Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Tag: comedy

June 14, 2016

The Raccoon’s Den – The First Docudramedy Series in the Furry Fandom.

by Pup Matthias

See The Raccoon’s Den on Youtube. Thanks to Bandit and Pup Matthias for collaborating on this special guest article.  

When I say the word ‘creator’ in the furry fandom, what do you think of?  Mostly likely TRD_2016 Poster (sml)you would think of artist, writers, musicians, animators, game developers, fursuit makers, etc.  One type that doesn’t cross most people’s minds are video creators.  There are examples like EZ Wolf and Duke the Dog with their shorts and music videos, Culturally F’d with their educational videos, and this year has brought us Dominic Rodriguez and Eric Risher with their respected documentaries exploring the fandom. But it’s a relatively small pool compared to the others.

Part of that lies with platform. Most furry sites don’t offer a way for video creators to showcase their work and build a presence like the others. They’re always having to link to YouTube or Vimeo and hope someone will click the link. Furry Network looks to be the only one working on offering video creators a player to support them.  Time will only tell on that front.

(Note from Patch: the medium also brings challenges.  That’s why our ‘Special Features and Top Articles’ just added a section about THE NASCENT FURRY MOVIE SCENE.)

What’s truly sad about this is the way video creators have the best opportunity to explain and showcase what our fandom is.  Capturing the moments of celebration, joy, hardship, misunderstanding, and exploring what makes the furry fandom what it is.

There’s a series for that already. It’s been going on for over seven years, with almost one hundred episodes that explore what the fandom is. That show is The Raccoon’s Den.

Christopher Parque-Johnson, creator of the Raccoon’s Den, is better known as Bandit in the fandom. He was introduced to the fandom from a fan-made forum for the film ‘Over the Hedge’, which inspired him to have a raccoon fursona after the title character of the film.

I got into the furry fandom after seeing “Over the Hedge” in 2006, joined a fan-made forum and a friend on there made an RP account for RJ the Raccoon on MySpace (back when people used it). I joined the fandom on July 20th and up until 2009, I was just another person on the internet who liked being part of the community. I felt welcomed and accepted for being myself here and that was something I wasn’t able to feel outside of it.

Read the rest of this entry »

3 comments
July 21, 2015

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

by Patch O'Furr

Furry Force part 3: “Furry Superheroes Are the Grossest” is 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.

Read the rest of this entry »

4 comments
July 8, 2015

The Stray Lamb, by Thorne Smith – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

The Stray Lamb, by Thorne Smith.
NYC, Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, November 1929, hardcover $2.00 (vi + 303 pages).

stray lamb 1stYarst! I referred in a recent comment here (June 15) to “Thorne Smith-ian comedy magical mayhem”, and I was asked, “Who’s Thorne Smith?” (“You don’t know how old you just made me feel …”)

Thorne Smith (1892-1934) was the author of several mega-popular humorous fantasies during the late 1920s and early ‘30s. Most of them involved statues of Greek gods coming to life in modern NYC (The Night Life of the Gods), or their characters getting drunk and mixed up with magic. Many became comedy movies, such as the 1940 Hal Roach Turnabout with John Hubbard and Carole Landis as a husband-&-wife whose minds switch bodies, and the three 1930s Topper movies about Cosmo Topper, a stuffy banker who is plagued by usually-drunken husband-&-wife ghosts who are determined to make him enjoy life, whether Topper wants to or not. A young Cary Grant played the husband ghost in the first movie. Topper was cleaned up for one of the first TV sitcoms in 1953. (The drinking was given to a ghostly St. Bernard dog.)

Smith’s one anthro classic was The Stray Lamb. This bawdy fantasy was published in November 1929, probably less than a month after the “Black Thursday” stock market crash that set off the Great Depression. This makes The Stray Lamb the only anthropomorphic novel written during and set in the Roaring Twenties, the era of wild Prohibition parties, of sheiks and flappers and bootleggers and bathtub gin. How would anthropomorphized animals fit into this? Very comedically, as Smith tells it.

Lawrence Lamb, a forty-year-old investment banker, is bored with life. It has become a monotonous routine of daily commutes from his large mansion in the NYC suburbs to Wall Street to make more money, then back at the end of the day to spend the evening getting mildly drunk alone in his study. He and his wife have grown to despise each other. She has social pretensions (she likes to be called Sapho), which she indulges by encouraging her artistic hangers-on to attend literary soirees at their home, financed by his money while ridiculing him for making it:

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment
June 15, 2015

If there was a Museum of Furry, theatrical “Panto-Animals” would be a major exhibit.

by Patch O'Furr

IN THIS ARTICLE: Don’t miss the story of Charles Lauri, a famed “animal impersonator” who thrilled the stages of Victorian London, but is little known today. The story of his acting skill, uncovered from an 1893 magazine, could be an inspiration for fursuiters everywhere.

15038897804_834fc833e6_oMany people are familiar with a unique team costume for Halloween – the Pantomime horse, that takes two people to play it.  Like a tandem bike, it makes an interesting buddy situation.  This jogs a vague memory from when I was very young, of a 1960’s Flintstones cartoon with Fred and Barney in such a costume.  It may have been a dinosaur, or a false memory, but the silly situation must have happened in old comedies to the point of cliche. TVtropes has it under Animal Anthropomorphism tropes.

If you (like me) had no idea what Pantomime meant until just now, let’s start to learn.  The old-fashioned costuming seems like a traditional kind of activity, more social than commercial.  I had an impression of something belonging to the age of door-to-door Christmas caroling, that may be fading away.

Or is it?  In 2013, a Panto Horse race broke a Guinness World Record for most runners (42 teams.)  And, since this is a Furry blog, you know I’m connecting this topic to you and your thriving subculture.  (Imagine that race happening at a con! It would be an easy record to break.)  I’m happy to learn that such fun exists… check out The London Pantomime Horse Race:  a “fantastically silly”, “must-see event.”

This isn’t about Halloween, or silly races.  There’s much more to it.  The spark for this article was randomly running across 100-year-old photos of theatrical animal costumes.  They made me do a double-take – did some fursuiter have a time machine!?  They were incredibly well crafted, and made me very curious.  I wondered why they were made so well, and for what purpose?  They were fursuits- many generations before there was such a thing as Furries!  I thought the topic had a lot of potential.

Read the rest of this entry »

6 comments
December 18, 2014

“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.

Leave a comment
November 11, 2014

Furry Night Live – ‘The Greatest Show in Fur’ – at Pacific Anthropomorphics Weekend on 11/15

by Patch O'Furr

This weekend:  Pacific Anthropomorphics Weekend brings a SECOND San Francisco Bay Area convention to San Jose, CA.  

PAW2014

The long-established Further Confusion, occurring every January, is now augmented by PAW, a new event offering more than once a year activity.  It features:  “Photo Shoot, Dealers Area, Gaming and Semi-quiet Social Area, Open Cash Bar During Dances, Fursuit Dance Comp, Fursuit Games… and more!”

Courtesy of Super Jayhawk, from the Bay Area Furries mailing list:

“We’d like to announce that Furry Night Live, “The Greatest Show in Fur”, will be hosting a room party this next Saturday, November 15, at the Pacific Anthropomorphics Weekend Inaugural “Paw-Raiser” Fall Festival! We’ll be there to wish the new con well and will be having a party with a fursuit photoshoot, replays of classic videos from our legacy of all 10 shows since 2005, and throwing around ideas for new projects and videos we’d like to do.

Read the rest of this entry »

2 comments
July 6, 2014

Furry news of the week: Pittsburgh’s official “Anthrocon Day” (7-5-14)

by Patch O'Furr

ANTHROCON’s official holiday, world record, FBI investigation – Wolfgem and Beastcub recover from tragedy – New con: Pac Anthro Weekend – More

Here’s the regular feature of Furry news bites, scoops, and Snausage links. Tips welcome- I’d love to post yours!
______________________________________

– July 5th officially declared “Anthrocon Day” by Pittsburgh’s Mayor!

– WTAE reports: Furries return to Pittsburgh for Anthrocon
Pittsburgh TV on the world’s largest annual Furry convention that brings around 6000 people and $7 million to the city.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment
May 5, 2014

John Waters, Furries and “Plushies”- how valid is the term?

by Patch O'Furr

johnwatersJohn Waters is a great character and his interviews always make me laugh. He has a place in San Francisco. He says his movie Pink Flamingos paid for it. He hangs at a certain dive bar here, and rides a certain bus line. My buddy who lives across from Yoshi’s knows which one. We went there to see him perform This Filthy World. (“His one-man show concerning his origins in the trash genre and his successful career navigating Hollywood.”)

Despite the content of John’s movies, the crowd was quite unfabulously dressed for good taste. My buddy’s Clownface drag outfit stood out like we were at a square dance.

At the end, John took a few questions from the stage. Thanks to the outfit, he couldn’t avoid noticing my hand up. I yelled out to the theater: “When are you going to come hang with the furries?”
Read the rest of this entry »

1 comment
March 7, 2013

Opinion: Indie web series ‘Fursona Files’ looks a little mangy

by Patch O'Furr

Flayrah News, 3/7/2013:

I haven’t seen this shared around until I noticed it on the Bay Area Furries mailing list.

Admit One Productions presents – Fursona… A SNEAK PEEK from Courtney James.

(EDIT: video down, try here.)

According to their website:

What’s your Fursona? Thats [sic] the million dollar question asked in this fast paced black comedy web series about the adventures of Virginia Blake – a successful investigative journalist – who is writing an expose on the FURRY underworld to save her tarnished career!

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment