Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: funny

National Hugging Day, #tonytigergate, #FC2016, cool furs and hot news. NEWSDUMP (2/3/16)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com

Site goes down with high traffic for #tonytigergate – and the hits keep coming.

The Twitter joke of #tonytigergate drew enough mainstream curiosity to overload this site. (An upgrade may hopefully prevent that next time.)  After the story about it was posted here, it kept getting mainstream traction – highlighting a cheeky dichotomy. On one hand, there’s reputation concern – on the other hand, tickling an audience is kind of validating. It’s two sides to the coin of furry subculture and I don’t think that will ever change.

It reminded Fred Patten of something else:

Dear Patch; I vaguely remember that during all the news and publicity in 1987 for  Who Framed Roger Rabbit, there was a report that Charles Fleischer, the voice actor for Roger, got many NSFW erotic invitations from women, addressed specifically to Roger, not to him.

For National Hugging Day, the new episode of Culturally F’d is based on a Dogpatch Press article.

National Hugging Day is every January 21 for normal people.  (It’s every day for furries.)  I propose making a special occasion of it next year. And it was like a big fuzzy hug to get surprised with an entire video based on my article – “Hugs are the handshake of furries.” Wow thanks Arrkay and crew, nice to see you used it!  Anyone can freely use any content on this site that way.

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After #tonytigergate, companies go Pro Furry and the Daily Show gets involved.

by Patch O'Furr

brand

The Year of Furry keeps bringing unexpected surprises.  Shortly before 2016’s furry fever explodes with Zootopia, here’s the satirical scandal of #tonytigergate.

Get ready to hack up a hairball about this, if you want furry fandom to get taken seriously without a speck of sexy humor about make-believe mascots.  (Or if you’re prudish and think cartoon kink is worse than ISIS.)  Stuff like this must have Disney’s defensive shields on maximum.

It started with furry flirting at Tony the Tiger’s Twitter account.  In November 2015, news media noticed that he was a long time Furry crush.  The buff, yiffable mascot for Frosted Flakes couldn’t tweet without pleas for his sweet tigermanmilk.  I shared all the news stories I could find about it:

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The Great Fursplosion of 2016 is getting near. NEWSDUMP (11/10/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com

unnamedNPR interviews Tempe O’Kun, furry favorite author (again.)

Hear the interview on the radio site. Talk to Tempe on his FA post about it.

About a year ago, NPR station Prairie Public’s “Main Street” show interviewed Tempe about cuddly Furry romance writing.  Lucky dog!  It was 23 minutes of super respectful attention.  My notice about it brought Tempe here, to share an exclusive peek at his novel Windfall and work for the Nordguard card game. Thanks Tempe, and keep it coming.

A Zootopia animator “publicly and positively acknowledged furries.” (Tip: Crossaffliction on Flayrah.)

The tweet is taken down.  VERY CURIOUS.  I wonder if Disney is controlling marketing strategy for something they want strictly behind the scenes, to tease but not come right out about it.   This subculture is tiny, but buzz can be mighty.

I sent an interview request to the animator, and told him: “You may be aware that we’re all going NUTS about this movie. Some active areas already have meets organized to wear costumes out to the theater (and I think that’s going to happen everywhere.)”

Some furries have always known that Tony the Tiger is a stud.  Trashy news blogs discovered our crush and went nuts. (They’re late to the party.)

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Furry Force 3 is out, and I can’t stop larfing! Interview with the animators.

by Patch O'Furr

Furry Force part 3Furry Superheroes Are the Grossestis the new animated comedy short from CollegeHumor.  It did confusing things to my body.  I didn’t know whether to laugh or barf.  Let’s call it larfing.  If you’ve ever been hangry, you get what I’m trying to say.  Or if you’ve ever sharted… never mind, because that’s gross.  If you don’t like gross, don’t watch this.  Run away.  Furry Force 3 pushes the silly, teasing grossness of the first two shorts way past sick and twisted.  It might go too far for most of us.  But for some asstronauts at the outer limits of taste, that’s exactly where they wanted to go.

They went this far because the Furry Force series won unexpected demand.  The response surprised even the creators, who had no idea they would get appreciation by satirizing furries.  (Read my interview with writer Adam Conover and what he says about it.They even won the highest Furry award, the Ursa Major!  CollegeHumor laughed with furries while laughing at them, by campaigning to win the Ursa Major.  This new episode comes fresh after being voted Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short of 2014.

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Interview in Splitsider, and CollegeHumor’s message. Last day to vote for the Ursa Majors!

by Patch O'Furr

splitsider-logoLast week I interviewed Furry Force writer Adam Conover.  The story was covered by Sydney Parker, writing for comedy industry magazine Splitsider. They interviewed me – but I didn’t tell them to call me a “popular furry blogger!”  (Is that like being a cool trekkie gardener – an amazing ren-fair knitter – or a fabulous metalhead stamp-collector?)

How the Furry Community Embraced CollegeHumor’s Furry-Lampooning ‘Furry Force’.

 

CollegeHumor followed up with a message:  “Thanks so much for your support and for the great post/interview with Adam!”  They shared a video to encourage you to vote for Furry Force to get an Ursa Major:

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Exclusive: CollegeHumor is doing Furry Force 3! Writer Adam Conover talks about it.

by Patch O'Furr

FurryForce_7-logoPart of the interview series:  artists, animators, and more.

How Adam felt about the Ursa nomination.

How Adam felt about the Ursa nomination.

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!

oPkWNuv

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“Alpha Chow:” Adult Swim’s furry parody infomercial, and comments from the fursuit actor.

by Patch O'Furr

Arrow is the furry star of this!  I got in touch with him for some casual questions:

“How did the video come about? Did you answer a casting call or did they contact you? Didn’t the suit already exist… do you think they specifically wrote it to fit you? Did you talk about the story to the writer? What was the production like, and where? How many takes did you do for the demonic voice?”

He answered with a blog post about the video:

Arrow Discusses: The Adult Swim Experience.

…a writer from a company that films shorts for Adult Swim contacted me because he wrote a script involving a buff mascot costume. He apparently found me from a fursuit parade video. After reading the script, I agreed, and flew down for a day-shoot. It was an amazing experience – I was treated as “talent” as much as any of the other actors in the short, and everyone was friendly and fun.

Then Arrow added answers to my questions that weren’t already on the blog:

  • “The script he wrote called for a muscular dog costume. They figured instead of making their own they’d hire someone who already had one. He told me they emailed a few other furries too.
  • The production space they rented, hilariously, is Lance Ikegawa’s studio in LA.
  • When it was time to shoot the scene they didn’t know if I was going to voice it, so I jumped in and said I could do a pseudo-demonic voice and showed it to them. They did two takes. Obviously it was further edited in post. I did more takes of the head reveal, which was the most “acting” I did – I had to hold my own fursuit head in front of my face to cover my head entirely, then act like I was trying to pull the head off. That took about 5-10 takes.
  • The eyes are digital because I refused to wear contacts cause I can’t get them in my eyes – if I could wear contacts, I wouldn’t have gotten LASIK!”

Find Arrow on Twitter: @arrowt.

Hazmat Party Foul, $3 Million Fursuit, Parades, Hugs, Tickling… Newsdump (12/8/14)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Story tips are always welcome.

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In the Media

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Midwest Fur Fest evacuated by chemical spill. Fursuiters: stick to good old fashioned rug cleaner! 

Initial report: Chemical leak prompts evacuation during Midwest FurFest at Rosemont Hyatt.

Several people could be seen in animal costumes waiting outside of the hotel. Ambulances from area suburbs were on scene helping transport people.

More: Glass Jar with White Substance, Strong Chlorine Smell Causes Firefighter, EMS Hazmat Response, EvacuationMan, that’s a hell of a party foul.


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Photogenic furries on the radio – Dirty cats in “safe sex” animated PSA – Newsdump (11/24/14)

by Patch O'Furr

News from: North Dakota, Britain, Australia, Austria, Buffalo and San Francisco.

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Story tips are always welcome.

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In the Media

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Prairie Public radio interviews Furry author, Tempe O’Kun.

tempo321NPR broadcaster Prairie Public’s “Main Street” covers North Dakota news, arts, movies and books.  They invited Tempe O’kun for an in-depth conversation.  Hear the Furry author’s 23 minute talk on Main Street.

Tempe is granted a welcome level of respect.  He’s introduced as an author first, college teacher and person, and then one of those Furries.  The well-researched questions don’t bat an eye at the mix of “cuddly, steamy furry romance” presented in his popular SoFurry collection, or judge the hot fan-fic and porn at his FurAffinity page.  Good.  It skips non-issues to introduce the genre of furry (like expectations of character type: sly foxes, etc.) – and writing style chat that authors will want to hear.

Tom Broadbent’s “At Home With The Furries” photo doc update:  Bhavvels Bunny.

In Five pro photographers advancing the art of furry documentary, I named “whimsy” as Tom’s signature approach.  The carefully chosen fantasy scenes he presents show great storyelling.  Tom’s blog updates never fail to impress – this week’s subject is Bhavvels.  It explains Tom’s approach- “The setup:”

…should reflect the personality of the furry, but equally the personality of the person inside the suit. The two are interconnected in a very unique way, unlike in fact than any other form of cosplay I am aware of ( I’m prepared to be proven wrong of course)

It is in fact a collaboration, a trust between me and the furry.  That relationship and theimportance of maintaining that bond may go some way to explain how protective I am of the project and the furries themselves.

At Home With The Furries Read the rest of this entry »

Fangcon’s Draconis in hospital, Claw & Quill, Watership Down – furry Newsdump (11/18/14)

by Patch O'Furr

Here’s links, headlines and little bites of news to make your tail wag.  Story tips are always welcome.

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Around Furry Fandom

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Fangcon’s Draconis / Calamity Cougar recovering from heart attack suffered shortly after the con.

Shortly before Fangcon, Draconis submitted a tip for my article about it.  It was a shock to hear bad news in short order.  I’m happy to see his positive video response about recovering, performing like a pro and furry all the way.

Claw and Quill: regrouping.

Watts (Chipotle’s) online publication attracted much anticipation from readers seeking smart furry magazine content, but it hasn’t put much material out.  The “long-overdue” second magazine issue has been conspicuously absent.  Now comes good news – a recent update from Watts explains a change from webzine format to WordPress, allowing multiple contributors to add content.  (I’d sure love to see more than the handful of blogs like this.)

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