It keeps animators employed, doesn't it

June 27, 2010 3:34 PM

Whether we first saw their works as parents, as children, as animation buffs, or just soft-hearted grownup viewers, Mefites have been quick to view, love, praise, analyze, criticize and follow the output of our favorite animation studio, a little company that started in the early '90s and came from behind to revitalize American animation. I am of course referring to the company behind Tiny Robots, What's Up: Balloon to the Rescue, The Frog Prince, Little Princess School, and The Little Panda Fighter -- Video Brinquendo. (Via. Previously.)

[As Video Brinquendo has continued to delight in exciting new ways since the previous post two years ago, I make bold to post this.]

posted by Countess Elena (16 comments total)

My wife cried while watching the trailer for Tiny Robots.


Then she punched me in the face for making her waste 58 seconds of her life on such irredeemably shitty hackwork.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 3:46 PM on June 27, 2010 [7 favorites]

I am surprised that these aren't pushing a valuable Christian message.
posted by mccarty.tim at 3:56 PM on June 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

Are the non-3D ones done in Flash?
posted by mr_roboto at 3:57 PM on June 27, 2010

"Ronaldo, our Web server is overloaded with snark!"
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:02 PM on June 27, 2010

Goddamn, that is one shiny panda.
posted by "Elbows" O'Donoghue at 4:49 PM on June 27, 2010

Wait, why did the robots let humans become extinct?
posted by rhizome at 4:53 PM on June 27, 2010

Trying to find a post that featured a write-up about The Asylum, the low-budget shlockmiesters who try to piggyback on blockbusters, but all I found was this and a mention in this FPP's Previously link.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:16 PM on June 27, 2010

"An old-fashioned robot, built in the old days..." (3 seconds later) "...our young hero..."

/facepalm
posted by teraflop at 5:18 PM on June 27, 2010 [5 favorites]

This stuff is so slippery, it defies almost any meaningful response.
posted by thejoshu at 6:22 PM on June 27, 2010

Wait, why did the robots let humans become extinct?

Are you sure they let it happen?
posted by concrete at 7:03 PM on June 27, 2010

I know the only reason I go to school is so that I can become beautiful.
posted by meese at 7:27 PM on June 27, 2010

Trying to find a post that featured a write-up about The Asylum, the low-budget shlockmiesters who try to piggyback on blockbusters, but all I found was this and a mention in this FPP's Previously link.

You might be looking for the FPP on Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, which is one of theirs. We've actually become something of a fan of The Asylum for movies like Transmorphers (which for all its faults doesn't have jive-talking robots). You can count that the following facts will each be true for 90% of The Asylum movies:

• There will be an out-of-work actor from the 80s or 90s in a prominent role. For example, 10,000 B.C. had Michael Gross, the Dad from Family Ties. I'll always remember him for the kangaroo in his living room. -wipes tear-
• Usually a title that's almost, but not quite, identical to a big-budget movie. My favorite of these has to be The Day the Earth Stopped, which features an invasion of giant robots that don't do anything the whole movie except loom over cities. The plot doesn't even seem to have anything to do with them, and at the end they just sort of leave. Another is 2012: Doomsday, which has this idiotic religious theming in which somehow Mayan temples figure into the Judeo-Christian rapture schema.
• If you see a trailer for an Asylum movie, you can bet you're watching every special effect in the whole film and that the rest of the movie will be talking heads.

posted by JHarris at 8:14 PM on June 27, 2010

From The Asylum's page on the Mighty PEDE:
The company focused on producing straight-to-video low-budget films, usually in the horror genre, but were unable to find a market due to competition from major studios, such as Lions Gate Entertainment.[1] In 2005, the company produced a low-budget adaptation of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, which was released in the same year as Steven Spielberg's adaptation of the same material. Blockbuster Inc. ordered 100,000 copies of The Asylum's adaptation, a significantly larger order than any of the company's previous releases, resulting in Latt and Rimawi reconsidering their business model.
posted by JHarris at 8:17 PM on June 27, 2010

I hadn't heard that nickname for Wikipedia before. On reading "the Mighty PEDE," I became briefly but deeply concerned that The Asylum had produced an even-lower-budget version of The Human Centipede.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:24 PM on June 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

For some reason I was associating the FPP and the piece I read with the William (Greatest American Hero) Katt-starring Alien vs. Hunter. And then I got distracted and read MeFi posts about the Aliens series of movies and conspicuously comprehensive and desperately gushy Wikipedia entries about modern B-movie players for an hour.

I'll always remember him for the kangaroo in his living room. -wipes tear-

Nonono, he was almost killed toaster: "Alex, if this had been a pop-tart, we'd be dead by now."

God, now I just want to watch Family Ties. Guess I know what I'll be doing for my summer vacation.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:31 PM on June 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the post. Now I know what to get for our next bad movie night...
posted by Calzephyr at 7:27 AM on June 28, 2010