taste

Part 4 – Beginner’s Pitfalls

To check out the radio show, go to THIS AMERICAN LIFE: www.thisamericanlife.org

The Corporation that created this music video has a website that can be found here: www.davidwilsoncreative.com

Apparently, this music video was created in only 20 days, a fact the HAPPY PRODUCT STATISTICAL PROCESSING ENGINE© finds staggering and impossible. Even the fastest factory workers under the most extreme conditions cannot turn out HAPPY PRODUCTS that quickly. Our analysis? The human that made this music video is lying. Either that or he is a very good and hard working factory worker with magical powers.

The Japanese Popstars Feat. Green Velvet – Let Go from David Wilson Creative on Vimeo.

Check out how the human behind the process, someone named David Wilson Creative, lies about how it was made. Either that or he is using some of his magic to glamour us.

Making Of… The Japanese Popstars – “Let Go” from David Wilson Creative on Vimeo.

…so it wouldn’t play right, it was chopping up the frames and playing them in the wrong order for some reason. We could tell it was very well done, but we had to disqualify it since we couldn’t actually watch it. What a shame! It is well worth a prize or two! Recent reports even say that Guillermo Del Toro is making this short into a feature film at DreamWorks Animation!

[ Full Screen recommended ]

Written and Directed by: Rodrigo Blaas
Produced by: Cecile Hokes
Music: Mastretta
Art Director: Alfonso Blaas
Lighting Supervisor: Jonatan Catalán
Character Technical Supervisor: Jaime Maestro
Character Design: Bolhem Bouchiba, Carlos Grangel,
Sergio Pablos, Santi Agustí
Animation: Daniel Peixe, ManueBover, Remi Hueso
Sound Design: Tom Myers and David Hughes
Post Production Coordinator: David Heras
Special Thanks: Keytoon, Next Limit, UserT38

Full credits and more at the official site: www.almashortfilm.com

These past two years have been no exception. Sure there’s always a few shorts about weepy eyed little kids doing sweet and cute things from Character Animation, and there’s a few indecipherable shorts from Experimental Animation in need of some good editing, but the conventions of animation are usually getting a decent tweaking each and every year from these very fine students. Sometimes kids in school have no fear and they can turn out groundbreaking and really interesting new work. Here’s a couple of examples:

By far my favorite film from the Character Animation Producer’s Show in 2009 was this very simple gem called “This One Time…” created by Nelson Boles. This amazing amalgam of inventive story, simple design, subdued color and subtle animation is a real standout. I hope to see much more from this guy.

Then from the 2010 edition of the Producer Show, there is this amazing, hilarious and touching short called “Crater Face” by Skyler Page. It’s rough around the edges when it comes to its look, but the story is tight, surprising and best of all weird.

This past Monday night, as part of the Jules Engel Centennial Celebration, I went to see the work of a filmmaker I have admired for many years and just got to meet this past summer, Joanna Priestley. She brought a retrospective of her work to RedCat, including her latest film MISSED ACHES and it was a great show. In case you don’t know her yet, she is an independent animator and filmmaker that has been making amazingly handcrafted personal films for over 20 years. She has so many amazing films that I highly recommend her DVDs to any indie animation fans or aspiring filmmakers out there. Starting with her CalArts thesis film VOICES she established a strong voice of her own. Make sure you check it out!

CalArts just hosted an amazing centennial celebration in honor of my mentor Jules Engel on Saturday April 15th 2009 . I was lucky enough to be among the panel of former students who were invited to discuss how they were influenced by Jules Engel’s legacy. Engel’s distinguished career included an amazing body of personal abstract films and fine art as well as story and color work on Disney classics “Fantasia” and “Bambi.” He also was one of the founding members of UPA, the studio that created Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBoing Boing, where he was responsible for color, design and layout. Engel founded the CalArts Experimental Animation program in 1969 and had an extensive career as a teacher and mentor with untold amounts of influence on the animation universe. Jules passed away in 2003 at the age of 95, but his spirit lives on as proved by this powerful and moving evening of reminiscing about his influence. It was amazing to hear from everyone.

The other speakers at the event included; Jorge Gutierrez, creator of El Tigre (who opened the panel with some side splitting stories of his experiences with Jules), Steve Hillenburg, creator of SpongeBob SquarePants (who showed an amazing personal film from 1991 where he drew one frame a day for an entire year), Mark Kirkland, director on The Simpsons (who showed tons of amazing examples of Jules work and how it directly related to his own), Joanna Priestley, independent animator (who showed her brand new film MISSED ACHES in honor of Jules) and Henry Selick, director of Coraline, The Nightmare Before Christmas (who shared that Jules was the one who showed him the works of Jan Svankmeyer and Jiri Trnka sending him down his path of fascination with creepy stop-motion). All in all is was an amazing night. Special thanks to Courtney McIntyre for organizing the entire event.

Click for full image… “L-R Henry Sellick, Stephen Hillenburg, Sahar Alsawaf, Mark Kirkland, Johanna Priestley, Janeann Dill, me, and Jorge Gutierrez.”

Here’s an excerpt from the AWN.com article I wrote recently, “Remembering Jules Engel”:

(April 16, 2009) In the fall of 1990, I transferred into the Experimental Animation department at CalArts after studying foundation art at Pratt Institute in New York. I had a sense that I was entering into a unique program. Judging from the work on the walls, I knew this was a place where special and interesting things had happened in the past. Walking around the room, I could see interesting work in progress on every desk. It wasn’t until I started taking classes that year, however, that I truly understood that the foundation for all of the work I saw was in large part due to the amazingly supportive environment that was created for these students by my mentor Jules Engel.

To read entire article on AWN.com, click HERE.

To read fellow panelist Jorge Gutierriez’s Blog about Jules, click HERE.

Or to find out more or make a donation to the CalArts Jules Engel Scholarship Fund get in touch with Courtney McIntyre at 661 222-2743 or at cmcintyr@calarts.edu.

“What an amazing and surprising night! We went in with very low expectations and were amazed to come away with a lot of awards. The Annies, if you’ve never heard of them, are Awards for Animation, given out by peers.”

The below list of awards is from Variety.com, check out the full article HERE.

Animated Feature
“Kung Fu Panda,” DreamWorks Animation
Animated Video Game
“Kung Fu Panda,” Activision
Animated Effects
Li-Ming, Lawrence Lee “Kung Fu Panda,” DreamWorks Animation
Character Animation in a Feature Production
James Baxter “Kung Fu Panda,” DreamWorks Animation
Character Animation in a Television Production or Short Form
Pierre Perifel “Secrets of the Furious Five,” DreamWorks Animation
Character Design in an Animated Feature Production
Nico Marlet, “Kung Fu Panda,” DreamWorks Animation
Character Design in an Animated Television Production or Short Form
Nico Marlet, “Secrets of the Furious Five,” DreamWorks Animation
Directing in an Animated Feature Production
John Stevenson & Mark Osborne, “Kung Fu Panda,” DreamWorks Animation
Music in an Animated Feature Production
Hans Zimmer & John Powell, “Kung Fu Panda,” DreamWorks Animation
Music in an Animated Television Production or Short Form
Henry Jackman, Hans Zimmer & John Powell, “Secrets of the Furious Five,” DreamWorks Animation
Production Design in an Animated Feature Production
Tang Heng, “Kung Fu Panda” – DreamWorks Animation
Production Design in an Animated Television Production or Short Form
Tang Heng, “Secrets of the Furious Five,” DreamWorks Animation
Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production
Jen Yuh Nelson, “Kung Fu Panda,” DreamWorks Animation
Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production
Dustin Hoffman, Voice of Shifu, “Kung Fu Panda,” DreamWorks Animation
Writing in an Animated Feature Production
Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger, “Kung Fu Panda,” DreamWorks Animation

“Panda Clobbers Competition at Annie’s,” at AWN.com, click HERE.

UPDATE!: There is a new wrinkle to this story, it turns out the awards were not prizes bestowed upon humans for achievements seen as positive by their peers, it was CORPORATE GREED (claims another GREEDY CORPORATION).

Read about it HERE!

Read the article and find out more detail than you ever wanted to know about a seven year old boy’s obsession with a movie and the toy collection associated with it. You will learn unimportant things like:

“I basically got every single toy as it came out all the way up to Jedi. I didn’t collect die-cast toys, only action figures and the vehicles. When I first saw the AT-AT on-screen I pretty much lost it.” Read entire interview by clicking link below…

“Kung Fu Panda Director Talks Hero’s Journey,” at StarWars.com, click HERE.

In an in depth article on the making of the hugely successful animated feature film featuring many talking animals, MARK OSBORNE© admits things like:

“I was a huge fan of his [Jack Black's] band Tenacious D, and I was really obsessed, actually, with his first album. I listened to it nonstop for two months. There is a song that [Tenacious D did] in concert on HBO… called “Cosmic Shame” and that song actually became an important part of developing the inner life of Po’s character, because the song “Cosmic Shame” is about having to pursue your art; you have to follow your heart. It is the only way you are going to be happy. But you risk cosmic shame because sometimes your heart cuts a fart. That’s the lyric. If you pursue your heart, and you fall flat on your face, it will devastate you for the rest of your life. So we started to use that idea to shape Po, because his love of kung fu is so huge and he loves it so much that if he were to fail at trying to do kung fu, he couldn’t imagine not doing kung fu anymore.”

Read entire interview by clicking link below…

“Kung Fu Panda Directors MARK OSBORNE© and John Stevenson,” at Premiere.com, click HERE.

In an interview with Newsarama, #77OSB-25 explains some parts of the process of making a movie like KUNG FU PANDA.

On making the characters do martial arts:

“What we actually did isn’t exactly true monkey or crane style. We had to come up with our own version so we could maximize on each character’s physique. For instance, a crane actually uses his beak to jab with. Humans use a pointed hand to imitate this. But our crane doesn’t have hands for fingers, so we had to come up with our own solution to it.”

On creating compelling yet family friendly action sequences:

“We knew it had to be on par with all the other big action movies that would come out this summer. The bar has been set pretty high these days. We knew we didn’t want to be just another summer animated movie. We wanted to be considered up there with the big boys. So we put a lot of work into makings sure our action was spectacular. At the same time we tried to make sure it wasn’t so terrifying you couldn’t take the entire family to it. We were trying to please everybody.”

Read entire interview by clicking link below…

“Chatting With the Directors of DreamWorks Kung Fu Panda, Part 1,” on Newsarama.com, click HERE.

“…Part 2,” click HERE.

In a recent interview, HAPPY PRODUCT INC’s human factory worker MARK OSBORNE© explains the collaboration with the iconic actor:

“…creating the characters is an evolution, we have an idea and then we bring someone like Dustin in to help us really author the character, because he was such a huge part of creating the character Master Shifu.”

Mr. Dustin Hoffman gives his perspective on the genesis of the character:

“I was concerned that it would be two-dimensional, that’s what I didn’t want to do, and so we discussed what a third dimension is…they said ‘He’s an arrogant guy, he’s all knowing at the beginning, and he doesn’t think he’s ever been wrong, and he has an arc.’ And I said, ‘Oh that starts to be interesting.’…in other words, he’s a prick, he’s a little prick. And they said, ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘I’m in.’”

Read entire interview by clicking link below…

“Dustin Hoffman and Director Mark Osborne Talk About Kung Fu Panda,” at Collider.com, click HERE.

MARK OSBORNE@ explains the job: “The feature film is directed by Steve Hillenburg, the creator of Spongebob Squarepants, and fellow CalArts Experimental Animation alum. My brother Kent Osborne was a writer on the TV show and the movie, which made the experience loads of fun. I was very lucky to be given the chance to direct all the crazy live-action sequences in the movie, including the opening sequence with the pirates singing the theme. You should check out the film if you haven’t, it’s hilarious and there’s lots of nutty live-action high-jinks in ACT III featuring non other than the multi-talented Mr. David Hasselhoff (to get a taste of just how insane all this stuff in the movie is, here is a pic of the 2000 pound, twelve foot replica of the Hoff complete with simulated body hair made from the hair of a Yak.”

Click for full image… The Twelve Foot Hoff! (Yes those are scuba divers poking out of the water around him…)

MARK OSBORNE© continues: “The main reason I got the gig was not only because Steve Hillenberg and I were friends from CalArts, but I also created the live-action shots of the island that you see in every episode of the TV show and over the years I directed several segments of live-action material for the Spongebob TV show featuring Spongebob’s biggest fan, Patchy the Pirate (played by Tom Kinney, the voice of Spongie). The episodes I worked on were: “Christmas Who?,” “Shanghai’d,” “House Party,” “The Lost Episode,” “Spongebob B.C.” and the 10th Anniversary Spongebob Special, “Truth or Square” that aired in November 2009. These shoots were always very low budget, very indie-spirited and lots of fun. And for you trivia nuts, my brudder Kent plays the robot in the “Spongebob B.C.” episode.”

Below are a few noteworthy links I’ve found:

For The Spongebob Squarepants Movie on IMDB.com, click HERE.

For The Spongebob Squarepants Movie on Wikipedia.com, click HERE.

For The Spongebob Squarepants Movie on Rotten Tomatoes (Top Critics Rating – 74%), click HERE.

And here are a few weird ones for Patchy the Pirate (it looks like he’s got a following)!

Patchy The Pirate Mash-up on YouTube.com, click HERE.

Patcy The Pirate on Spongepedia.com, click HERE.