You've changed my mind! I now hate it even more!

Same!

The deliberately cliched "sitcom bullshit" dialog/applause/"awwww"s/"booo!" breaks: THAT'S ALL THE CHIP MENTALITY TO THE NTH DEGREE.

Chip isn't funny in a world jumping through hoops to be like Chip. Chip is funny in reality where he's the only one believing his lies while everyone else cringes.

Yes exactly, the greatness of Chip is real people reacting naturally to his awful, horrible anti-humour.

No, it's ham-handed, cheaply-made (I'm sure the studio is ripping him off and he's panicking now), and he made a HUGE mistake by deciding to including "friends" in the mix. Anyway, you can't script Chip...it just doesn't work.

Again, all the ham-handedness, the cheapness, etc. it's wait for it .... all part of the bit.

I work in animation. The issue with this "show" is not that it doesn't have potential, but that it has issues you often see with first time writers or directors. The structure isnt there. Nothing connects. Nothing really moves from one line to the other or scenario to the other. Granted its a quick and dirty way to introduce the characters and I'll give it credit for doing that but the viewer gets an uneven sense of timing which is odd since Jim is a comic. Thats not an insult. Jim is clearly a talented and funny comic but writing a screenplay for animation is very hard and certainly different than writing a stand up act. I see potential here. I truly do but Jim is making one of the most basic mistakes here that first time writers/animators do... they get wrapped up with the "look at this gag" now "look at this gag"... now "look at this gag" structure rather than write a scene. I dont feel like this is a good introduction to the characters, and I already know the characters since I'm a fan. This is a writing problem. Now of course I understand that time and production budget probably limited the choices they made when it came to making this demo but I feel it could have been done much better.

I see potential here but its hard to judge it on this demo since most demos you see are just as rough, if not rougher because animation is expensive. My advice would be too in depth to write here, but here's some comments. Lose the laugh track. I get you're trying to go for a John K style animation but jokes need space, and scenes need structure. I feel theres not enough exposition. If I had a say in it, I probably would not have tried to squeeze so many characters into it. Compression is a bitch. I would have focused on Chip, and came up with a way to introduce his personality in a more natural manner. It's funny because I feel the same mistakes Jims making here are similar to the "are you having a laugh" character in Gervais show, Extras. This character is designed to show how bad mugging to the camera is, and I feel thats exactly what chip is doing far too much of with his nostril flare and its also one of the reasons why this doesnt work for me. Bombing a dumb joke is not the best part of chip... its the reaction others have to chip that makes him funny. The problem though, Jim has given himself a very difficult writing task of having to figure out how to take "anti humor" and make it the humor. It seems the beats hes hitting on are flat... because its anti humor. Where you would expect funny, hes giving you Chip lines. This can work but if done too much, i dont think it will. It has to have some cleverness to pull it off correctly because hes asking a lot of the audience to accept an anti humorous character in a comedic leading role.

Anyways I have too much to say about this but theres potential here. I wish Jim luck on the project. I think he has a good set of characters to work with, the trick is learn to write for them and animation. Its not easy. I also wouldnt judge the project so harsh based on this demo but it does need some fixing.

Listen to this guy Jim. For anyone who was curious, John K is the guy who did Ren & Stimpy. A really good read on his animation philosophy can be read here.

Would you happen to have any particularly interesting links or reading materials you could share on animation production?

Hmm.. I'm not sure what aspect of production you're looking for material on but the books I prefer focus on specific areas.

For books, The Illusion of Life (the bible of animation), Anything Richard Williams, Chuck Jones. The visual story by Bruce Block (One of my favorite books. Its brilliant and applies to all aspects of art). There is no one source that i could give that gives a general overall "answer" to the craft but if there was, Its the Illusion of Life. Every animator I know, including myself owns that giant book. It has a ton of history, that takes you through the evolution of the process. Beyond that, traditional filmmaking, acting and writing skills apply. The 5 C's of cinematography is a decent book. Sanford Meisner on Acting is a phenomenal book which I personally love. Acting is a huge part of writing so learning how to use final draft wont make you a good writer unless you have some ability to act or write in character. You're not a character animator if you can not act. Acting skills will make you better at everything, direction, writing, animating. Have a good overall sense of the process of filmmaking. I find that the more you understand about the entire process, direction, cinematography, editing, acting, animating, and writing, the better you will be at any one of those areas (if that makes sense) because they interface into each other. Art, be it film, drawing, sculpting, is a form of communication, the more you understand the language of your medium, the better you can say it. If you're interested in the animation/illustration/sculpting side of things, Glenn Vilppu is brilliant. Not only will he teach you anatomy and illustration, but how to rethink what art is, understand it, and communicate it. The Force Drawing books are great. These are all good sources of information, that many of the people I know at various places including Disney, ILM, Pixar, have read, studied. I think the best advice is to study film, shot by shot. Try to understand why it was made the way it was. Look at great film... Look at bad films... there is a lot to learn just by connecting the dots yourself. Anyways hope that helps some.

It was a failure in multiple ways. Best thing for Worm is to come out and say it was a half-hearted joke, give people their $ back, and hope it's forgotten in a couple of weeks.

I feel bad.....because I want jimmy to make something good. I just thought it was not good or funny. The animation is fine for what it is, but I think making a cool and funny cartoon is really difficult, and for someone to write their first cartoon and it be good you would have to love cartoons. For someone who doesn't love animation to make a good cartoon on their first attempt is unlikely.

The sitcom bullshit was one of the worst parts about it.

Man .... You're just not getting it.

I get it. But jim doesn't understand cartoons or sitcom writing.

I completely got it and it still wasn't funny. Actually even more embarrassing.

This is too sarcastic. You've circumnavigated the globe and are back at plausible stupidity.

Thanks for the support man

You're welcome, Yimmy.

Don't try to sell shit in a candy wrapper. #Really_Big_DummyQuotes

I think its good, the animation style can be tweaked. Remember the first season of the Simpsons?

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Man .... You're just not getting it.