Friday, February 01, 2008

FRANKENSTEIN'S CAT premiering Monday 4th February, CBBC, 6pm!

"FRANKENSTEIN'S CAT, FRANKENSTEIN'S CAT!"
"HE'S A MONSTER!"
"A TWIT!"
"I'M A CAT FROM A KIT!"
"AND YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE HIM TO BITS!"







Well, it's here at long last. It's been a long, long road from the first doodles and scribbles I penned on a train journey from Warrington to London Euston in 2000. Since then the Cat was picked up as a picture book by Hodder, optioned as a short film by Mackinnon & Saunders, developed into a 2D flash animated series and now finally appears on Television next week. Along the way characters have been discarded (the Butler, the Cook) and other have been added or developed (Lottie, Egora, Heidi and the Doctor). We've a large cast of colourful, and quite mad, characters populating the village of Oddsburg and it's surrounding wilderness, so I can only hope now that the show is well received by its audience (that's you, that is!)


Big thanks go to all the production teams and broadcasters who've worked on the show, at Mackinnon & Saunders, Kayenta Production, BBC, CCI, 4:21, and A Productions. Special thanks go to Jackie Edwards, Sara Mullock and Thierry Rivard (producers on the show), Alan Gilbey (head writer and script editor) and Raoul and Jane Davies (directors) for helping make such lovely animated shenanigans. And big man love to Pete (Saunders) and Ian (Mackinnon) for believing in my stinky cat in the first place and taking a big ol' punt on it. Big man love hugs to the writers - Ian Carney, Dave Ingham, Myles McLeod, Darren Jones, Lee Pressman and Joel Jessop. Suffice to say the voice artists (Joe P, Keith Wickham, Alex Kelly, Teresa Gallagher and Jimmy Hibbert, who also pitched in with a script!) have done a wonderful job of breathing life into the cast, and I owe them a drink or four...



Lordy, that sounds like an acceptance speech. I'd best go and accept a banana from the fruit bowl as that's all I'll be receiving for the forseeable!
Off on the road this coming week, appearing at Animex Festival of Animation from Wednesday through Friday. I'll be doing a character design workshop on the Wednesday and on the Friday, accompanied by Jackie Edwards, we'll be doing a talk about The Anatomy Of Frankenstein's Cat. It promises to be a hoot!


Bada Bling!

26 comments:

Ciaran said...

Brilliant. I can't wait to see it.
That (what I assume is a) pan of the village at night is beautiful.

This is amazing though. I'm sure it's hard to believe a sketch could develop into this in such a short space of time. It's so exciting :D

Congratulations mr.Bling.
It's no less than that little cat deserved.

Unknown said...

Some lovely pieces ther Mr Bling, and have to agree with Ciaranwith regards to the village/mountain vista. Are these production back grounds, or mood pieces you provided?
Well, off to set the sky plus now.

Andrew Glazebrook said...

Loved the show, thought there was some really funny bits in it !! :) Nice to see it finally on the air.

Anonymous said...

Wait till you all see the episode called 'Tail of Tails'! Pee your pants you will... or is that just me? (Jane)

Jonathan Edwards said...

Argh! Missed it on Monday. I trust it'll be repeated throughout the week. Good luck, Mr Bling (although I don't think you'll need it). I heard Joe Pasquale was on the Steve Wright show the other week talking about it.

Andrew Glazebrook said...

Jonathon you can catch the episodes on BBC's i-player here here just search the CBBC section on there ! They keep them posted for a bout 5 days or so, or you can download them and watch them for a bit longer if you like !!!!

Andrew Glazebrook said...

Here you go here's the link to the episodes, I think this is for UK viewers only !!! Episodes

Jonathan Edwards said...

Thanks for the link, Andrew (and for the comments on my blog). I forgot about iPlayer.

Top stuff, Curtis. Long may it run.

Anonymous said...

Worth the wait to see the series. Enjoyed the first the super large zits and then the floating brians. Mad but real fun. It is really good to see the visual style and the paintly quality from the book being retained.

Jo Bling said...

Ciaran - cheers matey, not sure about the short length of time, mind you! ;-)

Nick ladyboys - yep, the mountain/castle/village features in most episodes as we pan from one to another. These are all production backgrounds worked up from the designs I sent the studio.

Glazey - cheers squire, I have a screener DVD for you next time I see you, and thanks for providing the links to the iPlayer too!

Jane - Tale of Tails is my favourite too, although no micturation was involved...

Jonathan - you were listening to STEVE WRIGHT????!!! Your rock'n'roll persona is now shattered, you do realise? :-D

Jim - thanks sir - am off to Exeter for more festival goodness tomorrow, are you going?

Anonymous said...

At last the cat is out of the bag!

Jonathan Edwards said...

I haven't listened to Steve Wright since about 1986 (and then I had no choice in the matter). I'm a 6music/podcast boy all the way. Just felt I had to clear that up.....

dragonhead said...

Way to go Curtis! Can't wait to see it when it comes to the US! :D

Anonymous said...

Sorry not in Exter this week. Have to work. Busy with things for the US and also MONSTRA festival in Lisbon

Andrew Glazebrook said...

Really super episodes, some very funny stuff in them !!

Anonymous said...

Fan-jelly-tastic! What a super series you've developed - a real breath of fresh air to see a "proper" cartoon nowadays! Well done indeed. I espicialy thought "Heidi and Shriek" was a riot - can't wait to see this series on DVD. :D

BTW, so you know, I've noticed that "Let's Make Friends" hasn't credited the writer...

Jo Bling said...

Bangazee - cheers for the nice words and supportive comments on the Cat, mate :-)

Jonathan - no explanation necessary matey ;-)

Dragonhead - shall let you know when the US broadcaster is confirmed

Jim - Exeter was great, very good festival, heartily recommend it!

Glazey - thanks mucker, hope your kids are all watching it

Christopher - cheers bud, I like the mention of a "proper" cartoon (although to be honest it's made in flash!) Interestingly a lot of the animators on the show are drawn animators by trade so they've used the Flash system in a drawn stylee. As for LETS MAKE FRIENDS I hadn't noticed that, shall have to look into it.

Alex Whitington & Rob Turner said...

Hey, i've been watching the show in the Iplayer instead of doing college assigments and I've become slightly hooked.

It's a bit embarassing, to be honest.

Anonymous said...

Great!
I hope it does well for you.

SHOo said...

Hi there!
good to hear! Wish you the best for that series! Will be looking for it!
And thanks a lot for your comment, it's super encouraging!

Ryan Wood said...

Congrats man, it looks incredible!

Todd Harris said...

way cool man, really nice work. nice to catch up with the blogging world and see greatness again. congrats

Alexei Martins said...

Congratulations!
Awesome news!!!I wish I could see it!

Jo Bling said...

Alex - that's what we like to hear matey! :-D

Shoo - no worries at all, you've got a great folio

Ryan, Todd and Alexei - you can watch episodes of it on the BBC iPlayer - I checked it out and here's the link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00930hb.shtml?filter=category%3AletterF&scope=iplayercategories&start=1&version_pid=b00930gp

justinpatrickparpan said...

It looks amazing Mr. Bling, and I can't wait to check it out! I think I'm going to reread my copy of Franks Cat tonight.

Zayari said...

wooao Mr. Blong just i can say congratulations your work is so good :)
i hope draw like you someday soon