Dogpatch Press

Part of the interview series:  artists, animators, and more.

When he was younger, Adam Conover went to anime conventions dressed like a bad guy from Sailor Moon.

Adam writes jokes about internet culture for CollegeHumor.  The comedy website earned high praise this week with 9 Webby award nominations.  He told me that winning those would be way less cool than getting an Ursa Major award.

What more could comedians want, than the highest accolades of Furry fandom next to their Webbys?

Furry Force is up for the award now.  The CollegeHumor animated short series was written by Adam and Brian Murphy.  I think it’s a good-natured laugh riot. If you agree, help them win.  Let them know that we like comedy, and funny people who like us too.

The Ursa Majors deadline is April 15 – Vote Furry Force.

 

CollegeHumor gave me 30 minutes on the phone with him, to help me exclusively reveal some cool news.  Back when the original single short video got millions of views, it led to a Part 2.  Thanks to continuing response, there’s a third on the way.

Furry Force 3 is expected around June.  I can’t wait to see how Adam’s new baby comes out!

Interview. There were some technical difficulties, so part of this relies on notes.  Don’t worry.  Whatever I write, I don’t think I could possibly do anything to embarrass Adam.

(Adam): Thanks for taking time to talk to me.

(Patch):  It’s an honor… your stuff is hilarious.

Thanks for all your support.  It’s very awesome to get attention from the community. That’s not what we anticipated when we made it.

What did you anticipate?

We make a lot of videos about internet culture.  Everybody knows furries are part of that, and we anticipated that people would watch it, but not that the furry community specifically would take such a liking to it.  We’re very happy they did, it was a pleasant surprise.

I think there’s a lot of self aware humor about stuff they do.  You have to know it’s ridiculous and silly sometimes.  So I’m curious, what inspired the idea in the first place?

It was Brian Murphy, my co writer’s idea.  It came from the idea that furries have their fursona self.  It seemed similar to the idea of all the 90’s kids cartoons we grew up with, where people transform into their super powered self.  Then there were all the animal themed cartoons, like the Ninja Turtles.  It seemed like a natural connection.  He got the idea – what would their super power be?  And the villains are just grossed out by how sexy they are.  It made us laugh in the writer’s room.  And I’ve been sort of tangentially involved with furries in general, just seeing them around the internet.

Internet culture is all you need to say… I showed this to some friends, who know I have a hobby, but they’re not part of it… they cracked up.  So was there anybody else on the writing team besides you and Brian?

CollegeHumor puts out a lot of original videos, written by various people – they help each other, but this was just the two of us.

It sounds like so much fun, and I think that really came through in the final product.

When we got the animatic from Smiley Guy studio, we could see the start of it with our writing, but then the animators added so much more.  Leon’s sexy moves, the look on Victor Vivisector’s face, and the design of the characters- that was all the animators.  Their acting and design is just as important to make it funny.  They deserve so much credit.

I’m really excited to see the third one. You picked a really good team.  I’m seeing the fun come through from the animation side as well.  The humor is dealing with stuff that really doesn’t get taken seriously… even when people are joking about it, they’re not joking about it like it’s real people, it’s more like we’re going to mock them and hate them, and just trash them.  

I’m glad the videos seem to be liked by the furry community.  When you think about it, it involves funny animals, kid stuff, sweet people, comedy… it’s just another subculture.  In the 90’s I was into anime, and video games… some of them hung out on the same message boards.  You could see them having their own in jokes, obsessions, and problems with understanding.  You can see that in the reactions furries sometimes get. It gets overblown.  That’s really what the comedy is about… when Victor Vivisector goes, “What the fuck!”  It’s a joke about the people looking at furries.

I talked about taking it seriously- it’s just the fact that you know the in-jokes.  I think people respond to that – “you know what that word means, who these people are?”  A lot of times you’ll see parody or mockery that just completely falls flat.  It’s like the out-of-touch grandpa trying to relate to kids.  

I understand geeky interests.  I remember that TV episode of CSI – I found it embarrassing.  It didn’t seem informed.  Comedy is funnier when it’s specific, and informed.

You do some of the voices, like Victor Vivisector, right? That must be so fun.

Murph (Brian Murphy) does Leon.  I do Victor.  It’s really easy – just having him go uggh!  I also do Hip-Hop.  I think it’s him- not Krunk – we have to look at the character design while doing voices.

I’m really curious, how can the third one get any grosser? How can you top it?

The premise is, Victor Vivisector creates his own evil super team, with a secret twist to their identities.  It delves into a whole new area of furry subculture.  There’s a time travel theme.  It has a grim future, sort of like “X-Men Age of Apocalypse“.  Furry Force sees their worst nightmares come true in the future.  We feel like it would make an awesome TV series, but nobody seems to need one right now.

Too hot for TV, right?  I was wondering, if there was an after-school special, what would that be like?  That could be a hard sell… maybe at midnight?  A cartoon theme song would be awesome.  Every 80’s and 90’s cartoon had a super catchy one.  

Yeah, it would probably upset the FCC. We do have a big hope to do a theme song. Not yet, but if we make more.

Would it have Hip-Hop rapping, like Vanilla Ice from the Ninja Turtles?

Hip-Hop probably has a rap career, but Victor doesn’t approve.  His career has trouble getting started, since he dies in every episode.

Every supervillain has a genesis. How did Victor turn evil, or why does he hate furries so much?  Did his brain get scarred by the internet?

He’s like a Power Rangers villain –  someone who just loves beautiful smog, or whatever.  He probably came from space to conquer earth, but he didn’t know it had furries.  Now he’s disgusted. He forgot about the world and now he just wants to destroy Furry Force.

What if there was a universe crossover?  Who would be in it… like maybe Klingons?

If it had Klingons, they would be like the ones from Comic Con, not from space.  Like, they have fearsome outfits, but they’re not very fearsome inside.  Victor Vivisector just laughs at them.

It would be great to have you guys as guests of honor at a convention.  Maybe a few people would complain about mocking, but I think most people would take it with good humor.  Maybe it would be a little tense, so you would need a bodyguard, like a wolf who walks behind you and bites anyone who tries to give you shit.

I would love to go to a convention.  I used to go to anime cons when I was 13.  One year I went as a bad guy from Sailor Moon.  I don’t think it’s a place where strangers would cause problems.  It’s loving satire.  I think humor helps understanding.  A funny thing about furries, is what they’re into is so specific.  Pregnant cow furries, or whatever…

Do you have any fun behind the scenes trivia, or story about making this, or pitching it?  How did the company take this?

There was a conversation about the first episode.  We wondered if it was too gross to release.  Finally we said, OK, we’ll see… the response is the reason we made more than one.

I hope you get the Ursa Major award!

Watch for more – there may be a followup with some exclusive peeks soon.