Parody
Parody Idea
Around 1998 South Park came onto the air. I was an instant fan of the show and the parody concept. I loved the use of colorful paper collage, cheap animation, peppered with intelligent humor, and liberal views. I bought their T-shirts, saw the movie three times, and up until the 2000 Oscars thoroughly enjoyed the show.
I must also note that I have been a diehard Phil Collins fan. I have every album, every bootleg created, and numerous recordings of him on video. I was and, (to a certain degree) am still a fanatic. At this venture in my life, Phil Collins represented to me the average individual who enjoyed what he did but constantly got made fun of for being who he was. We were kindred spirits. I continuously endured numerous taunts and ridicule from individuals from high school and throughout college and beyond. I found myself defending my musical tastes in a time in my life where I was obsessed with what everyone thought of my nascent talent and I took my music quite seriously--almost too serious.
The highlight of this period of my life was when Phil was asked to do the soundtrack for Disney's Tarzan. The movie and its soundtrack was the pinnacle of my redemption for my tastes amongst my friends, co-workers, and the world. My life was built around Phil's persona and I related to him just a little too much--but hey, I was a fan and there are far worse things to be interested in.
That was until Phil Collins won the Oscar for Best Song, beating out Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the South Park Movie. I knew Phil would soon be a target for Trey and Matt's parodying humor. This caused me much turmoil. Now the battle I had endured during my youth not only resurfaced but took on a global audience. No more than four weeks passed before South Park debuted a new episode where they completely bastardized Phil Collins, taking every cheap pot-shot they could to make fun of him.
Compared to today, where I am a bit more relaxed, more confident, and possessive of a "don't give a damn" attitude, this "attack" on a personal hero was like a massive punch to the gut, if not including a swift kick to the balls.
I thoroughly enjoyed South Park, but I adored Phil Collins, and I lost all respect for the show. I promptly took down all my posters, burned my mouse pad, and threw everything but the sticky foam book out.
I was frustrated but felt I had no recourse. I posted to message boards. I faxed Comedy Central, and I did everything I could to get noticed to proclaim that "Phil Collins deserved that award!" I perhaps took Phil's slight too personally; however, by attacking Phil Collins they had attacked me and everything I stood for.
A positive side effect of all my frustration was it allotted me much creativity. In between jobs and having a lot of free time on my hands, I was playing around with FLASH animation.
Then came my moment of pure imagination.
Why not create a parody of Transformers in the same cartoon style as South Park.
Suddenly I had a new idea for my Zapbots. Instead of trying to be serious (of which numerous friends of mine shrugged off that idea as 'being done before') why not make it comical.
It took a week of numerous nights late at the keyboard before I structured a pretty decent Flash Animation featuring my Zapbots going to save Phil Collins. The animations were crude, there was no sound except for music and sound effects, and the plot was as bad as South Park could be. But it was fun, I was creating art and it gave me a chance to sharpen my experience of FLASH, which helped me in numerous jobs going forward.
I posted the animation to newgrounds.com and various Transformers fan boards. The reaction was almost instantaneous. Individuals from around the globe, some as far as New Zealand either loved or hated my little animation. In a very short time, the Zapbots had become somewhat famous on the Internet.
The moment of glory finally came when Phil Collins had a very successful Farewell Tour visiting Columbus, where I got the opportunity to get his attention during the show with my personally designed SouthPark shirt which had him bashing Cartman over the head with his Oscar. There’s a whole story to that night which you can read here.
My fifteen minutes of fame faded but I found rebirth in creating a Transformers Podcast (TFormers.com) and numerous fans of the show remember my Zapbots animation. Since then I have started watching South Park again. I ponder if I had more time, more energy, and maybe some voice actors I could have possibly had the next Homestar Runner. Alas, I let the idea die down again, and once again my Zapbots were put into the confines of my computer drive for a while.
