Research: The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

I decided to revisit something else nostalgic for potential influences to my film. The Marvellous Misadventures of Flapjack.

This was a very weird show that appeared on the American children's channel Cartoon Network in the mid 2000s. Following the adventures of a boy named Flapjack who lived in the mouth of a whale named Bubby with his friend Captain Knuckles. Like I mentioned it was a very weird show. But I was just reminded of it when I went to the pier and saw the Zoltar booth. I can't remember which episode but I do remember a mechanical genie booth featuring in one. But that's not the huge reason to mention it, for as you can imagine with such a weird premise characters and multimedia art style; it comes with its fair share of nightmare fuel. Here are a few clips from youtube of the strange/dark moments of the show. Although I will say that it's more deliberate in trying to scare the audience, which gives it a bit of an edge than your average cartoon. Strange characters pop up, disturbing concepts, just have a look.

I do like the fact though that it doesn't hold back on creepy imagery for a child audience but it does well in blending it with comedy. The context of it being in a cartoon eases the tension despite the scary images. I also love the use of the grotesque close ups, it was a technique used for comical effect in dozens of other cartoons from Spongebob to Ren and Stimpy. It's what's commonly referred to as a mug shot. I could experiment with this method, but one I particularly like is the physcadelic colour change in punsy mckale's face from the first clip. It's visually interesting and it can go well with the scene in which the wolf interrupts the blue puppet only to say DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME? yet again.