Animutation

Colin Mochrie and other icons of Animutation perform "Fingertips" by They Might Be Giants in "The Fingertips Project."

Animutation is an artistic animation form (often created with Adobe Flash) characterized as a dadaist montage of pop-culture images set to foreign-language, independent, or more rarely, mainstream music. The style was popularized by Neil Cicierega (also known as Trapezoid or as Lemon Demon) at the age of 13, who coined the term "animutation" as a portmanteau of "animation" and "mutation," playing upon the way in which he took static images and animated them for new and bizarre intentions. Through its history, the genre has expanded to include many other Flash artists, whose works are often referred to as fanimutation.

History

Even though Neil Cicierega was the first to coin the term Animutation, the animations of Terry Gilliam for Monty Python's Flying Circus are an obvious influence and predecessor to the technique, and can be called the first animutations. Using collages of photographs and drawings animated to conduct absurd and unexpected behaviors, Gilliam's sense of humor pervaded into the animation style that Cicierega would later use.

Sometime near the year 2000, Neil Cicierega began toying with Macromedia Flash and produced three simple animations to his homepage, eviltrailmix.com. Though he originally dabbled in a comprehensible product, he quickly rejected the use of intelligent or well-formatted dialog in favor of sight-gags.

Cicierega's first Animutation was titled "The Japanese Pokerap", and released on February 27, 2001. Using a song from the soundtrack of the original Japanese version of Pokémon, he animated several unrelated images and characters to seemingly "dance" to the music, such as Bill Nye and Colin Mochrie. A day later, "Hyakugojyuuichi!!" (the Japanese extensive name for the number 151, referring to all existing Pokémon by then) was released, featuring the closing credits music from the Japanese version of Pokémon. Its strange juxtapositions of Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Pee-wee Herman, Harry Potter, Colin Mochrie once again, and other images soon became iconic as word spread of Cicierga's creations.

In an early Salon interview, Cicierega said that he was originally inspired by "insane Japanese commercials" and their use of a spontaneous onslaught of images. Other early animutations, such as "Lesko's Revenge" and "Team Rocket's Journey Through Time and Space", both based on Japanese Pokémon music, were made by Neil Cicierega in 2001, and quickly became a small Internet fad. Cicierga continued to make numerous animutations, becoming more and more familiar with Flash, as time went by, setting stylistic precedents and motifs in his use of Colin Mochrie and Matthew Lesko and other unrelated images.

Animations by other authors adapting Neil's animutation style were originally called fanimutations, as they served as a tribute to Neil's animutations, and were created by fans of Neil's work. Due to some authors feeling that their work should be viewed as art in its own right rather than fanart, the term "fanimutation" has since fallen out of common use. (See "Mutant Genius" for more history.)

The genre of animutation has flourished on several websites, notably Albino Blacksheep, where most original animutations continue to be released, but also in Newgrounds, deviantART, SheezyArt, and Animutation Portal (see below).

Within animutation culture (e.g. the official discussion list), there have been many attempts to formally define animutation, or at least clarify what is considered an animutation and what is not. Cicierega himself has said, simply, "If the person who made it says it's an Animutation, it's an Animutation, unless they're clearly just pulling our leg." [1]

Completing his final animutation to date, "Wizard Power," in 2003, Cicierga has recently been enjoying more popularity as a musician, creating the music behind several popular non-Animutation Flash animations such as "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" and "Geeks In Love". Meanwhile, however, other major animutations have appeared from other artists, such as "Chocolate Niblet Beans" by Toxic the Machine AKA B0B Barker and the collaborative "Fingertips Project", made by various members of the Animutation Email discussion list and compiled by Toxic.

Animutation Portal

AnimutationPortal.com is a small, recently-made portal designed and put onto the internet in the summer of 2005 by Mudi and MrSeiko. Animutation Portal is designed as an alternative to several sites as a holder of animutations. Like Newgrounds, AP has a scoring system. However, instead of deleting low-rating works instantaneously on an early notice, the administrators will check the work to see why it scored low before deleting. Because of this, it is criticized for holding a load of "not-up-to-style" animutations. It also does, however, hold some big works like "French Erotic Film", "Irrational Exuberance", and of course, "Hyakugojyuuichi". There has (or rather had) been a plan to have a new judgement system working much like one of Newgrounds, except instead of blamming, low-rating works will be placed in a "second portal." This plan was yet to be enforced.

Traits of animutation

Audio

Animutations can be based on songs of foreign, independent, or mainstream origin. Japanese songs were used in many of the original animutations by Neil Cicierega, but newer animutations use songs in a wide variety of languages, including English and gibberish. Many foreign language songs, such as "Yatta" and "Tunak Tunak Tun" have been widely popularized by their accompanying animutations.

Fake lyrics

In many animutations, some or all lyrics are intentionally "misheard" in a manner related to mondegreens, resulting in nonsensical sentences. These words are often featured in subtitles or as sing-along style lyrics, and they are sometimes depicted visually.

For example, these lyrics were used in the second animutation made by Neil Cicierega, "Hyakugojyuuichi!!!":

TV says donuts are high in fat, kazoo

Found a hobo in my room

It's Princess Leia, the yodel of life

Give me my sweater back or I'll play the guitar!

These took the place of the real Japanese lyrics:

Kimi-tachi to no deai wa zenbu

Chanto oboete 'ru

Kizutsukeatta koto mo atta kedo

Sore wa (ēto) wasureta

The real and fake lyrics may not appear very similar, but when one hears the song and imagines that the singer is speaking English in a heavy accent, it is almost believable, similar to the way in which alternate lyrics can be "heard" in recordings played in reverse. Sometimes, animutations are mondegreened throughout the whole song.

Imagery

Animutations are typically characterized by bright flashing backgrounds (so photosensitive epileptics should not view them), photographic images (which are often resized or cropped sloppily resulting in a pixelated or rough look), haphazard scribbling on the images or other bad drawing, stick figures, and many other elements that give it a highly raw and unfinished appearance. An animutation may re-use the same image many times, resulting in repetition and choppiness.

Most animutations have lyrics, and characters who are singing will appear to talk by having their chin cut from the rest of their face and moving up and down. More complex expressions are often achieved by adding eyes and eyebrows over the top of the original image. This rudimentary animation style bears the most obvious similarity to that of Terry Gilliam's work.

Rarely is there a sense of coherency as to what events are occurring, and most images are presented in the form of a montage, with photographs and drawings often flying past the viewer and going through odd distortions. Often, however, animated images will act out scenes, most of which are uncorrelated, and can often happen simultaneously. There are also some animutations that, while using the traditional elements, also offer a plot, for example "HOLY SHIT! NINJAS!!!!!" [2] which tells the story of a Ninja that seeks to avenge his wife and master, who were transformed into soda by an another Ninja.

Motifs

Canadian improvisational actor Colin Mochrie is a familiar face and name in the world of Animutation; the inclusion of his image in animutations has become something of a running gag. Amongst some animutation enthusiasts, it is not only a running gag, but also an important tradition. Mochrie has long been aware of his role in animutations [3]. Eventually, a meeting between Neil Cicierega and Mochrie occurred, leading to Mochrie's celebrated autographing of several Hyakugojyuuichi t-shirts [4].

In addition to Colin Mochrie, other popular references include Jay Jay the Jet Plane from the PBS children's series of the same name, Pee Wee Herman, Alex Chiu, Hulk Hogan, Harry Potter, characters from the show Mystery Science Theater 3000, Macaulay Culkin, Zippy from the children's television show Rainbow, Mr. Bean, both Dave Thomas the actor and Dave Thomas the founder of Wendy's, the middle finger, SpongeBob SquarePants, Bill Cosby, Matthew Lesko, Steve Urkel, Randy Constan, and Mochrie's Whose Line co-stars Drew Carey and Ryan Stiles.

Catch phrases from shows have also been used, such as "Hi-keeba!" and "Watch out for snakes!", both taken from movies shown on famous episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Some messages are hidden, lasting for one frame, scrolling too quickly, or scrolling in the wrong direction. Such messages range from orders to buy Funyuns, messages to disobey grandparents, or statements like "These pretzels are making me horny" (which is derived from Cosmo Kramer's line "These pretzels are making me thirsty!"). Many times, such use of text receives criticism, as viewers are often unaware that the text is presented as such purposefully.

Animutation has also generated a few recognizable catchwords, such as "gahbunga" and "wahdee", first seen in "Team Rocket's Journey Through Time and Space" and "Earth vs. Funk", respectively. Additionally, animutations tend to incorporate material from previous animutations. In particular, "Hyakugojyuuichi Forever!" is full of references to past animutations.

The character Jesus H. Christ, embodied by a plastic figure of Jesus Christ dressed in white, is a recurrent character in animutations, the most famous being the Colin Mochrie VS. Jesus H. Christ trilogy by Andrew Kepple. Surprisingly starring as the evil character, who seeks to banish fanimutation characters from Animutopia, he is eventually defeated by Colin in "Conquest of Animutopia". He can also be seen in many other animutations, such as "Hyakugojuuichi" or more recently "The Fingertips Project".

Parodies

Some parodies of animutations exist, in particular "Making An Internet Cartoon Tutorial". This notable one, along with a parody animutation, gives instructions to make an animutation, including ones to "choose a song that is either Japanese, or sounds funny", take a picture of something and "cut the mouth off (poorly)", "add text in the middle of the animation that is too long and impossible to read in the fast action of the cartoon", and "come up with a new catch phrase that will be all over the internet like: Mejezfeld!!!". The animation itself reflects these animutation tropes.

Tools of the trade

Most animutation artists create their animutations in Macromedia Flash due to its robustness and the fact that it was developed primarily for animation. However, some artists also use other products that can produce Flash movies, Macromedia Shockwave and even Windows Movie Maker and ASCII RPG Maker. Some artists may also choose to produce their movies in Flash, but then export it to AVI for various hosting purposes.

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