Here’s a clip from the episode Tomato Surprise:

And here’s the show’s title sequence:

The show is animated by Los Angeles-based animation studio Oddbot Inc, who have also teamed up with Playhouse Disney in the past on shows like Shanna’s Show and Shane’s Kindergarten Countdown. Here’s a clip from the episode titled Movie Manners, and below that we interview Christopher Hamilton from Oddbot.

AARON SIMPSON: Christopher, how did Oddbot wind up working on this project?

CHRISTOPHER HAMILTON: I’ve produced a number of short series for Playhouse Disney since 2003. I directed the Shanna’s Show series, Shane’s Kindergarten Countdown, and was supervising director on Lou and Lou: Safety Patrol during my time at the studio One Red Room, where I also served as the company’s Creative Director. When that company closed its doors in 2006, I formed OddBot Inc. Based on the successful collaborations of our previous projects, Playhouse took a chance on our new studio and asked us to produce another batch of Lou and Lou: Safety Patrol, which later led to an order of the new series Can You Teach My Alligator Manners?

AARON: How much paper and pencil factor into your production?

CHRISTOPHER: Actually, quite a lot. When designing the characters, every rough image was sketched on paper until we landed on a character style we liked. From there we would scan and clean up the images using Flash. This was the same for character turnarounds, props, backgrounds, and even early character test animation. I’ve found that a majority of artists (at least the ones I’ve worked with) prefer designing with pencil and paper over working with Wacoms and Cintiqs. I definitely share this feeling.

Oh yeah, and our director Robert Ramirez likes to thumbnail-out scenes for the storyboard artists on large post-it notes. So we go through a billion of those!

AARON: Who designed the characters?

CHRISTOPHER: The talented Todd Oman.

AARON: What type of animation direction theories went into the production?

CHRISTOPHER: We took a traditional animation approach for Al. Before the production started, we knew that we wanted Al to be slinky, quick, energetic, and very child-like, so we encouraged the crew to squash, stretch, bend, and use smears when appropriate. The animators would rough-out their animation on paper or draw directly into Flash with a Wacom tablet – depending on their individual preferences.

When it came to the human characters, including Mikey, we purposely moved them a bit slower than usual with less extremes. This made for a nice contrast between Al and the rest of the characters.

Also, Al’s acting is all pantomime and the animators couldn’t rely on much dialogue for support – just a lot of vocal expressions and reactions. So they really had to push Al’s poses to support his many emotions.

AARON: How many animators are on the crew?

CHRISTOPHER: We had about seven animators working on each episode.

AARON: There aren’t any outlines on the characters. Does this tend to make it easier to animate?

CHRISTOPHER: Absolutely! With no outlines, you’re just left with solid shapes, and that definitely made a difference when it came to moving that alligator around. We made the decision very early in production (even before the designers started) to leave the outlines off of the characters. During Lou and Lou: Safety Patrol, animators painstakingly made sure that there was never any separation of outlines and that the line thickness was always consistent. Obviously, this is a very time-consuming task, but it was essential to achieving a solid look for that particular show. On Can You Teach My Alligator Manners?, I really wanted the animators to spend most of their time pushing Al’s acting and not worry so much about keeping his details consistent.

AARON: Have you taken any of Al’s lessons to heart throughout the production?

CHRISTOPHER: Absolutely, we can all use a reminder or two about manners!

We estimated around 175 people made it to the rooftop bar in West Hollywood to hear us celebrate the advances Flash has made in the animation industry in recent years. The speakers included the chiefs of the five major Digital 2D shops in Los Angeles:

• Tim Jones from Animax Entertainment
• Christopher Hamilton from Oddbot
• Ashley Postlewaite from Renegade Animation
• Brendan Burch from Six Point Harness
• Chris P from Titmouse Inc

Some of the themes that were touched upon included that while we all love what Flash can do, that it’s just a tool, and it shouldn’t define our world, or our budgets and expectations. Ashley wished that anyone on the hunt for the right studio approach the 5 Digital 2D shops listed above with an open mind, and let us suggest a solution. We all work with a variety of software options, production designs, artists and budget ranges, so nearly every conceivable look you may be after should be achievable. As Brendan pointed out – we Flash folk often find ourselves fighting off pre-conceived notions of what is achievable in the software. The best answer is – it’s whatever you want it to be, and for those in attendance in West Hollywood, it was a topic that helped get us all together for an amazing night.

Thanks to Heath Corson and Marianne Hayden for the photos.