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What: Funny Garbage designs show identity, puppets, sets, and overall production design for the Comedy Central show Crank Yankers.
Where: The first episode of the season premiered on Comedy Central June 2, 2002
When: October 2001 - 2004
How did we do it?
Funny Garbage was asked to design the identity, puppets, sets, and production design for one of the most innovative and daring television shows to launch in recent years, Comedy Central’s Crank Yankers. Executive producers Daniel Kellison, Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Corolla, producers and stars of The Man Show, approached Funny Garbage with the challenge to design appealing, entertaining puppets, sets, and signage that communicated the bawdy and over-the-top urban flavor of the show.
The results were phenomenal: startling felt puppets who come to life and populate engaging, dense sets, show opens, transitions, and animations.
Crank Yankers showcases FG’s highly developed and eccentric animation techniques. Peter Girardi crafted a unique collage-like look for the design of the animation, using photo realistic “textures” intermixed with more traditional drawn elements.
In terms of process, FG animates a weekly show open where some elements, but not all, are changed for each show. A 3-D town, “Yankerville” was created in which the viewer “flies through and over” every week, revealing a new landmark such as “The Children’s Zoo” (in which kids are kept behind bars) or “Spoon-zilla” (a Crank Yankers puppet destroying the town). Surreal elements fly by such as the character Elmer dressed as Tarzan swinging through the air. The opening of the show culminates in an aerial view of the first Crank Yanker’s call featuring the house that is about to be pranked first.
Occasionally, the scripts of the calls will allude to some special effects within the calls themselves. For example, a fire in the hearth or a blowtorch. Or something bigger like a character that dips into a painting and starts swimming around, interacting with the moving drawing. These special effects are left up to Funny Garbage to animate and composite, creating good challenges to our team about how best to accomplish what the writers dream up. Crank Yankers continues to be thrilled with how we meet those challenges.
Why was it successful?
- Based on crank phone calls made by talented comedians, the show’s premise lends itself to entertaining and libertine production design and character development.
- Crank Yankers’ executive Producers Daniel Kellison, Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla give Funny Garbage total creative freedom to develop the look and feel of the show.
- FG’s Todd James and Peter Girardi weave together the production’s comedic recordings with their own daring aesthetics and ideas, fulfilling the show’s goal to make Yankerville into a rich, amusing, multi-dimensional world.
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