I am BEGGING you to watch LACKADAISY

Less than a week ago, the pilot for the independent animated project was reluctantly released after many years of production and I mean, wow, what can I say? This is absolutely stunning, an incredible achievement on every level, the entire history of this project is tremendously impressive. It's great to see such a wonderful creative pilot come to life by looking back at the long history of the idea and the journey it took to get to this point is hugely inspiring and appears to have been very well rewarded with over 4 million views. in the first week and hundreds of thousands of new subscribers to Lackadaisy's YouTube channel and I think this really bodes well for the future of independent animation, so in this video I want to go over the entire history of Lackadaisy and what is it took to get to this.

The point and what the future looks like for not only this project but for animation in general created by Tracy Butler began reluctantly as a comic strip released in July 2006, it takes place in St Louis in the 1920s at the height of prohibition and stars a full cast. of anthropomorphic cats, focuses on the happy-go-lucky Speakeasy and Underground nightclub beneath the tiny Daisy Cafe and its struggles to stay in business after its owner Atlas mysteriously dies and ownership falls into the hands of his widow Mitzi May. The comic strip is beautifully illustrated originally. all in the sepia tone which really added to the vintage vibes, however Tracy finally started incorporating more color into the strips and honestly these are just as if not more stunning.

The series was even nominated for an Eisner Award in 2011 and basically submitted. from 2006 until work on this pilot began in 2020 and there are dozens of comic strips in the story, you can see them all beautifully collected at

lackadaisy

.com, a superbly designed website, I might add, Tracy created a wide range of unique characters for fill. Out of this world and the Lackadaisy website even has these amazing little biographies with stunning illustrations, I can't say enough about the presentation of this series. There is Mitzi May, the now owner of Speakeasy Lacio, intent on rebuilding Lackadaisy's former prestige and reputation.

Rickety Rocky, teenage rum runner Lackadaisy, who is also incredibly talented both lyrically and musically, Victor Vasco, an angry giant and long-time worker who cuts muscles for Lackadaisy. Ivy Pepper, Atlas May's enthusiastic and quick-witted goddaughter, who runs the small cash register at the Daisy Cafe and participates in much of Lackadaisy's less legal adventures. Calvin Freckle McMurray's cousin Rocky and young Ward are often led astray by Rocky. Mordecai's former partner Heller Victor became muscle for the Marigold gang after Atlas' death and this is just the tip of the iceberg. I can't say enough about Lackadaisy's roster of characters and how well they do. fill this world, which, by the way, is incredibly well-researched despite being full of anthropomorphic cats, it feels so authentic to the prohibition era, which is a ridiculously fine line to walk through the settings, the style, killing the atmosphere of the comic, it's perfect.

It's no surprise that, after the success of the comic, Butler wanted to try his hand at crowdfunding and the animated short pilot in his Kickstarter campaign video. She talks about how she has always envisioned the potential of indifference as an animated pilot. The characters are so full of movement in my head, I add additional panels to allow for more character acting. I feel like it's really crying out for real animation and with such a fully realized concept it makes so much sense that you'd want to take this to the next level. There are many more aspects of this world and this story that simply cannot be portrayed through a comic strip, the actual movement, the voices, the delivery, the music of the period.

I'm really dying to manifest it and show people the fuller picture of what I want. I see in my head that the kickstarter also revealed that Tracy was collaborating with Fable Siegel to produce and direct. Fable has a ton of animation credits and even worked on the Hotel pilot, so in the animation workflow it was something they had experience with and the kickstarter even announced. some early casting choices Michael Kovach is Rocky belsher barasapius Freckle Lisa reimold as Ivy Ash Wagner is Mitzi and seongwang Cho as Mordecai really an amazing and promising lineup from the start, the kickstarter video ends with a storyboard animation of the sequence opening of the nonchalant pilot as Rocky serenades St Louis with his poetry and playing the violin on an industrial-looking bridge and this Kickstarter campaign was incredibly successful: it reached its total funding goal of 85,000 in just six hours and reached to have three hundred and thirty thousand dollars pledged from almost 6,000 backers is a truly amazing achievement, however, the project also launched in March 2020, so yes, we know what happened at that time, the pandemic forced all this Lively workflow will be done remotely with all staff working from home and working on Discord. an amazing video from one of the project's animators, Manu Mercurial, about his experience with Lackadaisy and how changing his workflow remotely really benefited the animators greatly.

I highly recommend

watch

ing this video. It's really inspiring to see how a more open workflow allowed everyone on the team to learn from each other and improve their own skills, animation obviously takes an incredibly long time, so it took around three years for the pilot to come together. released but my goodness it was worth the wait if you were impressed by the animation of the kickstarter video, the final version of that opening sequence will blow your mind, it meanders through Seas of prairie past and Groves of Summer sassafras. The moment I started

watch

ing this pilot, I was in ecstasy and absolutely blown away by the animation, the music, the voice acting. the backgrounds are just an amazing opening sequence.

One of the details I love is that for some frames they keep some of these construction lines used to draw the characters, such a subtle and cool detail that really adds charm to the animation in most cases. The pilot follows Rocky Ivy and Freckle as they secure some bootleg liquor to bring back to Lafadaisy before Mordecai and a couple of other gang members follow them in search of the Alko Hall Alcohol Hall itself. The opening perfectly sets up the dynamic between the trio. by Rocky Ivy and Freckle Freckle, don't tell me you're not having a good time showing off your shovel skills for Hotsy tutsy around here and when the chase for the other gangsters begins, we get a very good look at their dynamic and their establishment. that Mordecai is a bit of an outsider and does things differently than his deeply unprofessional counterparts, well, they got more firepower than he bargained for.

These chase action sequences are truly top-notch, really dynamic and well-conceived scenes, and when all the characters crash into the Quarry, the suspense builds as the gangsters slowly try to track and hunt down the trio. The suspense is especially palpable knowing that they are basically hunting the kids, Ivy and Freckle, who are super young and are being hunted by these ruthless killers. Freckle even gets shot. As she panics when Ivy is in imminent danger, the atmosphere throughout these scenes is simply incredible and is made even better by the amazing sound design. If you haven't yet seen the pilot with quality headphones on, I can't recommend the details of the sound mix enough.

They are the next level. I loved the shot where Rocky finds the demolished buildings and imagines them as this vibrant circus tent. It's a really cool image and I particularly love the resolution here when Rocky arrives with those explosives on a giant tractor blowing up everything in his path because while this made for a fun resolution, it didn't feel safe or clever, everyone was still in danger from start to finish. and they came out by the skin of their teeth, which I think is a great way to establish the dangers of this. Now I will say that if I have any criticism of this pilot, it's less about the story of the episode, which was exciting from start to finish, and more about how it sets up the premise of the series, because for most of the runtime it actually I was.

I'm not sure what the program was. I was enamored and enthralled by the characters, action, and Chase sequences, but it felt like a really great short film, rather than like it was setting the stage and stakes for an ongoing series, which is the finale. The sequence actually ultimately works perfectly, as soon as everyone returns to normal it becomes very clear what the premise can do as an ongoing narrative. Speakeasy is a great location filled with a lot of unique characters and how the whole episode heist was a help to keep that Speakeasy running, but we don't get back to the deadbeat Daisy until about 17 minutes into the 27 minute runtime, maybe this It's not as big a deal as I perceive it to be because at the time they aired it I was hooked on these ideas, but I feel like maybe they could have done a little more up front to establish these other aspects of the show for me.

Not only does My Favorite Pilots get the character setup and conceit of the series across pretty quickly, but there's also usually an event that takes place in the episode or maybe just took place before the pilot started that justifies why. the series starts from this point narratively looking at other great adult animated pilots in Futurama Fry freezes and then comes to the future and King of the Hill Luanne moves into the hill house in Mission Hill. Kevin moves in with his brother Andy in The Simpsons. The family finally becomes complete when they adopt Santa's little helper in Bojack.

He decides to hire a writer to help him with the Memoir of Him and I Believe. Lackadaisy definitely has this event: it's the death of Atlas May and the Lackadaisy estate falls into Mitzi's hands. I think it possibly could have been made a little clearer that this was the Catalyst, but regardless, for me, this pilot has all the pieces to set up. amazing ongoing series once we got to the superb from there i was so excited to see more of this series the characters in the speakeasy voice performances are just amazing he said leaning over his illicit drink oh thank god he did I was not sure you were alive, try to smile, honey.

I've seen this like three times and the thought of seeing the story continue is so exciting to me that they firmly established that despite the success of the heist, The Lackadaisy Establishment is in Dire Straits. The cost was too high for the return and they sparked a potentially new and dangerous rivalry in the process. A bittersweet resolution that perfectly sets the stage for an ongoing show, but the big question for Lackadaisy as a potential series is what's next. It took him three years. finish this pilot and it's amazing, but how can the series continue from here on?

Well, it seems like the show would probably have to go the Hotel route by getting the support of a production company like a24 did to finance an ongoing series before finding a home or distributor like a channel or streaming service and if the popularity of the program continues to increase, I think this is an incredibly likely scenario. I've already seen so much fan art of the series on Twitter 4 million views in just one This week is no easy task and for me it has the kind of fully developed characters and world building that could easily generate a dedicated fan base and died since the beginning, especially with the dozens of comics that die-hards can turn to as long as I wait more personally, this type of adult animation has me really excited because it has a different tone and approach than what we normally see today, yeah, It's funny, but comedy is not its main goal, instead it tells funny and mysterious heist stories set in the prohibition era.

There's so much more that animation can do, it's a medium, not a genre, and to see something that so successfully tells a nuanced story that isn't strictly comedy is very exciting and I really think the success of projects like Lackadaisy and obviously others like been a hotel and a big boss before it really bodes well for the future of independent animation and honestly, animation in general it's no secret that studios are very averse to new ideas right now, this is true in the film industry but also in the In the animation industry we are seeing incredible original projects being reduced on their Prime, some being canceled before they have a chance to find an audience and then requiring bailout and others being cancelled. while they are still in production.

WhileTherefore, we are being inundated with series that are reboots, reinventions or revivals like Velma or the upcoming Flintstones series. I love Futurama and King of the Hill more than anyone I know, but Futurama had 150 episodes and a perfect ending. King of the Hill lasted 13 seasons. and its final episode is a masterpiece, of course I'm cautiously excited to see more of my favorite shows, but why are these shows being greenlit with new ideas? The reality is that if Studios refused to bring us new and exciting content, we can help support them. new types of ideas ourselves, going directly to the creators, would not have been possible without the support of fans who saw the potential in the show.

Shows like a big boss are able to continue independent production mainly thanks to merch and Patreon support from their fanbase. I didn't even know about the indifference until the pilot was released because I haven't been proactive enough in pursuing these independent projects. and show my support, but we all have the ability to support the things we most want to see done. It is not necessary to wait for the studies to give the green light. There are amazing independent animated series available on YouTube right now, like Aaron Long Sublo and Tangy Mustard or Nico Alien Scoops. You can show these types of projects support by simply looking at them and sharing them, even with a simple search on Kickstarter.

I found this amazing stop-motion samurai pilot called hidari and there are countless other interesting projects that still need funding in his video about working on indifference Manu Mercurial shouted out projects that other staff members are working on, namely rickety and gimmicky , both of which look really cool and are now in production. The tuner homie Victorique has been working hard on his own animated pilot, hey hey, and I can't even begin to tell you how. Great, that will be it and many of my other close friends in this YouTube space are also developing their own awesome ideas.

I want to implore everyone to look into these types of independent projects if you can't support them monetarily. Share them and help Garner get more support. In fact, if you have or find an independent animation project you want to show support for, post a link in the comments of this video, we can get more eyes on this stuff right here if the studios want the green light. stories you want to watch, you can, and if you haven't watched Lackadaisy yet, do so. Leave a comment on your pilot. Subscribe to his channel. Show your support. I'm desperate to see the story continue and really dive into the show once it develops further.

He really deserves it, well, foreign peace.