It's been way too long since I posted one of these, and I don't have nearly as many articles to share as I normally do. I was so busy with my job and my internship last year, that I probably didn't even get half as much written for the Rotoscopers as I usually do.
Since I didn't have as many articles as normal, I elected not to do first half/second half of the year posts like I have been doing, and just do one update for 2019. And I actually meant to share this at the end of last year, but I guess I was so busy I forgot. I just found it in my drafts and figured I'd better get it up.
So anyway, these are all the articles I did last year for the Rotoscopers! I am closing in on the end of my internship though, so hopefully I'll have more to share next time.
Interview with Leslie Iwerks, director of The Imagineering Story
(Includes a link to the interview as a bonus episode of my podcast!)
Frozember - 'Let it Go' 10 Different Ways
In honor of the release of Frozen 2, the Rotowriters contributed to a series of articles celebrating Frozen. This was my contribution.
Obligatory disclaimer, none of this is supposed to make sense. These are all real quotes, from real conversations I had, heard, or overheard. These all made sense in context, but I thought they were funnier without.
Full disclosure: The majority of these are from me and my cousins. We say weird things sometimes. Okay, lots of times.
Also, I decided to change up the way I title these posts. Since they obviously do not happen every month, instead of putting the month in the title, I'm going to use one of my favorite phrases from the post to differentiate between entries.
"Oh man! That's a good puff!"
"I had a caramel once, made by cloistered nuns. It was very soft."
"Murder the rainbow donkey!"
"Father Time will snack on the bluebirds."
"I wonder what would happen if you put a kidney stone in a rock tumbler."
"It smells so good! Like Scotch tape!"
"I need to make you some felt sardines."
"I wanted to experience every textile with my mouth."
"I know of your lust for bagels."
"Do you have meat breath?"
"Do you have linty loins?"
"I'm going to dress you up in little clothes, and make you really mad."
"Now he gets a weird lump beverage."
"I was a baby of substance."
"It sounds like it's raining Beanie Baby guts."
"Look at my haunted pickle slice!"
"She's currently attacking the tablecloth."
"I made a cloudy bat thing!"
"Someday I may rub chickpea flour into my hair, but I don't know if I want to commit to that right now."
Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse. Last week I did That Post about the "Stunt" that Planters pulled, killing Mr. Peanut for social media clout. Well, it got dumber. After suspending the rest of the campaign, they finished(?) off the saga(?) of Mr. Peanut's death, by having him reincarnated by the magical tears of the Kool-Aid Man. I WISH I were making this insanity up. Here's the original commercial in it's full inanity.
And just like with the whole death thing, it is PAINFULLY obvious that the only reason they are doing this new dumb thing is to get people tweeting about it. They are even cringily making their own memes about it, they had baby nut merch ready to go the second the ad launched, and they're sharing everything that anyone posts about the brand new baby nut. Everything positive that is. There's a lot more negative feedback with this one than the death one for some reason. A lot of tweets with gifs of peanuts being smashed.
So, anyway, now that they've brought Mr. Peanut back to life in the weirdest way possible, why don't I do the same thing? I'm going to walk back all the deaths of all the brand mascot I killed off in my last post, (or at least most of them) in the dumbest, and weirdest ways possible.
~~~~
Cap'n Crunch returns as a hot mer-man.
The Kool-Aid Man becomes a sentient puddle of delicious redness.
The Flintstones evolve into the Jetsons.
Chester Cheetah's widow has kittens, one of whom takes up his cheese-dusted mantle.
The Burger King's head was salvaged and he was turned into a cyborg, just like that guy in Alita: Battle Angel. Now he's the Cyborg-er King. Wow, I hate myself for that one. The pun police will be coming for me any moment now, and I deserve whatever heinous punishment they have in store for me.
Tony the Tiger was saved by a medically induced coma, and now he works as the spokes-tiger for a steroid abuse awareness charity.
Chuck-E-Cheese was actually put into witness protection, after he learned about his now ex-wife's nefarious plans.
Ronald McDonald is now a ghost, and he shills cheeseburgers while haunting random McDonalds locations.
The Vlasic Stork uses Lysol in a genius bit of cross-promotional brand marketing, and does not actually succumb to the coronavirus.
Wendy does actually die a hero, but her memory will live on and inspire future generations of fast-food workers to sacrifice themselves for their co-workers.
Toucan Sam still gets diabetes, but now the leg amputation was successful, and goes on to live a mostly normal life. His nephews take over the family Loop business.
Aunt Jemima is now an angel, coming down to earth to help humanity. So is the Quaker Oats guy, but he's actually the Angel of Death now.
The Pillsbury Doughboy just kneads himself back together. Gunshot wounds won't hurt him, he's a sentient blob of dough.
Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and The Fruit Brute are all just resuscitated by whoever made Frankenberry in the first place. They're monsters, death was obviously no big deal.
The Boo-Berry Ghost is still already dead. As is the Yummy Mummy. No need for any further course correction on their campaigns.
Grimace is tried for murder, and executed via electric chair. But they didn't have the voltage set high enough, and then at the last second the judge bursts into the room saying that they have new evidence in the case, and his sentence is suspended until further notice.
The Honey Nut Cheerios Bee, the bee from Bumblebee Tuna, Sue Bee, and the Jollibee Bee, still all die together in another case of colony collapse disorder, but their DNA is harvested and used to make new clones to help sell their products! The new clones are given all the memories of the original bees, up to the week before their deaths. They have no idea that they are clones, and are functionally identical to the originals.
Mr. Clean is only hospitalized for a sudden, unexpected brain aneurysm. He is expected to make a full recovery.
The Nesquik Bunny, the Trix Rabbit, and the Cadbury Bunny all invested in bullet proof vests, before infiltrating my brother's yard. After witnessing first hand how serious he is about keeping rabbits out of his yard, they decide to respect his wishes and instead decide to buy their produce at Whole Foods from now on.
The Coco Puffs Cuckoo still OD's but his death was actually a hallucination brought on by the Puffs. When he comes to, he vows to give up the chocolatey cereal, and instead takes a job as the mascot for Grape Nuts. His new slogan is "I'm just nuts, for Grape Nuts!"
The Honeycomb Crazy Craving is only tranquilized by animal control after being mistaken for a rabid opossum. They relocate him to an animal sanctuary, where he is adopted by the Philadelphia Flyers and grows up to become Gritty.
The Kellogg's Corn Flakes rooster didn't die. He just faked his own death so he could retire to Oahu.
Colonel Sanders is actually recruited by the Yakuza. His assassination was part of his initiation. To the rest of the world, he is dead, but to those of us in the know, he is very much alive, and very much to be feared.
Captain Morgan still dies of liver failure. Sorry, but that alcoholic pirate doesn't deserve a happy ending.
The Duracell Bunny really is found unresponsive in an alley after a legal dispute with the Energizer Bunny, but it turns out he was just napping! The timing with the legal dispute was just a weird coincidence.
The Energizer Bunny keeps going and going, until one day, he just keeps going some more!
Geoffrey the giraffe uses his dinner plate sized hooves to grape stomp those lions, just like a real giraffe.
The Hardee's Star and his twin brother from Carl's Jr. survive Trump's missiles, and once the misunderstanding is cleared up, they are hired as the new faces of the Space Force! They decide to take the high road, and forgive everyone involved. For now...
The Pringles man's identical twin dies in his sleep, not the Pringles Man!
Snap, Crackle, and Pop, the Keebler Elves, and Lucky the Leprechaun are all saved by a time traveling sprite named Elvina Twinkle Wings! She teaches all the tiny elven races that they have more in common with each other than they realize, and they all join hands and sing John Lenon's Imagine, instead of fighting each other to the death.
The Green Giant chokes on a carrot and is too big for anyone to successfully perform the Heimlich Maneuver. So someone drove a semi into his gut instead. It totally worked.
The Skinny Cow and the Laughing Cow help each other realize how for downhill they've gone, and they both mutually agree to enter therapy before it's too late.
The Charmin Bears are in a plane crash... >Groan< I really want this one to stick, because I am so sick of these annoying toilet paper bears, but it would go against the point of the post, so I will try to think of something. Check back after I kill Joe the Camel.
That frog and the monkey from those cereals that no one ever buys, are indeed involved in a freak accident at Worlds of Fun, but their roller coaster derails and crashes into a nearby pool instead. They survive and Worlds of Fun is forced to update all their rides, adding much needed safety features. But no one still buys those cereals, and I think the monkey retired.
The Pine-Sol lady passes out from a carbon monoxide leak, but is saved at the last second by her dog, who had been trained to call 911!
All the M&Ms are reincarnated as mini M&Ms, and they now have a kids' show on Nick Jr.
The Geico tragedies were all actually just predictions from when the Geico Gecko visited a very real and not at all fake fortune teller. The gecko alerts his bosses who decide that it's finally time to cancel all their terribly dumb ad campaigns, so the Gecko, the cavemen, and Pinocchio, all move to Florida, where they now live in a retirement community.
The California Raisins fall into a geyser in Yellowstone National Park. But they emerge good as new and are now touring the world once more as the California Grapes!
Miss Chiquita, the Clabber Girl, the Swiss Miss, and the Sun Maid go on a girls retreat and their boat disappears in the Bermuda Triangle. Turns out, the were abducted by aliens! But the good kind! They all go on a cross-galaxy girls retreat instead!
Joe Camel dies. He was a heavy smoker his entire life, of course he's dead.
Okay, here's the obnoxious toilet bears. If I HAVE to save them... Yes they were in a plane crash, but instead of dying, they wash ashore on a deserted island. But they're stuck there, and no one has to hear their annoying toilet tissue tripe ever again.
The Starbucks Mermaid is caught by Japanese seafood poachers. But she fights back, takes out all her captors, and escapes. She amasses an army of her people who now patrol Japan's waters, taking care of any and all poachers who dare come back.
The Monopoly Man is seemingly murdered by the proletariat, but it turns out it was just an effigy they were burning. He's still alive and well in his mansion.
Twinkie the Kid befriends a cougar while camping in Oregon. No mauling happens whatsoever.
Little Debbie is arrested for money laundering but does her time, and is released three years early for good behavior.
So is the Hamburgler.
Smokey Bear is just fine.
Little Caesar is not assassinated.
The Coke Bears only consume the beverage Coke.
I did not eat The Aflac Duck.
Betty Crocker just went on a hike.
~~~
Okay, at this point I'm phoning this in. I actually can't believe I got this far. It was a lot more fun to kill these characters off instead of saving them. I still want to finish though, so I'm going to try to do the rest of these in one go.
The Sprint Guy, The Serta Sheep, McGruff the Crime Dog, The Godfather, The Travelocity Gnome, The Old Spice Guy, the Michelin Man, Flo from Progressive, and The Most Interesting Man in the World all wake up and discover that they were in the Matrix. Their programs may have ended, but they are now in the "Real" world. Whatever that is. They must now join forces to discover who is behind-
