weebl's cartoons

Below are descriptions of some, but not all of Jonti Picking's cartoons on www.weebls-stuff.com. This does not include Weebl and Bob.

Magical Trevor

The first cartoon begins with a little man wearing a white robe that says "TREV" and a pointed white hat with a star hanging from the tip. His robe seems overly loose as it hangs from his extremities. He has an orange beard styled in such a way that several sections stick out and curl inward. This is apparently Magical Trevor. He stands on a wooden stage next to a cow, before an audience of other cows apathically chewing grass. There is a banner that says "Magical Trevor" above the stage. Behind the stage is blue sky and mountains. Music plays throughout and is the main reason for the cartoon's humor and popularity. The music is entirely keyboard and drum machines. Two or three male voices sing and narrate the story. It is reminiscent of They Might Be Giants. Magical Trevor has the ability to make cows disappear. Then, utilizing a magic leather whip, he can make them reappear. After he does this trick the cow holds a press conference about how Magical Trevor sent him to a parallel dimension that was nothing but a warehouse filled with rows and rows of canned beans. The cartoon continues to loop until one goes to another Web page or closes the Web browser window. At the writing of this article, Magical Trevor has been viewed 3,087,580 times on the official website, and possibly many more on other sites.

Magical Trevor 2

Magical Trevor 2 begins with Trevor traveling through space in a small space ship called "Trev I" to "Planet Pigeon". He arrives at the planet and appears on a stage in a puff of smoke. Using a piece of rope, he draws a large pigeon (who is inside a box with only its head, feet, and tail exposed) which is on to the stage next to him. He then produces a stick from behind him and saws the pigeon in half with it. The pigeon then defecates on the stage, displeasing Trevor. Behind Trevor a curtain is drawn that they are on Aisle 2 of a supermarket. Aisle 2 has nothing but Rag tomato sauce on its shelves. Like its prequel, Magical Trevor 2 has music playing throughout it, and at this point the cartoon returns to the point where Trevor appeared on the stage. The cartoon continues to loop until the viewer goes to another Web page or closes the Web browser window. At the writing of this article, Magical Trevor 2 has been viewed 639,988 times on the official website, and possibly many more on other sites.

Magical Trevor External Links

Badger Badger Badger

Badgers (aka "Badger Badger Badger") is a Macromedia Flash animation by Jonti Picking, the creator of Weebl and Bob, consisting mainly of images of badgers doing calisthenics, a mushroom in front of a tree, and a snake in the desert. The cartoon was released via the B3ta weekly e-mail newsletter on September 5, 2003. It spread wildly as an Internet meme.

Lyrics

The animation has the following lyrics, set to a gabba-style techno music loop written by Jonti

  Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger  Mushroom Mushroom  Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger  Mushroom Mushroom  Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger  Mushroom Mushroom  Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger  Mushroom Mushroom  Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger  Argh! Snake!  Argh! Snake! snake oh it's a snake

(The first snake line is under wide dispute; various interpretations include "Argh! It's a snake", "Argh snake! Argh snake!", and "Panica snake!". Jonti himself says that the line is "Argh snake! Argh snake!") A CD version of "Badger Badger Badger" was published on the album Pure Yak Frenzy by Weebl and Chums (Jonti and Rob Manuel).

Football Badgers

During Euro 2004, Jonti released a special edition called Football Badgers to support the England team. The badgers are seen wearing England shirts and playing football, scoring endless goals against a snake goalkeeper. Instead of "badger badger badger", we hear "footy footy footy", "England England!", "Goal, its a goal, Ooh its a goal! by England England England...", etc. Each time England scores a goal, the animation displays England's score increased by one, essentially showing how many times the animation has looped.

Christmas Badgers

On Christmas Eve, 2004, Jonti released another special edition of Badgers for a Samsung Advent calendar screensaver, for which he made one animation for each of the 24 days before Christmas. "Christmas Badgers" was the animation for December 24. The badgers are dancing while wearing Santa suits; then there are presents under a tree; and then the exclamation "Hallelujah!" appears, followed by a baby Jesus. The lyrics go "Santa Santa Santa", "Presents, presents!", and "Christ! It's a Christ! Ooh, it's a Christ..."

Meme time

During its time as the Internet meme du jour, people recited the lyrics both online and in conversation, the tune sticking in people's heads. People are reputed to have reenacted the actions of the badgers, and a live action version featuring a group of high school students has circulated on the Internet. It is not uncommon for people to assume that the animation promotes drug use, or was created under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, because of its combination of bizarre and apparently unrelated images with references to mushrooms.

Alternative interpretation

Coincidentally, the flash animation could be understood to be a military pun. Badger is the NATO designation for the Tupolev Tu-16, a Cold War-era Soviet strategic bomber. This bomber was also the airplane that would deliver atomic payloads. Hence, one would see the bomber flying in, “badger, badger, badger” and when the bomb was dropped all one would see would be a “mushroom” cloud.

Domain war badgerbadgerbadger.com vs. badgerx3.com

Shortly after the animation was first published, a person known as "Kay0909" created the site badgerbadgerbadger.com and placed a copy of the badgers animation there, without permission from Jonti. Kay used the hosting services of Joako.net, who ultimately owned the domain name. Kay later reached an agreement with Jonti, which permitted Kay to use the animation provided only Google advertisments were shown on the site and he linked back to the original weebls-stuff.com site. Kay registered his own domain, badgerx3.com (hosted at ipaska.com) and made badgerbadgerbadger.com visits automatically redirect to there. Due to a disagreement over advert revenues, Joako locked Kay out of badgerbadgerbadger.com and took over the site. Joako removed the redirection, claimed Kay had "hacked" the site, claimed badgerbadgerbadger.com was the "official" site for the badgers animation and wrote to Kay's new hosting providers, demanding they take down badgerx3.com. Jonti has publicly stated his support for badgerx3.com, due to giving his permission to Kay rather than Joako, and Joako's violation of Jonti's requirements.

Badger Badger Badger External links

Kenya

The movie Kenya starts with a lion with no visible mouth oddly dancing by swinging his arms and changing the feet he is standing on in front of a multi-colored ground. There is a large tree beside him and a mountain behind him. The ground is sparsely covered with grass and there are no clouds in the light blue sky. The words "Only Available in Kenya" flash briefly above the lion. The scene pans to the left to reveal a dancing tiger in the same foreground, who unlike the preceding lion, has whiskers and a mouth but lacks the lion's mane. The tiger is dancing in the same way as the lion and shares a common orange color with him. After a few moments, the scene zooms out, showing both lion and tiger at the same time. "Amazing Offer!!" declares a flashing text above them. "Lions and Tigers available for viewing now!" The text is in all capital letters. The scene quickly switches to a small, red map of Norway stating to the side that Norway's population is crab, that it has no tigers or lions, and that the main export is tree. It declares that Norway should be called Snoreway. A new map replaces it shortly afterward, showing the African continent with certain countries colored in and a protruding Kenya. The 3D Kenya moves up and down with the beat and a red dotted line extending from it shows, according to text at the side, "the line to ensure the best coverage if Kenya were to physically urinate on Norway." It then shows the tiger dancing on a giraffe and the lion, pointed horizontally, sliding down the giraffe's leg by it's mouth. It then shows the lion and tiger dancing in place, both with a knife and fork, dancing over an apperantly dead zebra while the words "Hurry! Only available while stocks last!" flash onto the top. It then shows a multicolored map of Kenya with a few facts about the country beside it and a tiger and two lions dancing on the map. The next scene shows three people leaning out of a bus labeled "Holy crap. Lions! Tours." The toon ends with the words "Kenya Believe it! free snorkel with every visit" on a red background. Like many other of Picking's movies, it a continuous loop. A Christmas themed version, called Only in Lapland, was made with Santa and a snowflake in place of the Lion and the Tiger, and set in Lapland.