This, the fourth Cold, Hard Flashback, focuses on the Flash animation work from the Spumco gang. Sure, we took the wayback machine off to John K land in the 1st Flashback, but when, my friends, can ever have too much Spumco? Spumco, the now dormant animation pioneer, was early out of the Flash animation gate, delivering The Goddamn George Liquor Program in 1999, and a few wacky Hanna Barbera remakes that we’ll get to eventually.

The Spumco team also created a hysterical music video for Tenacious D’s ‘F*ck Her Gently.’

The video was directed by Gabe Swarr, and it featured work by a laundry list of the new generation of Hollywood animation talent. Gabe & Fred Gonzales recently worked on Disney’s ‘The Buzz on Maggie’; Derrick Wyatt & Ben Jones who recently finished up their 4th season on ‘Teen Titans’; Ray Morelli who I’ve worked with for a few years on various Flash projects; Tony Mora, who’s at Mike Young, and Matt Danner who I’m currently working with on ‘Coconut Fred.’ They all make cameo appearances in the opening camera descent into hell. The video is perhaps clunky by today’s standards, but you can’t deny the hysterical posing, beautiful layouts and clever and economic use of the software. I highly recommend you turn down your speakers at work, as ‘F*ck Her Gently’ is not in the least bit suitable for work.

The Spumco artists eventually disbanded, and in 2001 two talented youths by the name of Eric Pringle, who’s Animation Director over on ‘Fosters’ and Matt Danner started toiling on their own project. Now, to fully appreciate this short, you should familiarize yourself with a man by the name of Cal Worthington. Cal is southern-California-based car dealer who hosted a series of fairly humorous commercials featuring a ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’ reworking. Now Pringle and Danner twisted this reworking even further, and came up with ‘PussyCow.’

It’s infectious, perverted and it features what I believe is the world’s first ‘nun punch.’ Matt does most, if not all of the voices, and he and Pringle are responsible for the animation, which shows hints of their Spumco upbringing. Matt & Pringle were part of Nebulous Films at the time, who ended up producing several hundred PussyCow dolls, and they’re now rare collectors items I occasionally see in offices around town. As the saying goes: “He’s half pussy, half cow….all good!” And don’t miss the recently released ‘PussyCow’ bonus clips, unfinished shots from the original short.