ANIMATED SHORTS: CLASS OF 3000

[MattBrady]

ANDRE BENJAMIN AND HIS CLASS OF 3000

by Steve Fritz

Cartoon Network had a hell of a party last Thursday. You would too if the star attraction is Andre Benjamin a/k/a Outkast’s Andre 3000.

The cause for the celebration? The completion and delivery of the first episode of Benjamin and co-producer Tom Lynch’s new animated series, Class of 3000. It’s a project the Atlanta-based pop star and TV network had in development for over two years.

“I was looking to do animation, and the people at Turner said ‘yes, OK go ahead,’ said Lynch, whose past productions include Romeo, South of Nowhere and KIDS Incorporated (which birthed the careers of Jennifer Love Hewitt and the Black Eye Peas’ Fergie). “I wanted to do something that was really cool and I think The Love Below had just come out. I got a hold of Andre and we met and talked about stuff. I said I wanted to do something musical and Andre said, ‘Man, I want to do something in Atlanta,’ and then he said what if we did this and this, and we said what if we did this and this, and it kind of just all evolved from that. You think Andre?”

“Yes, yes, I mean, it’s kind of like the rough sketch of it,” Benjamin concurs. “I think Mike Lazzo (head honcho at Adult Swim—ED) most definitely was key in this too, because originally it started off as an Adult Swim project.”

Yet as the series developed, it turned into a truly shakin’ show for kids. Not a bad thing, either.

“Originally the show was much more…” Lynch pauses.

“Darker,” Benjamin interjects.

“Yes, yes and sexier or something,” Lynch continues, “but what was great about that process is they gave us time. They gave Andre and me time. Like for a year, we just worked on the development of the show before we even started production on it just to make sure that the world and the characters and all that stuff. Neither Andre nor I have done animation before. So it was really a great time for us to kind of learn and lock down on and do something we really could be proud of and wanted to do.”

“You know, myself and Tommy, we’ve never been in animation,” Benjamin continued. “I think it gave us a kind of innocence. So what we were looking for, we didn’t know what we were really doing, but we knew in our heads what we wanted to see, and then I think that kind of innocence kind of gives you new ideas and brings it to the animation world.

“Once we started to create our characters and we’d get kind of feedback from other artists that work on other shows, you know, they were like, ‘Man, the things that you all are doing, I mean, we hadn’t seen this types of things, you know? Just even the type of style and the curvature of the characters, we haven’t seen this since the 40s and 50s.’ We didn’t even know, because we don’t study animation, but we just knew we wanted them to have a kind of like a music feel to them in how they move and how they looked. So since we didn’t know a lot about animation, it gave us that not knowing that made it something new and fresh.”

Fresh indeed. The series revolves around a music school who gets a new instructor, Sunny Bridges, a character based very closely on Benjamin. In fact, this character is already a music superstar when he decides to “step down,” to being simply a teacher.

“My Sunny character, he’s a little bit Andre 3000,” says Benjamin, “not that I would stop doing music to teach kids music. But I always thought that, you know, especially rap that was a young man’s game, and the older I get I’m like, ‘OK I don’t want to be 45 years old rapping.’

“So I said, ‘maybe it will be cool if I go back to school and actually be an art teacher,’ because that was like my love before I started doing music, you know, drawing and painting. Some of my fondest memories in high school were my art class. I had an art teacher who would let us listen to music and draw and paint on a day, and that was kind of like a fun class, our release.

“I think you do need a balance in school,” said Benjamin. “Of course you need your academics all day long, but at the same time you need to free your head, and I wanted to be that ‘free your head’ type teacher, so there’s a lot of that in Sunny.”

As one can imagine, the music’s pretty amazing. It should be, Benjamin had a major hand in all of it, composing all the songs for the first season’s 13 episodes.

“Yes, there’s new music for every episode,” says Benjamin. “It’s kind of like the episode or the situation dictates what the song’s going to be like, even the instrumentation. So I’m writing from I guess a character’s standpoint. Like in Idlewild when I was writing from the character’s head, you know? Our characters Li’l D or Eddie or Phillie Phil, they may be in an episode or in trouble and have to play themselves out of trouble. So I have to think that I’m their age and think of their personalities and what they’re thinking about and say, OK well what would they say?

“Even though the music can go anywhere and the music could be advanced, I have to still remember that these are kids. So I have to write in a certain way that a kid could get it and that the voice actors could come in and kind of mimic what I’m doing. That process, it’s kind of like I’m at home producing a song, and I’ll write for a certain character and am at home imitating that character. Then I send a rough to the real voice actors and then they imitate me and make it their own.

“It’s been an interesting process,” Lynch adds. “Andre’s involved in the writing of the scripts and the stories of them so he knows intimately what these characters are about. All I’ll say is, ‘this has to be an action one or a quiet one or a fast one,’ whatever it’s about. Then Andre goes off and just turns it out and gets his interpretation of it. It’s been cool.”

Cool enough that Benjamin’s already getting some very strong response from his musical colleagues, including OutKast partner Big Boi.

“I’ve talked to him about it,” Benjamin admits. “I let him hear some of the songs, and he was really excited about it, and he was like, ‘yes, man, it will be cool if I can come on.’ I think maybe, no second or third season we’ll probably get into like bring in, you know, different artists then, because Sunny, he is an entertainer, so he knows a lot of other entertainers.

“So you may have Big Boi to stop through the classroom, and he may do a song with the kids or you may have Gwen Stefani, she may come through and do a song or Snoop. But they’ll be animated in our style so being that this is a music based show, I mean, yes, we’ll have all kinds of guests.”

While guest musicians really is a no brainer, Class of 3000 is doing something most shows rarely does. It’s bringing in guest animators. One might say this show is turning into an animated jam session.

“Andre and I talked about this thing being a play for artists to really kind of push it beyond what was on television right now,” says Lynch. “We worked really hard over the whole look of the show. We got that right and then since Andre was going to do a music piece every show, we wanted it to be separate, still supportive of the show, but be separate and wonderful. So that got the idea of bringing in the coolest artists we can find to do that so each show has a little individual piece to it in the music videos.

“We talked about it at the beginning, but then as people started seeing the artwork and what we were doing, we got, from the artistic community, a lot of cool people showed up. John Kaye, Peter Chung showed up. We got a lot of talented people who wanted to be part of the show, so it was cool.”

“I think we wanted for part to be visually stunning, too,” says Benjamin. “Because it’s a music section within an animated show, we had to kind of take a trip. So it’s kind of like you’re going on a trip so you kind of think of like Fantasia, like mini-Fantasias within the animated show. Because you have to take it somewhere else so when you come back out of it, you’re back into your story, you know?”

“It came from a place of wanting the music videos to pop out,” continues Lynch. “Andre and I spent a long time getting the design of the main body of the show done, and then we wanted his songs to step it up even further. So we talked about it, how we could put different looks into it, what we could do… could we do mixed media, could we do photography or could we do film with animation and all that.

The more we talked about it we landed on the idea of bringing in all of these great artists, because as we were doing the main body of the show, these people started calling and asking, ‘what are you guys doing over there, what are you guys doing over there?’ All of a sudden we get John Kricfalusi, he wants to do one. We got Peter Chung that wants to do one. So it came from a place of wanting the music videos to be separate from the show to step out from them, but also this great collection of artists who were available to come in and do the individual songs.”

Then to get things really started, Cartoon Network will have a one-hour special this Friday, October 27, at 7:00 p.m. To kick out the jams on the Fridays block, they air a special one our mockumentary about the life and career of Sunny Bridges called From Bankhead to Buckhead. Among the guests testifying about Bridges’ greatness are the Maroon 5, Nora Jones, The Hives, Serena Williams, Dwayne Wade and Michael Vick. From there, the show will move to Fridays at 8:00 p.m.

SKYLAND COMING THIS NOVEMBER (FINALLY!)

Speaking of shows that had been in development for years, Nickelodeon’s all-animation station NickToons announced its slow cooker, Skyland will finally take off on Sunday, November 18 at 9:00 p.m. For the record, the series had been in production for several years, and during that time was the basis of a bid war between a number of cable networks and it’s pilot only aired over a year ago.

The premiere of Skyland will kick off with the hour-long special followed by an all-new, half-hour episode at 10:00 p.m. eastern during the 3 Headed Monster programming block. Season one, which consists of 13 episodes, will air Saturdays at 9:00 p.m. eastern on Nicktoons.

“Nicktoons Network continues to be the hub for animation fans to tune in and find unique, diverse and technically advanced shows like Skyland,” said Keith Dawkins, Vice President and General Manager, Nicktoons Network. “In addition to its rich visual style and stunning imagery, Skyland is an epic, sci-fi action adventure of good verses evil – universal story lines kids have loved for ages.”

Skyland, produced by Method Films and created by Emmanuel Gorin, Alexandre de la Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte, follows a heroic brother, Mahad, and his telekinetic younger sister, Lena, as they search for their parents in a new world order. The year is 2251 and the Earth has been shattered into millions of blocks that now drift aimlessly in orbit around the Earth’s core known as Skyland. The Sphere, led by a power-mad ruler with telekinetic powers named Oslo, has installed a dictatorship that controls water distribution, now a precious resource. Skyland's young heroes along with the pirate resistance, try to free their mother from Oslo’s evil grasp and destroy the dreaded Sphere.

The hour-long special, “Dawn of A New Day,” introduces Mahad and Lena as they are faced with their biggest challenge yet when their mother is forced to sacrifice herself and be captured by the evil Sphere in order for her children to run to freedom. Directed to seek out protection from their mother’s friend, the children join up with rebel pirates and begin the adventure of a lifetime. In the premiere episode
“Manipulation,” the sibling duo fights against the enemy when a solar phenomenon has unusual effects on Seijin powers. This allows a sect of the Sphere to take control of Dahlia, a strong member of the pirates, in effort to learn the coordinates of the pirate hideout.

Expect a lot more about this show in future columns.

FOX RENEWS KING OF THE HILL

It looked like the tenth was going to be the final season of Mike Judge’s totally underappreciated series King of the Hill, but maybe the network learned its lesson from Family Guy.

Animation World News (www.awn.com) reports the story of the Hill family will now continue next year starting this January. This will make it season #11 and the series now becomes the second-longest running animated series in the history of U.S. television (behind The Simpsons, of course).

From the sounds of things, the series will start off with a bang. Bobby Hill's pet snake slithers down the toilet and Hank turns to Animal Control for help. Faster than you can say Samuel L. Jackson, the suburban town of Arlen, Texas goes into a snake-in-the-city frenzy, and it's up to Dale Dribble to eliminate Arlen's reptile problem.

King of the Hill has won its share of awards, including an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program in 1999.

KITT BECOMES NEW EMPEROR IN SPECIAL EPISODE

The Disney Channel gives the show over to super diva Eartha Kitt in an upcoming episode of Emperor’s New School. She will even break out into a song and dance number.

In the episode "Yzmopolis," airing Saturday, November 11 at 8:30 p.m. eastern Miss Kitt, who portrays the evil Yzma, becomes emperor after Kuzco (J.P. Manoux, who now stars in ER this season) wishes he was never emperor in an effort to better fit in with his subjects. As one can imagine, Yzma ends up turning the pre-historic South American empire into Fritz Lang’s worst nightmare before Kuzco realizes the error of his way.

No matter what, this episode displays that the 80 year-old energetic, former Catwoman still has a thing or two she can show the young’uns. You’d be hardpressed to find anyone who can vamp it up like her.

SMIGEL MAKING APPEARANCE IN NYC

As part and parcel of promoting his recently released DVD collection, SNL: The Best of TV Funhouse, will be making an appearance at the Times Square Virgin Megastore this Thursday, October 26 at 6:00 p.m. eastern.

Smigel has been responsible for all kinds of cartoon chaos on SNL ranging anywhere from The Ambiguous Gay Duo to puppets gone really, really bad with Triumph.

For those who want a solid sample of Smigel’s lunacy, SNL has given us a ton of URLs:

http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/...bambi_300k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/...bambi_700k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/...dents_128k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/...dents_300k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/...dents_700k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/media/mrt_128k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/media/mrt_300k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/media/mrt_700k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/media/mj_128k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/media/mj_300k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/media/mj_700k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/...bambi_128k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/...inton_300k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/...inton_700k.mov
http://www.saturdaynightlivedvd.com/...inton_128k.mov


IFC ADDS NEW ANIME NEXT YEAR

Hot off its success with FUNimation’s Samurai 7, the IFC Channel announced it has acquired two more series from the anime distributor, Basilisk and Gunslinger Girls. To whet fans apetites, the network aired the first four episodes of Basilisk this October, with plans for both it and Girls to come back in full force this January.

Here’s the skinny:

Basilisk: Premieres Friday, October 6, 2006 at 11:00 pm eastern returning with new episodes Friday, January 12, 2007 at 11:30 pm eastern

The two young leaders of the largest ninja clans are in love. Their love is ill-timed, because they have not become enemies when the Shogun has decided to turn over his land to the clan that can kill off the top 10 ninjas of their rival. No martial art is too strong and no ninja power is too bizarre for this band of top level assassins. Basilisk was produced by Japan’s leading anime studio Gonzo.

Gunslinger Girl: Premieres Friday, January 12, 2007 at 11:00 pm eastern

Set in scenic Italy, Gunslinger Girl uses beauty to offset the story’s tragedy. Officially, the Social Welfare Agency is a government sponsored corporation that’s in the business of saving lives. At least, that’s the ruse. In reality, it’s an agency on the fringe of technology. They give terminal patients another shot at life using cybernetic implants, but it comes with a cost. The girls become child assassins teamed with a handler, responsible for their training and conditioning, their performance in the field, and their overall welfare and development. Gunslinger Girl explores the dynamics between these fratello teams and how they deal with their combined fates. The series was produced by Madhouse Studios, and directed by Morio Asaka.

NEXT COLUMN: For your Halloween treat, we go trickin’n’treatin’ with Tad Stones about the upcoming Hellboy Special. As this something special, expect it this Friday.

[Spade]

Class of 3000 sounds like it's jumping the shark from the beginning.

[GenerallZodd]

Glad to hear King of The Hill is back. It's truly the most underrated animated program of all time.

[Spaz_Monkey]

CLASS OF 3000
I, for one, am already impressed with Class of 3000, without having seen an episode yet. Just based on Andre's passion for the show, and the variety of people who are/could be involved with it, it looks like a potential classic. Or it could be the biggest suck in the history of suckitude. I just hope it's the former, not the latter.

THE EMPEROR'S NEW SCHOOL
J.P. Manoux is no David Spade. And what does it say when you're being compared negatively to David Spade???
Eartha Kitt, on the other hand, looks like she's found the perfect role as Yzma. I loved her in the movie, and she's kept her gleefully evil streak going perfectly.

KING OF THE HILL
LOVE seeing that this is coming back. People aren't sure how to react to it, because it's not a traditional 'wacky cartoon'. Instead, King of the Hill is just an animated sitcom. No goofy characters, no zany situations, just a group of people that could live in your town, doing things that you could end up doing yourself. The subtlety of the show is what keeps it so great.

SKYLAND
Really? It's finally happening??? Hooray!

[OM]

Originally Posted by Spade

Class of 3000 sounds like it's jumping the shark from the beginning.

...Hell, the same thing can easily be said for both Rap *and* Hip-Hop.

[ticknart]

Steve, this has nothing to do with the column, but since you mentioned IFC I have to ask.

With the recent release of the Greg the Bunny shorts I was wondering if you've heard if IFC is going to release "Hopeless Pictures" on DVD and, if they are, when it'll be?

Thanks.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by OM

...Hell, the same thing can easily be said for both Rap *and* Hip-Hop.

Explain because your statement isn't easily understood.

[sfritz]

Originally Posted by ticknart

Steve, this has nothing to do with the column, but since you mentioned IFC I have to ask.

With the recent release of the Greg the Bunny shorts I was wondering if you've heard if IFC is going to release "Hopeless Pictures" on DVD and, if they are, when it'll be?

Thanks.

T - Hey...it's about animation so it has everything to do with my column.

I'll try to find out. -s

[berkovw]

Originally Posted by GenerallZodd

Glad to hear King of The Hill is back. It's truly the most underrated animated program of all time.

I agree, and I would even go further and say that it is one of the most underrated television programs of all time, not just animated. The reason it's so underrated I think has to do with it's being compared to the Simpsons. It's just as subversive of the Simpsons, but in a totally opposite way both in terms of subject matter and tone. It's not as "in your face" as the Simpsons and not nearly as outrageous. Unforunately, in this society, in order to make a mark, you have to yell and be outrageous and King of the Hill does neither of those.

I think in honor of KOTH being renewed, we need a good old-fashioned, "Ohhhhhh, yeah, Peggy Hill!"

[ticknart]

Thanks for checking it out, Steve. When I briefly had the channel, "Hopeless Pictures" was an amazing find that I'd like to share with my friends.

[Kolimar]

Originally Posted by MattBrady

FOX RENEWS KING OF THE HILL

It looked like the tenth was going to be the final season of Mike Judge’s totally underappreciated series

Not by me, it's not! I really like KOTH. Lots of fun there.

[sfritz]

Originally Posted by ticknart

Thanks for checking it out, Steve. When I briefly had the channel, "Hopeless Pictures" was an amazing find that I'd like to share with my friends.

Hey, no problem. I'd like to know myself, personally.

I have the call into IFC and am now just waiting for their reply. -s

[zeraze1]

Originally Posted by Spade

Explain because your statement isn't easily understood.

OM hates Black people and anything created by us. Ignore him.

But this does underscore how too many comic book fans delude themselves into thinking that hip-hop is this passing fad instead of a mult-billion dollar, global phenomenon. This column goes into greater detail:

http://thelowroad.blogspot.com/2005/...audiences.html

Frankly, we shouldn't be surprised that Class of 3000 got the greenlight. Hip-hop flavored cartoons from Boondocks to Static Shock proved to be smash hits. If it's one thing that can be counted on is TV networks emulating what is successful.

zeraze

[mclennon]

Is that it is one of the few shows in history (or at least, recent history) that presents characters with conservative values, but doesn't mock them for having those values. Plus it bucks the cliche where the husband is a dolt while the mom is almost perfect.

[DrCool976]

Originally Posted by zeraze1

OM hates Black people and anything created by us.

zeraze

If this is the case, he better move to another planet because our creative influence can be felt across the globe.

[AdamYJ]

I think Class of 3000 deserves a look. It seems to revisit some old chestnuts of Saturday morning and syndicated animation like the music driven show (Jem, Sonic Underground, Kidd Video, Josie and the Pussycats, etc) and the celebrity inspired show (Jackie Chan Adventures, Mr. T, Hammerman etc.) and brings them forward. Now, not all of the shows using those ideas were gems, but there have been good ones in there. The fact that Andre Benjamin has such a passion for it and is actually writing songs for it and everything is really encouraging. I'd keep my eye out for it if I were you guys. It might surprise you.

[Wellness]

I used to love King of the Hill, but the most recent episodes haven't been doing it for me. I actually wished they did cancel it. Heck take Family guy as well.



Also American Dad is the best prime time cartoon Fox currently airs.

[zeraze1]

Originally Posted by DrCool976

If this is the case, he better move to another planet because our creative influence can be felt across the globe.

Amen, brother. Black people have been setting the cultural tone for centuries. So, it's silly to for anyone to think otherwise.

zeraze

[sfritz]

Originally Posted by zeraze1

Amen, brother. Black people have been setting the cultural tone for centuries. So, it's silly to for anyone to think otherwise.

zeraze

OK guys...before we go down certain roads, let's make one very important point clear about Co3K. Look at the graphics. Yes, Sunny Bridges is obviously a black man, but his students are of all nations.

I'm never going to down black culture for a lot of personal reasons, but I think the concept here is going for a message of unification through music, not division.

Just wanting to bolster the levee before this site looks like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, OK? -s

[KELPIE]

Although a great concept with great art, Skyland isn't actually any good judging from the episodes I've seen and my opinion of them. The writing is quite poor and the voice acting is unbearable.

A shame really as I was looking forward to it.