Since drawing or tracing the backgrounds would be far too time-consuming and difficult, I decided to use actual photographs for the backgrounds. This process enabled me to save a lot of time on the animation, but it forced me to actually go outside - which is bad.

OUTDOOR PICS: Many of the outdoor pics were taken near my apartment - and a few photos were actually left over from "Bob the Ball" Episodes 1 and 2. The church photo was the last photo taken, because I had to wait about a week for a sunny day. It rains a lot here. The South sucks.

BAR PICS: I knew I would need a picture of a bar, but I didn't know where any were. I was told that a certain Mexican restaurant had a bar that would be suitable. I "borrowed" the restaurant's menu from work, and the next day I ordered the #29 (One Chalupa, one Taco, Spanish Rice and Beans. And the Chalupa was nothing like a Taco Bell Chalupa by the way. I screamed, "Hey, dis ain't no Taco Bell Chalupa!)

I walked into the restaurant, told the man my name for my takeout order. Then I casually asked, "Hey, do you mind if I take some photos of your bar?"

He responded with a blank stare. I quickly followed with "I do cartoons" (mimes drawing). "I need to know how a bar looks".

He gave me the OK. I got my change and stumbled into the room with the bar. About 6 of the restaurant's staff sat at a table, looking at me as I took random photos of their bar. They eventually concluded that I was harmless, but I could feel their eyes burning the back of my head. I am shy to the point of social phobia, and I was very uncomfortable taking those pictures. I also felt like I was taking advantage of them somehow. Like I was using them to get photos for my stupid little cartoon. 

Hell, I'll get over it.

PADDED ROOM PICS: For the line "You might think I'm crazy or messed up in the head", I always imagined Bubba in a padded cell. I wanted to use all original photography in this animation, and I couldn't get access to a real padded room without having myself committed. So I had to make a miniature cell out of foam, canvases, and thumbtacks. I believe the results are adequate.

Home-made miniature padded rooms only take about 15 minutes to assemble.

GORE PICS (Which were removed from the animation): Somewhere along the line, I decided that I had to have a werewolf in the cartoon. The decision was just as simple as that. This animation absolutely needed a werewolf, so I went about creating the art for the wolf. I envisioned a scene where Bubba was driving his truck, and the werewolf jumps on the truck, hops into the truck's bed, rips off the roof and throws it - all while the vehicle was moving. As this happened, Bubba would swerve the truck all over the road as the wolf's arms came down on him through the roof, slashing and tearing at the upholstery.

That sounded too hard. So, I decided to just have the wolf chase Bubba down and tackle him instead. The last frame of the cartoon was supposed to be the wolf tearing Bubba's intestines out with his teeth. I also wanted to have the wolf slash Bubba's stomach open with his claws. Since I can't draw realistic blood using Flash, I took actual pictures of fake gore. 

I had to find chicken gizzards, food dye, and corn syrup. And a steak.

First, you mix the food dye with the corn syrup.

I actually got this recipe for fake blood from Bruce Campbell's autobiography, which in turn was borrowed from an old issue of Fangoria. The ingredient I forgot to add was non-dairy creamer (for opacity).

I had some fat free creamer. It didn't dissolve very well, so I had to put the entire mixture into the microwave.

Then I added gizzards. Dinner is served.

I tried a few animation scenes with the gore. I just couldn't seem to get it to sync up right. For one thing, I wanted to have the claws really dig into the flesh. That would have taken many more layers than I was willing to use at the time. 

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If you want to see what the gore scene looked like, click PLAY for a preview.

It just looked like I was putting in random pictures of meat, blood, and gore into the animation, so I cut all of the gore scenes out. In the final animation, the wolf simply chases Bubba through the woods, and Bubba can't open his truck because the door is locked.

So now this particular animation has been on the site since February 2005, and I'm almost satisfied with it. There's only a few things I would change. As for this article, I may come back and add to it and/or edit it someday in the near future. It still doesn't feel quite done.

Hope you dug the cartoon, folks!

-Michael

Related Links:

• "I Like My Women Inbred - Special Edition (Animation)
• "I Like My Women Inbred - Studio Version (Audio Soundtrack)
• "I Like My Women Inbred - Original Version (Animation)