April 7, 2006
FROM THE ADAM & JOE VAULTS
ADAM & JOE’S AMERICAN ANIMATION ADVENTURE
I’ll try and post as many of these as I can over the next few weeks but it took a while for me to digitise just one off my old VHS copy, de-anamorphicise it, convert it and upload it so it may take a while. Obviously if I had more net skills it probably would not be such a problem but I’m still learning…Here is Voice Agent split (for easy up and downloading) into Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Thanks to Gregor at Worlds End Productions for letting me stick these up. Stay tuned for the full set! What full set? Let me explain…
Back in Autumn 2001 as the world was preparing to become ‘a more frightening place’ Joe and I were busy making a series of 6 short programmes for Channel 4 about various aspects of the animation scene in California. This was a sort of spin off series from a programme we made a year previously called Adam & Joe’s World Of Animation, a one hour special about modern animation (or ‘cartoons’ as they were once known) which we had presented as children’s TV presenters in the style of shows like Smart.
In those days I was obsessed with the notion that we should not become regular TV presenters. This was partly out of snobbery and partly because I didn’t think I was any good at it (Joe is much better at that kind of thing and I didn’t want him to show me up.) So it was decided that we should present each of the six shows as different characters. Herewith a list of those extraordinarily ground breaking programmes:
Cal Arts featuring Pavel and his brother Yuri
This was a look at the experimental animation course at The California Institute of the Arts. It was the second outing for my character Pavel (the first being a brief appearance in Adam & Joe’s World Of Animation). I remember being extremely pissed off that the make-up lady in LA provided me with a wig and beard so rubbish that I looked like, well, a man with a rubbish wig and beard. I suppose she could be forgiven for not thinking that it actually mattered. It was a very hot day though and I was so uncomfortable that improvising lines as an irritable twat came easily. Our host, Maureen Selwood ( a real tutor at Cal Arts) was a great sport and dealt with the comedy grumpiness far better than we had any right to expect.
Pavel trivs: The name of the character was coined by comedienne Lucy Porter, who was working on the show with us at World’s End Productions.
Rugrats featuring Andy & Peter
Andy (Adam) & Peter (Joe) are 2 rubbish kids TV presenters (a brilliant joke/tribute to Andy Peters of course! Ha ha ha ha ha! OK then) doing a report on the Klasky Csupo animation studios (home of Rugrats, The Simpsons, Duckman, Wild Thornberrys etc.) Joe and I pretend to be having a competitive struggle for prominence in this episode that was actually fairly close to how we sometimes behaved around this time. Well, I did anyway.
Voice Agent featuring Billy Bapstiste (Adam) and Martin Drew Phillips (Joe)
Billy was a stand up comedian trying to make it in LA very loosely based on Lee Evans. If I recall correctly his agent Martin was quite tightly based on Jonathan Ross’s agent, Addison Cresswell. This episode was about the people who provide the voices for some of the most popular animations in LA. In it we got to meet amongst other top voice talent, Billy West, the voice of Fry in Futurama which looking back on it is kind of amazing. This episode is also notable for my character Billy coming out with the catchphrase “I’m a lady!†a good 3 years before Matt & Dave popularised it in Little Britain. Did they steal it? Well, no I very much doubt it, but it’s a chance for me to associate myself with 2 much more successful comedians so I’m taking it.
Gunboy featuring Nick Knox (Adam) and Mick Knutz (Joe).
Nick and Mick were a couple of horrid post Lock Stock chancers who were trying to sell their craply violent animation ‘Gunboy’ (“He’s got a shooter for a hooter!â€) to I-Film, the biggest net outlet for amateur film at the time. These characters were based on a couple of lunatics I saw on a documentary about the making of a very bad sounding gangster flick featuring shit gangster Dave Courtney. God I wish I had it on tape, but it’s just a lovely very funny memory. Nick Knox and Mick Knutz were part of my attempt to preserve that memory. Maybe the real Mick and Nick are amazingly successful now. Apparently madder things have happened. Again I’m ashamed to say that I was in a rotten mood for much of the day we shot this so most of my supposedly comedic outbursts were more or less real.
Fanimation featuring Fred (Adam) and his best friend McJ (Joe)
A parody of MTV’s Fanatic wherein teens got to meet their heroes and oscillated wildly from euphoria to frightening bouts of over-emotionalism. It was basically an excuse to meet John DiMaggio who was the voice of Bender in Futurama and a brilliantly generous, funny chap. I remember Time Out reviewing this show and complaining that we ruined a potentially interesting profile of DiMaggio with our low rent clowning. To this day I don’t know if that’s fair. I think it’s quite a good spoof of Fanatic and you also get to meet the real Bender! Everybody wins, surely! No? Fuck you then.
Right Toon Reply featuring Louis Goiter and Jerry Thompson
Louis Goiter is a concerned dad convinced that cartoons like Family Guy are a corrosive influence on children. Jerry Thompson is a commissioning editor (a very funny, accurate rendering by Joe in my opinion) trying to present the case for the defence. This was another parody, this time of the sometimes pointless to and fro often found on Right 2 Reply, the Channel 4 viewer’s opinion forum presented by Roger Bolton. Roger does a top turn as himself on this one (having already done another Right 2 Reply spoof for us in series 3 of The Adam & Joe Show). Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy is the star interview of this episode.