Here are some of those awkward, early-flowering examples of animation and video work that eventually got me to where I am now...

In the beginning (6th grade for me), we had JUST procured a video capture card for our computer. I was so very excited, I didn't know exactly what to do! Then, it hit me like a sack of potato chips flying at 30-mph. I had to make an animated parody of a local commercial for the Dick James Law Firm, there was no doubt in my mind.

Oh, it was a glorious day (the day that I started AND finished this video). Not only had I found a use for the video capture card, I had also MADE something with it. Unfortunately, however, this video isn't extremely impressive or funny. It is a poor-quality animation involving a total of 4 frames (frame - a single picture used in an animation) with terribly stupid sexual innuendo. I actually thought that in the phone number, the 1's and 8's were hilarious. If it's any consolation for myself, I've heard many people say that it is hilarious. In fact, in 2002, one of my friends saw Dick James in public and slipped up, saying, "Hey, you're Dick Peterson." Oooops! Sir James simply said, "Pervert!" and walked away. It doesn't get much better than that.

"OOOHHH!!! Me can make animations," I thought, "What in the world could be better than one animation? Oh yeah, MORE! Duh huh!"

After the Academy Awards that year (1999 I do believe), my sister decided that she wanted to annoy me by saying the catch-phrase from the Oscar-winning movie "Life Is Beautiful" as many times as humanly possible. Then, she temporarily became obsessed with the director/actor Roberto Benigni and proceeded to download some pictures of him accepting his Oscar (Meyer Weiner.... Funky Cole Medina).

Well, I really hated this man for some reason. Could it be that he had taken over my sister's speech? Yes! When she started drawing blood all over him (in Microsoft Paint!) just to make me smile, an idea came to my head (PING!). "Let's make an animation Sis," I yelled with glee!

She drew about half of the frames of this animation, and I did the rest. Notice how I got to shoot him? This animation helped us feel just about as sophisticated as we ever had!

Tornadoes came, neo-Vikings conquered ancient lands of far away planets, and a year later (2000), THE OSCARS CAME BACK! My sister and I actually watched the whole show this time (with a popcorn-oriented feast we prepared for ourselves in order to maintain our obesity).

At the time of BEST ACTOR, Sis and I had already decided that we had to outdo even ourselves, and.... (GASP!!!) MAKE A NEW ANIMATION!!! This time we would... um... DO BETTER!!! YEAH!!! At least, as much better as you can do copying the same formula.

Well, we succeeded at outdoing ourselves in quality and satire. From the (I feel a new word coming on...) pseudo-bimili-Oscar music all the way to the "Don't interrupt me... BILLY!" (which parodies American Beauty and how annoying Billy Crystal was that year), we were FANTASTIC! Unfortunately, the plot remains exactly the same (minus the heroic ending) and I am the one with the gun again... I'm not violent... (sniffle) My sister and I surely DID plan to do more of these HILARIOUS Oscar animations, however we never got around to the task.

My brand-new friend of the year 2000 (Chad Walker), my sister, and I were all pleasure-walking one mid-spring day. The weather was nice, our legs were doing their jobs, and suddenly (BANG!) an idea hit us! We were going to make a fake drug-related TV station disguised as a movie; this was ever so fitting for our straight-edge asses. We RAN back home and later that night we began... Un-FRO-tunately, our plans were all too stupid, and we agreed on only making two drug-related commercials.

Our first peace-offering was a commercial for a nonexistent product named either "Ganja Juice" or "Ganjuice" depending on how creative you are. I made a funny label on the computer and pasted it onto a cola bottle. I felt very special for having thought of this, but I knew something was missing. Chad and I went down the road to the neighbor's grass pile (from their lawn, or treehouse) and grabbed large heaps of the stuff (grass). We hopped back into my house and stuffed this bottle with the grass and any other green thing known to man. After smelling our hands, we found that the neighbor's dog had in fact been hanging around on the lawn before it was mowed. Ewww. After this chore, we put our minds to the video.

Sure, it's stupid, but IT's SPECIAL STUPID! The music is my own special recipe of reggae. There actually appears to be a REAL, LIVE n' SMOKIN' MARIJUANA JOINT in the video, however this is just a Napkin-On-Fire^® (made by Betty Crocker herself).

A second video was filmed during the same session, but it has sense been lost. It was a commercial for the Scottish Snorter, a revolutionary new cocaine sniffing utensil. The commercial began with a caveman attempting to inhale his powder with a large animal horn; he gets upset at the difficulty and starts hitting things with his horn. Next, we skip to the 70s and a dollar bill is being used. We show this as being equally as difficult. Then, I pop in with "THE SKAWTISH SNOHTAH," and, with a terrible Scottish accent, I show how easy cocaine can be! I initially didn't want anyone to see it, and now that I do, it has been lost... Well damn. Hopefully a summary suffices.

Once I boughty my own computer, I was admiring all of my past work and found these mysterious screenshots I had made with our video capture card oh so long ago and noticed that I had in fact begun another animation that I never finished! I was Robbie Krieger stumbling across an unfinished recording by Jim Morrison! Taking my complex knowledge of animating two-frame mouths, I decided it was time for a new animation! My sister and I planned for a few minutes, and got a crackin'!

The voices were porformed by my sister and me (and Neil Young). After this cartoon, I got more interested in cameras and real video as opposed to drawings and fake video, with the exception of the cartoon sequences in my movies.