Bugs Bunny may soon be playing tug-of-war with your cursor: Warner Bros. announced Monday that it will create a series of interactive cartoons using togglethis technology, starting with Bozlo Beaver.
As cartoons sprout up online like daisies in springtime, and technology becomes more feasible and affordable, entertainment companies are looking at interactive characters as the natural evolution of online animation.
"There's no reason to have cartoons on the Internet like on the television," says Marc Singer, co-founder of togglethis. "For me the question is when are you going to have interactive characters?"
Bozlo, a gremlin like character who "lives" on your desktop and wreaks havoc with your cursor, was created as an example of togglethis technology last summer; now, Bozlo episodes will be running on Warner Bros. Online as part of the company's new commitment to online cartoons. Using togglethis' IC Studio 1.0, Warner Bros. plans to launch a whole slate of "interactive" characters running throughout the year.
"The next step is using it for Looney Tunes or even Rosie O'Donnell," explains Warner Bros. Jim Moloshok. "It could definitely be an online cartoon community - sort of like the early days of television with rotating shows. This week it will be Bugs Bunny, next week it might be Marvin the Martian."
Online cartoons have come into their own in the past few months, with the sudden popularity of animated series like South Park, the Disney Daily Blast Shockwave cartoons, and Spumco comics. Simpler than streaming video and easier on the eyes, cartoonists have discovered the potential in new technologies like dynamic HTML, streaming animations via Flash, and togglethis.
Togglethis' interactive character technology is unique in that instead of streaming animations from a central server, togglethis has users download the character and engine once; to receive each individual "episode," users receive a new "script" that the character then acts out. Each new episode of Bozlo, for example, is sent out as a 17-35K script via email, and can be viewed on- or offline. United Press Syndicate will soon turn Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, and Doonesbury into togglethis animations, and Agency.com will be animating Snoopy for Met Life.
Other independent producers have been experimenting with interactivity via Shockwave. John Kricfalusi of Spumco, for example, is creating interactive cartoons starting with one that will soon run on MSN, and envisions online interactivity as the natural evolution of cartoons.
"With Ren and Stimpy I'd try to have fake intimacy between the audience and characters, like with those commercials in the middle," explains Kricfalusi. "It's something inherent in cartoons when I was a kid. Bugs Bunny sold me Post cereal - it was an excuse for them to talk to you."
And like Bugs, both Bozlo and Spumco's George Liquor will also be hawking products. The interactive cartoons are being sold as advertising vehicles, either with short separate "animated" sequences at the end of the cartoon itself, or with the characters themselves endorsing a product. With sponsorships, Moloshok explains, an animated cartoon can easily support itself thanks to low production costs.
And while the Warner Bros. and Disneys get in on online cartoons, Kricfalusi is hoping that independent cartoonists might finally have a chance to compete with the big corporations. The first Spumco cartoon pulled in 150,000 users in one week, and Kricfalusi envisions millions of users eventually tuning in for a whole cartoon network Spumco is hoping to organize among the independent Web cartoonist community.
"I'd be interested in seeing the Warner Bros. cartoon, but I bet it's as boring as vegetable soup," comments Kricfalusi. "I think old companies will see this as a way to repurpose things created long ago.... Our cartoon network will show the kinds of things you can't find on TV, since this is a distributor-free medium."
