Another I Spot produced for E4 with David Stevenson – actually probably my favourite of the lot – I remember writing the first draft in a frantic two hours of typing – ranting about all the geeks I knew. Jilly Cooper, in her book Class, wrote some great stuff about how the layers of social class are like the stripes on rugby shirt that’s been in the wash. Where the colours bleed into each other there’s the most friction. I’m like that with nerd culture, I’m screaming “I’m not as geeky as THESE people” when I very nearly am.

Anyway – we produced it nearly 18 months ago and it’s only gone live now, so if there’s no references to iPads then you’ll know why.

http://www.e4.com/wtf/fanboys/index.html

My penis brings all the girls to the yard
Woke up one Sunday morning with this in my head. Not that you’ll want to think of me with a morning glory as that would turn your stomach. So I nicked some comedy cock gifs off the b3ta board to make it into a tribute to b3ta and not an icky celebration of my love torpedo. BTW: It’s on vimeo because youtube booted it. The spoilsports.

You Are a Spamming Cunt
Produced to post on the b3ta links board when we get spammed.

I feel awkward when blokes talk sport
I was walking the kids to school and thinking about how I can’t drive and started writing some lyrics about the subject. Thought about how cars are a classic male conversation which lead me onto the ultimate bloke conversation I never feel part of: football. Lucy drew the characters for the video.

Poor old Floyd died an hour before transmission, which alarmed me as I briefly wondered if he’d got into such a rage over my slightly piss-takey titles that he’d keeled over and it was all my fault. But no, the producer assures me that Floyd watched a preview DVD a week before and had given it the thumbs up.

For background research I read David Pritchard’s Shooting the Cook – which in a happy bit of luck was laying on my desk after a visit to an old school friend who works for the publisher “I think you’ll enjoy this Rob.” I did.

I Spot Credit Crunch

Another I Spot book produced by me and Dave Stevenson for E4. We enjoyed writing the jokes for this – hope you like it.

Read it on the E4 site.

I’ve produced a lot of games for E4 this year, the following seven links are for them, developed with different and dreadfully clever people I’ve found from running B3ta.

Janey Thomson’s Marathon – A joke about those waggle games from the 80s – developed by the brilliant Matt Round.

Captcha Invaders – As above, developed by Matt Round.

Rather Difficult Game, another developed by Matt Round.

Name That Copyright Free Tune – developed by NTC INC. Who is actually a bloke who doesn’t like using his name online.

Do Yo Knowz Yo Showz – as above.

Ready Meals Quiz – developed by Monkeon.

Taglinr – devleoped by ME and Mike Trinder. Woo hoo

And finally…

What I missed about meat – written for The Guardian. Was the 3rd most read item for 7 days for the foody section. It’s lonely at the top.

Huzzah – we’ve produced another book for E4. This one on the bestest ever computer game characters. I personally love Manic Miner so this is the cover I proposed, Jody the chappy who commissioned the work prefers Street Fighter so that’s the version on the E4 site.

I hope you like the little jokes we wrote at the bottom of each page.

http://www.e4.com/wtf/iconic-game-characters/

http://www.e4.com/wtf/school/index.html

People I went to school with might possibly recognise a few references. Sorry!

This one has got a MUCH better cover as it features Sean Connery in thigh-boots AND makes clearer the range of content within the pages.

Of course you’ll completely disagree with the films we’ve chosen, but that’s the point of lists isn’t it? Or at least my wife, a TV list show producer says so. She also made us stick in Peter’s Friends.

http://www.e4.com/wtf/bad-films/

Taking the idea and running with it, we (me and Dave of course) turned to the I Spy books of the 70s and combined it with our 50 favourite web memes.

Really hope you enjoy this, as to create this project was a joy.

Stupid Clients

Not the easiest thing to pitch – “Dear client, please buy this song and animatiod. It’s called ‘stupid clients’. It’s not about you.”

The smashing phone thing, I’ve done that too many times.

Background? A pile of CDs.

Play Stupid Clients.

Snowman

Song written muttering under by breath waiting for a meeting. I probably looked utterly mad – tapping out the rhythm with a pencil on my forehead.

Background? Twigs and tissue paper for snow.

Play Snowman.

Rotten Christmas

Pleased with the melody on this one – partly written in a waiting room at Wittington Hosptial.

Background? More twigs from the garden.

Play Rotten Christmas.

This little thing likes you

The most throwaway one – maybe the simplicity is charming? Or maybe it’s just RUBBISH.

Background? Out of focus wall.

Play This Little Thing.

Happy Birthday Groovy Chick

Has a walking a bassline. Never tried one of those before, ended up so pleased with it I reused it as a cheesy organ part.

Background? Postit notes.

Play Groovy Chick.

http://www.protectthehuman.com/videos/the-ball-is-back-

Stuff to note:

* Visually – our most ambitious stop-motion to date.
* Produced on the edge of my desk – as the photo should make clearer
* The wooden sets? They’re offcuts from Angus’s shed
* Mostly referencing Indiana Jones, although I confess the Boosh shot is obviously Star Wars
* We flmed this thing 2 times, losing the first version in the Great Hard Disk Crash of 2008

Production photos

We’re like a Brill Building of novelty song.

Mondays suck

Releasing our inner calypso band. And yes, it does look like Howard from the Halifax ads.

Thank you

Ardman, the Blutack years.

I love you more than…

Video written via visiting Woolworths and looking for props. Aha! Some own-brand post-it notes for less than £1. The original punch-line, “I love you more than Amy Winehouse loves drugs” still amuses me.

Thank God It’s Friday

In my head this is an Emo version of the Friends theme. What I most remember about the video was walking round shops in Camden looking for a cheap diary.

My Master Fancies You

BTW: We also did a ‘fan edit’ of this using Kraftwerk’s The Robot but we can’t stick that online as Kraftwerk aren’t actually the client.

Hurty Blister

Notable for its Windows Vista bashing, born from irritation at Joel Veitch spending £££ on a dell machine that didn’t work properly.

You Rock

One of the few we bought props for. Spent about £7 on cheese. My son likes the messiness of this and shouts “urgh!” when we play it.

Old People’s Cancer

If Roger Waters made birthday cards.

Slash

The most perfunctory birthday greeting possible. Hopefully people get this point rather than think it’s just crap.

Halloween means

If cannibalistic pedophiles are your bag, then this is for you