You’ll have to wait until March 2010 to see the premiere of Ugly Americans, but last night Comedy Central aired a clip during the South Park finale. The show, which is set in an NYC filled with demons, robots, zombies, and assorted creatures, was created by David M. Stern and Devin Clark. The animation is being directed by Augenblick Studios (Superjail) and with animation produced at Cuppa Coffee. Here’s two clips:

The Demon Chick

Sneak Peek

Christopher Ford’s 6-part Stickman Exodus, which was produced for Atom.com, has taken the top prize in the Animation category at this year’s Webby Awards. This live-action/animation project roped in Augenblick Studios and animator Chris Burns to bring the game of hangman to life. Congrats, gang!

Also, the Brothers McLeod are part of the creative team behind the winner of the Youth category. Their Flash-animated shorts in the Films section of the Tate Kids website helped push this project into the winner’s circle. We posted this back in November of 2008, but here’s the trailer one more time:

Two days of freedom left, gang – then it’s off to Superjail! While a pilot and episode one have already aired, the new Flash-animated Adult Swim series officially premieres this Sunday, Sept. 28, at 11:45 p.m. (ET, PT). The show, which was created by Christy Karacas, Stephen Warbrick and Ben Gruber, combines so much into one eye-popping soup; Superjail! merges Looney Tunes, Willy Wonka, Dr. Seuss, acid-trip psychedellica, raw-dog blood thirst with perhaps just a touch of Kubrick. The resulting hallucinatory collage is so unlike any other TV series in recent memory that it truly defies labeling. With that said, I’ll still try – Superjail! is simply “groundbreaking.” Here’s a clip from the episode title Superbar.

The show takes place in what can only be described as an alternate universe, far removed from civilization in a monstrous lockdown called Superjail, which is run by a dandy known simply as Warden. Almost everything beyond that is downright weird – there’s a dutiful, levitating robo-worker named Jailbot who handles the dirty work, a booze-lusting operations chief, a pair of teleporting inmate twins (twinmates?) and then of course the talking vegetables. But it’s the playfulness in the animation that takes it into another realm – Warden can tie himself into a knot, ride to work on a rainbow or blast an inmate to the moon with the touch of a button. Inmates can be delivered to the prison in a giant bird’s egg, sent to their cell on a rip-roaring rollercoaster, or blown dry with a 20-foot tall hair drier. It’s the elasticity of Tex Avery, the madness of Ren and Stimpy and the trippiness of Yellow Submarine all baked into one bloody, animated pie.

For those of you paying attention to the first two episodes, you may have learned that each installment brings a new title sequence along with a fresh escape and incarceration for a recitative jailbird named Jackknife, but what else do we know? If you go watch the series pilot, Bunny Love, at adultswim.com, you can view a whole mess of commentary videos as well. In one, the creators discuss how each episode will feature some all-out madness – a no holds barred fight scene. It’s a legacy from Christy and Stephen’s short Barfight, which is boils down to the biggest, longest, most insane bar fight in this or any other galaxy. Read the rest of this entry »

You may have already spotted this at CartoonBrew.com, but… Fran Krause created this :40 second signal film for the NYC-based 2008 Rooftop Films series. While he screens his films at night, by day Krause is a character designer at Augenblick Studios in Brooklyn.

Back in 2001, the internet was burning out and online entertainment was too. It was a sobering experience, but Aaron Augenblick decided to booze it up instead. He created Drunky, a Flash-animated film that rose above the clunky cartoons that the software had become synonymous for. It had style, smooth animation and a very memorable character. The original short, titled In Through the Out Door, was screened at Annecy and Slamdance, and became a signature piece in the Augenblick Studios library. Since then, Aaron’s studio has worked on variety of excellent projects, mostly aimed at the grown-up audience, including Golden Age, Superjail and a personal favorite: Wonder Showzen.

Now that web entertainment is back in full force, Drunky returns. Augenblick has resurrected Drunky for a new 11-minute pilot titled Fish House Punch. You’ll meet one of the most “colorful” grandmothers ever to walk into a bar, and to describe the overall tone of the piece I’ll borrow a phrase from the carnival boss – you’ll be “revolted in amazement.” Click below to watch an excerpt at the Augenblick website, which has been relaunched to include high-quality versions of the entire studio library.

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